How can you be pro choice but have a problem with the death penalty?

[LibraLiz1973]

I’m a bit shocked that so many at D.U. are against the hanging of Saddam, as well as being against the death penalty in general.

Are we not the party that advocates a woman’s right to choose? While I agree that it is an important right to have, and I have argued for it vociferously with people who are against it, I do think that abortion means killing a living being. Abortion terminates the life of something living and INNOCENT. We fight to allow women in our country to have the right to choose to terminate pregnancy for reasons which only she need know, but we are against the death penalty for people who are GUILTY of heinous crimes.

Wow. Explain how that isn’t a big old' conundrum.

An example of a case where the death penalty should have been used is Charles Manson.
Explain to me how his continuing to draw breath is a real and true punishment? To this very day he finds ways to torture the families of his victims. He is not repentant, he has certainly not learned a lesson. What is his continued purpose on this planet?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I’m alright with the death penalty. There are people who deserve to die for the crimes they have committed.

I understand the other view that an “eye for an eye” leaves everyone eyeless.
But is that really true? The US isn’t doling out ANY punishment for Osama Bin Laden.
If he’s ever found (ahem, found ALIVE) are you against him dying? I don’t really think that it IS an eye for an eye when someone is put to death. I think when the death penalty is used, it takes a terrible evil out of the world.

I choose to support a women’s right to choose, but I can’t be bothered to fight for the rights of a murdering monster who had no care for anyone elses rights. You reap what you sow.

These are my opinions, and it isn't meant to piss people off and start WWIII. It's how I think and I am interested in hearing what other people are thinking. I respect the opinions of others (here anyway) even when we disagree, so I am hoping this doesn't start a name calling all out brawl.

[WindRavenX]

1. ...because there's no choice in the death penalty?

Because the government is claiming that murdering another person is justice?

Because abortion isn't murder and the two can't be compared as equal actions? :shrug:

[LibraLiz1973]

7. Abortion isn't murder but it is death. And I don't think execution

can be equated to murder either.

[WindRavenX]

14. But the state is taking another life for "justice"

What right does the state have to take a fully-developed human's life?

Abortion is only potential life that is taken--execution is taking a fully-devloped, sentinel life. There's a world of difference in both biological and ethical sense.

[philosophie_en_rose]

29. And execution is not an individual's choice.

Pro-choice is about an individual's choices over their own bodies, not about the state making those choices.

[originalpckelly]

32. Actually, yes it is. One can choose to commit a crime or not commit...

a crime which carries the death penalty. Or am I not understanding something here?

[LibraLiz1973]

39. No, your exactly right

Murderers CHOOSE to murder and CHOOSE to torture.
They make the CHOICE to do something that can result in the
death penalty. It's not like the DP is a secret!
They chose and they chose wrong- but choose they did.

[WindRavenX]

what about those who are innocent and are killed by the state?

Did that individual "choose" that as well?

[originalpckelly]

54. Very true, and this is a reason to be against the death penalty in most cases...

but aren't there some cases in which there is no reasonable doubt?

(I don't mean criminal cases either.)

[WindRavenX]

61. To be honest, I don't really know

I'm not a law person, but from what I've seen, the justice system in this country is corrupt, racist, and is defined by how much money you have to spend on a lawyer. Justice literally can be bought--and for that, I doubt that anything can truly be beyond a reasonable doubt.

[originalpckelly]

69. Good points all of them, and it's the reason I don't support the death penalty...

in a criminal trial setting.

There are some other settings where I can imagine certain people are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and where it would be fair.

[WindRavenX]

84. I think we'd all like to have something done to people who hurt us that gives us closure

The DP, admittedly, is tempting because it does seem like it gives that closure.

I used to support the DP. But the more I learned about how it's applied in this country, the more I hated it. And from an ethical and philosophical standpoint, I just cannot see how a state can have the power to take the life of its own citizens in the name of justice.

[originalpckelly]

89. I think we can debate that, because I myself still think about it.

I often wonder if the whole methodology of our justice system is really correct.

Are we punishing or correcting? Or are we separating permanently damaged people from the rest of society, to protect ourselves?

[Judi Lynn]

108. Right wing clowns swerve and try to prohibit assisted suicide in cases of terminal

illness, but they are determined to execute everyone possible who can be swept in and involved in even the semblance of a murder trial, even if the state-appointed attorney actually sleeps during the defendant's trial, while ALWAYS making special exception for right-wing murder which separates people they DON'T like from their lives.

Their view of "life" apparently covers everything up to the fertilization of the egg, as something to be worshipped, terminating with the beginning of consciousness immediately after birth.

They've even rewritten their "modern language" bibles to exonerate killing they approve, claiming it's NOT murder. Their 10 Commandments, rather than saying "Thou shalt not kill," merely says "Thou shall not commit murder." Oh, jesus H. christ.

Rabid, mad, terminally self-focused, mentally paralyzed, shallow wingdings. It's an education watching them clumsily attempting to construct their shabby arguments, like observing a blind man building a house.

[WindRavenX]

44. ah, but since justice is not carried out equally, then the individual's actions may not be equal

It's well established that death sentences are handed out disproportionately to minority suspects.

That, and there mistakes in the system-- someone may be innocent, but still condemned to death. That is hardly the fault of the individual, no?

[fishwax]

96. the fact that committing a crime is a choice does not mean execution is a choice

there's no logical connection there at all. The issue of abortion is a matter of personal choice because a woman chooses what happens to her body. There is no individual choice in execution--the individual has no choice ove what happens to their body (they forfeit that choice at the point of conviction).

[originalpckelly]

106. Yes, but if a fetus has different DNA than the mother, how can it possibly be as...

simple as having control over her own body? (In other words, how can a person's body part have different DNA, aside from cases of organ transplantation.) Doesn't she have control over the body of the fetus as well?

[fishwax]

135. How is it not as simple as having control over her body?

If anyone else exerts any control over what is inside her body, she loses the right to control of her own body. Pro life folks would argue that restricting her control over her body is worth it in this case (in order to defend what they consider a human being on par with you or me), but I fail to see how they could argue that it doesn't usurp a woman's control over her own body.

[originalpckelly]

139. The problem is that the woman is not solely controlling her body...

but the body of a dependent.

[fishwax]

152. that's not really a problem for everyone

even if it were entirely accurate and universally accepted.

[originalpckelly]

156. Isn't the fetus dependent on the mother?

Am I missing something?

[fishwax]

165. I'm sure none would challenge the dependent part, but *body* on the other hand

Yes, certainly the fetus is dependent upon the mother. At one point (and in what sense) the cells developing from the fertilized egg becomes a body, on the other hand, would probably draw heated debate. :yoiks:

That aside, though, the fact that, in controlling her body the woman exerts control over another entity wholly dependent upon her is not necessarily a problem for those who are pro-choice.

Even for those who are pro-life, it still doesn't change the centrality of a woman's ability to control what happens to her body. It just means that they value the rights of that entity more than they value the right of a woman to control what happens to her own body.

:)

[originalpckelly]

169. It's very difficult if you value both the mother's and the child's rights.

Very difficult. Hence the reason I am even debating this.

[fishwax]

175. I think that's the crux of the issue

which is why I said back at the beginning of this subthread that abortion is an issue which concerns individual choice ... I think that's true whichever side of the issue one is on.

Those who are pro life generally (though I suppose not always) believe that what is inside the woman's body is a human being, and that therefore it is worth sacrificing the woman's right to control what happens to her own body in order to protect the rights of the unborn entity. That may not be their ideal way of putting it, but unless there is some way to protect the rights of that being without usurping the ability of the woman to control what happens to her own body, that is an accurate description of what's at stake.

Those who are pro choice may differ widely on how they view what's inside the woman's body, but are generally united in their belief that the right of a woman to control what happens to her own body supercedes any "rights" that might be claimed on behalf of that entity inside the woman's body.

So, either way, it comes down to what value one places on the right of a woman to determine what happens to her body. And abortion, in that way, is about personal choice in a way which the death penalty simply is not.

I agree that it's difficult (perhaps impossible) to value both, and I suppose that very fact is what makes it such a difficult issue for many. :)

[boilerbabe]

367. Thank you, Fishwax for this post.

It was looking like this discussion was veering off the rails. I think that is one central issue on the debate on abortion: when does a group of cells in a womb become viable?

I am definately pro-choice. I am ambivalent about capital punishment, though for reasons some of you have mentioned in your posts. If it were used only in obvious cases, maybe. Though it's pretty gruesome to hang someone in this day and age.

[WindRavenX]

38. That as well

The fact that the state is taking a life, not an individual, and the fact that the death penalty is inherently racist should make this comparison completely null.

[originalpckelly]

How is it inherently racist?

As applied in America, I know the statistics, but it is possible to have the death penalty for someone who is white. Timothy McVeigh is an example of this.

It was no inherently racist enough to keep him from being executed, right?

[WindRavenX]

64. if you look at cases where the death penalty is used...

...it is handed down disproportionately down to minority individuals who often cannot afford the better lawyers that white and usually more affluent defendants can--there was a very well known case where a black man was sentenced to death and his public defendant was sleeping throughout the trial.

So there is a very stark difference in justice depending on the color of your skin.

[fishwax]

154. another factor is that it places a greater value on white victims than on black

a defendant is much more likely to be executed for taking a white life than for taking a black life.

[fishwax]

101. that isn't a logical argument at all

It was no inherently racist enough to keep him from being executed, right?
inherently racist doesn't mean that no white people ever get executed, so the fact that a white person gets executed does not in any way counter the argument that the dp is inherently racist.

[originalpckelly]

110. Well, the problem here is that it is possible to give someone the death penalty...

without racist connotations. If one simply based the decision to be against the death penalty on skin color, then there are still cases where race doesn't apply. In the case of Tim McVeigh, he was not given the death penalty because he was black.

So if one's opposition to the death penalty solely comes from racism, then it is also possible to be for the death penalty in cases where race played no part in one's receiving the death penalty.

I am trying to get at the actual deeper reason to be against the death penalty.

[fishwax]

127. you asked how it was inherently racist, and then offered a

white guy who got the death penalty as evidence that it wasn't. That isn't a valid argument.

If I understand what you're saying now, you're implying that someone who opposes the DP on the grounds that the system is inherently racist has no reason to oppose the execution of someone like McVeigh, that doesn't really make sense either, since opposition is to the entire system of the death penalty and not a single execution.

Besides, if the DP were only allowed in those cases where the victim was white, there would be a certain racial bias to the death penalty, wouldn't there?

[originalpckelly]

134. I understand opposition to the system as implemented in the US...

I have great disgust of our system because of it's inherent inequality.

When someone says they are "opposed to the death penalty," it's not quite accurate, as we have discovered, because it is possible to create a system in a nation where people are racially homogeneous.

It is possible to decide on the death penalty for a convict, yet not do it with a factor of race.

What are reasons to be against the death penalty in that case? Are there any?

[fishwax]

151. there are a number of reasons to oppose the death penalty in that case

one of which is that one might simply oppose the death penalty (period) because the system which enforces it is unfair. Just because an individual case does not exemplify the inequities of the system, it's perfectly valid to oppose the death penalty in all cases because the system that enforces it is inherently unfair. The inequities of the system lead many people to oppose the death penalty, period.

Now, if Timothy McVeigh had been tried, convicted, and executed in some mythical alternate reality where such biases were not an inherent corrupting force in the system which puts people to death, then those who oppose the death penalty merely on the grounds that it's racially biased might well support his execution. But since he wasn't tried, convicted, and executed as part of that mythical fair system, but rather our own, than those who oppose the death penalty need no reason to oppose McVeigh's execution other than that the system which propagated it is inherently corrupt.

Of course, I don't think most death penalty opponents base their arguments on that one reason alone. There are a number of other reasons as well, such as the class bias of the system or the notion that the state shouldn't be involved in the taking of a non-threatening human life (and that, once imprisoned, McVeigh didn't pose a threat).

When someone says they are "opposed to the death penalty," it's not quite accurate, as we have discovered

We've discovered no such thing. I see no inaccuracy in saying that I oppose the death penalty.

because it is possible to create a system in a nation where people are racially homogeneous.

Um, where did we see that, again?

It is possible to decide on the death penalty for a convict, yet not do it with a factor of race.

Not to complicate the issue, but it should further be noted that the color of the skin of the defendant is not the only way in which the system surrounding the death penalty is inherently racist, and that's another reason why even the case of Timothy McVeigh does not present a conviction outside the realm of a biased system. One is far more likely to receive the death penalty for killing a white person than for killing a black person.

[marmar]

211. Even the Repug governor of Illinois found it inherently racist....

Killers of whites are far more likely to be put to death than killers of non-whites. It's been proven time and time again.

[RetroLounge]

68. Fatal Cancer isn't murder but it is death

and I'm against cancer...

:eyes:

RL

[originalpckelly]

74. I think you're joking around with a serious matter.

Kind of inappropriate.

[RetroLounge]

94. I think comparing Pro-Choice with a sham trial

and a snuff-filmed execution is kind of innappropriate, not to mention stupid.

enjoy your grave dance.

RL

[LibraLiz1973]

98. Actually I am comparing it to the death penalty in general

& peoples views about it.
Just to clarify

[Gregory_Wonderwheel]

668. I support the murderer's right to choose life or death.

Pro-choice means pro-choice in both situations.

I support the convicted murderer's right to choose between the death penalty and life in prison without parole.

I support the pregnant mother's right to choose between giving birth or terminating her pregnancy.

[uppityperson]

675. Now that is in interesting proposition.

I am very much against the death penalty, but agree with voluntary suicide for those in process of actively dying, have to think more about people sentenced to death/life imprisonment. Thanks for the thought.

[Warpy]

50. Right, abortion kills a possibility of a life

which may or may not come to fruition if abortion is not chosen, while the DP is the premeditated murder of an actual human being by the state.

And too many men will never get that an early abortion does NOT kill a 3 month old baby, just as they will never get that for many women pre Roe, the solution was suicide or death at the hands of an amateur illegal abortionist, or that pregnancy and childbirth are both dangerous conditions even though they're common ones necessary to the continuation of the species.

Abortion is a lifesaving procedure while the DP is revenge by proxy.

[originalpckelly]

81. Abortion ends a human life, but there are a number of situations...

in which a woman should have an abortion. It is too difficult to figure out whether a woman should/shouldn't have an abortion, so women must be free to choose.

The arguments about it being the only alternative to back alleys, is quite absurd.

[Warpy]

142. It's not a human life YET, chum

and that is rather the point. It's a potential life, nothing more.

[originalpckelly]

145. It has human DNA, the cells are human cells...

what about that makes it not a human?

[Warpy]

155. It's still not a baby, chum, and it's still not a LIFE

The right of the woman supersedes that of an undeveloped fetus with no feelings or thoughts.

[originalpckelly]

157. At what point does it become wrong to kill the fetus?

Isn't the fetus alive?

[WindRavenX]

159. whenever it's out of the body

No offense, your questions are beginning to sound mighty facetious.

[originalpckelly]

162. So if the mother chooses to kill the unborn 1 day before it is born...

that's not wrong?

Is it solely wrong because it's outside of the mother's body?

(I'm being very precise, because I want to use logic to arrive at a decision.)

[WindRavenX]

164. It's not my body so I don't have an opinion

Personally, unless it was for a medical procedure, I would consider that to be moral irresponsible.

But it's not my body, therefore I have no opinion.

[originalpckelly]

171. But if that's murder, don't you have the same imperitive for the murder of an adult?

We certainly wouldn't let someone be murdered without investigating the murder, unless the killer killed his/herself.

[WindRavenX]

172. I said *I* would consider it murder if not done for medical reasons--but that doesn't mean..

...it is definitively murder.
I think we're done discussing this manner.

[boilerbabe]

384. Pretzel logic, more like n/t

[Warren DeMontague]

578. Do you honestly think this happens?

You think women are running around pregnant for 8 months and getting abortions because they "look fat"?

The bottom line is, this decision needs to be between a WOMAN and HER DOCTOR. The debate over so-called "partial birth abortion" and the stories as to why (and under what circumstances, like pregnancies gone horribly wrong) it actually happens as opposed to what takes place in Rush Limbaugh fantasyland, make that clear.

The logical answer is that it has to be between the woman whose body it is and a doctor, not between George Bush, Bill Frist and Pat Robertson.. Period. That is who needs to be trusted to make the call.

[boilerbabe]

383. I agree. n/t

[Midlodemocrat]

185. I believe that a fetus is a life from the moment of conception.

Therefore, I wouldn't have an abortion. My choice not to.

Pro-choice, to me, is all about choices. Actually, during the last Presidential election, I discovered that most of my daughter's friend's moms had had abortions while in college. I was the only one who hadn't and I am the only one who is pro-choice.

I've never been unmarried and pregnant, so for me to say abortion is wrong for everyone is pretty high and mighty. I don't have the faintest idea what I would have done had I become pregnant during college or right after for that matter.

Pro-choice = the choice that is right for the mom at that time/place.

[Warpy]

246. What makes you sure there's a set time?

Late abortions should be up to the woman and her doctor. If the woman's health is threatened, it's called a premature birth. If the fetus is badly deformed to the point of nil to low survival potential, it's called abortion.

Whatever it is, it's none of your business.

[uppityperson]

414. "alive" does not = being a human being.

the mole on my chin is alive, but I would sure like to get it cut off. Being alive does not = being a human being. Does not = being a person with a soul.

[Warren DeMontague]

580. The unfertilized egg and sperms are alive, too.

They get "killed" all the time.

[Qutzupalotl]

659. Exactly. And thank you.

Nothing can truly be said to be "killed" before it's born. Prevented from becoming alive, sure. But if cellular life is the standard, we all have the deaths of thousands of skin cells on our hands.

There is a vast difference between strangling a newborn baby and preventing a fetus from being born. There is separate, independently viable, individual human life in the one case but not the other.

For the religious folk here, there is even a difference between the biblical penalties for murder and causing a miscarriage; so even the Bible acknowledges that abortion is not murder.

[LeftishBrit]

639. In many countries with totally legal early abortion, there is a time limit to abortion on demand

generally reflecting the fetus' level of development, and potential for survival outside the womb. In the UK, it's 24 weeks.

But most abortions are much earlier, and many of us cannot see an undeveloped and unviable fetus as more than *potential* life.

[boilerbabe]

379. Exactly!!! n/t

[boilerbabe]

375. Walk a mile in someone else's shoes

Talk to people who have been confronted with that decision.

I don't think that the back alley argument is absurd at all, as history shows.

[midnight]

208. Very well put.

Now I personally don't want to choose for another women to have a baby that may be unwanted, so I won't. I want that decision to be between her and her doctor. That said, America has some of the worst family support. I was told by my daughter today that the foreign exchange student from Germany spends a long lunch with her family, after school lets out sometime after 1:00. The family eats a large meal after the mother comes home from work around the same time to reconnect with the children. I love that idea. I don't know about the other family's on DU, but I would love to have more time with family, and less time 9-5 job cycle. Sorry-I know that I diverged from the topic.

[Taxloss]

2. Abortion AND the death penalty in one thread?

:nuke:

:popcorn:

[WindRavenX]

3. LOL

:popcorn: :popcorn:

This is gonna be real good :evilgrin:

[itsmesgd]

4. and what about smoking?

that's the DU divisive- tri-fecta.

[Taxloss]

13. Was Steve Irwin circumcised? n/t

[xmas74]

27. Add breastfeeding and cornflake fried chicken

and you've hit the jackpot.

[uppityperson]

42. and don't forget those shopping carts and kids running amuck

[xmas74]

47. I have two words for you:

Fat Actress.

I win!

[BlueEyedSon]

63. Oh god, I love CF fried Chicken

Breastfeeding's not to bad either.....

[xmas74]

92. I don't eat fried chicken.

(I once worked for Kentucky Fried Chicken. I think that explains everything). But I didn't have a dog in that fight. Instead, I offered a recipe for kudzu fried chicken.

As for breastfeeding-I'm all for it. I nursed my daughter so I was all over those arguments.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

170. What was the cornflake fried chicken about?

[xmas74]

636. You must have missed that one.

It's a classic Lounge flamewar.

[boilerbabe]

381. got a recipe for that? n/t

[xmas74]

637. Nope.

I don't eat fried chicken but you are than welcome to stop by the Lounge and start a thread. I'm sure someone will give you a recipe. (Along w/ many other things.)

[TheCowsCameHome]

34. Ya forgot smokers rights. I love a trifecta.

Pass the popcorn, extra butter please.

[seabeyond]

5. some dont see an embryo or fetus as human life. n/t

[Squatch]

6. Holy crap...

Hang on a second....


:popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:

OK, Go!

[Solo_in_MD]

9. you didn't leave enough for the rest of us...

[LibraLiz1973]

Your taking it the wrong way..... I really don't think a big old brawl is

necessary in any way.
Is no one capable of having a real conversation without killing eachother?

[Midlodemocrat]

15. LOL. *You're* the one who called those of us against the DP hypocrites.

How is that not flamebait?

[Lautremont]

I was about to say the same thing.

That, and that the OP doesn't make any sense.

[LostinVA]

120. It totally is n/t

[seabeyond]

24. me.... wink. n/t

[TheCowsCameHome]

45. Bad choice of words..........

[xmas74]

31. May I have some of that popcorn

and a few sips of the beer?

[Beaverhausen]

126. Are there any good seats left?

:popcorn:

[Nutmegger]

8. Starting more flamebait?

Another thread to hide. :puke:

[Squatch]

12. Although a potentially VERY flamey topic,

the questions posed are introspective and valid.

[Rosemary2205]

10. People getting executed don't get a choice.

Pro-choice is all about a woman choosing what to do with her own body. Whether she is forced to be an incubator, or forced to carry a severely disabled child to term, or forced to continue to carry a dead child or whatever. Most people I know that are pro-choice are because it is compassionate and humane.

Many are also anti-executions for the same reasons, compassion and human rights.

[renate]

56. People getting executed had a choice to do whatever got them into that situation

(Assuming they really were guilty of the crime of which they were convicted, of course.)

People who commit the kind of crimes that result in the death penalty actually DO have a choice in the matter. They can choose to not commit murder.

(Some opponents of abortion might say that women choose to engage in the behavior that results in unwanted pregnancy. However, those of us in the real world know that women don't always have a choice, that they may be in an abusive or controlling relationship or may be raped, or there may be a simple failure of birth control. So I think maybe that's one way it's possible for someone to be pro-choice and pro-death penalty--that and the idea that the state shouldn't dictate what goes on inside a woman's own body.)

[fishwax]

116. execution is not a matter of individual choice. abortion is.

a murderer forfeits the choice of what to do with their body (be it execution, in some states, or incarceration) at the point of conviction. Execution is a choice made by someone else. Abortion is an individual choice about what said individual does with their body.

Personally, I think it's perfectly reasonable to be both pro-choice and anti-death penalty. I see no conflict whatsoever. Pro-choice is a position based on the ethic that a woman ought to have control over what happens to her body, while opposition to the death penalty can be based on any number of factors--the belief that the state shouldn't be involved in taking a non-threatening human life, the belief that the justice system is inherently unfair, the belief that the risk of executing an innocent person outweighs the benefit of executing the guilty, or any of a number of other reasons, none of which pose any conflict with the notion that a woman ought to have final say over what happens to her body.

[Rosemary2205]

129. Unfortunately

we find out all too often the condemned turns out to be innocent. What choice did they make? They already chose "not to commit murder". Lot of fat good it did them.

[originalpckelly]

137. I think that's a very good point, but it is not a generalized point...

it applies to situations where there is reasonable doubt or racism, or some other factor that might cause an innocent person to be executed.

Say for example, someone is murdered in front of you. You immediately arrest the person who has committed the murder. Throughout the trial, you stay with that person in every place they are. At no point are they out of your sight.

There is no doubt the person committed the murder.

Is there any reason that the death penalty would be unjust?

[peacebaby3]

183. You need to seriously look into the vast majority of people who are on death

row in the US and get back to me on "choice." What really defines "choice?"

A great deal of them are mentally retarded (or borderline) and Atkins was just ruled on in the last 5 years and is not retroactive and many states have not been forced to rule on what they consider a definition of mental retardation.

Many, many people are mentally ill, but that doesn't bar them from receiving the death penalty because they only have to be considered competent and if you are able to breathe, you are basically considered competent by the courts. Less than 1% of murder cases end in an NGI (not guilty by reason of insanity) verdict because most jurors realize that our mental health treatment is so poor in this country that defendants won't get the correct treatment and may be out on the streets again because our mental health facilities are too full, under-funded, and under-staffed.

99.999% of people on DR are poor and come from backgrounds that most of us on here will never be able to comprehend. I could tell you some stories that would probably make you feel sick. One of my clients survived off the feces (out of a bucket because they didn't have a bathroom) of his older siblings as a child because there wasn't enough food to go around. There was even some evidence of organic brain damage that may have come from eating feces as a young child.

Most people that commit crimes that qualify for the DP aren't thinking about the fact that they may get the DP. It just doesn't work that way. Most do not think that logically and they aren't able to think of consequences the way that you or I would.

The death penalty is a completely broken part of our justice system (I'd even argue the whole system is broken). Let me give you an example:

Scenario 1: A high-middle class, white woman gets in an argument with a white woman who lives on the poorer side of town in a trailer park because the woman cuts her off on the interstate. She decides to follow the woman off of the interstate at the exit to get into a "discussion" with her. They are stopped at a red light on the off ramp. The woman that followed the other woman is blowing her horn and acting like she is going to ram the back of the woman's car in front of her. The woman in front gets out of the car and starts walking back toward the other woman that followed her off the interstate. The other woman reaches under her seat, pulls out her pistol and shoots the other woman walking back toward her dead. She tells the police she was scared for her life, but the other woman doesn't even own a gun and the woman that shot her had her window rolled down. If you are terrified of someone coming toward you, why would you roll down your window? According to the statutes on my state's books, shooting into or out of a vehicle qualifies for being charged with capital murder.

Scenario 2: A young, poor, black man goes out with two friends one night. They are broke and decide to take some beer from a store. The clerk behind the counter pulls a gun on them so one of the other guys he's with pulls out a gun and fires, killing the clerk. All of them run out and take off. The young guy is terrified and knows what will happen if he goes to the police. They all get arrested and under the statutes, murder during a robbery qualifies for being charged with capital murder.

Both of these scenarios really happened. What do you think happened to each one of these people?

Scenario 1: She was arrested and the DA never even charged her with capital murder because it is his or her discretion what they choose to charge someone with. She wound up being charged with manslaughter, convicted, but got a sentence of two years and was out in less than a year.

Scenario 2: He was convicted of capital murder because he was considered complicit in the crime. He was executed in 2002.

I've sat beside many people charged with capital murder and the one thing I can tell you is that to this day, I've never met anyone who was not redeemable. I keep thinking that one day it will happen, but it never does. If I hear of a case and think, "Oh my God, hope I don't work on that case", it's almost a guarantee that I will and I'm glad because those are the cases that let me know what I'm truly made of and that even those we consider to be the worst of the worst in our society are human beings that have a story and an explanation of how they got to this place. I'm always surprised when I realize that if it weren't for some fortunate circumstances or some small and at the time insignificant, yet correct choices I made, I might have been there. I can't imagine I would take a human life, but I haven't lived what these people have and I wasn't brought up without hope and compassion.

As far as my thoughts about the death penalty v. abortion. I debate with myself over this issue all of the time because I think we exist beyond our bodies and our life here on this earth, but just because our souls do not go into a certain mass of cells doesn't mean we never exist in some way. I also think about when does that mass of cells equate to a living, breathing person here on this earth and as of right now that mass of cells couldn't survive on its own outside of the mother until a certain time. What it all boils down to for me is where does my compassion lie, with the woman or with the potential life she carries and that is a very hard decision. I personally could never have an abortion (as far as I am able to comprehend), but I'm not sure I could dictate to another woman that she has to be forced to carry something inside of her. We also live in a society where many people scream and yell about "not killing babies" before they are born, but don't give a shit about what happens to them after they are born. In fact, they would jump up and down, screaming about those "welfare mothers" who chose to have their children, but are now trying to raise them off of a minimum wage job. Where the hell are these same people when it comes to these children that are born?!?!?

Abortion and the death penalty are apples and oranges to me because you leave out the fact that you must force another human being to do something with regard to abortion. Killing a person for killing another person doesn't bring the other person back. In fact, it doesn't really accomplish anything besides continuing the cycle of violence.

[boilerbabe]

452. Excellent post, hope everyone reads it n/t

[peacebaby3]

682. Thanks, boilerbabe!!! n/t

[renate]

457. thank you very much for that excellent post--lots of stuff I hadn't considered

Your experience with people in the criminal justice system makes me feel silly for just sitting around opining from the comfort of my armchair about the morality of the death penalty rather than about the way it's used in actual practice (are you a lawyer, or a civil rights advocate, or...?). I didn't even think of including caveats like mental illness, and if I had, I would have hoped--in vain, I guess--that people who aren't mentally competent were automatically disqualified for the death penalty. Certainly they should be, and Atkins (which I'm guessing allows for that?) definitely should be retroactive.

Both of the scenarios you describe are jaw-droppingly wrong. And the example you gave of your client who had to eat feces... I can't even begin to imagine what that upbringing must have done to him. In the abstract, it's easy to say "well, that wasn't his victim's fault," but it wasn't his fault either.

I guess I was just addressing a clean and tidy moral situation, like when somebody who is completely compos mentis makes a conscious decision to commit a violent crime and thereby chooses the consequences. And then they have a good lawyer and a fair trial and.... yeah, right.

So I apologize for having drawn such a simple-minded conclusion. Real life is much messier than my naive imaginings were. I'm still ambivalent about the death penalty rather than being absolutely opposed to it, but you've presented a lot to think about. Thank you.

[fishwax]

463. that was a nice post, renate

[beam me up scottie]

512. You just restored my faith in DU, Renate.

I'm not kidding.

I get into threads like these, bang my head against the wall and wonder if any good can possibly come of it.

And why we all do it day after day.

And then I read a post like that.

You are every much the liberal John Kennedy was talking about in his famous speech.

:)

[uppityperson]

628. thank you for the nice post here.

[peacebaby3]

681. Renate, thank you so much for taking the time to read all of it. Most

people don't know all of the details of the DP and how it works in this country so you are certainly not in the minority when it comes to that. If I hadn't been working so closely with it for quite a few years now, I wouldn't understand either. AND you will find some differences depending on which state you live in too.

Your post really made my day. I work with this stuff all of the time and just like "beam me up scottie" said below, I sometimes feel like I'm beating my head against the wall when I discuss these things with people. I know that some people just support the DP and while I may vehemently disagree, I can accept their opinion if they know all the facts. Many people don't and when they learn new things, it gives them some "food for thought."

I could probably write a book about what I do, but I don't want to bore you so I'll just try to keep it as simple as possible.

My actual title is Mitigation Specialist/Investigator. I'm the person that comes in on a DP case and does all of the work that will be presented to the court and the jury for what is called the penalty or mitigation phase of a capital trial. In other words, what my work pertains to is if the person is convicted of capital murder, there are only two possible sentences in most states, the death penalty or life without parole. I will research, gather through records and interviews, and work with experts if needed to present the evidence in court to show why my client should be given life without parole instead of the death penalty. If they have family, I have to deal with all of what they are going through as well. AND in some cases, depending on the circumstances, I may speak with the victim's family as well - if they agree to speak to me. That is very, very difficult. There is really nothing about my job that isn't extremely emotional and I have probably sworn I was going to quit at least once a week, but so few people do this work and not many people want to find the human in a (potential)killer. I work directly with the defense lawyers that are (about 99% of the time) appointed by the courts because the clients are indigent and my state has no public defender system!

I also do all of this same kind of work on cases that are in the appeals process/post-conviction for men or women that are already on death row. You are not guaranteed a lawyer after your first direct appeal and sometimes if the person on death row is lucky, a large law firm will agree to represent them pro-bono and they may hire me to go back and review the investigation and mitigation work that was done at the trial level and often do it because it wasn't done properly or at all at the trial level.

I should have explained Atkins better. It was a SCOTUS decision just a few years ago (2001, I believe)that basically said you cannot execute the mentally retarded. Mental Retardation and mental illness are two completely different things in the medical and legal community. You can still be mentally ill and declared competent and be given the death penalty. Most defense teams will rarely try to go with the NGI defense though because it's almost impossible to win due to the restrictions by the courts (legal definitions, etc.) When John Lennon's assassin was found NGI, there was such an outrage that the courts went almost the opposite direction and made it unbelievably difficult to win. SO...many people that are sentenced to death do have mental illness. You can always present that evidence to the jury and the court, but it doesn't take the DP off the table.

There is certainly no need for you to apologize! I'm thrilled that you would take the time to read my post and think about it. THANK YOU!!!

[renate]

685. wow... in so many ways, wow...

I didn't even know a job like yours existed. I'm glad it does.

I most definitely didn't know that people aren't guaranteed a lawyer after their first appeal. :wow:

I also didn't realize that mental illness wasn't an automatic disqualifier for the DP. Another :wow: . And I am disgusted not only that Atkins wasn't already in place before 2001 (I'd have expected it to be an obvious inclusion of the Bill of Rights) but that it's not retroactive. I don't understand the logic of that at all, especially with such high stakes.

There really is a difference between philosophical debates and real life, isn't there?

(P.S. You probably should write a book about what you do. Seriously.)

[peacebaby3]

686. Yes, there is a lot to learn about how the system works and while I

know the laws and system in my state, it could vary some in other states as far as the right of counsel for the defendant. i.e. most states have public defenders and mine doesn't.

The DP is just so arbitrary. In 12 states it doesn't exist. One region, the South, is responsible for over 80% of executions, yet they also have the highest murder rate of any region so that definitely ends the argument of deterrence. Where you're born and under what conditions, etc. etc. which are probably out of your control would factor in to what happens to you in the criminal justice system.

I noticed you were from Portland and one of the best experts I have ever worked with re: PTSD and Asian culture is at the Oregon Health & Science University which I believe is in Portland.

I just wanted to say thanks again for reading everything and looking at things objectively.

If you ever want to study the subject more, don't hesitate to PM me and I'll try to find some sources for you to check out and I will try to find you some things that are for and against. Some of the most interesting info to read out there right now is surrounding the issue of whether or not lethal injection is "cruel and unusual." My state had the electric chair as its sole means of execution until a few years ago, so I wasn't as knowledgeable about lethal injection until it came to my state...trust me, you wouldn't want to hear some of the things about the electric chair...but there is some info about the death "cocktail" of drugs used in lethal injection that you might find interesting from many experts in the field of anesthesiology, etc. I was even surprised by what I learned.

Maybe I'll write that book one day...

Thanks again!

Edit: sorry - typo

[Midlodemocrat]

11. +Some don't believe that life occurs at conception.

The death penalty is always wrong. It always takes the life of someone who someone else *says* is guilty.

[WindRavenX]

18. That's the crux of the arguement right there

potential life VS actual life.

There should never be comparison between abortion and the death penalty because they are comparing two entirely different things.

[originalpckelly]

36. If a DNA test is done on a fetus, is the DNA not human DNA or something?

What right do you have to kill a child without it's consent?

***Forcing you to think, because I am actually pro-choice. :-)

[Solon]

49. Everytime I scratch myself, I commit genocide. n/t

[Warren Stupidity]

83. "Every sperm is sacred".

Envision Eric Idle in Meaning of Life. Wonderful movie, sort of. Seems they all hated each other at the time and tossed that movie out due to contractual obligations.

"DAD:
There are Jews in the world.
There are Buddhists.
There are Hindus and Mormons, and then
There are those that follow Mohammed, but
I've never been one of them.

I'm a Roman Catholic,
And have been since before I was born,
And the one thing they say about Catholics is:
They'll take you as soon as you're warm.

You don't have to be a six-footer.
You don't have to have a great brain.
You don't have to have any clothes on. You're
A Catholic the moment Dad came,

Because

Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate.

CHILDREN:
Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate."

http://www.lyricsdepot.com/monty-python/every-sperm-is-sacred.html

[originalpckelly]

91. I refer you both to reply #88.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=3008486&mesg_id=3008767

[ecstatic]

52. DNA from hair and nails is also human

:shrug:

[originalpckelly]

86. True, but those cells cannot aside from cloning techniques, produce life.

And even in the case of cloning, an egg must be used.

The fact is that the DNA of a fetus is distinct from that of it's mother and diploid, unlike unfertilized eggs or sperm, which are haploid, and contain the DNA of the respective egg/sperm producer.

If a fetus is merely an extension of a woman's body, it would have to have the same DNA as the rest of her body.

[Solon]

112. What about Parthenogenesis?

AKA Virgin Birth. While it hasn't been observed in HUMANS per se, except for one disputed account, it has been observed in animals as high on the evolutionary ladder as Komodo dragons, and, in the lab, mice. So, while wasting sperm, or scratching yourself, isn't killing anything, menstruation POTENTIALLY could. Let's not forget miscarriages.

[Warren DeMontague]

632. But the sperm and egg can produce life, too.

By preventing the sperm and egg from meeting you're "murdering" the same potential life that is destroyed as a fertilized egg.

[WindRavenX]

111. because it's not a child

I have a right to terminate my pregnancy before the fetus is born because it is still 1)dependent on me 2)not an independent organism.

That changes the instant the fetus is born, which is why I think there is a almost no comparison between abortion and the DP...

[LostinVA]

121. Exactly

[originalpckelly]

128. Isn't a baby dependent on it's parents?

If you don't feed a baby, the baby will die.

Isn't that true?

[WindRavenX]

130. but not in a biological sense

NT

[originalpckelly]

140. True, a baby can be adopted. Other people can technically feed the baby...

but the baby must be fed. Whoever is charged with taking care of the baby (and that could simply mean a stranger who sees a starving baby) must feed the baby or it will die. The baby is dependent, in a biological sense, but in this case it can be dependent upon anyone willing to feed it and in general take care of it.

[WindRavenX]

141. no, what I meant is that ...

...the fetus is absolutely dependent on the mother in a strict biological sense-- no one else can "adopt" the fetus at that point. Hence, the fetus is an extension of the mother's body and therefore has control over it.

Outside the body is another issue, which is what I was not refering to.

[originalpckelly]

146. Dependence does not mean one has absolute control over the dependent...

to the extent of being able to rightly or wrong choose to kill the dependent.

Thought experiment:
If a woman is alone on a desert island, which has all of the consumables she or the child will ever need, isn't she technically the only person who can take care of the child. If she chooses to take care of the child, it will live. If she doesn't, it will die.

Just because the child is dependent solely upon that woman, it doesn't mean she should or can choose to kill it or not, does it?

[WindRavenX]

149. before birth, it absolutely does

You are comparing situations that are completely different.

[Solon]

153. That's not what is meant by dependent...

a Fetus shares the SAME circulatory system, blood, and oxygen as the mother, in a case like that, it is literally a parasite, a temporary one, true, and one that is necessary for the propagation of the species, but a parasite nonetheless.

A child outside the body isn't strictly dependent on its mother in the same sense. In a case like that, the mother alone isn't absolutely NECESSARY for the child's survival, they child can be taken care of by any variety of individual people, or even animals, in rare cases. Even in the isolated Island scenario, though unlikely, the child, by the time the child is about 5 or 6 years old, it can learn to forage, and if no obvious predators are around, can survive on its own, though not necessarily thrive.

[originalpckelly]

158. You make the assumption that the child will live to five or six, if not fed as a baby...

I think most of us agree that the child would die if not fed or given something to drink.

Is the moral point solely based upon whether or not a circulatory system is shared, or is it based upon dependence to survive?

[Solon]

167. Actually, higher brain function should count...

Fetuses usually don't develop this until into the 4 or 5th month I believe. Somewhere around 80-90% of all abortions occur well before this, and those that do occur afterwards are usually done due to adverse medical conditions that either endangers the woman's health or life, or makes the fetus inviable.

Healthy newborn infants have a fully functioning brain, even if its, for lack of a better word, blank, I would say this counts for something.

[originalpckelly]

180. The problem is that we aren't thinking about the possibility...

when an embryo implants, and a fetus grows, aside from birth defects or an odd circumstance, the fetus will grow until it is ready to be born, then it will be born. It will be raised until it is an 18 year old adult, at that time it will be a conscious human being with full legal rights. (Aside from alcohol consumption.)

The morality of this shouldn't and can't be determined solely by the current state of affairs. Look at Terri Schiavo. She was a fully grown adult, but she had no real consciousness. We now know, it was totally impossible she would ever regain that, because her brain so extremely damaged. Even before she was terminated, it was widely know that she was incapable of recovering consciousness.

It's not solely about current state, because any person who's under anesthesia is not capable of thinking or knowing that they will die. (Well as far as we can tell.) If the morality of their life was solely about their current state, they could be killed intentionally.

It is in fact about the future, and the fact that a child can and will in most cases grow to become a sentient adult.
---------------------------
I should differentiate between an implanted and an un-implanted embryo. The possibility for an un-implanted embryo is not that of on that is implanted. It's not going to become a child.

[Solon]

212. Bad analogy, you can measure brain activity in an unconscious human being....

whether they were drugged or not. That's what EKGs are for. Terry Schaivo didn't even HAVE a brain, she had a brain STEM, that's it, she didn't even have the proper receptors to register pain or discomfort, just enough to keep breathing and the heart beating, that's about it.

Besides, you can't base either legal or moral question purely on what MAY happen in the future, at least on the individual level. The morality is about the current state, and the current state only, because any number of things can happen in the future, but none of them should have ANY bearing on the here and now.

Also, a note, while most of the time, fertilized eggs never attach to the uterus, and are flushed out of the system, many times they DO attach, then, for some reason or another, detach again, and are flushed out of the system. These are miscarriages, and the time periods involved can vary quite a bit, a woman may be late in her period by a week, and then have a heavy period, most likely a miscarriage, but she may not think anything of it. Most fertilizations are unsuccessful anyways, as we know from in-vitro how hard it actually is to have a fertilized egg that sticks around. There is a difference between POTENTIAL HUMAN LIFE, and ACTUAL HUMAN LIFE, I'm more concerned, frankly, with those that can at least breathe on their own and produce Alpha waves.

[boilerbabe]

468. Another voice of reason joins the discussion--thanks! n/t

[fishwax]

119. but it isn't a child

:shrug:

[originalpckelly]

123. What's a child?

:shrug:

[fishwax]

177. a person between birth and full growth

[silverweb]

37. Bingo.

:thumbsup:

[mzteris]

16. well you've made up your mind about abortion

so it's hard to have a conversation about the rest of it, but -

I don't see abortion as "terminates the life of something living and INNOCENT". I see it as getting rid of cells in the woman's body. It's NOT a "person".


I don't agree with murdering another against their will. If Saddam WANTED to die - ok. I think suicide should be allowed (under certain conditions.) I think also euthanasia should be legalized.

I think the DP should be outlawed. I think we're horrendous barbarians for killing people.

Yes, I'm against OBL - being MURDERED. (It would just make him a martyr anyway, imho.)

[hlthe2b]

17. Easy.. Pro Choice does NOT equal Pro Abortion....

It really IS that simple.... (and I'm damned tired of people trying to equate the two), especially supposed "progressives"

[seabeyond]

22. this is the best of the points. i am consistant. i dont agree with abortion

(i agree with choice) and i dont like the death penalty. i wont be doing either.

[xmas74]

35. Bingo!

ProChoice means what it says: You have choices, you have options. It doesn't mean pro abortion.

I correct people all the time.

[silverweb]

60. Yup.

Rabid anti-choicers are against birth control, too, not just abortion.

Real pro-choicers want to make abortion a very rare last resort by providing comprehensive sex education and effective, freely available birth control -- yet keep abortion safe and legal, to be decided between the woman and her doctor.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with state-sanctioned revenge murder (aka the death penalty).

[originalpckelly]

102. I think the argument against pro-choice is usually based around...

this question:
"If abortion is killing a human being, do I not have the moral imperative to stop that abortion?"

No one would allow a murder to take place, if in no way they would benefit from keeping it secret. No one believes one person should have the right to choose whether or not to kill another.

It's the idea of a social contract, in which I do something good for someone else in order for them to do good for me.

In the case of abortion however, it is always abstract for anyone debating it, because the time wherein we can be aborted has passed. However, if abortion is murder or plain old killing, then it is an act of the same spectrum as something which could happen to oneself. So it would be in our own self interest to stop it.

[sandnsea]

19. Don't support state sanctioned abortion either

Key words - state sanctioned. Think about it.

[boilerbabe]

478. What do you mean by state-sanctioned?

Would that be something done involuntarily to persons considered "undesirable" additions to the population? Is there such a thing?

[Withywindle]

20. No contradiction here, and here's the key...

I do think that abortion means killing a living being.

I don't think that at all. No way is a month-old mass of cells with no brain the same thing as a human being. Potentiality is NOT actuality.

[LibraLiz1973]

28. I should clarify- I mean when you abort a 3 month + old fetus

[Warren Stupidity]

48. So at 12 weeks 6 days: no problem?

Now I am really confused.

[peacebird]

70. as long as the fetus is not developed enough to survive outside the mothers body

then to my mind it is not yet a person.

If it is able to survive outside the mothers body (ie: breathe on its own, be able to process noursihment it is given orally) then I view it as a viable person - I do NOT believe a fetus has the same rights as an already born person. I am pro-choice and I do not believe in the death penalty. Thsi does not strike me as a contradiction in any way.

Perhaps you could go to Free Republic and as the fundies how they reconcile their death penalty support, their support of the war even with the slaughter of innocents, and the commandment "Thou Shalt Not Kill"...

[LibraLiz1973]

85. I think the same thing about FR... How can they be against

abortion but want to kill everyone who disagrees with them? I'm not even talking about the death penalty here... some of them literally want to kill everyone.

[Withywindle]

90. See peacebird's response below...

I pretty much agree with that completely.


Elective abortions after about the middle of the second trimester are pretty rare--most are done for medical reasons. And no, I don't have a problem with that either. I rank the health (mental as well as physical) of the mother as the greatest priority since she's ALREADY a person, and I don't think it's much of a grey area until we get to the point where the fetus could actually feasibly survive outside the womb (and there we run into issues of who is responsible for its care, etc.)

[LibraLiz1973]

51. I don't think that when a woman miscarries she's upset because

she lost some CELLS. She is mourning the loss of the life inside her.

[peacebird]

79. Have you had a miscarriage?

Just curious....

I have. It did not change my belief in CHOICE, or my aversion to the death penalty. Life is not all black and white - regardless of your attempts to paint it as such.

[Withywindle]

80. She's mourning the loss of a potential child that she WANTED.

But someone who chooses to have an abortion at the same time period might not be mourning at all. She may not feel there's anything to mourn.

I don't find anything strange about this - how else would it work?

[uppityperson]

132. no, we mourn the life that will not be.

[Solon]

220. Most fertilizations do not result in a successful pregnancy...

Every woman has experienced a "miscarriage" at some point in her life, most of the time, its not even noticed.

[boilerbabe]

497. That would possibly depend on the individual who miscarried

Every situation is different. If you were to miscarry in the first trimester, you might not be passing much more than CELLS, as you put it.

[Lars39]

21. I see that disenguity is being taken to new heights.

[LostinVA]

122. Into the damned stratosphere n/t

[cali]

23. You certainly have a right to your opinions, but

calling everyone who disagrees with you a hypocrite, isn't exactly a great start to a conversation on two very contentious topics.

I do support abortion rights, and I don't support the death penalty. First of all, there are many cases in this country alone of innocent people being sentenced to deathe. As far as I'm concerned, one is too many. As regards abortion, I don't think a fetus in the first 3 months is a human being. And that's when the vast majority of abortions are performed. Yes, it's a potential human being, but that's not the same thing, and, thus, concepts like innocence shouldn't be applied. I do not support aborting a healthy fetus after viability, but states can and do place restrictions on abortion.

[dsc]

25. I think one can be consistent if one's opposition to the death penalty

is as applied and not in all cases. There are several reasons to fault our DP system even if one thinks a perfect DP system is OK. I think it is hard to justify a blanket objection to the DP and a full pro choice position as being consistent. Just like I think it is fair to call those who have a blanket or near blanket pro life position on abortion and are in favor of the DP hypocritical.

[philosophie_en_rose]

26. Translation: Don't Blame Me for Posting Flamebait

Pro-choice is about choice over your own body and the related medical choices. It is not about choosing for others.

I'm not entirely against the death penalty, but there is no comparison between the death penalty and being pro-choice.

In addition, you forget that there is a legal system in this country for a reason. Under your analysis, "we" would just proactively choose to kill people willy nilly. just because you want it. Perhaps you should do some research into why Charles Manson isn't dead. It has nothing to do with abortion or anything remotely related to it.

[uppityperson]

30. prochoice = killing babies?

yeah, and every sperm is sacred.

Would keeping him locked up in jail forever be punishment enough for you? Or keep him out of greater society? No? Why? And you do realize this whole thing to to make money for those involved in making money? Right? Off the war machine and oil. You do get this, right? That's why Osama is irrelevant and 911 was only an excuse and they don't want to stop making money so have to manipulate all of us. You got that, right?

[Jackpine Radical]

33. Why don't we have funerals for miscarriages?

Aren't they living human beings?

Why don't we imprison women who smoke, drink or expose themselves to other harmful chemicals during their pregnancies? Isn't it a crime to wilfully subject a living being to the risk of great bodily harm?

If we do anything to prevent a sperm from keeping its date with a waiting ovum, aren't we pre-emptively terminating a potential life?

The fact seems to be that we as a society disagree among ourselves about when life begins, and when it ends. Terri Schiavo, anyone? That disagreement is a matter of philosophical dispute and not a scientific issue subject to experimental test. As long as those philosophical differences remain among us, I believe that the issue of abortion is a moot one, best left to the individual conscience.

On the other hand, nobody disputes that Saddam was a living human being. And anyway, for me the issue isn't really about Saddam. It's about a culture so enamored of death that it sees a need to kill other people. Saddam was one person who used sovereign powers to kill many. The execution is many people using sovereign powers to kill one. The principle is pretty much the same. I sense a big hole in a logic that prescribes the killing of a person as a means to teach that killing is wrong.

[dsc]

40. Some people do have funerals or memorial services for miscarriages

especially if the fetus is several months along. Also we have imprisioned women for taking drugs while pregnant in some cases (both SC and OH have had cases directly on point).

[BlueEyedSon]

73. Every menstrual period is a potentially lost baby

let's imprison women for that too

[originalpckelly]

118. I think you would admit there is a physiological difference between...

a fetus and an unfertilized egg.

[uppityperson]

133. physiological difference between a 10 wk embryo & a grown man too

[me b zola]

143. It is common for fertalized eggs to not implant in the uterine wall...

...and be expelled in the menstrual cycle.

[originalpckelly]

147. Yes, I'm terribly sorry to you both, I was being extremely vague and sloppy in my use of language.

It would be more appropriate to use the comparison of a fetus, not simply an un-implanted fertilized egg.

[xchrom]

71. well said!

it's also important to note that until a woman has complete control over body re: any medical decision said woman remains a second class citizen.

we don't what the world will bring re: women and being treated as full and complete beings in their own rights -- but the ability to choose one's reproductive time table is an important stepping stone.

i'm one who cannot at all equate the killing of a person to teach a lesson of justice -- and a fetus.

first killing as a means to teach has simply failed the test over time -- it does not work.

a fetus -- even at 8 or 9 months is not a person -- that ''life'' is simply not here.

it's a maybe -- a possibility -- but so is star dust -- and thinking and dreaming.

if we are to evolve -- women must be granted full rights to their bodies.
they are here -- their potential is more than an idea -- or star dust.

raise up the lives that are here.

[phylny]

191. Going along with the funeral theory,

I want to know why I can't take out a life insurance policy on a fetus when I'm pregnant.

If I'd have been able to do that, then would the insurance companies pay me benefits if I miscarried?

No? WHY? Oh, I know. You can't get an insurance policy on a fetus, but you can as soon as a baby is born.

[Warren Stupidity]

41. Obviously we like to kill babies and we loved Saddam.

Thanks for sharing.

[Judi Lynn]

124. Don't forget the elder Bush's dirty hoax concerning the ugly lie Saddam's soldiers

threw premature babies out of their incubators onto the floor!

[ecstatic]

43. Abortions performed prior to viable stage are not murder

First, if a fetus cannot survive outside the mother's womb then it's not murder.

Second, heavily intertwined in our stance on such issues are our religious views. Whether we believe in Hell or Heaven: If you don't believe in hell, then it makes sense that a person should not get the "easy" way out and just be executed. That person should have to suffer for his crimes and make amends--unless, of course, the person is unrehabilitatable. Also, whether one ascribes to an eye for an eye philosophy. Regarding abortion, when does one's soul enter in? I say after birth, although I do not support abortions performed after a fetus is fully viable.

Third, when it comes to DP vs. abortion, a person getting executed has an actual life history--family, friends, connections, ideas that might be worth preserving; in the case of abortion, people are envisioning an imaginary future life full of potential. That potential life is fiction, and sadly, nobody will miss an aborted fetus (not even the fetus itself).

Fourth, life is an energy force that can neither be created nor destroyed.

[undeterred]

46. Yes, its a conundrum- but its a kind of death we can easily avoid

I think that taking absolute positions, even on 'life', is impossible to do without creating even more difficulty.

I am pro-choice, but I think that men and women and governments should make it rare that an abortion needs to be chosen. It is the nature of human sexuality that it will sometimes result in extremely inconvenient and unwanted pregnancy.

I am a pacifist, but I believe that countries and individuals should be ready to defend themselves and their loved ones if they are attacked.

I believe that society should hold criminals accountable, by removing them from society and punishing them, and I also believe that justice can be served without taking more life. I can understand how the majority can wish death for certain individuals, but it is unnecessary death. There is no urgency which compels us to take the life of a prisoner, even if he be Saddam Hussein or Charles Manson.

[The Straight Story]

53. "It's only living if you can see it, and look it in the eyes"

I asked my fundie sister this one time, the same question in the OP - sort of. How can you be pro-war and death penalty and against abortion. Her reply was that you can only kill the guilty, and the guilty are living and committing sin, you can look them in the eyes and know you are doing the right thing - babies aren't 'living' since they are inside their mother and are innocent, not able to commit a crime worthy of the DP or of - as she calls it - a war on babies.

To me, I don't have to make a choice on whether or not to have an abortion, so I am not one to say whether or not it should be legal or not. People have the right and freedom to control their own body, and until the baby is born - it is not their body, it is the womans.

[ecstatic]

59. wow. Sort of like "God's hands" murders? nt

[Hippo_Tron]

55. Because I think that it's a bad idea to try and justify killing unless absolutely necessary

If Saddam were still at large I'd have no problem taking him out so that he couldn't hurt others anymore. That would be an instance where it is necessary to try and justify killing someone because it could save innocent peoples' lives.

A justification for killing someone based on bringing comfort to his victims isn't a good enough reason for me. And whether he deserves to die isn't the question I am asking myself because the answer is certainly yes. The question for me is whether we have a good reason to kill him and considering that he's in captivity and can't harm anyone anymore, I see no reason why we should.

Domestically, I can't stand the death penalty because it's more expensive than life in prison and prosecutors use it as a show to launch their political careers.

[LWolf]

57. I am pro-choice because

I have lived the reality of illegal abortion. I know that trying to control women by limiting reproductive choices is wrong. That doesn't mean I think abortion is ok. I am pro-choice because I don't want people valuing, and legislating that value, the unborn over the born. Both are "life."

Killing a human being for revenge or "punishment" is not the same thing as ending pregnancy. I am against the death penalty because I am against the taking of life without need.

[mogster]

58. If you were to abort a 50+ year old fetus ... n/t

[TheCowsCameHome]

65. How about 60 years old and named Bush?

[mogster]

82. If he's still a fetus after 60 years, I'd say no

I'd say no in any case. As Saddam, Bush should be tried and imprisoned, then the questioning should begin.
We could have learnt a lot about the Reagan administration from Hussein, if he'd been allowed to live.

[liberal N proud]

62. Not a problem, banning abortion destroys two lives

Both the mother and baby are negatively by an unwanted pregnancy.
As far as the death sentence, what does it prove? As far as Saddam goes; what makes him worse than those in the White House who have murdered more than Saddam in a much shorter time.

[LibraLiz1973]

72. The last sentence is a very valid point. EOM

[progressivebydesign]

66. Umm. embryo vs. actual person. big diff. n/t

[BlueEyedSon]

67. Someone's got to balance out the pro-life, pro-death-penalty nutjobs!

[applegrove]

75. Why? It is a completely liberal way to be. I cannot imagine why it would

surprise you.

[Name removed]

76. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[RetroLounge]

77. Saddam wasn't a fetus

But nice flame bait try...

RL

[WindRavenX]

97. LOL GREAT mental image

Saddam-- the singing, talking fetus! :rofl:

[RetroLounge]

99. Gotta love the logical hoops some people jump thru

in their blood lust...

RL

[WindRavenX]

103. I swear, sometimes I think I'm taking crazy pills

x( x( x( x( x( x(

[Kerrytravelers]

286. Sometimes I agree, I think I'm taking crazy pills...

... and sometimes I think that someone needs attention.

[LynnTheDem]

78. If someone found guilty of a capital crime CHOOSES to be executed

rather than jailed...

[fishwax]

87. I don't see the conundrum at all

:shrug:

People who oppose the death penalty don't do so on the grounds that one should never take the life of an innocent and living thing--otherwise they would starve.

What is the conflict exactly, between supporting a woman's right to control what happens to her body and opposing the death penalty? :shug:

[Bluerthanblue]

88. until the time a baby can exist outside the womb- it is

dependent upon the body of another human being to exist.
While i personally would not choose to stop the growth of a baby that was growing within me, I do believe other should be free to make that difficult, and very sobering choice for themselves, without government intervention.

People who are killed by 'the government'- and have this murder excused by the barbaric notion that somehow "justice" is done- are victims of pre-meditated murder.

I can't call what we do, beastly, or monsterous, because, even animals don't go for revenge killings- at least not any 'animals' other than humans. And we've done a pretty fine job of screwing up nature- as opposed to the 'natural world' which balances itself out pretty well, when we are taken out of the equation.

these are my opinions, and observations.

I support a persons right to choose to terminate a pregnancy, or their own life.
I also feel a responsibility to make the choice to live, one which is not based upon fortune, (wealth) or lack of the essentials necessiary for living.

imagine

dream

act

[Kerrytravelers]

93. I've seen this argument before. "How can you be pro-choice and anti-war?"

Of course, this was on the signs carried by people from Protest Warrior.

[LibraLiz1973]

100. Then I fail there. Because I am pro choice and anti war

But your right, it's something for me to think about

[depakid]

95. Every other civilized nation has come to terms with the "conundrum"

Which, if you think about it- says a LOT about the USA.

As in "UNcivilized." For example, take Australia. When they had a mass shooting in Hobart about 10 years ago, there wasn't any outcry for the death penalty. Instead, they cleverly enacted tougher gun laws and put together a buyback program that's dramatically decreased the number of violent crimes involving guns. Now, to a reasonable person- that one's a no brainer.

But try selling that to most Americans.... The same holds true for capital punishment- or universal health care- or any number of responsible public policies.

[LibraLiz1973]

105. this is a very interesting point

We don't do enough to stop crimes from happening because we are all so angry

[depakid]

622. I don't know if it's anger

yet it does seem to be emotional as opposed to rational.

Just saying that in other nations, policy seems to be made and accepted differently. I mean, the USA is #1 in terms of raw numbers of people who are incarcerated. Not per capita.. Raw numbers. Number #1 for people in prisons.

We beat out Russia, China and India. And yet despite our relative affluence, we still have high crime rates. Why is that?

Could it be for the same sorts of reasons that states with the highest execution rates also tend to have the highest murder rates? I dunno- but it might be something to think about.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

638. Punishment gives the psychos the woody they want; prevention doesn't.

Maybe that's why they also don't want any kind of socioeconomical safety net -- it might prevent a criminal from becoming a criminal and denying them the execution dance parties they're entitled to.

[peacetalksforall]

104. There are some distinctions that make it easier to follow if

considered all together.

We don't know when the soul enters the body - some say hours, days, weeks before birth - some say at the second of conception. Because we don't know we have to fall back on the decision of the impregnated. Just because some U.S. Christians claim that it's at the time of conception, doesn't mean everyone has to live by that and or to be given mad made national laws that require punishment by man. There are and have been many Christians in other countries and other times who had or have had no ethical problems with abortions - it is/was something to get or to have forced. (Being forced into abortion is an execution and those who force get away with it all the time.)

We know that Hussein passed through the fetus stage and had a soul as do others who were executed by the hand of man.

A fetus does not have a crime on their hands to make up for.
A criminal does have a crime on their hands to make up for.

A criminal should be given the chance to make their peace with the entity they believe in before they die. Dying by the hand of man before the crime is 'processed' (for lack of a better name) says more about the people who are eager for and pant over executions.

In my way of viewing it, killing a criminal is meddling with the soul. It is arrogance of man, and a God-uppance. Men and women who are resonsible for executions place themselves above higher entities when it comes to another's soul.

There is no human concensus. There is no organized church consensus. There is no cultural consensus. There are no generational consenses. So, people who think they know it all (our before, during, and after lives) make up rules and demand that others live by it. There are hundreds of rule variations and trillions of arguments.

An aside - I went to the 'internets' to check the date that Noriega was placed in jail by Bush, Sr. (Jan 1990, by the way). There is a website that comes up near the top (using Google) that talks about Noriega's baptism and conversion that took place a couple of years into his jail sentence. All Christians who pant for Capital Punishment should tell that story.

[Hepburn]

107. I do not see the two related in any manner.

Pro-choice is about a woman having control over her own body. This is personal and it is her choice and not subject to being controlled by another person. What a woman does is individual and private and not forced upon her if she would have disagreements with having this done.

The death penalty is offensive to me because it is state carried out and sanctioned murder. If murder is wrong, then putting someone to death as a punishment for murder is equally as wrong. I have no choice when the state does this and as a citizen of the state, this is being done in MY name and not just the name of the state. Besides: Heaven forbid ~~ there is a mistake.

[tnlefty]

109. Sorry, the POTENTIAL for life is pregnancy, not a living, innocent

being. I've been pregnant 5 times during the course of my marriage, and I have three living children. My pregnancies were never easy and I have experienced the pre-term birth of one son who made it and another who was pronounced dead within minutes of his birth. I've miscarried early, and one of my sons was in severe distress and I thought he had died while I was in labor with him (although at 38 weeks and a few days we had no reason to believe that anything really bad could happen because we were more concerned with early losses.)

I know women who went into labor and delivery without complicated pregnancies and who left the hospital without a baby because the fetus died during the birthing process.

How you can compare this to opposing the death penalty, or a death penalty for what the rightwingers consider a short-term political gain is beyond me.

edit to change a word

[noamnety]

113. People have sovereignty over their own bodies.

The state does not have the right to co-opt people's bodies for public use. Not even if it's to save another person's life (giving birth, mandatory blood donations, mandatory medical experimentation, etc.).

This is consistent with opposing the state's right to kill people against their will. (I support assisted suicide at the patient's/prisoner's request, which is a pro-choice position.)

What I find INconsistent is those who believe a woman should have to donate the use of her body against her will for 9 months to save a fetus's life for the good of society, but do not support MANDATORY blood and organ donation, to include kidney and marrow donation, by all eligible citizens, which takes considerably less than 9 months, in order to save the lives of people that we all agree are actual living human beings and have expressed verbally a desire to live. More on that: http://ideamouth.blogspot.com/2006/06/what-if-abortion-opponents-werent.html

[bliss_eternal]

136. Hi lwfern.

:hi:

I'm guessing the mods are away for the holiday weekend. Seems idle minds and hands ARE the devil's playground or however that saying goes. :eyes:

Ah well, guess everyone's got to have a hobby.

[noamnety]

234. Hi!

I noticed last night that you were back.

Not much has changed, eh? :)

[Warren Stupidity]

114. "I understand the other view that an “eye for an eye” leaves everyone eyeless."

No it seems you do not understand this view.

"But is that really true? The US isn’t doling out ANY punishment for Osama Bin Laden."

How that relates to the preceding statement that you understand the paraphrased Gandhi quote escapes me.

"I don’t really think that it IS an eye for an eye when someone is put to death." Well of course it is.

"I think when the death penalty is used, it takes a terrible evil out of the world." Or not. There are certainly a wealth of examples in our country where even the guilt of the condemned is questionable, let alone that they somehow contained a 'terrible evil'. Someone recently posted a thread here about the hanging of two Iranian kids for being homosexual a few years ago. Horrible story, terrible pictures. Did they contain a terrible evil that was righteously expunged by their execution? The Iranian authorities most certainly thought so.

Yes of course those committing violence quite frequently do so thinking that they are entirely justified. It is righteous violence of course, it is typically just what you expressed above, the righteous are taking a great evil out of the world so they should be exempt from the constraints of normal behavior. Bin Laden, whom you appear to hold in hitleresque bogeyman status, most assuredly acted out of just such a sense of righteousness, and most assuredly felt that the sacrificce of people on 9-11 was entirely justified. Which is where Gandhi comes in, and where I truly believe you do not get what he was saying at all.

[johnnie]

115. I have a problem with both..but..

I am not excited about the death penalty or abortions, but I will support a woman's right to choose over it all.

I know what you are trying to say, but to me these are two different issues. I have yet to see a person here at DU cheer someone on for having an abortion. I honestly don't see it to be a conflict if people have a problem with the death penalty and be pro choice.

[intaglio]

117. NOT an easy question

First Capital Punishment
I do not support this because it is morally indefensible. The taking of a life, except in defense of your own or others lives, cannot be right. I have said on other threads that every life is unique and therefore priceless. Because the death being refered to is that of the War Criminal Saddam Hussein I'll confine my remarks to the assumption that crimes requiring death are fully proven and beyond all doubt.

Imagine, for example, a vengeful deity who will commit the soul of the murderer to everlasting torment; can it be right for us to end the life of a person so rapidly and thus end their chance to contemplate and fear their fate? Would not a vengeful god castigate us for being so unforgiving? Equally a forgiving deity will not thank us for prematurely ending the life of a sinner who may yet come to redemption. Even the absence of a Higher Power leads us to require the capital criminal alive for death will merely end their suffering.

Second Abortion - Not termination, it is abortion
Personally I am against late term aborions; anything past 20 weeks as far as I am concerned is too close to killing a human; as such (see above) only if the life of the mother be in dire peril should a late abortion be contemplated.

Prior to 20 weeks (and the earlier the better) the proceedure can be carried out because the potential life is not viable, even with massive medical intervention. It is also likely that the potential human will not have developed the ability to feel pain or the awareness that it is about to die.

There is to my mind another way of justifying abortion and that is that natural processes probably result in more losses of potential lives than all the abortion clinics in the world. The rate of re-absorbtion and miscarriage is a lot higher than most people think (IIRC)

[Changenow]

125. Because it is not homicide

to have an abortion. duh.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

131. I don't see them as even close to the same

One is a potential life beginning to take shape in a woman's womb. The other is a already fully formed living and breathing person. One cannot survive without its host, the other one can.

For me that is the difference.

[Hamlette]

138. DP is about revenge, an emotion we should not be promoting

no one is pro abortion. And is no more murder than male masturbation is since it is a potential life.

The right is consistent in the sense that their stand on both issues is about personal responsibility and revenge (against the woman who sleeps around.)

I'm against the DP because innocent people can, have been and will be put to death, it is racist as administered in this country and the only reason for it is revenge. We shouldn't allow ourselves to give into revenge.

I'm pro choice until the fetus becomes viable because the mother should not be punished by having no control over her body or her life during the pregnancy and often, after.

[patricia92243]

144. The person is not making the choice to die. One is a metter of choice, the other isn't.

[BlackVelvet04]

148. One of the problems with your argument is that we do not know for

a fact when life begins. Does it begin at conception? I personally don't think so. Even Biblically speaking the idea of life at conception is not supported.

I find it equally baffling that those against abortion are for the death penalty. We at least know if the person is alive enough to stand trial they ARE ALIVE.

We don't have actual statistics for how many innocent people have been executed but because of the number of those who have been exonerated after receiving the death penalty we have to assume that innocent people have in fact died at the hand of the state. I will never support the state killing in an act of vengeance and that is what it is....vengeance.

[Sparkly]

161. I agree -- there is disagreement among people about that

whereas there's no disagreement that an adult is an independent human life.

(Also, they aren't in a woman's womb; and, I think life in prison is punishment, perhaps even more so than death.)

[HuskiesHowls]

150. I am not pro choice...I'm against government intervention!!!

Pro choice, Pro life....its still government intervention in my life...not directly since I can't have babies, but my argument is that the next thing they may decide they don't like is beards...and then I'm screwed!!!

The Bible says "Thou shalt not kill". Reason enough right there to be against the death penalty.

[originalpckelly]

160. If abortion is murder, or negligence resulting in death...

doesn't the state have a right to intervene based upon the same right it might have to intervene in cases of murder or negligence for an adult?

[Sparkly]

163. "IF abortion is murder"...

That remains a matter of personal belief.

[originalpckelly]

166. But if it is, then the same legal basis for laws against murder apply.

Like you said, it is quite debatable.

[HuskiesHowls]

173. You missed the point entirely

I'm not calling abortion murder, lets call it what it is: A MORAL decision.
MORALS can NOT be legislated!!!
Having said that, it is to be realized that the neo-cons are attempting to do that. You then have what is commonly known as a "theocracy".

I'm talking about the Big Brother telling me what I can or cannot do in MY life, when John Q Public is not involved.

I believe in TRUE anarchy: No laws, EVERYONE is responsible for their actions, no exceptions.

[originalpckelly]

182. Then why do we prosecute people for committing murder?

I'm not talking about illogical fundie morals, I'm talking about morals based upon reality and the concept of liberty.

[mondo joe]

186. Because murder violates the rights of another. NT

[originalpckelly]

188. What about the rights of a fetus to grow up and be an adult...

and live and make choices and exercise their freedoms?

[mondo joe]

190. Where do you find that right?

Thank you.

[originalpckelly]

198. What right do I have to live?

Where did you find that?

You can't find it, you have to reason with it. Letting someone else tell you what you should think without evaluating what they are telling you to think is no better than what fundies do.

[mondo joe]

202. Your right to your body and property is codified in law.

I don't believe such a right has been identified for fetuses.

Furthermore, there is no right to use someone else's body to maintain your life.

[beam me up scottie]

203. You're surviving outside of your mother's womb, right?

I just love hearing why we should be incubators for the state.

Tell me more.

[HuskiesHowls]

187. Morals, and rights are two entirely different things

It is a violation of a person's right to life to murder them. The murderer should be prosecuted for violating those rights.

Morals are the rules that I decide are right for my life, my lifestyle and that I can live with. My morals are not your morals, nor are they anyone elses.

However, interfering with my RIGHTS is not a good choice for ANYONE! I have a tendency to get very upset when that happens.

The rule that I grew up with was this: "Your rights extend to your elbow." After that, you're interfering with the rights of others.

[originalpckelly]

189. Isn't a mother interfering with the rights of the fetus to live?

What gives you the right to live more than a fetus?

[mondo joe]

192. The fetus has no right to use a woman's body, any more than a person who needs

a kidney transplant has the right to take one of yours.

[originalpckelly]

195. Yes, but aside from rape or some other forced sex act...

which would result in pregnancy, a woman has made the choice to have sex. She should be aware of the fact that pregnancy is a risk. (Of course, no one in America knows that because of the fundies.)

[beam me up scottie]

197. So, it's a punishment thing.

Love that whole she made her bed thing :thumbsup:

[originalpckelly]

201. No, it's not punishment at all, it's accepting responsibility for procreating...

Aside from rape or some other forced sex act which results in pregnancy, a woman has made the choice to have sex.

What part of that implies punishment?

[beam me up scottie]

204. The part that says you or anyone else has the right to force her to be an incubator.

It's a woman's body, it's a clump of cells, it's not a nine month old blue eyed boy.

[originalpckelly]

213. No, she made the choice to have sex. Having sex is something which causes pregnancy...

unless a method of contraception is used.

She chose to do that. No one forced her to have sex, because I specifically made sure to say that I was not talking about those who are forced to have sex.

If she wasn't forced to have sex, she has the responsibility of taking care of a child for nine months. If the child threatens her life, then she does have the right to protect herself, just like the parent of any child would have the right to protect themselves if their children were about to kill them.

I'm not forcing her to be an incubator, she chose to be one when she had sex.

[beam me up scottie]

215. So you're saying if she meets your conditions she can have an abortion?

If she has unprotected sex, you get to force her to remain pregnant against her will.

Got it.

[Warren DeMontague]

592. Amazing how quickly it gets to "She could have CHOSEN to keep her legs crossed".

For some reason, it's always seems to get down to bitterness over other people's unauthorized fucking :eyes:

[beam me up scottie]

598. Oh, wait until you get to the rapist/car analogy.

He has real issues with women.

[mondo joe]

217. And smoking causes cancer. Sex can cause AIDS too. Would you deny someone

medical treatment for those conditions?

Or would you force them to be responsible?

PS: She never chose to be an incubator, because she knew abortion was an option.

[mondo joe]

206. Why isn't abortion a way to accept that responsibility? Would you deny AIDS meds to

someone who contracted AIDS as the result of risky sex?

[originalpckelly]

216. No, because treating someone's HIV infection wouldn't take anyone's life...

it would save someone's life. It's not just that someone took a risk, it's that the method of treating that risk interferes with the rights of another person.

[mondo joe]

221. You can't make up your mind. Is the reason to not abort that it kills a life, or that the

woman took the risk?

You keep changing your mind.

[beam me up scottie]

222. But risking a woman's life by forcing her to have a child is okay with you?

This is fascinating.

[mondo joe]

199. Irrelevant. She may know there's a risk, and then address the outcome by abortion.

Were you of the opinion that we are not empowered to do such things?

Are people who smoke entitled to get treatment for cancer? Or are they supposed to live with the outcome because they took a risk?

[originalpckelly]

205. I'm not talking about forced acts, whether a forced act of sex...

or a forced act of death.

I'm talking about completely consensual choices which are made of ones own free will.

In the case of cancer, treating someone's cancer is not going to kill another person, so I'd have to say it's a rather different situation because of that.

[beam me up scottie]

209. But what about the tumor?

It's a clump of cells, it has a right to live, right?

Why would you let someone kill it?

[originalpckelly]

223. A tumor doesn't have intelligence, will never develop intelligence,

and it is mutated in such a way that it will kill it's host.

[beam me up scottie]

228. Neither does a clump of cells attached to a uterine wall.

So it's okay to risk the woman's life by forcing her to carry a child to term?

[originalpckelly]

230. Did I say she should have to carry the child if it threatens her life?

No, I didn't.

The clump of cells will develop into a full human being with intelligence, if it doesn't have birth defects and isn't somehow killed before it is born.

[beam me up scottie]

236. All fetuses have the potential to kill the mother. Who makes that choice?

You?

[uppityperson]

417. childbirth kills women.

[originalpckelly]

428. True, but so does abortion...

it also kills men as well.

And with childbirth, it's a 1/10000 risk, with abortion it's an absolute certainty.

[uppityperson]

430. Statistics mean nothing without a decent source quoted.Now we get to the crux

abortion "kills men as well"

My reply was to your saying an abortion should only be done if the pregnancy threatens the mother's life, and ALL pregnancies threaten the mother's life and you have that threat after the baby is born. So, can YOU look into the future and tell me whether or not my life will be terminated if I carry this through? No? Well, my life is in danger with every pregnancy and no one can tell the outcome until it happens.

[fishwax]

433. abortion kills men?

huh?

[uppityperson]

436. embryonic men, see? Pre-men perhaps.

I think that is what this poster means? Maybe? Pre-men?

[beam me up scottie]

439. Pre-men = Se-men?

Waiting to see him try to maneuver out of this one.

[uppityperson]

442. True, guess my ma was only

a slut once since we other kids was durn planned. One was an accidental pregnancy, so that makes her a slut, right? Hey ma! Hear what he done sayin' 'bout ya!

[fishwax]

440. ah yes, must be the embryonic men

for a moment I thought I might be in some sort of danger ...

[beam me up scottie]

443. ROFLMAO!!!

No, you're safe with us!

Thank you for hanging in there. You and Mondo both, most men would run like hell when they see a woman's head about to explode.

[uppityperson]

448. psst, I'm

female. And my head has been about to explode.

[beam me up scottie]

450. Oh, LOL! I know, mine went hours ago.

Mondo gave up, I think. He's much smarter than I probably.

But fishwax has got his second wind.

[fishwax]

449. hehe

good to know :)

it's been fun hanging in here (exploding heads included) ... i know i really should be off to bed, but I can't help it, I'm glued to this thread :)

[beam me up scottie]

454. It's like a wreck on the highway, isn't it?

:rofl:

[originalpckelly]

453. No, that's not what I meant.

[uppityperson]

469. What DID you mean?

[originalpckelly]

495. Males in general.

Not specifically "men", which implies adult males. Which is quite absurd in it's original context.

[beam me up scottie]

501. So killing "men" is absurd, but not blastocysts.

Explain the difference.

[uppityperson]

503. so, back to your statement starting this sub-thread and ask what you mean

"True, but so does abortion...it also kills men as well." Let's then substitute "Males in general" which you just gave to clarify and we get...
"True, but so does abortion...it also kills males in general as well." What do you mean, abortion kills males in general as well?

[originalpckelly]

509. If a fetus has a y chromosome, it is a male. If the fetus is aborted...

a male human is killed.

[uppityperson]

518. No, you are wrong. An embryo with only a Y chromosome will probably die on its own

This is another trick. And I still disagree that a male embryo is a human, and you still haven't proven that it is.

[originalpckelly]

521. Ok, one y chromosome and one x chromosome.

Better now?

[uppityperson]

534. so, back to your statement starting this sub-thread and ask what you mean

"True, but so does abortion...it also kills men as well." Let's then substitute "Males in general" which you just gave to clarify and we get...
"True, but so does abortion...it also kills males in general as well." What do you mean, abortion kills males in general as well?

What "males in general"? You mean that embryo with an X and a Y chormosome is "males in general"? My husband doesn't look like the pictures I posted elsewhere of implanted embryos. Maybe those were all female? And yes, better, since you have been such a stickler for correctness. You still haven't answered the questions elsewhere about those statistics you posted, giving a credible source.

[originalpckelly]

536. Post your source on the number of miscarriages.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternal_mortality

[uppityperson]

547. better than wiki, here you go.

http://www.allaboutlifechallenges.org/miscarriage-statistics.htm

You are here: Life Challenges >> Miscarriage Statistics

Miscarriage Statistics - A Look at the Figures and Definitions
Miscarriage statistics can be dramatic. Miscarriage reportedly occurs in 20 percent of all pregnancies. However, according to some sources, this may be an inaccurate number. Many women, before realizing a life has begun forming within them, may miscarry without knowing it-assuming their miscarriage is merely a heavier period. Therefore, the miscarriage rate may be closer to 40 or 50 percent. Of the number of women who miscarry, 20 percent will suffer recurring miscarriages.



http://www.americanpregnancy.org/pregnancycomplications/miscarriage.html
Miscarriage is the most common type of pregnancy loss, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists(ACOG). Studies reveal that anywhere from 10- 25% of all clinically recognized pregnancies will end in miscarriage. Estimations of chemical pregnancies or unrecognized pregnancies that are lost can be as high as 50-75%, but many of these are unknown since they often happen before a woman has missed a period or is aware she is pregnant.

[HuskiesHowls]

643. Some people wonder if adult males are human LOL n/t

[originalpckelly]

451. Excuse me, males.

[fishwax]

455. which is not the same as a male *person*

[originalpckelly]

458. It is a person.

Just like you are a person. The fetus has the same right to live for the same reason you have a right to live.

Why do you believe you have a right to live?

[beam me up scottie]

460. So when does it become a person?

How many cells ?

[originalpckelly]

462. When did you become a person?

[beam me up scottie]

464. Well, technically, I was half a person in me dad, and half a person in me mum.

Thank Gawd daddy decided not to kill me.

[uppityperson]

472. answer the question, when did IT become a person?

and not with another question

[originalpckelly]

493. Implantation.

[uppityperson]

498. so this is a Person?

And this is another one


And another


What makes each of these a "person"?

[originalpckelly]

500. Of course, that's not an implanted embryo.

The protein shell has not been broken in any of those photos, so it cannot be implanted.

Another little trick.

[uppityperson]

510. How about these pictures, taken after implantation.

This is a chicken, since it is an implanted chicken embryo:


Here is a Person:
http://www.visembryo.com/baby/4.html

Fully implanted Person:
http://www.visembryo.com/baby/5.html

Here is more fun, which is the Person?
http://www.exploratorium.edu/exhibits/embryo/embryoflash.html

And one where you don't have to go to another fun website

[originalpckelly]

Yes.

That is a person. It is a human being, it has the same human DNA it will have when it grows up to be a big boy or girl. It may not be smart, may not learn much, but of course there are a lot of people who are supposedly adults, and they can be described the same way.

[uppityperson]

That is not a human being. That is a fetus.

[originalpckelly]

533. That's a human fetus. It has human DNA, doens't it?

[uppityperson]

539. fertilized human eggs usually have human DNA but aren't "person"

My mole has human embryo but isn't a "person" either.

[originalpckelly]

544. Your mole?

:rofl:

[uppityperson]

553. Indeed. Same thing I guess. Poor DNA,.

Did you know that many cancers are actually cells in the body reverting to a more embryonic form? They multiply like crazy, and, unlike the embryo, never get the "switch" (for lack of the technical term) switched to quit multiplying like crazy. In an embryo, that switch switches and the cells start differentiating, becoming different bits, like nerves, skin, etc. So, killing my mole by removing it is killing some of my DNA that is trying to grow and be a person.

[originalpckelly]

562. There is no possibility, aside from human cloning...

of your mole ever developing into an adult human.

[uppityperson]

568. Never say never, and see, there IS a possibility it could.

Since the technology exists to clone my mole, and the outcome would be a fully functioning human, some might say I would be remiss if I did NOT clone it. Some might call me bad names and look down and say I have bad morals for not letting this person live.

[originalpckelly]

573. I specifically excluded human cloning.

[uppityperson]

581. But the technology exists so it has to be taken into consideration.

Denying that is wrong.

[originalpckelly]

584. So you want to clone human beings?

You can go there if you want to. I think most people will disagree with you doing that, because many cloned animals have shown that clones has shorter life spans than normal specimens. In addition, clones have a much higher risk of deformity.

[fishwax]

474. if it is a person, why is it okay to kill that person in the case of rape

Why is it okay to take the life of an innocent person in that case?

I'm sorry, but the illogical leap of consensual sex=consent to carry a pregnancy to term doesn't quite cut it for me here--if you honestly believe the embryo/fetus is a person, why is it okay to kill that innocent person? Why doesn't that person have a right to live for the same reason that you have a right to live?

[beam me up scottie]

481. Now now, he said he had thought this out.

Don't you believe him?

[originalpckelly]

496. Because, against the will of the mother, that little person may take her life...

during childbirth unexpectedly, and in general there is a risk it could take the mother's life some time during gestation.

The rapist is forcing the possibility of death on the mother. If the state prevented women from having an abortion in this non-consensual context, it would also be forcing her to take this risk against her will.

[beam me up scottie]

506. So it's ethical to murder "that little person"?

How can you justify murder?

[originalpckelly]

511. Where did I say murder?

[beam me up scottie]

514. Your post #456: "When a woman has an abortion she is killing a person."

Answer the question.

Why is it ethical to muder "that little person"?

[originalpckelly]

520. If someone runs out in front of my car, and I hit them, they die...

and it was impossible for me to stop, is that murder? No, but I still would've killed a person.

[beam me up scottie]

523. You SAID when a woman has an abortion it's murder. Why is one murder ethical and the other not?

[originalpckelly]

532. Like I said, killing someone and murder are not the same.

[beam me up scottie]

You SAID when a woman has an abortion it's murder. Why is one murder ethical and the other not?

There is no such thing as an "accidental" abortion.

When a woman has an abortion it's murder.

[originalpckelly]

552. Why is it any different?

The mother did not ultimately make the choice to become pregnant when she was raped. The level of responsibility, just like in the accidental killing of the pedestrian, is not at all near that of the killing of her own free will.

In one instance, just as in the accidental killing with the vehicle, circumstances beyond her control made her pregnant. However, in the other she allowed herself to become pregnant of her own free will, so the level of responsibility on her part is at it's highest.

[beam me up scottie]

555. There are no "accidental" abortions. They are the same procedure. Now answer the question.

Why is one murder ethical and the other not?

[originalpckelly]

570. Do you actually believe that?

That's a big difference from what you were saying earlier.

[uppityperson]

574. Dodging by switching and asking another question. Try it again.

Why is one murder ethical and the other not?

[originalpckelly]

585. You don't believe that.

If you don't actually believe something, you're not being intellectually honest by asking it. The sole purpose of the question is to be rude, not to really grasp a deeper truth.

[fishwax]

591. no, she's trying to get you to clarify your position

there's nothing intellectually dishonest about engaging you in your own hypotheticals.

[uppityperson]

596. I am trying to get you to clarify.

If I don't believe what I think you believe I am being intellectually dishonest by asking you what you believe? pshaw. Simply answer.

[fishwax]

513. but allowing her to abort it means the state is allowing the certain death of a person

(to use your definitions) rather than simply going with the chance of an innocent person dying. It is still the certain death of an innocent versus the 1 in 10,000 chance of the death of an innocent (to use your figures)--why is that okay? Tje same risks exist in pregnancy that results from consensual sex, but there you have argued that one can't place the mere, slim chance of death against the absolute certainty of the death of the fetus-person. We see the same choices in play here, but here the absolute death of the fetusperson is okay?


If the state prevented women from having an abortion in this non-consensual context, it would also be forcing her to take this risk against her will.
And now you're talking in terms of the state preventing abortions? I thought that was totally outside the realm of possibility for you. If the state prevents any abortion, they are forcing the woman to take the risk against her will, a point that others on this thread have made repeatedly. You said before you didn't think it was okay for the state to do that.

[originalpckelly]

516. What's tje?

[beam me up scottie]

519. A typo: the Answer the question

[originalpckelly]

524. What does "the answer the question" mean?

I really think you need to sleep, you're not making any sense.

[beam me up scottie]

526. Can you answer the question or not?

[originalpckelly]

527. Don't you mean "will you answer the question or not?"

[beam me up scottie]

529. I was wondering when you'd give up.

[originalpckelly]

535. Did you mean "will you answer the question or not?" Or "can you answer the question or not?"

I can answer the question.

[beam me up scottie]

543. Well?

[fishwax]

550. Frankly, I don't believe you when you say you can answer the question

But I'd be thrilled to see you prove me wrong :)

[fishwax]

549. BWAHAHAHA

ZING! :eyes:

[fishwax]

528. It's supposed to be "the"

Gee. I guess you got me there.

[beam me up scottie]

531. A clever ploy.

While he frantically searches Google for the help that's never going to come...:rofl:


help meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[originalpckelly]

540. I'm not searching Google or any other search engine.

[beam me up scottie]

542. Then answer the questions.

[originalpckelly]

537. Thanks, I didn't know if you being clever.

[fishwax]

560. How would "tje" instead of "the" be being clever?

that must be a reference I'm unfamiliar with.

By the way, your subject line appears to be missing a verb. Somehow, though, I managed to decipher what you were trying to say.

[originalpckelly]

554. That's true, but in one case she is responsible for the child being in her...

in the other she is not.

Ultimately, the death of the child is the same in both circumstances, but the culpability of the mother is different.

[beam me up scottie]

558. So who is committing murder?

[originalpckelly]

566. The rapist. It's like throwing a person out in front of a car...

on a freeway with the intention of killing them.

[beam me up scottie]

575. The rapist is not in the room. He doesn't know the baby exists. There are no cars in the room either

Why is it ethical to murder the baby?

[originalpckelly]

590. How would you like to answe this?

[beam me up scottie]

602. Answer the question. Why is one murder ethical and the other not?

[originalpckelly]

603. Neither is ethical.

Is that what you want me to say?

[beam me up scottie]

605. So abortion is always murder? And the rape pass you so graciously allowed me?

What of it?

[uppityperson]

606. We want you to say what you believe. Not just ask questions in response.

[originalpckelly]

613. I'm just trying to do the right thing. I don't want anyone innocent...

to be killed, is that so wrong?

[originalpckelly]

616. I don't know. I'm awful. I don't know.

:cry: I wish had the answer. More than almost anything else. I just don't want to do anything unethical. I don't want another person to be killed, just because they weren't wanted.

[uppityperson]

620. Have you adopted any children? How have you helped the "unwanted"?

Those that are born unwanted, or those that are in situations really bad for them? How have you helped them?

[beam me up scottie]

618. You don't know what the right thing is? And you condemned me to death?

Oh, that's right, I'm not innocent.

[originalpckelly]

621. I just want to do the right thing, what ever that may be...

I don't care one way or another, whatever is right. Whatever can be proven through logic and reason.

[beam me up scottie]

624. What is this "I" shit I keep hearing? What does any of this have to do with you?

[Warren DeMontague]

634. .

:applause:

[originalpckelly]

625. I don't think I'll be able to go on. I can't really see too well now.

[uppityperson]

626. How many kids have you adopted or fostered? That is something "right"

you can do.

[uppityperson]

623. Define "Innocent"

[Warren DeMontague]

607. Why should YOU say whether SHE should ***"Have To"*** carry it at all?

I like how you put that. Did I say she should have to carry the child if it... blah, blah, blah.

Want a robe and sceptre to go with your newfound status as intrauterine arbiter? Excuse me, but under what sort of divine appointment is it any of your god-damn business in the first place?

See, Jack, it is your opinion that the moment of conception transmogrifies a sperm and unfertilized egg (which should have no rights, and aren't "alive", presumably) into a micron sized "human being" which you apparently believe you have been specially charged with protecting, nevermind the fact that that potential human resides in someone else's womb.

There are two things you can do with your belief that a fertilized egg is a "human being". You can try to get your opinion written into law and imposed on millions of women who may not share it, forcing many into back alley abortions and quite probably criminalizing the birth control pill in the process. That would be the asshole tack, the authoritarian tack, the daddy state tack, the tack taken by today's Republican Party.

Or, you could accept that maybe- just maybe- other people may come to different conclusions on this matter, and say, "well, I believe a fertilized egg IS A HUMAN BEING. No ifs, ands, or buts. That's my opinion, and as such I, personally, would never get an abortion. Except- oh, wait, I'm a man! Happy day, I won't ever have to worry about it, will I?"

[uppityperson]

416. an embryo does not have intellegence either and can kill the mother.

[mondo joe]

210. Not different at all. If someone needed a kidney would they have the right to

take one of yours?

No fetus has the right to live in a woman's body without her consent.

[originalpckelly]

224. She gave her consent the moment she consented to having sex.

[mondo joe]

235. And she denied consent the moment she chose abortion.

Right?

[mondo joe]

214. Besides - if abortion is killing a person, what difference does it make if the mother

was raped? If the fetus didn't commit the crime, why would she be permitted to kill it anyway?

[originalpckelly]

225. Consent, she did not offer her consent to let the fetus use her body...

unlike in a case where a woman has consented freely to have sex.

[beam me up scottie]

231. Women die in childbirth, bubba, you have no right to force them to take that risk.

I don't give a fuck WHAT she did to get pregnant.

It is about the punishment, face it.

Sluts who sleep around and don't take precautions get what they deserve, right?

But what if she uses it and the method fails?

[originalpckelly]

247. No, I think that you need to stop being so rude. "Slut" is a nasty word...

It is not about punishment, because honestly aside from the loss of life, I don't care what someone else does with their body. I'm not a fundie, I don't think it's a sin to have sex before marriage or to have sex freely, I think it's wrong just to not accept what you consented to, and that that should result in a fetuses' death.

That's it.

People need to understand that millions of years of evolution have produced fairly potent and reliable mechanisms for reproducing, and that contraception has been around for a comparatively short time. It's quite amazing how well pregnancy can be avoided, but it's not perfect, and people don't use contraception perfectly either. People have to understand that sex, while we have evolved beyond it's original biological purposes, is still at it's core the reproductive process.

When we have sex, we have to be ready for it's consequences, as long as we are, the more sex the better :P.

[beam me up scottie]

253. Telling a woman she's an incubator is beyond rude, actually.

Call me a slut any day, I could care less.

But if you think you have the right to decide if I qualify, according to YOUR standards, for a possibly live saving procedure, don't you dare expect me to be polite.

[originalpckelly]

268. I'm not telling you to keep a child if it's going to kill you...

and that it's been determined by a doctor, am I? No. Not one bit at all.

I don't have right to force my lack of religious beliefs on anyone in America. I do however, have the right and I dare say duty to protect the rights of other people, even if they aren't exactly able to do that.

[beam me up scottie]

294. And how do you know I won't die? Is there NO chance of death?

And you ARE talking about MY right to live.

[mondo joe]

232. If a woman chooses to abort, she likewise denies consent.

Problem solved.

[originalpckelly]

249. The only problem, is that she is taking away the rights of another person.

I wouldn't have the faintest problem with it, if she weren't doing that. I don't honestly care what people do with their own bodies, but I do care when people do something to other people's bodies, which they cannot consent and probably would not consent to.

[fishwax]

254. you certainly haven't convinced anyone that there is another person involved

[beam me up scottie]

258. No, the only problem is, you're taking away her right to choose whether or not to risk her life.

You are forcing her to risk her life because you think she should be forced to have the child because she was careless.

[uppityperson]

418. WHAT other person's rights?

by your reckoning, every sperm and every egg is sacred since they can potentially turn into a living person.

[originalpckelly]

431. No, unless combined they are not capable of producing a human being...

unless they are implanted they are not capable of producing a human being.

I suggest you look at biology book. Last time I checked sperm do not spontaneously produce a human being. It requires an egg, as much as an egg requires a sperm, at least in humans.

[uppityperson]

434. but every sperm is sacred since they can combine with an egg and become a person.

same as every fetus is sacred because it can become a person if all goes just right.

Once again you do not answer the question asked WHAT other person do you mean when you write "she is taking away the rights of another person."?

[originalpckelly]

444. This question answers it all for you:

Why is it wrong in your understanding of the world to kill another person?

[uppityperson]

447. You still don't answer except to ask another question.

WHAT other person do you mean when you write "she is taking away the rights of another person."?

[originalpckelly]

456. When a woman has an abortion she is killing a person.

[fishwax]

459. when a woman has an abortion, she is usually under anesthetic, I believe

which would make it fairly difficult for her to kill a person.

Oh yeah, and you still haven't demonstrated that a fetus is a person.

[beam me up scottie]

461. When a man jerks off, he's killing MILLIONS!

How many cells make a person?

[originalpckelly]

466. If you are taking this comment seriously:

"I really think every sperm is sacred. Wooh, you really got me that time."

DON'T! I was joking.

[beam me up scottie]

471. Clever. Impressive html skills. But I'm NOT joking. It takes a sperm and an egg to make a person.

So when a man wastes or deliberately kills his sperm, he's killing babies.

[uppityperson]

465. WHAT person is she killing?

[originalpckelly]

467. The person she created when she had sex, accepted the responsibility of carrying the child...

and then allowed to stay in her long enough to implant.

That person.

[beam me up scottie]

475. Egad. "then allowed to stay in her long enough to implant."

So again, it's the woman's fault for "allowing" the babies, I mean sperm to stay in her.

[originalpckelly]

476. Prove to me that abortion is not killing a human.

[beam me up scottie]

479. Prove to me when it becomes a human being. It takes sperm and an egg.

[originalpckelly]

483. When did you become a human being?

[beam me up scottie]

491. According to you, when my dad's sperm met my mom's egg, right?

I'm so glad to be alive today.

[uppityperson]

494. when does an egg and sperm become a human being?

ok, your turn to ask a question rather than answering.

[uppityperson]

492. can't prove a negative, prove it is.

[originalpckelly]

499. Wy should you have the right to kill another person, just because you don't want to raise them?

(Or wait nine months until you can give it up for adoption?)

[uppityperson]

515. Can't prove a negative, Prove it is.

Can you answer without just asking another question? (rhetorical question, meaning not needing an answer)

[fishwax]

502. um, okay ... proof that abortion doesn't kill a human

just using the definitions from dictionary.com:

A human is a person.
A person is a human being, whether a man, woman, or a child.
A child is a person between birth and full growth. Therefore a fetus is not a child.
A man is an adult male person. Therefore a fetus is not a man.
A woman is an adult female person. Therefore a fetus is not a woman.

A fetus is not a man, woman, or a child. Therefore a fetus is not a person.

Now, that's logical. You can disagree with the definitions, but you certainly haven't shown any convincing reason why we should accept your definition. Saying "it is a person" doesn't make it so.

[originalpckelly]

507. Okay, I'll use your definitions...

why do you have the right to kill a human fetus, which will grow into an adult human being, in most cases?

[uppityperson]

484. What defines this cell, perhaps clump of cells as a "person"?

What "responsibility of carrying the child" did the woman accept when she had sex?

[fishwax]

505. when a woman consents to sex, she consents to conception and to carrying a child to term, including

unforeseen risks that occur during childbirth, but not including instances in which there is an identifiable and out of the ordinary threat to her life. (She only consents to risking her life a little, not a lot.)

It's all here in one of these subthreads :)

[originalpckelly]

508. Do you really think that's up for debate?

So male-female human sex didn't evolve to procreate?

:shrug:

[uppityperson]

522. Sex is only to procreate? Why then do we, can we, fuck when not fertile?

Why do humans have sex at times other than being fertile? Why not just have a heat like dogs do? And no, human sex evolved to be enjoyed as well as procreate, hence no "heat" like dogs or cats or chimps have.

[originalpckelly]

530. Yes, in humans, but in simpler species which resemble our lineage...

sex is solely for the purpose of procreation.

And quite frankly anyone who doesn't know sex can cause pregnancy, probably shouldn't be having sex in the first place.

[uppityperson]

548. Gee, I thought you said male-female human sex, yup, here you go

"Do you really think that's up for debate?

Edited on Sun Dec-31-06 12:59 AM by originalpckelly
So male-female human sex didn't evolve to procreate?"

Again, no. Do you?

[originalpckelly]

556. So a woman who has unprotected sex, shouldn't even worry that she'll be pregnant...

You do know how crazy that sounds?

[uppityperson]

561. Not the craziest thing you've writtten tonight, but you are right, it does.

What does it have to do with answering the question asked? In case you don't remember the question, here it is:

You wroteL "Do you really think that's up for debate?
So male-female human sex didn't evolve to procreate?"

Again, no, not entirely. Do you?

[originalpckelly]

569. It's not solely made for creation, but that's a very distinct possibility...

so much so that a woman should be aware of it before having sex.

[uppityperson]

Sex is not soley made for creation, but there's a distinct possibility it was...

so a woman should be aware before having sex that she might be having it only to get pregnant. OK. I'm menopausal. Why do I still have sex?

[originalpckelly]

587. Excuse me? "Made" are you implying that somehow sex was "made"

[uppityperson]

600. Your words, #569

[originalpckelly]

609. If you want to kill an innocent child who did nothing to you, go ahead.

[uppityperson]

612. OMG, you can't answer your own words quoted back so you sink to this?

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:
Why are you still here?

[beam me up scottie]

629. What happened to "I just want to do the right thing"

You don't even have the moral courage to say you don't know if it's right to tell a woman she has to carry a fetus to term.

Not one time did you ever back down from your "abortion is murder" declaration.

You wouldn't even for a moment CONSIDER what it would be like to be a woman who is forced to be an incubator.

Not one time.

[originalpckelly]

630. I thought I had thought about it, but I didn't.

I don't have any right to to tell another person what to think or how to feel, I'm awful person.

[originalpckelly]

631. I'm sorry I wasted your time.

I wish I could give it back.

[uppityperson]

674. pshaw. Here is some advice for you to take as you wish, or not

Discussion advice: When you are discussing something that you have a strong opinion about, it is a good idea to not just give HOW you feel but why you feel that way. Asking others how they feel is a good thing, if you are trying to elicit their opinions, but it does not absolve you of the role of telling why you feel as you do. To simplify, if someone asks you a question about why you state something, answer. Don't answer only by asking them what they think, but tell why you said what you did. Then ask what they think. Repetitively answering a question with another question is NOT good discussion technique.

Next bit of advice: Do not share your computer/username with another person as it gets really difficult to be talking with someone and have it be another person. Personalities come through the keyboard and people can tell. They can be fooled for a while, but they will figure it out. I am not accusing anyone in particular of doing this, just throwing it out and letting it stick where it will.

Finally: There is a difference between discussing to reinforce your beliefs, discussing to find out others beliefs, discussing to consider opposing viewpoints and compare with your own and perhaps learn, discussing to irritate others. Each has its uses, make sure you are in the right forum for what you intend.

Questions not related to discussion manners: What have you done to help living, out of the uterus, human beings? What are YOU doing to make the world a better place? What are you doing to help babies, children, people in need? Have you adopted any, or fostered any, or been a BigBrother/Sister to any? Do you donate your time, energies or money to help those who HAVE been born and are suffering?

If you are sorry, get your butt out there and DO something. If "I'm sorry" is only words, bah to you.

[fishwax]

546. I not only think it's up for debate, I think it's patently absurd

and while you've been challenged on it for most of the night, you haven't been able to back it up.

So male-female human sex didn't evolve to procreate?

That's just more irrelevant misdirection.

Yes, male-female human sex is procreative at its root. But no, that does not mean that everytime a woman has sex she consents to conception or to carrying a child to term.

[originalpckelly]

559. Yes, she does. It is a known possible outcome...

and since she is aware of it when she commits to having unprotected sex, or in some cases protected sex, she is consenting to it.

[uppityperson]

564. No she doesn't. At least most the women I've ever known of.

I don't, and I do like sex. Don't consent to carry any embryo to term. Nope, not unless I CHOOSE to. My choice.

[originalpckelly]

582. You make the choice when you have sex. You can...

drastically reduce the risk you will become pregnant by using various forms of birth control, but you can't completely rule it out. It's possible for you to become pregnant, and so long as you made the choice to have sex, you made the choice to take the risk of pregnancy.

You may be delusional, you may not actually have a problem with killing another human, but in reality that's exactly what you are doing. And that's not some religious bullshit, it's a fact.

It has human DNA. It has the possibility of becoming an adult. If some unfortunate event, including abortion, doesn't happen, it will grow to be a baby, and then an adult.

You may think otherwise, but you're not basing your conclusions upon reality, and quite frankly basing conclusions upon abstract conceptions of the world, is the same type of delusion as Christian fundie believes in.

[uppityperson]

588. You've called me a slut, irrational, now delusional because I believe differently that you

Wow, aren't you the good discussion person. You keep missing the Choice part, where if I were to get pregnant I could chose to have an abortion. You keep missing the part where, contrary to you saying I am consenting to carry a baby to term by having sex, I am simply having sex to enjoy it or be close to my partner. Now I am delusional by not agreeing that having an abortion is killing another human. Wow.

[originalpckelly]

593. Why would you have an abortion?

[NMMNG]

619. Face it you tramps

Your only two choices are to never have sex or to be a baby incubator. If you consent to having sex you are consenting to having a baby--period. Men, of course, can f*ck to their hearts content with no consequences but women have only the choice of being celibate or consenting to pregnancy every time they spread their legs.

And if you have an abortion you're a heartless murderer. :sarcasm:

[fishwax]

583. knowing a possible outcome is not the same as giving consent to all of its ramifications

Again. When i get in a car, I know that one of the possible outcomes is that I will get in a car accident. That doesn't mean that I give my consent to other cars to hit me. It means I accept that risk as a possible outcome. How I deal with the eventualities remains up to me.

If I were to walk down a dark street by myself, I would do so knowing that being robbed might be a possibility. But that does not mean I am consenting to being robbed. It means that I engage in that behavior fully cognizant of possible consequences. How I react to those consequences remains up to me.

When I eat certain foods, I do so knowing that sometimes our food supply is not as safe as we might like it to be, and that as a result I might wind up with unhealthy organisms in my body. That doesn't mean I consent to being sick without taking recourse to whatever remedy I choose. It means I'm aware of possible outcomes, and I accept the risk of those possible outcomes. It doesn't mean I consent to anything and everything that happens as a result.

When a woman engages in consensual sex, she is likely aware that conception is a possibility. That doesn't mean she consents to carrying a fetus to term (or even to conception--as long as she rids her body of the organism before implantation, as with the morning after pill, it's okay with you, right?).

[originalpckelly]

586. You assume that abortion is an ethical remedy for consensual sex...

[beam me up scottie]

594. You assume that abortion is an ethical remedy for non consensual sex.

Abortion is either murder or it's not.

Which is it?

[originalpckelly]

597. You assume it's that simple.

As I have explained before it's not.

[uppityperson]

604. Abortion is either murder or it's not. Which is it?

[El Fuego]

653. It's not. Because "murder" is legally defined.

[beam me up scottie]

615. You didn't explain. Is it murder or not?

[fishwax]

595. abortion as a remedy for sex? What do you mean by that?

I don't think I assume that. I certainly won't admit to assuming that when I don't really know what you mean by it.

[originalpckelly]

601. A rememdy for pregnancy. Sorry.

[fishwax]

610. I assume that a woman has a right to control what happens to her body

[originalpckelly]

611. But what about the fetus. Doesn't it have the same right?

:shrug:

[uppityperson]

614. No. eom.

[fishwax]

617. it hasn't the capability, let alone the right

It never has had the capability, and without significant sacrifices by the mother, to the point that her health and even life are threatened, it never will. I don't agree that the fetus is a person with the same rights as you, me, or the mother. I don't accept that a woman cedes control of her body when she engages in consensual sex.

[Warren DeMontague]

633. You assume that it's your business to dictate to other people your *belief*

that a fertilized egg = "a baby".

So, do you support criminalization of the birth control pill, too? Because most of the major "pro-life" organizations consider it an abortifacent and morally equivalent to a surgical abortion. Either life begins at conception, or it doesn't- right? Black and white. Right?

How about IUDs? RU-486? Morning after pill?

[HuskiesHowls]

651. The Shakers believed that....

and what happened to the Shakers?? They died out because they only had sex to procreate, and they didn't procreate enough.

The bonobo chimps don't use sex just to procreate. In a bonobo society, sex is used as a power tool, much as it is used in human society.

[beam me up scottie]

435. But each sperm HAS the potential to become a baby.

If you are wasting it or killing it, you are killing the same life you claimed we were.

[originalpckelly]

470. If a sperm does not fertilize an egg, it cannot magically become a child.

It's fairly likely that unless a mother has an abortion and kills her fetus, that the fetus will in most cases grow to be a baby.

[beam me up scottie]

477. But if a man masturbates or uses spermicide, he's killing potential children.

Those sperm have just as much right to take a shot at life as any other.

Why should they be murdered?

[originalpckelly]

482. They do not have a chance at becoming life unless combined with an egg.

Just like the egg will not magically produce a human being without a sperm. (In any process which doesn't include cloning.)

[uppityperson]

488. But they could, if they were put in the vagina of a fertile woman

or maybe stored in the freezer for later use, but I think you need better equipment than a home freezer for that

[beam me up scottie]

489. They do not have a chance if you kill them.

That's half a baby. How could you?

[fishwax]

490. and the implanted embryo won't magically produce a human being without

nourishment and support from the host.

[originalpckelly]

504. This won't produce an intelligent human being without nourishment either:

[fishwax]

538. well, that *is* a human being

unless I'm missing something. It requires nourishment (then again, so do I), but it doesn't depend absolutely on a host organism and necessarily deplete the resources of that host (thus endangering that host) in order to survive.

Since you've been critical of what you call "neat tricks" from other posters, and since you called me out for mistyping "tje" instead of "the," I suppose I may as well point out the intellectual dishonesty in the slippage you've used to connect my original point--that a fetus, like a sperm, won't develop into a human being on its own--with your subject title here, which changes the debate to "intelligent human being."

[originalpckelly]

541. So when in your opinion does a human being become a human being?

[fishwax]

589. a human being is living outside of the womb

[originalpckelly]

599. Ok, just a human.

The fetus is a human fetus. How can you kill a human?

[fishwax]

608. a woman has a right to control what happens to her own body.

I don't believe an embryo is a person. I don't believe a fetus is a person. Whatever value an individual may place on the being growing inside a woman's womb, I don't believe that its rights supersede the right of a woman to control her own body.

[uppityperson]

486. did you know that at least 1/3 of pregnancies end in miscarriage?

fun little fact.

[originalpckelly]

525. Yes, very sad isn't it?

I personally know of someone who had a number of miscarriages, very shaken up by them. Like she lost a child.

Though I must correct you, it's more like 15-20%

[uppityperson]

551. Nope. I was wrong, 40-50%

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=3008486&mesg_id=3011733
I personally have had at least 1, think a couple more though not medically diagnosed. Some I was glad when over, 1 I missed the potential that wouldn't be.

[fishwax]

239. how does having sex equal consent to having a fetus use your body?

That makes no sense.

Being aware that an activity involves certain risks does not imply consent. When I get in my car, I am fully aware that another driver may strike my car, but that doesn't mean I give them consent to do so.

[beam me up scottie]

207. But the tumor has a right to live, joe.

I thought we covered this.

[originalpckelly]

229. A malignant tumor's nature is such that it will kill it's host, in all but the most rare...

circumstances.

It has no possibility of being an intelligent human being.

[beam me up scottie]

233. So will a fetus.

But you think you have the right to make her risk her life because she slept around.

[originalpckelly]

240. It's not guaranteed that the fetus will kills its mother...

only in cases where a mother's life is at risk, where I specifically stated she had the right as would any parent whose child was about to kill would have, to protect her life.

There is always the unforeseen risk a mother might die in childbirth, but that's a risk, we know for sure that the child will die.

[beam me up scottie]

242. It's not guaranteed it won't. And no, there is no "advance warning" every time.

So, who chooses?

[originalpckelly]

251. Risk: It is guaranteed that the fetus will die...

while it is a possibility that the mother will die during childbirth.

I can guarantee you that the fetus's rights will be taken away if it is aborted, it is no where near a guarantee that a mother will die during childbirth. And statistically speaking, it is incredibly rare in a developed country like the USA.

A 1 in 10,000 risk compared to a known death, which one is more likely to infringe on someone's rights?

[beam me up scottie]

255. Risk: An adult woman's life is on the line and you want to discuss percentages?

Who gets to choose to risk her life?

[originalpckelly]

260. She chose to risk her life.

Unfortunately, if you do not use contraception the right way, or if it fails, and then you are impregnated, and then you die in childbirth, the woman made that choice.

It sucks that that is reality, but it is. The result of sex, where contraception fails, and a woman is capable of being impregnated, is pregnancy in most cases. That's just science.

There are ways to get around that, but one must deal with the effects of not being fertile. And in some extremely odd cases, it's possible those may fail as well.

[beam me up scottie]

265. My contraception failed. You don't believe me. So I die. That about cover it?

You really should reconsider what you're asking me to do.

I could die.

[originalpckelly]

276. 1 in 10,000 risk?

In 1999, 396 women out of 3,959,417 died during childbirth. That's a 1/10000 risk. You can almost totally and completely, aside from the incompetence of a doctor or a freaky re-healing, eliminate the risk of pregnancy, without having to worry about killing another person.

[beam me up scottie]

282. I developed toxemia. They attempted a Cesarean. I bled to death.

Because of your religious beliefs.

[originalpckelly]

314. I vary between agnostic and atheist, you didn't die because of my religious beliefs.

Really. I promise.

[beam me up scottie]

321. So you're just a prude and a control freak?

Bad move. I can forgive religious whack jobs because they're brainwashed.

[originalpckelly]

341. Not one bit at all, I'm consitent.

I'm a liberal, and I believe in protecting the rights of everyone.

[uppityperson]

419. statistics mean nothing without a good source given

[fishwax]

271. No. She chose to have sex. Period. Nothing else.

You haven't demonstrated that an awareness of the possibility of a consequence is anything remotely the same as choosing that consequence. It's not the same as flipping a light switch.

[originalpckelly]

278. If someone is unaware of their bodily functions...

then I'd suggest they learn about them more before having sex.

[beam me up scottie]

285. So I deserve to die because of my bodily functions.

Keep it up.

[fishwax]

296. awareness doesn't equal consent

if you want to offer an argument that it does, then be my guest. But simply saying it doesn't make it so.

I had chicken for dinner. Eating chicken can be risky. All sorts of organisms can inhabit your body as a direct result. But while I was aware of that risk before picking up my utensil, that doesn't mean I give consent to those organisms to inhabit my body without intervention. I consented to the risk of an internal threat, and should that risk come to pass, I'll deal with that threat however I see fit.

A woman who engages in consensual sex consents to sex and admits the possibility of conception, however remote (depending on what precautions she takes). She doesn't consent to letting a foreign organism live inside her for nine months.

[LeftishBrit]

644. If I have normal contacts with other people, then I risk every now and then catching colds, flu, etc

Do I have no right to treatment because I chose to take the risk? I realize that you have different views from me as to when life begins; but I don't agree with bringing in whether someone 'chose' to take a risk. Practically everything we do in life involves a risk.

[mondo joe]

237. By your reasoning, is she smoked she gave consent to the tumor.

[originalpckelly]

241. True, but the whole matter is dependent upon both consent and consequence...

not one alone.

If the consequence is the loss of life on the part of the fetus, and the mother has consented to sex, then it would be wrong for her to have an abortion.

[beam me up scottie]

243. Consequence. As in punishment/you made your bed/suffer bitch?

That about cover it?

[originalpckelly]

256. No, consequence in the causality context, not in the punishment context...

I meant it in this context:
"If I turn on a lightswitch, the consequence will be a light turning on."

Not this context:
"If you eat more cookies than you are allowed to, there will be consequences young man."

[beam me up scottie]

259. Cookies? Light switches? I'm talking about MY LIFE here. Who chooses?

Are you going to tell me I have to take a chance of dying because I was careless?

[originalpckelly]

264. If someone makes that choice, it is there choice alone.

If you do a, b follows most of the time. In this case, if you are careless during sex, and you are capable of being impregnated, then it's very likely pregnancy will follow.

[beam me up scottie]

267. And if the rubber broke? What then? Do I deserve to die?

Spill.

[originalpckelly]

270. I'm sorry, but if it broke, you are going to have to deal with nine months...

of pregnancy because you chose to have sex.

That's the risk you accept. Evolution did it, not me.

If you are so paranoid or incapable of using a condom, then there are techniques of sterilization to practically eliminate the risk of pregnancy (in all but the most bizarre circumstances), when having sex.

[beam me up scottie]

274. So you just sentenced me to death because of a faulty product and your hangups about sex.

What a humanitarian.

[originalpckelly]

281. I don't care about how much sex you have...

all I care about is whether you kill a human fetus. That's it, have as much sex as you want :-).

[beam me up scottie]

Of course you don't, I'm the one who dies, remember?

Killing a human adult is fine with you apparently.

[originalpckelly]

295. Killing a human fetus is fine with you, apparently.

How would you have liked to have your mother abort you?

I've thought about that, and I quite like living.

[WindRavenX]

298. ROFL

How would you have liked to have your mother abort you?

Uh. I wouldn't have even known.

Plus, I rather like the fact my mother *chose* to have me rather than be *forced* to have me.

Welcome to my ignore list, I've thought about that too.

[beam me up scottie]

304. Oh, save this thread, honey. It doesn't get any better than this.

Look what it always ends up being about, no matter how "noble" their intentions are at the start.

[WindRavenX]

309. seriously, this is pure GOLD

"but I'm pro-choice!11111"

Sure you are, sure you :rofl:

Stupid women having control of their bodies....

[beam me up scottie]

301. Killing me is fine with you because I fucked a guy for fun, apparently.

It always comes back to men and their belief that women are nothing but property.

[originalpckelly]

308. Do you feel sorry for women who choose to have a child and die during childbirth?

[beam me up scottie]

315. We're talking about my death, don't change the subject. You killed me.

Do you feel sorry?

[originalpckelly]

318. I'd morn for any DUer.

I always do.

:cry:

^^Me mourning for your death.^^

[beam me up scottie]

322. No, actually, you've been arrested. My husband and motherless children just filed charges.

THey want to know why you were allowed to kill me.

[fishwax]

219. what does that have to do with the right to control her body

We do things all the time that entail risks (like, say, driving), but that doesn't forfeit our right to control our bodies should those risks come to pass.

[originalpckelly]

238. Good point about the driving, I have to think about that.

If we choose to drive, we may kill another person.

Most people can drive without killing another person.

This is similar to sex, people can have sex without procreating, but they also take the risk of killing someone.

Of course, the thing with sex is that the risk accepted is that of procreation, not the accidental death of another person. In most cases a woman will be able to choose whether or not to carry the baby, which is unlike a car accident, where the direct result of the risked action occurring is the death of the other person. The driver would probably choose not to kill the other person if they could, but they don't get that choice.

The mother who's accidentally impregnated, does get the choice as to whether to have an abortion.

[fishwax]

244. when you drive, you risk injury at the hands of others

but if you should have your leg broken in an accident, you retain the right to decide how to address that consequence. When a woman has sex, she risks pregnancy (a disability, by law), but her awareness of that risk does not forfeit her right to control how to address that consequence.

[originalpckelly]

288. If you drive, and someone hits your car, receiving medical treatment...

will only increase you chance of surviving (hopefully, these hospitals are going down hill these days.)

In no way will that take the life of another person.

And when two people are driving in separate cars, and they collide and they are killed, when they drive they accept the risk that that might happen. They should receive all medical attention possible, because again it only increases their likelihood of living, and it will not kill another person.

[beam me up scottie]

290. Forget the car. I'm not driving, I was raped. Am I sentenced to death?

[originalpckelly]

303. No, because as I said before this is a matter of consent and consequence (or results.)

Murder is usually defined as the intent to kill. Criminal negligence is usually defined as killing someone without the intent to do so, while doing something which resulted in the death of another person. And an accidental death is usually defined as killing someone without intending to and without doing anything which you could know would result in the death of another person.

If you are raped, you do not intend to kill the fetus, at the same time you did not consent to taking the risk of having a child. The consequence is a very grave one, and I would encourage someone not to have an abortion, but there is no reason you shouldn't, or that doing so would be unethical.

[beam me up scottie]

307. I was raped and you think I lied about it. I bleed to death.

Because of your belief that you should control my body and my life.

[originalpckelly]

312. No, I have thought about this for a very long time...

I can find no way whatsoever to read your mind and know beyond a reasonable doubt, what you thought. That's why I'm pro-choice.

[beam me up scottie]

317. So, you're saying that it is ALWAYS up to me whether or not I choose to terminate my pregnancy?

Always.

Think about it before you answer.

[originalpckelly]

324. I can't tell when you consented or when you didn't...

So in reality yes, you would have the right to choose. If you chose to have sex of your free will and had an abortion when you became pregnant, you'd be an awful, horrible person. I can still make you feel bad about doing something wrong.

The government can't outlaw abortion, but society can make you feel bad for having one. (Again only in cases where you chose to have sex, and there were no medical reasons for you to abort the child.)

There government is about what you can and cannot do, society is what you should or should not do.

At no time did I argue to outlaw abortion, you just assumed I thought that. Just as you assumed I was a fundie, or that I was really out to control your body instead of saving the life of a child.

[beam me up scottie]

328. Oh, I can have an abortion but I should "feel bad". Wow, I've come a long way baby.

I just committed suicide because I realized I'm a promiscuous slut with the morals of an alley cat.

[fishwax]

332. no need to suicide yourself, just

take the ann landers solution and give yourself 40 lashes with a wet noodle.

[beam me up scottie]

335. This is wonderful. I have never gotten one to go this far on DU before.

A historical moment.

[originalpckelly]

344. "One" what?

I think you need to stop being so rude. It's not nice to talk like that other DUers.

[beam me up scottie]

346. Oh and telling me I should die because I fucked for fun is nice?

Wow, you are something.

[originalpckelly]

343. Well, that's all your choice. You can choose to feel bad or not.

Society can only tell so much, you still have the right to do whatever with your life.

[beam me up scottie]

Yes, the scarlet letter S for slut was just tattooed on my forehead.

But if I feel bad it's my fault.

[originalpckelly]

351. You are just insulting me.

It's sad that we can't have a rational debate without people being insulted every five seconds.

[beam me up scottie]

354. No, I'm not. I'm using the reason you gave me for okaying my right to choose.

I should feel bad because I terminated a pregnancy.

[originalpckelly]

373. You repeatedly insulted me, you implied I was a fundie...

or a freeper. You should be ashamed you can't hold a conversation with another DUer on a controversial topic without insulting them. What's wrong with you anyway? You have an attitude problem that you need to get over. Not everyone who disagrees with you is evil.

[beam me up scottie]

376. Okay, first we're talking about MY life here, and second I did no such thing.

Anyone who thinks they can force me to carry a fetus to term isn't evil, but they sure are my enemy.

You told me I should die for being careless in bed.

I think I've showed superhuman restraint.

[originalpckelly]

382. You know, if you don't believe me, then you can look for yourself:

"I developed toxemia. They attempted a Cesarean. I bled to death. Updated at 8:20 AM

Because of your religious beliefs."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=3008486&mesg_id=3010458

Or maybe I'm wrong on that one?

What were you implying there? Hmmm? You assume a person has to be a brainwashed idiot to disagree with you. Do you know how incredibly insulting that is? Especially, when I've been an incredibly frequent poster on DU, not for the longest of times, but certainly long enough that I shouldn't be called a freeper when someone disagrees with me. How dare you insult me in such a way?

[Name removed]

385. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[originalpckelly]

386. I would never vote to take away your right to choose.

Keep it up, I don't think I've been insulted enough already. Please keep going.

So now you're saying that I'd vote for someone who'd take away your right to choose? I don't know of many Democrats who would do that, even ones who are like me and anti-abortion, are still pro-choice. So basically, you're calling me a freeper, because you're implying that I'd vote for a Republican or member of the Constitution party.

Thanks, it's a wonderful feeling to be insulted so many times in a row. Do I get to join some kind of club?

[beam me up scottie]

387. You said you would force me to carry a fetus to term if I had unprotected sex,

and you're insulted because I think you'd vote that way?

You're in a club, alright.

I'm going to save every one of your posts.

[originalpckelly]

388. I'd hope you'd care enough about the child you created to do it...

but like I said before, there's no way to read your mind, and that makes it impossible to regulate with government authority.

[beam me up scottie]

390. Here's one of your best:

She chose to risk her life.

Unfortunately, if you do not use contraception the right way, or if it fails, and then you are impregnated, and then you die in childbirth, the woman made that choice.

It sucks that that is reality, but it is. The result of sex, where contraception fails, and a woman is capable of being impregnated, is pregnancy in most cases. That's just science.

There are ways to get around that, but one must deal with the effects of not being fertile. And in some extremely odd cases, it's possible those may fail as well

[originalpckelly]

391. Yes, if a woman doesn't have an unethical abortion...

she's got that risk.

Now, I can't force that on her, because it's impossible to figure out if she consented to having sex, in a judicial process which would work beyond a reasonable doubt.

What am I saying here which is so absurd?

If a human fetus is left in its mother, and is not aborted, in most cases it will later be born, and then in most cases grow to be an adult.

I guess the question comes down to yourself. Are you in any way, shape or form glad you're alive right now? Aren't you even the slightest bit happy your mom chose not to abort you?

I know I can't prove it, but I bet most people on living Earth are glad, because they can always choose to not be here.

[beam me up scottie]

392. An "unethical" abortion? ARE YOU KIDDING???

Now, I can't force that on her, because it's impossible to figure out if she consented to having sex, in a judicial process which would work beyond a reasonable doubt.

What am I saying here which is so absurd?

Absurd?

Your posts are some of the most judgmental, arrogant and illiberal ones I have ever seen on DU.

Yeah, you're due for an award.

[originalpckelly]

396. Please answer yes or no:

1. If a fetus is not aborted, in most cases it will develop until birth, and then continue to develop until it is an adult human being.

2. Are you happy you were not aborted as a fetus, and that you are here today? (Aside from this discussion, which you seem to be angry over.)

3. Do you think it is logical to state that most other human beings want to live?

4. Do you think it is logical to state that fetuses, if they could choose, would want to live, like most people on Earth?

[beam me up scottie]

402. I mourn the millions of sperm that are murdered by careless men every day.

How do you live with yourself?

[originalpckelly]

404. What can you not answer the questions?

:shrug:

I think you know you're wrong.

[beam me up scottie]

406. You first:

1. If a sperm is left to its own devices, in most cases it will fertilize an egg, develop until birth, and then continue to develop until it is an adult human being.

2. Are you happy you did not die in a prophylactic, and that you are here today? (Aside from this discussion, which you seem to be angry over.)

3. Do you think it is logical to state that most other sperm want to live?

4. Do you think it is logical to state that sperm, if they could choose, would want to live, like most people on Earth?

[originalpckelly]

409. 1. No*

2. Yes

3. No**

4. Yes

* Sperm if left to their own devices will not produce a human being, I suggest you pull out a biology book.

** Sperm do not have brains, and they cannot think.

[beam me up scottie]

412. Okay, let's break this down:

1. If a sperm is left to its own devices, in most cases it will fertilize an egg, develop until birth, and then continue to develop until it is an adult human being.

You answered "No* Sperm do not have brains, and they cannot think."

**You didn't understand the question, you'll have to try that one again



2. Are you happy you did not die in a prophylactic, and that you are here today? (Aside from this discussion, which you seem to be angry over.)

You answered Yes



3. Do you think it is logical to state that most other sperm want to live?

You answered Yes



4. Do you think it is logical to state that sperm, if they could choose, would want to live, like most people on Earth?

You answered Yes

Based on your answers here, I would like to know how you justify masturbating and/or having sex using contraception.

If it is unethical for a woman to deprive a blastocyst of life, how is it any less ethical for a man to do the same to a sperm?

[originalpckelly]

421. Hey, that's a nice little trick you pulled, aren't you actually interested in quoting my answers?

1. No *

* Sperm if left to their own devices will not produce a human being, I suggest you pull out a biology book.

2. Yes

3. No**

** Sperm do not have brains, and they cannot think.

4. Yes

It was originally formatted:
"1. No*

2. Yes

3. No**

4. Yes

* Sperm if left to their own devices will not produce a human being, I suggest you pull out a biology book.

** Sperm do not have brains, and they cannot think."

Do you acknowledge that those were my answers, not the ones you posted?

[beam me up scottie]

425. Are you legally blind?

THe order of your answers is:

1. No

2. Yes

3. No

4. Yes


The order of answers I credited you with:

1. No

2. Yes

3. No

4. Yes


How the hell are they any different?



And you STILL didn't understand my first question:

1. If a sperm is left to its own devices, in most cases it will fertilize an egg, develop until birth, and then continue to develop until it is an adult human being.

If a sperm is not trapped in a prophylactic, it doesn't NEED brains to find it's way.

(much like the human it came out of) Yes, that was snarky, but after you made me retype everything for nothing, I deserved that one.

[originalpckelly]

446. If a sperm is not combined with an egg, either through a sexual act or otherwise...

it will not jump out of someone and into a woman. Someone has to get it there.

In most cases a sperm WILL NOT, even where there is a successful procreation, millions of sperm die in the process.

If a sperm is left to it's own devices, it will not just out of the blue fertilize an egg.

[beam me up scottie]

485. If sperm is not stuck in a condom/hand/towel/whatever, it can fertilize an egg.

Answer the question.

[originalpckelly]

517. Not unless it is in close enough proximity to an egg to fertilize it.

[uppityperson]

670. nasty snark and you made a booboo! boohoo

you said no yes yes yes. opck said no yes no yes. Different, and if you read them fast it is rather, oh, never mind.

[beam me up scottie]

445. Yoo hoo!

Hello?

Where did you go?

[uppityperson]

422. If a sperm is left to its own devices, in most cases it will fertilize an egg, develop until birth,

sperm can fertilize an egg and develop into a thinking human, hence they are pre-human.

[beam me up scottie]

426. Why thank you, I just had to retype the whole thing again.

I should have waited. :)

[uppityperson]

429. hi, this is an amazing topic.

simply amazing. DU has really had some doozies recently. Had to chirp in a little bit here too as it is just too annoying to read. Hiya!

[beam me up scottie]

437. Yes, and it's such a simple concept. Why can't he get it?

He spent all evening setting up the goalposts and then moving them.

Now all I did was ask the same four questions of him that he asked of me and he's stupefied.

[uppityperson]

438. maybe

he doesn't think we sluts deserve true answers, only to state things like "read up, a sperm can't become a person on its own" and "aren't you glad your ma didn't abort you, even though she was a slut". Think he doesn't want to answer.

[beam me up scottie]

441. Ooo, watch the potty mouth. It upsets him.

Don't want to appear angry, do we?

Just because someone tells us we should die for fucking?

We can't let our emotions get the best of us.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

432. One Of The Most Absurd And Ridiculously Twisted Illogical Return Arguments I've Ever Seen.

My god, I'm in awe of it.

"Sperm, left to its own devices, in most cases will fertilize an egg"? Oh my friggin god I never thought I'd see such a shockingly inaccurate and ridiculous statement like that in this thread. I mean holy cow.

Personally, I've always felt that those that try and use the sperm argument as being equal to the fetus or embryo itself, are as misguided and illogical as they come, or simply don't have what it takes to actually argue the true merits of abortion and pregnancy. The sperm argument is a completely weak one with no legitimate logic to support it.

To give you an example of the ludicrousness, if you mixed together all of the ingredients for a cake, preheated the oven and proceeded to put the mixed full batter in the oven, most people I know would in fact say "my CAKE is in the oven". However, if you hadn't mixed together anything, didn't even take out a bowl, oven isn't even on, and you open the fridge door and see an egg still in the crate, would you ever declare while pointing at the egg "My cake is in the fridge"? Wouldn't it be the most insane thing to hear someone declare such? I hope this illustrates a bit more why I find your post above to be completely twisted and misguided in its logic.

[noamnety]

545. Actually, the way this thread is going

instead of saying:

"However, if you hadn't mixed together anything, didn't even take out a bowl, oven isn't even on, and you open the fridge door and see an egg still in the crate, would you ever declare while pointing at the egg "My cake is in the fridge"?

I think that should be restated as:

"However, if you hadn't mixed together anything, didn't even take out a bowl, oven isn't even on, and you open the fridge door and see a chicken still in the crate, would you ever declare while pointing at the chicken "My cake is in the fridge"?

(since apparently some people don't see a clear distinction between an egg and a chicken.)

[uppityperson]

557. so this might actually be a picture of a cake, not a chicken embryo?

[originalpckelly]

565. Oh come on already. Quit acting like a complete fool...

you and both know that is not a fucking cake already.

If you're interested in debating, don't fuck around.

[uppityperson]

571. a "fucking cake"? OMG, does that mean we can expect muffins?

If you're interested in debating, answer questions put to you with answers, not with other questions. And you forget, I am a slut. Or am I complete fool? Or both?

[noamnety]

576. not muffins, pfffft.

Generally after the fucking cakes, we end up with buns in the oven.

[beam me up scottie]

577. ROFL! You got a "fucking" out of him!

[noamnety]

572. Yes, it's a potential cake, and thus - a cake!

Not only that, it's a chicken cake.

[beam me up scottie]

579. Just watch the rapist so he doesn't throw it in front of the car.

You know how they are about chicken cakes.

[beam me up scottie]

563. Fortunately, not all of them are that confused.

Although some of them are confused enough for an entire city.

[fishwax]

415. I'll answer your questions

though I won't limit myself to yes or no, since they don't make sense to me as yes or no questions.

1. If a fetus is not aborted, in most cases it will develop until birth, and then continue to develop until it is an adult human being.

I don't know the statistics, but that's certainly the natural progression (provided it gets adequate nutrition from its host, etc.)

2. Are you happy you were not aborted as a fetus, and that you are here today? (Aside from this discussion, which you seem to be angry over.)

Well, I'm glad I'm here. I'm not sure my mother could have aborted "me" as a fetus, because I don't think I was "me" then. But I'm happy to be alive.

3. Do you think it is logical to state that most other human beings want to live?

I think there is an instict for survival.

4. Do you think it is logical to state that fetuses, if they could choose, would want to live, like most people on Earth?

I don't think it's logical to postulate as to what, exactly, non-sentient entities would want if they were, in fact, sentient. At what point does the fetus become sentient? Three months seems to match the general consensus. At that point, it seems logical that a fetus might have the drive to survive as well.

Of course, that still doesn't make the fetus a person. It doesn't make it a baby. It doesn't mean it has rights or that it's life ought to be valued as an independent human life would.

[LeftishBrit]

649. OK. answering your questions

1. If a fetus is not aborted, in most cases it will develop until birth, and then continue to develop until it is an adult human being.

Actually, it's said to be about one-third of fertilized eggs that will do so; but OK, once you're aware of pregnancy it is 'most'.

2. Are you happy you were not aborted as a fetus, and that you are here today? (Aside from this discussion, which you seem to be angry over.)

As I said in my other post, this argument could be used equally against birth-control or abstinence.

3. Do you think it is logical to state that most other human beings want to live?

I don't know if 'logical' is the word; but it's doubtless true.


4. Do you think it is logical to state that fetuses, if they could choose, would want to live, like most people on Earth?


But the *whole point* is that fetuses are NOT capable of making any choices or having wishes. 'If they could choose' here does not mean 'if they were permitted to, or had the legal or physical power to choose'. It means 'if they were beings that had the capacity to form thoughts, or experience emotions, desires, or even basic physical sensations'. There could be arguments about fetuses having the capacity for some form of awareness (even then, not decision-making) in LATE pregnancy; and many countries *do* limit abortion on demand after the second trimester (by which time, abortions are very rare anyway).

Therefore saying 'if fetuses could choose, they would want to live' is a bit like the ironic saying in my family, 'if my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a train'. Grandmothers don't have wheels, and in a related saying, aunts don't have balls, and fetuses don't have desires.

[LeftishBrit]

645. 'Aren't you even the slightest bit happy your mom chose not to abort you? '

But logically doesn't this argument apply to ANY action that could prevent birth? Aren't you the slightest bit happy that your mum chose not to use birth-control or even just practice abstinence 9 months before you were born? By this logic, women should HAVE to have unprotected sex as often as possible during the fertile years. I realize you don't think so, but that's what the argument would lead to.

[XanaDUer]

641. You may not be a freeper...

but those are some freeper-ish ideas there. In case I am misreading your posts, a woman who has an abortion, after having consensual sexual intercourse, should feel that she has done an awful and horrible thing?

Why?

The freeperish part is the idea that the burden of any sexual activity that the woman may engage in for fun, or maybe just because she is horny, should fall upon a woman in the most horrible way possible; to carry a fetus to term, with all of the physical and mental problems inherent in pregnancy.

And, since no man can (yet) become pregnant, the undue burden(s) of pregnancy will never fall upon him-which sounds a bit like women must suffer the pangs of childbirth because of Eve or something.

Either a person controls their body, all its aspects, or they do not. One problem I have with the so-called pro-life crowd is that seem to think that carrying a child to term, and all the financial expenses associated with hospital stays, prenatal visits, etc., is like having a perm. If the woman is unmarried, she may lose her job because she is pregnant and single. There, where does that leave her or the fetus?

It is a very harsh, punitive view of women's sexuality, and that is why I say it is freeperish.

[uppityperson]

420. so an embryo concieved by accident rather than on purpose negatively is different?

I am having a hard time with this difference. If you have sex voluntarily, you took the risk of getting pregnant. If you were raped, had sex forced upon you, you can have an abortion. How does the embryo differ if conceived under these 2 circumstances? Why should the treatment be different? You are not being consistent here.

[beam me up scottie]

245. Only if she's "accidentally" impregnated? And how the fuck would you know?

Who chooses?

[originalpckelly]

291. Bingo.

That's why I'm pro-choice. It's absolutely impossible to figure that out, and you can't make someone wait around for a rape trial to finish.

I just want you to know what you are doing. I believe in logic and science, and that's all I have used in this debate.

If I have mis-stated a fact, please do correct me, because I'm solely interested in the truth.

[beam me up scottie]

299. No, you've painted yourself into the same corner all dominionists always do.

It starts out with a pass on rape and incest and ends up being about the sin of fornication.

[originalpckelly]

305. No, I don't give a damn about how much sex someone has. Really.

Don't call something or someone that I'm not. You wouldn't probably wouldn't like it, yourself.

[beam me up scottie]

313. I'm not the Virgin Mary. You just sentenced me to death because I had sex.

I know what I am, you're the one who needs to look in the mirror.

[originalpckelly]

316. Really, I'm not OK with taking a human life because of convenience.

Maybe you need to take a look in the mirror.

[beam me up scottie]

320. Convenience? I just bled to death and you talk about convenience?

How are you going to tell my father?

[originalpckelly]

325. You made the choice I didn't.

Like I said, there is no process to actually find out if you had an unnecessary abortion.

[fishwax]

329. so how does society determine which abortions to make one feel bad about?

that is society's job, you've said ;)

[originalpckelly]

334. Society can show to women through logic and science, that a totally unnecessary abortion...

is unethical. Society doesn't have to decide actually.

Women who know they've had a totally unnecessary abortion know they've had one. If they know why it's wrong, they'll feel bad about it. If they know they were raped or molested, or that their lives were on the line, they won't feel bad, aside from the trauma of having to go through an abortion.

[fishwax]

342. how is society to do that through logic? You haven't.

Your argument still relies on the logical leap that a woman who consents to sex consents to carrying a pregnancy to term, and that a fetus is a human being on par with you or I, endowed at conception with inalienable rights (except in the case of rape, in which case the rapist has voided the fetus's otherwise inalienable right to life).

[originalpckelly]

347. A woman has unprotected sex because she wants a baby, isn't she choosing to have a child?

:shrug:

[fishwax]

352. where did you limit it to unprotected sex? Or to those who want a baby?

If all you're really saying is that those who have unprotected sex because they want to have a baby, but then later decide to abort the baby that they intentionally conceived, are morally in the wrong, why don't you just say that?

[originalpckelly]

360. I don't think you understood my response.

If someone is not merely risking conception by using a condom or other birth control, but is intentionally forgoing contraception, aren't they choosing to have a child?

[beam me up scottie]

361. No

[originalpckelly]

363. Can anyone choose to have a child?

:shrug:

[beam me up scottie]

364. They do it every day.

[fishwax]

368. I understood your response, I just thought it was inaccurate and probably irrelevant

If someone is not merely risking conception by using a condom or other birth control, but is intentionally forgoing contraception, aren't they choosing to have a child?

I thought it was inaccurate because, no, someone who intentionally foregoes contraception is not choosing to have a child. They are choosing to engage in unprotected sex. A pregnancy may or may not result. If the same couple got in the car to drive three blocks to the gas station and deliberately decided to forego putting on their safety belt, they wouldn't be *choosing* to go flying through the windshield, even if they were in an accident on the way to the store and did, in fact, go flying through the windshield.

I thought it was pretty much irrelevant because it doesn't really address the issues that I raised in the post you were responding to, and instead tries to shift the focus of your claim--heretofore that any woman who engages in consensual sex is choosing to carry a child to term--to assert a much more limited claim.

[beam me up scottie]

357. You tell me.

You seem to be the expert on motive here.

[HuskiesHowls]

358. Wrong!!!!

Had a neighbor, many years ago who was against abortion. She and her husband, both. She was pregnant, but for some medical reason, the fetus died. Not her fault, she was taking good care of herself. Notice, the baby died, but she didn't miscarry. Don't ask me how, it happened. She spent 3 (count them, THREE) months agonizing over having a simple D&C (which happened to be a medical necessity in this case). The reason for all the agonizing?? She felt that abortion was wrong!! She damned near died over this.

[originalpckelly]

362. Well, I'm obviously not a typical person who's against abortion.

I would never make anyone do that. It's purely ridiculous, and it shows a lack of understanding of the science. If the baby was dead, there's no chance it was going to grow into a full adult.

I'm not surprised to hear that, because unfortunately most people who are against abortion at this point in time are irrational religious fundamentalists.

[beam me up scottie]

365. So only the religious people who think they have the right to force me to have a kid are irrational?

What about the other kind?

[uppityperson]

424. what defines a "totally unnecessary abortion"?

seriously, in your opinion? not "women who had one know" but your opinion.

[originalpckelly]

473. I hope you realize that doesn't make any sense whatsoever:

"seriously, in your opinion? not 'women who had one know' but your opinion."

Could you please say that again, in English?

[uppityperson]

480. I'll write slowly this time.

what defines a "totally unnecessary abortion"? Seriously, in your opinion, what defines a "totally unnecessary abortion"? To quote a previous thing you wrote "Women who know they've had a totally unnecessary abortion know they've had one." Please do not answer "women who know they've had a totally unnecessary abortion know they've had one" (again quoting you), but in YOUR opinion. What defines a "totally unnecessary abortion" (your words).

Clear enough to actually answer without simply asking another question? (Don't answer if it is clear enough or not since that was a rhetorical question)

[beam me up scottie]

331. No.YOU made the choice, you forced me to carry the fetus against my will.

Pay attention.

[originalpckelly]

337. I did no such thing, come back to reality.

It's not perfect here, but us reality based folks want more company.

[beam me up scottie]

345. Some of us reality based women want to be able to make our own life and death choices.

There is no fine line here. You cannot put conditions on my right to choose. Any one of them is a possible death sentence based on YOUR assessment of my moral character.

[originalpckelly]

349. You know, as I have explained before...

only in theory should the government have the right to interfere with your pregnancy/abortion.

In reality, there is absolutely no way for someone to choose that for you. You must make your own decision.

[beam me up scottie]

356. How many people are using your computer?

You just got done telling me I should die because I was careless in bed and now you're Mr. Liberal?

[originalpckelly]

370. You don't seem willing to think, so I can't see how this is useful..

you just want to be mean to me and call me names instead of thinking. You will note that at NO TIME did I call you a single name. No once, no matter how mean you've been to me. No matter how rude.

Maybe you could learn from that, eh?

[beam me up scottie]

377. Dude, you told me I should die for having unprotected sex.

I PREFER BEING CALLED NAMES!

[uppityperson]

627. odd, isn't it?

look onward, getting tired and whiney.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

380. !

:spray:

Holy cow to I hear ya on that one!

[fishwax]

326. I don't believe it's a human life

you still haven't convinced anyone of that, either.

But if it is a human life, as your argument ultimately seems to assume, why is it okay to take a human life for the sake of convenience in the case of rape--it is still an innocent human life being voided, right?

[originalpckelly]

330. It's not convenience, is it?

There are risks involved in being pregnant, as so many posters have shown. At no time did that woman actually choose to risk her life, that choice was forced on her by the rapist.

I don't think a woman ought to be forced to give up her life or to even put it on the line, without her consent. In fact, the abortion alone is risky, so she's already had her life put on the line.

The fetus is not a victim of the mother, it's a victim of the rapist.

[beam me up scottie]

333. So you decide which women get to die based on which ones you believe?

I was raped. You accused me of lying. I died.

Whose fault is it?

[originalpckelly]

340. No, I had absolutely nothing to do with your death.

Society is soft power, not hard power like the government. I can't make you do anything whatsoever in the area of society.

[beam me up scottie]

353. If you take away my right to choose, you're sentencing me to death.

In case you're still not getting it, you have no right to tell me if, when, and how I can terminate a pregnancy.

[fishwax]

336. I'll give you a 9.9 on your logical gymnastics

now we see that when a woman has consensual sex, she consents to risking her life, with no moral way of escape. Who knew?

[WindRavenX]

323. dude, cut the act

I because I'm solely interested in the truth.

Mmmhmm. Like telling women what to do with their bodies.

:rofl:

[WindRavenX]

248. here's a clue: It's not your body so shut the hell up

You do NOT get to decide what I do with my body--so kindly STFU on this subject.

For someone who claims to be pro-choice, you seem to be anything but.

Don't like abortion? Then don't have one.

[mainegreen]

168. Pro-Choice, Anti-Death Penalty, Pro-Assisted Suicide.

It's about freedom. Freedom over your body. I consider these three to be fundamental to my belief in allowing people personal liberty.
They go together with no contradictions at all.

[lala_rawraw]

174. that appears to confuse to very different things...

pro-choice is not pro-abortion, for starters. it simply argues from the position that a women's body is her own. secondly, in one case you are talking about a zygote while on the other, you are talking about a fully alive, fully aware, fully HERE human being. that is the most simple argument i could make without smashing my keyboard. it is one thing to ask a reasonable question, it is a whole other thing to make assumptions when you don't know the basics of each position.

[mondo joe]

176. Very simple: I believe everyone should have autonomy over their OWN body - hence

women have the authority to have something removed from their body.

That has nothing to do with the death penalty.

[Gregory_Wonderwheel]

178. Not only are apples not oranges, they are not chickens either.

Comparing pro-choice and anti-death penalty positions is like comparing apples and oranges. Or should I say apples and chickens?

Any two issues can find points of metaphorical comparison and difference. For example, apples and chickens are both able to reproduce. But merely finding points of similarity doesn't equate to making the issues turn on the same points of consideration.

A person convicted of murder in prison is different than a potential person in the womb of a mother. The reasons to prevent society from killing adult convicts are different than the reasons to prevent pregnant women from terminating their pregnancies. The distance between those differences is not traversed by the simple similarities of comparison.

For the murderer to be killed while held in prison has only the value of revenge. Revenge killing is demeaning and dehumanizing on the society that engages in it.

Allowing a mother to choose to terminate a pregnancy at the early stages is arguably demeaning and dehumanizing to the individual mother who makes that choice (though I don't agree that it is), but allowing the choice is not demeaning and dehumanizing to society, which is what laws should be about.

The factors to consider when terminating a pregnancy are not "all or nothing". The weight of the factors changes as the embryo grows and becomes more viable and termination becomes more invasive and dangerous. Thus, giving the choice to a woman and her doctor allowing them to weigh the circumstances and the medical issues involved within the general legal context of viability analysis is the only rational and humane approach to the question terminating pregnancy.

To equate the idea that convicted murderers are better dealt with by life imprisonment with the idea that no mother should ever be able to terminate a pregnancy is fundamentally irrational because the important points of equivalency just do not match.

[fishwax]

181. welcome to DU

:toast:

[MockSwede]

658. Welcome

Superwheel? - Keep the posts coming!

[Selatius]

179. The way you worded your entire post seems to turn off a lot of people.

The point with being pro-choice is that a person believes a woman has a right to decide for herself what is and isn't necessary. To equate the death penalty to abortion is, in one sense but not in all senses, to do what the Catholic Church does as well as religious fundamentalists do when they assert a lumping of cells within a uterus should be treated equally with a fully-grown human being, which by scientific definition is closer to that of a "parasite" and not that of an independent being. If we are to go down that path, then naturally a woman does not have a right to choose because the rights of the fetus weigh as much as that of the woman.

With respect to the death penalty, we fundamentally disagree, and we will likely never come to an agreement on the issue. I will say, in parting, that with respect to people like Saddam Hussein and others, I would rather they be given a chance to change their minds about what they have done than give them no chance by hanging them, gassing them, or putting a bullet in their head like they do in North Korea or China. It is not just that. I would also say the point in letting them live is a fundamental fulfillment of the teachings of forgiveness that Jesus and others such as Gandhi have tried to teach us all.

[BlooInBloo]

184. I dunno. How can you be an idiot but function in society?

EDIT: Missing word in subject.

[beam me up scottie]

194. That's what I was wondering.

It's a good thing for some people that breathing is involuntary.

[HughMoran]

667. Typical snide remarks

from you and bloo. What else is new? :shrug:

[GreenPartyVoter]

193. Simple. It's not about the punishment of the guily. It's about

not punishing the innocent. Our justice system has put away a lot of innocent people. Kinda hard to let them back out after they have been exonerated if you have put them to death.

Until we have a foolproof justice system that never locks up the innocent, the death penalty should be off the table.

[flvegan]

196. I have a problem with people killing people for revenge or vengeance, which is all

the death penalty is.

Choice is just that. You "think that abortion is killing a living being" and that's debatable, as well as the motives behind it. You can't compare the two. What's just plain silly, is that you make this post, yet you're alright with the death penalty but anti-abortion.

Set the boundaries for when/how/why we can kill them, then line them up, seems like.

[Beelzebud]

200. Pro Choice is not pro abortian, it's for the safety of the mother should she NEED an abortion.

I'm pissed about what I've been seeing on DU the past couple of days.

I think there are a lot of people here that don't even understand what it is to be a liberal.

If a woman needs an abortion to save her life, she shouldn't be given that CHOICE?

How do you even equate this to the death penalty?

[Connonym]

218. You ask a valid question

I've given some thought to this because I am pro-choice and against the death penalty and I've wondered at the dichotomy too. I'm opposed to the death penalty because I believe that state-sanctioned killing like hitting your kid to teach him not to hit people. I don't think it works as a deterrent. There is room for error and innocent people are executed and later exonerated. In the united states it seems a dysproportional number of executions are minorities and that troubles me. What crimes deserve the death penalty? I also think that prison should be about rehabilitating and not about punishment. Part of it too, certainly, is that I was raised catholic and was taught from a young age that capital punishment was wrong. I'm not catholic any more but some stuff sticks.

Also as a catholic I was raised to think abortion is wrong but my feelings on that have changed. I don't know when life begins and this may seem harsh but if a fetus can't live outside the mother's womb it is (in my way of thinking) a piece of that woman's body, much the way a liver or a kidney is part of her body. I don't believe that it's right to force a woman to go through a pregnancy she does not want. Birth control fails, sometimes pregnancy threatens the life of the mother (ectopic pregnancies for example) or a pregnancy is the result of sexual assault. When you start making exceptions based on these factors it's one of those slippery slopes again. How to we decide which circumstances justify elective abortion, who gets to choose and who doesn't get a choice? Plain and simple I believe that it's a personal decision that can only be made by the pregnant woman herself. She is an actual human being and not a potential human being so her rights supercede the rights of the fetus.

The world isn't black and white, these are complicated matters and it's hard to decide which shades of grey are allowed and who gets to choose them. I think the default position should be the one that best preserves the human rights of those involved.

That's my 2 cents.

[Quixote1818]

226. The death penalty is the State killing people

while Abortion is a mother making the decision to not allow her zygote to mature.

I just don't think the State should be in the business of killing ANYONE!

[Nikia]

227. In the case of abortion, there are two conflicting sets of rights

The rights of the woman and the rights of the fetus. The woman is already a conscious, thinking person with full rights under the law. The fetus is life, coming closer to being a person as it develops. It does not have full legal rights nor is it a conscious, thinking person. When the rights of these two entities conflict, the woman's rights must be given priority. She has a right to an abortion.

[rpgamerd00d]

250. I am Pro Choice and pro Death Penalty.

I think that there are cases where the DP is clearly warranted. Saddam being a prime example, and yes, Charles Manson another prime example.

What I find amusing about most of the DUers you have "called out" in this thread, is their lack of conviction. This is EXACTLY what the Republicans bash us over the head with every goddamn election. "What do the Democrats stand for? We know what they stand against!" and "They are quick to critize, but have no Plan themselves!"

In order to have a Plan, in order to have a Conviction, you have to Believe you are correct. I can post links to dozens of DUers who say things like "I'll let 20 child rapists live in jail, if it saves one innocent person from erroneous death." Say WHAT?! Sorry, I'd kill the 20 child rapists and if I killed an innocent person, I'd feel horrible about it. But I wouldn't change my policy of killing child rapists, I'd find out why the mistake was made, and correct it so that misake was never made again. Eventually, the process would improve to the point where no innocent people are being killed, just the child rapists.

Also, a lot of DUers have said "killing someone does not set an example of why you shouldn't kill someone". Um... duh! Yes it does! It goes like this: "If you kill someone, we will KILL YOU, so DON'T FUCKING KILL ANYONE." I mean, you pretty much have to be braindead to miss this correlation.

[WindRavenX]

252. There is absolutely no "deterrent" effect of the DP

That has been thoroughly debunked.

on edit: here's a link:

http://www.amnestyusa.org/abolish/deterrence.html

[rpgamerd00d]

257. 100% bullshit.

The reason I don't kill people is that I will be punished for it, likely put to death.
That, and I'm non-violent by nature.
But to sit there and claim that harsh punishment for crimes isn't a deterrent when it is to me is just silly. Im living proof of it.

[WindRavenX]

261. Super-- empirical data shows the exact opposite of what you're saying

The link posted has FBI data comparing the homicide rates of DP states versus non-DP states.

[rpgamerd00d]

263. Pfft, that data is so horribly flawed.

There is no correlation between the DP and crime rate, and that data does not show one. All it shows is a cross matrix of crime rate vs DP. Nothing more.

[WindRavenX]

266. But you're claiming that there IS a correlation between DP and crime rate

You're saying that the DP acts as a deterrent--which would show in a reduction in crime rate.

So, no, that data is not horribly flawed.

[rpgamerd00d]

280. Incorrect.

Crime rate may or may not be affected by the DP in the very data you linked. Unfortunately, other factors also affected the crime rate, which are NOT displayed in the data. That makes the data flawed and useless.

for example:
- DP is instituted (driving the rate down) while that same year, racial tensions in that state soar (driving them way up) - result: rate goes up, flawing your chart which only shows DP vs Crime Rate omitting all other factors.

[WindRavenX]

287. Then why are you claiming the DP prevents people from committing acts of murder?

You yourself said that. :shrug:

[rpgamerd00d]

297. Because it prevents me from doing it, therefore there is a non-0 number of people it deters.

[WindRavenX]

302. ...do you even read what you're posting?

non-0 number of people it deters.

So...it deters you...so it doesn't really count?

huh?

[fishwax]

300. it's just that the correlation is covered up by invisible factors in all the years

of data on the subject. What are those factors? Tough to say, and it's probably different in the case of each state. But the important thing to remember is that there are invisible and undeterminable factors which make your data irrelevant.

Apparently, "conviction" also means belieiving what you believe even when the facts are biased against you :rofl:

[peacebaby3]

411. Try this if you think the other is so wrong. This is the murder rate from

the FBI statistics. Along with a lot of other info about deterrence that you need to educate yourself about. In fact, you are completely ignorant on many things about the DP in this country.

<http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=12&did=168>

It is also worth noting that the South is the region in this country that has the highest murder rate (as of 2005 and most previous years) at 6.6 per 100,000 people in the region. The South accounts for over 80% of executions in this country. Contrast that with the Northeast as a region that has a murder rate of 4.4 per 100,000 - the lowest murder rate for a region in the country - and they account less than 1% of all executions that year.

Hmmmm...the facts verses your flawed reasoning because what keeps your from murdering someone is the death penalty??? I'll go with the facts.

[beam me up scottie]

262. You really shouldn't post the words "100% Bullshit" & "living proof of it" at the same time.

Just a suggestion. :shrug:

[fishwax]

273. so you'd consider killing people if the only punishment were life in prison

good to know ...

[Kerrytravelers]

283. So, you're non-violent, but the reason you don't kill people is because you'd get the death penalty?

And you're living proof?

I think making such ridiculous comments is silly.

I've heard some decent arguments in favor of the death penalty. I'm still against it, but at least the arguments in favor of it are more concrete rather than I'm living proof.

If the main object of this thread is to convince more people that the death penalty works, you might want to try a bit more solid of a thought, or find someone else to present the arguments in a more convincing style because so far, my mind isn't anywhere near changing.

[rpgamerd00d]

292. All I said was that the DP deters me bigtime.

I don't want to die, so I don't commit crimes.

[fishwax]

306. what keeps you from stealing?

[Kerrytravelers]

327. And you are someone who is probably educated and not violent by nature.

Many of the people who wind up receiving the death penalty are uneducated, from poverty and have grown up in violent circumstances. They know nothing more. It is the unequal society that has brought on these conditions and let other human beings grow and develop under these conditions.

And, also due to situations of extreme poverty, many people have little to no education and find themselves receiving a guilty verdict because they had no money to hire adequate legal representation nor the ability to defend themselves in order to get true justice.

I would suggest reading about the Innocence Project http://www.innocenceproject.org/ and it's links page http://www.innocenceproject.org/links/index.php , the Justice Project http://thejusticeproject.org/ , the Death Penalty Information Center http://deathpenaltyinfo.org/ , and Death Penalty Focus http://www.deathpenalty.org/ . Everyone involved in these organizations are not some duped, wimpy liberals who contradict themselves. The information is interesting and makes one really stop and think about exactly what the death penalty is.

To be in favor of the death penalty doesn't in itself make one brutal, but the joy over the execution of another human being does. And to compare the state-led execution to the private decision of a woman, her family and whomever she chooses to confide in as somehow the same shows a lack of true comprehension on either of the two subjects. I'm sorry to be so harsh, but I don't find your responses in this thread to be well articulated. Perhaps I am misjudging you, but to start such an obvious flame bait, one should be prepared to offer concrete facts, not just "I'm living proof" and "to me it's a silly argument."

And, in all fairness, I most likely won't see your response tonight as I have a New year's Eve party to prepare for. I hope you've taken this post for exactly what it is, not an attempt to insult, but a true reaction to this thread, not to you as a person.

[RetroLounge]

339. The DP keeps you from shoplifting?

:wow:

RL

[Danger Mouse]

366. The death penalty as punishment for everything!

Sneezing in public - death!
Littering - death!
Indecent exposure - death!

[Liberal Veteran]

648. I'm fascinated by that statement.

Personally, I don't kill people because I consider it to be morally reprehensible and have a system of values that say murder is wrong.

You on the other hand are only kept from being a murderer because you are afraid of the death penalty?

I don't think that's anything to go around bragging about.

[LynnTheDem]

293. America is the only first-world nation that has the DP. So Canada,

the UK, all of Europe et al must be just raging fulla murderers, what with no "deterrent".

:eyes:

[NMMNG]

487. That is really lame

If the death penalty is your main reason for not killing people your morals are seriously out of whack.

And people claim we're immoral. :yoiks:

[Liberal Veteran]

647. Gee....so you are saying you would be a murderer but for DP?

What an interesting commentary on yourself.

[fishwax]

269. hogwash

most of those who are pro-choice and against the death penalty lack conviction? What hogwash.

[WindRavenX]

272. conviction seems to be code for...

..."Let's kill a bunch of people in the name of justice--to hell if innocents get in the way!"

:eyes:

[fishwax]

279. yeah, I think that covers it

what dictionary is that from again?

:rofl:

:eyes:

[GreenEyedLefty]

275. I'll post then read the replies...

I'm pro-choice and anti-death penalty. I don't believe that life begins at conception. There is the potential for human life, but IMO an unborn fetus is not a sentient human being vested with full human rights.

I am anti-death penalty because I believe that every life has a purpose and even the very worst among us has the capacity for and should have every opportunity for redemption.

This is my very simplified view on these issues, for what it's worth.

[fishwax]

284. welcome to DU

:toast:

and have fun reading the replies ;)

[GreenEyedLefty]

289. Thank you...

...and this is some good reading...

[fishwax]

310. feel free to jump in

It is good reading, indeed.

Folks say that GD can be a dangerous place--this thread is as good a place as any to get your button :)

[Nevernose]

319. And out of 275+ posts

Yours is the only first one I've read that I agree with. A fetus is not a person, only a potential person. It's just a clump of cells. There is a huge difference between "is" a person and "might" be a person.

[Erika]

378. So many of the GOP are against even birth control

because a cell is a potential human. Garbage.

[Strelnikov_]

401. Pro-Choice For Reasons Similar To Yours

Regarding the death penalty, I am against it because of the unequal way it is applied.

The death penalty generally seems to be meted out primarily to the poor and minorities. Also, my bar is 100% certainty before the State can take a life, and there are very few cases where we have this certainty.

There are some people (Hussein, Bundy, Gacy, etc.) who have forfeited their right to life due to the heinous nature of their crimes. But if we open the gates for them, the scale will simply continue to slide, as we have seen, until people convicted with limited evidence are on death row in 'certain' States.

[HuskiesHowls]

277. For a rather long and erudite study on the history of abortion

and the beginning of "life", you should read the entirety of the original Roe v Wade decision written by Justice Blackmun. It delves deeply into this, and goes back to English common law, the Oath of Hippocrates, Greek and Roman laws and beliefs, and the reasoning behind them.

http://www.tourolaw.edu/Patch/Roe

[Arugula Latte]

311. Wow, if you think only GUILTY people get the death penalty, you are naive beyond words.

DNA has proven that many innocent people have been murdered in your name and mine.

[WindRavenX]

338. that's it, no thread is ever gonna top this one

If only we could add circumcision to this fray, then truly, we have reached the pinnacle of DU :D

[originalpckelly]

389. A circumcised sting-ray on top of mount hood, which smokes a pack a day?

[Lipton64]

348. I've frequently asked pro-choice friends of mine the same question....

I'm a pro-life(in most cases) Dem and damn proud of it. To me, its a contradiction to be "pro-life" and yet support the death of inmates in prison. If you truly are "pro-life" then you have to be pro-life across the board.

[SidDithers]

350. Over 300 responses, and not one recommendation...

certainly says something about the quality of the argument in the opening post.

Sid

[fishwax]

355. gotta agree with you there n/t

[Danger Mouse]

359. Actually, what I wondered was...

...how rethugs could FOR the death penalty and yet 'pro-life'...i HATE the term pro-life...it makes it seems like when I say I'm pro-choice I'm actually pro-death...yay death!

[Dastard Stepchild]

369. I suppose because I could theoretically make the argument...

that a fetus is not an autonomous individual, is not cognizant of its impending mortality, and does not have any specific rights to life or liberty.

I actually do not favor abortion or the death penalty, but I am pro-choice because I think it is a necessary legality that I do not want taken away from women. I don't know that I am yet convinced that the death penalty is a necessary legality that needs to be present in our criminal justice system.

It's odd - having been raised Catholic, I can see the roots of my belief regarding the death penalty (sanctity of life). However, I stray from that upbringing on the issue of abortion. It's not a complete hypocrisy though... I'm not a "life begins at conception" gal, but rather a "life begins at the time in which the fetus can biologically function on its own" type gal. So, really, I suppose I see life as something that exists outside the womb. And thus, my own personal feelings of being pro-choice and not supporting the death penalty are not really in conflict. I sanctify life, but I apparently place certain stipulations on when life begins, and this forms the basis of my seemingly contradictory beliefs - under my definitions, they do not really conflict at all.

[HuskiesHowls]

371. Actually, its quite easy.

Nowhere in my "Liberal's Handbook" does it say that I have to believe in "B" if I believe in "A". However, it does state that I do not have to believe the same as other people do. Further, it states that because I am a liberal, I am free to make up my own mind, and I can even change my mind at some future time without penalty.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

372. Though I Think It's Far More Severe To Kill With The DP, I Also Agree That Abortion Terminates Life.

I think the biggest difference stems from one side being aware of their existence and the love for that existence. I think that 'awareness' to being alive and the anguish that goes along with facing the loss of that life, as well all the family and friends that have spent years knowing and loving that person who will hurt tremendously with their demise, makes the DP far more severe of the two.

Having that said, I do also agree that each pregnancy is a life and that abortion stops that life cold as well. It is also the most innocent and feeble form of life as it has not yet acquired any ability to defend itself or think for itself. That's why I feel that as Democrats we should advocate for whatever resources, education etc as possible to avoid the need or desire for abortions as much as possible. Since abortion does take a life, it's my opinion that the decision to have one should always be a heavy one and most often it is.

But I can definitely see how some could be against the DP but not abortion, as though it seems they could be compared they are really kinda two completely different things. My problem with the DP is that inherent within it is the risk of killing someone who is innocent, which has happened before. In addition to that, I've always felt the DP also hurts the innocent, as the family of the person executed goes through a lot of mental anguish knowing their son, daughter, brother, sister has been executed. Not sure if that's a valid argument, though, since really that's the fault of the murderer to begin with. But mainly for me it's the risk of killing the innocent and a little bit also of sometimes killing someone who though they murdered, was so long ago and they may have changed so much that they really don't deserve the DP anymore. But though I'm against the DP, I'm not like RABIDLY against it. There are definitely some whose crimes were so brutal or heinous that I'm really not going to blink when they're executed, since I can't say they don't deserve it to an extent.

So all in all, I hear what you're sayin. I think both abortion and the DP takes a life, one the most innocent and one the most heinous, but the latter one being aware of their existence and extermination. Some could argue that the former is worse because of the innocence and lack of even being old enough yet to be aware, but I think being aware of existence makes it far more severe. But that comparison isn't equal anyway, since the one receiving what I consider to be the more cruel end of the stick is the one who deserves the cruel end of the stick, which is some murderous thug or whatever.

So at this point I'm probably just rambling and confusing myself with my thoughts LOL. In closing I guess all I have to add is that in reference to Saddam, he was the utmost evil and brutal piece of shit and if the DP is ever to be used, it definitely should be so for scumbags like him. No problem with his execution whatsoever on my end. Good riddance to him.

[Erika]

374. 14th century rulers considered masturbating murder

Because all those cells could have become lives.

Get real.

[beam me up scottie]

393. We haven't come that far, Ericka:

Yes, if a woman doesn't have an unethical abortion...

she's got that risk.

Now, I can't force that on her, because it's impossible to figure out if she consented to having sex, in a judicial process which would work beyond a reasonable doubt.

What am I saying here which is so absurd?

If a human fetus is left in its mother, and is not aborted, in most cases it will later be born, and then in most cases grow to be an adult.

I guess the question comes down to yourself. Are you in any way, shape or form glad you're alive right now? Aren't you even the slightest bit happy your mom chose not to abort you?

I know I can't prove it, but I bet most people on living Earth are glad, because they can always choose to not be here.

[Erika]

394. What remarks did the sperm of the 14th Cen. masturbators have?

After all, they have their rights. Males were prosecuted for murder for ejaculating without the possibility of birth. Poor sperm.

[originalpckelly]

397. ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanticide#Infanticide_in_history

"Jewish and Roman texts indicate that newborn babies were not traditionally considered to be human, or even fully alive, until they were several weeks old."

[beam me up scottie]

403. But you're responsible for the deaths of millions of babies that could have been!

For shame.

[originalpckelly]

405. Yeah, haha!

I really think every sperm is sacred. Wooh, you really got me that time.

:eyes:

[beam me up scottie]

407. What? I'm using your logic. Why are you so angry?

What's the difference between a sperm and a blastocyst?

[Erika]

410. Quit being insensitive to human life

I mean the 14th Century people were so much more sensitive and pro-life. Every sperm is human, it deserves to live. It is sacred. If it's not human, what is it?

[beam me up scottie]

413. Ding Ding Ding

That is the question, isn't it?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=3008486&mesg_id=3011415

[beam me up scottie]

398. GOOD ANSWER!

:rofl:

[liberalpragmatist]

395. A better analogy would be abortion and euthanasia

Personally, I don't consider an embryo or foetus to be the moral equivalent of a living, breathing human being (although I have moral problems with late-term abortions not undertaken for a medical necessity). I consider the developing child a "potential" life that has rights but not ones that necessarily supercede that of the mother carrying it.

The death penalty is taking what is indisputedly life.

However, on one level, abortion is about a "life worth living." As such, a better analogy would be euthanasia, assisted suicide, and right-to-die cases. I favor permitting euthanasia because I believe that terminally ill people ought to have the right to die with dignity. For a foetus, that decision is refered to the parents (especially the mother). If she can't provide for that child and doesn't believe in bringing a child into the world that won't be cared for well, she's making a judgment similar to that of individuals choosing to die with dignity.

I would add that the death penalty is done purely out of vengeance. Saddam Hussein's death does not make anybody in the world objectively better off - it merely satisfies a desire for revenge.

[Erika]

399. Yeah, my biggest desire is to expire in peace

if I have a terminal disease. I don't wish expensive procedures or anything else to keep me alive. I just wish a quiet death with relative little pain.

[Malikshah]

400. Methinks the OP doth protest too much..

"These are my opinions, and it isn't meant to piss people off and start WWIII. It's how I think and I am interested in hearing what other people are thinking. I respect the opinions of others (here anyway) even when we disagree, so I am hoping this doesn't start a name calling all out brawl."

Get thee to a trollery!

Mayhap others will join thee anon!

P.S. Hey nonny nonny, and all that. :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes:

[Bluebear]

408. "Get thee to a trollery!" is right.

What a bunch of flame bait bullshit.

[NMMNG]

423. 1. Innocent people are sometimes put to death via the Death Penalty

2. Even when the person is, beyond a doubt, guilty, killing to show that killing is wrong is absurd and barbaric. Shall we start beating men who beat their wives and/or children? Shall we rape the rapists? Shall we shoot people who shoot others? Where does "an eye for an eye" end?

[Erika]

427. You got the picture

As I was taught as a small child, two wrongs will never make a right. Profoundly simple.

[Warren DeMontague]

567. So you believe that, at the moment of conception, sperm & egg magically transmogrify instantly into

a "living being"?

So. Are the sperm and unfertilized egg not alive?

Seriously. I'd like a fucking answer for this. Because we're all supposed to take it as gospel truth that a single fertilized egg is a "living being" but the unfertilized egg and the sperms are bupkus. C'mon. If we're seriously going to adopt the axiomatic beliefs of the movement that wants to grant rights under the 14th Amendment to single cells, Shouldn't we be wringing our hands over The Preconceived Babies, too?

I think if you're going to go on about how abortion -every abortion, (including morning after contraception, RU-486, and the pill, which the pro-lifers consider an abortifacent as well) kills something "living and innocent", I think you need to explain precisely why sperms and unfertilized eggs aren't living and innocent, too.

Okay? I'll wait.

Now. Personally, I'm not *against* the Death Penalty in all cases. Not this one. I figure if it was okay to use it on Eichmann (it was) it's justified on Saddam. My opposition to the Death Penalty as a legal punishment in this country has more to do with the fact that I know our Justice System convicts people wrongly, more often than not with race and economics being strongly weighted factors leading towards death penalty convictions. And life in prison isn't any kind of a treat, but at least when it becomes clear down the road that someone fucked up, the mistake can be addressed. I'd like to see our prisons full of ALL violent criminals, permanently separated from society, and I'd like to see us stop wasting billions of dollars incarcerating non-violent offenders, like drug users.

But I really don't understand why you, as someone who is (or claims to be) pro-choice, is conflating these issues. A woman's right to control her own body and to reproductive self-determination has jack diddly fucking squat to do with Saddam Hussein, aside from maybe the fact that George W. Bush waged war on Saddam Hussein's Iraq (and continues to do so, even though he's dead now. If the war was about Saddam, shouldn't we be bringing the troops home?) and George W. Bush is simultaneously waging war on the right to choose, the right to use birth control, and the right of people to make their own decisions about their own lives and bodies. Oh, and George W. Bush's war on Iraq will probably leave that country a repressive Theocracy run by religious loonies- similar to what he'd like to do to this country.

[Warren Stupidity]

652. The op clarified this to be 13+ weeks.

Which begs the question as exactly what is the difference between the 12 week 6 day 23 hour 59 minute 59 second fetus and the 13 week fetus?

The SCOTUS seemed to come to a reasonable position on this subissue with the difference of viability and with their declaration that this occurs in the third trimester.

[Warren DeMontague]

680. Then I think the OP should research as to when, exactly, the VAST MAJORITY of abortions

take place.

I think it's plainly obvious that there's a difference between a fertilized egg and a 3rd trimester fetus. What is bullshit is this rightwing propaganda noise that women are running around for 8 months and then deciding on a whim to get abortions, presumably because they "look fat". Like bon-bon eating welfare queens, this phenomenon only exists in the deluded minds of right wing crazies. And the circumstances surrounding actual later term abortions have been detailed time and time again- women facing pregnancies gone horribly wrong, etc. The bottom line is, people need to trust women and their doctors to be capable of making these calls, and not try to make them FOR them.

[JNelson6563]

635. We kill people to teach them killing's wrong

Yep, makes perfect sense to me. :sarcasm:

Sometimes I envy those with black/white vision. Life must seem so much simpler with it.

Julie

[gollygee]

640. Bodily autonomy

A woman has a right to sustain a fetus with her body or not. The state doesn't own her womb, her blood supply, etc.

If a woman gives birth to a child and that child needs a blood transfusion, the government can't force her to donate blood to sustain the child's life. But for some reason people think that the government should be able to force her to sustain the fetus against her will before birth.

The death penalty is wrong for entirely unrelated reasons. It is ineffective, the actual practice of it is extremely unfair (people who are white and/or have money are much less likely under similar circumstances to receive the death penalty), and there is a chance that innocent people could be executed.

[Renew Deal]

642. That's the point Va. Governer Tim Kaine tried to make during the 2005 campaign.

He was anti-choice and anti-death penalty. It was the only consistent view in his opinion based on his beliefs. He got elected even the the pukes tried to make an issue out of the death penalty.

[Liberal Veteran]

646. Civilized societies don't use the death penalty.

128 countries don't use the death penalty, but 60 do.

You are in the minority.

Cope.

[leesa]

650. Because a fetus isn't viable.

[Doctor_J]

654. One is state-sactioned murder. The other is a PRIVATE matter

between a woman and her physician.

Yeesh

[Gregorian]

655. Don't you mean "suicide"?

Maybe a personal death penalty.

Choice is choice. Death penalty is imposed.

[mzmolly]

656. Are you equating a fetus to a human being who knows life/fear/pain?

:wow:

[Bluebear]

673. 'I do think that abortion means killing a living being.'

'Abortion terminates the life of something living and INNOCENT.'

Yes, the OP seems to be doing just that.

[mzmolly]

677. Thanks BB. Plants are "living and innocent" too,

but I don't equate them to a person who knows pain and fear. Not to make light of the issue or to compare a fetus to a carrot, but we do need to make distinctions IMHO.

:hi:

[Bluebear]

691. Hi mm

And happy new year!

[mzmolly]

692. Happy New Year to you as well!

:hug:

[MockSwede]

657. No Brawl

Yep - my thoughts, too. K&R

[Madspirit]

661. DP vs. Abortion

I am totally opposed to the death penalty. You cannot combat barbarism by committing barbarism. I am pro-choice until the last trimester and then I am totally opposed to abortion. I have a friend who's child was born at six months. It wasn't a gorram cluster of cells. It was a perfectly sentient, two arms, two legs, ten toes, ten fingers...baby and you don't get to kill babies simply because they are pesky. If you can wait that long...six months...you can wait three more and put it up for adoption. Before six months, I am totally pro-choice. It cannot live outside the body so forcing a woman to have it would be...as Ruth Bader Ginsberg said...the equivalent of reducing women to chattel.
...and just fyi...I am 52, a leftist, a lesbian and I have had an abortion.
Madspirit

[fishwax]

662. welcome to DU, madspirit

:hi:

[uppityperson]

671. Welcome to DU Madspirit and I feel as you do

There are far far far far far fewew abortions during the last trimester, difficult to find someone who will do one "just because" and I get so tired of people focusing the debate on that end, on those few. I too am for total free choice for first 2 trimesters, and third, when viability outside the uterus occurs, have a harder time with BUT, as I already said, those are much more rare. Does an abortion end life? Yes, an embryo and a fetus are alive before and not afterwards. Is it murder or killing another person? No.

fyi, middle aged female who has been involved with contraception education and first trimester abortions.

[Klukie]

660. In order.....

to make a valid comparison between the DP and abortion there must be equal values. When the DP is used a life is taken. There is no dispute about that. When an abortion is used a life/cells are taken, hence the dispute. If you believe that life begins at conception then to compare is quite simple. Both acts take a life and give way to murder for circumstance. If you believe that life begins at a later point in conception or after birth then the comparison becomes a contrast. One act takes a life and the other saves one.

[Alameda]

665. life, what kind of life?

Of course a fertilized egg is a life. The question is what kind of life it is. IMHO human life does not begin with a blastocyst or a zygote. To compare "choice" to the Death Penalty is absurd. It may be a surprise to some that every religion does not consider human life to begin at conception. Obviously the "mother" IS alive and human. Shouldn't she have precedence?

[uppityperson]

672. Exactly. Of course it is life, but not a human being.

Of course a fertilized egg has human DNA, but so does my mole. Which life takes precedence, the potential or the already existing?

Welcome to DU

[Klukie]

684. A human life/or a living cell

I simply meant that when an abortion is performed it can be viewed as taking a human life or as taking living cells. Everyone believes one way or the other.

[treestar]

663. Completely different issues

Though I know of people who are against both.

One has to do with justice and the human ability to mete it out perfectly, the other has to do with who will decide whether or not the fetus will go to term, the woman carrying it or society.

The issues are do different it is dishonest and purely fallacious and manipulative to try to equate them.

[HughMoran]

664. "I do think that abortion means killing a living being "

Well, you are just plain missing a distinction between a human with many experiences and an embryo.

If you can't draw that distinction, then there is no point in discussing this issue with you.

[Madspirit]

669. "I do think that abortion means killing a living being"

I don't think the experience of a human is a valid yardstick for the value of a human...unless you support killing the mentally retarded or the very sheltered...<g>
I don't support the death penalty and I do support the right to an abortion up through the sixth month and not after. I will never waver on any of this. : P
Thanks for the welcome.
Madspirit

[HughMoran]

678. We agree

Welcome to DU. :hi:

[Proud2BAmurkin]

666. You can morally be pro choice AND think abortion is murder

If you are pro death penalty you WANT people who are condemned to be put to death.

If you are pro choice you can be opposed to any abortions happening but think the woman's ownership of her body is more important principle.

[uppityperson]

676. Very succint and thank you.

I am in agreement with you.

[JerseygirlCT]

679. Because you're talking about two entirely different issues.

Being pro-choice doesn't make one pro-abortion. The issue is about a woman's autonomy WRT her own body. The heart of the issue is who is best qualified to make a difficult and very personal decision: the woman who's body we're talking about, or the government?

The death penalty is nothing more than state-sanctioned murder. It helps nothing, it prevents nothing, there is absolutely nothing positive about it. It's vengeance masquerading as justice. It cheapens us all, makes every one of us complicit in murder. It's wrong.

Life and death in the case of abortion are very difficult to define. When does life begin? We cannot absolutely determine that. Individually we must make own own determination, because neither science nor law nor logic will pinpoint that moment beyond any doubt. And before you take away someone's rights, you'd best have a very, very compelling reason to do so.

[LoZoccolo]

683. LOL IBTL!!!!!1111

[originalpckelly]

688. That's a cute picture!

:rofl:

[mdmc]

687. The culture of life opposes both

I oppose both.

I support choice, but do not support abortion. If you need an abortion, that is your choice. I support your ability to manage your own health, and the health of your offspring.

A fetus cannot be supported by a community. A prisoner can be supported by the community.

[Zhade]

689. DUH? Because pro-choice doesn't equal pro-abortion?

What a mindlessly flawed comparison you've made.

[alcibiades_mystery]

690. Because the two are totally unconnected?

:shrug:

Nice try though.