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myliftkk said:
How many "exceptions tacked onto the commission of a homicide" are there? And since abortion is a form of homicide (literally, "human killing"), is the existence of some an argument for the existence of others? (Bear, take note of any response to this.)
Well, there's a new one every the NRA sneezes, yes?*Is there a special case of the "exception that swallows the rule" that only applies to abortion seekers? You seem convinced there is. I'm convinced you're being delusionally opportunistic in your reading. People will find an exception to any law, that doesn't mean there shouldn't be exceptions as a rule.
See: "Coming Right For Us!" of South Park fame.
You didn't answer my question. How many "exceptions tacked onto the rule of homicide" are there? I'm aware of exactly one ... self-defense. Even accidental killing of another human can have you facing a manslaughter charge (no laughing matter), let alone wrongful death civil suits.
No, I believe that currently born persons have the right to life as well.
And I confer the right to life to those outside the womb, period. I see no persuasive argument to change that, and by persuasive I mean a fact and a number.
What kind of fact and what kind of number? As far as I'm concerned, the relevant fact and number is that 100% of human embryos and fetuses are genetically unique human beings. I'm not sure what kind of facts and numbers you even consider relevant for this debate. Is there any fact (no matter how fantastic you consider it) that would change your mind? Are you looking for demographic stats, in keeping with your later concern about world population?
Does the existence of murders mean we should repeal murder laws? Does the existence of theft mean that we should repeal larceny laws? Does the existence of people speeding mean that we should repeal speed limits?
Despite what Car & Driver has been preaching for years about Highway speed limits (to which I happen agree), your point only further highlights the irrationality of your means. Do you propose larceny laws cover a child who takes a five off his father's dresser? Should I be prosecuted for larceny should I take a twenty out of my wife's purse without asking first? Should speed limit enforcement be such that the moment your car detects your breach of a governed limit, it eTickets you? What if we just made going beyond a speed limit on a given road technologically impossible? The libertarian in you would coil like so much "don't tread on me" rattlesnake...
So abortion is just a little bitty, teeny weeny homicide? Fantastic analogy, there.
Again, I don't confer rights on the unborn.
And I do. If it's that simple, well, there it is.
I agree that morality is a human construct. I just have a problem with using our ability to construct morality to construct a value system that enshrines such a callous disregard for unborn, innocent life as a matter of "women's rights" or describing it as a net social-welfare positive.
Well, certainly you don't deny this is hardly the only callous disregard in our value system, even if I don't describe it as such. Why is this one any more special than the others? I see nothing that makes it so. Furthermore, I don't see your solutions to this "problem" as having any net species benefit for those of us living and breathing. I see zero reason to adjust our value system to alleviate the "problem" you have dealing with a "problem" you don't have. I assure you, there's a pill for that.
It's more special than the others because it involves millions of the most innocent and defenseless lives alive. Yes, both the quantity of lives involved and any metric of "innocence" is going to be a sliding scale, so it's a question of degree--but differences in degree do matter. Otherwise, we'd have no reason to care whether a given budgetary item involved millions, billions, or trillions, for example.
Well, by the text of that, you're saying that we're both good at reproducing *and* good at killing each other (since we're not good at not killing each other, according to your double negative above). By that logic, there's no "table to turn."
You'd agree, I hope, that on net we're more successful at breeding than killing each other off, even if we're good at both. We can be good as a species at more than one thing without those skills being equivalent I hope? WoW should have taught you this since it's highly unlikely your character's tagged skills are all of equal effectiveness.
Tacky and off-base; I've never played WoW. And no, I don't think we're any better at reproducing than at killing each other. We may choose to use our ability to reproduce more ofen, but considering that we have the ability to wipe out the entire population of the planet in minutes if we choose, I submit that we are in truth far better at killing each other than reproducing.
An unused ability is very different than a nonexistent one.
Also, for someone who asserts that he has such a keen grasp of reality, I'm having trouble grasping where you're seeing "a world already bursting at the seams with the young." Do you have any idea what the demographic profile of the Western world--or even the entire world--looks like compared with two generations ago? Many Western countries, as well as Japan, have birth rates below replacement rate.
Does the World = Western Countries? Why such a callous disregard for the other countries that make up our species? But yes, I'm well aware of the whole world's demographic profile, I just don't look at it through my Caucasian-filtered glasses.
The world does not equal Western countries, which is why I added "or even the entire world" to my original quote, which you either discounted or completely ignored. I felt that the Western countries deserved special mention because their demographic crisis is particularly acute, and was therefore the strongest refutation of your "teeming with youth" misconception. However, even looking at the entire world, birth rates worldwide are falling dramatically, and have been for some time. China's population will begin graying very rapidly within a few years, and since they have about one-sixth of the world's population, that is a fairly significant development. Even African countries, where birth rates have been the highest for the past generation (I think it was Asia 2-3 generations ago, but don't quote me on that--it doesn't matter anyway) are seeing significant slowdowns.
And yet, through all the substantive word-smithing, hand-wringing, and sermonizing, you've provided not one shred of proof that your means can in fact eliminate that practice which you claim to so detest that all means propagated by your side are necessary (as opposed to teaching people how to fuck w/o getting pregnant), so long as we don't actually care about the results.
I've already addressed that, but it bears repeating: The fact that crime, or any particular crime, cannot be entirely eliminated does not invalidate the attempt. In fact, that applies to far more than just crime. The inability to do everything is never an argument for doing nothing.
As for contraception (which I presume is what you meant by "teaching people how to f*** without getting pregnant), that's an entirely separate issue from abortion. Contraception simply prevents fertilization. Non-fertilization happens all the time. I hardly believe that your average 13-year-old girl is guilty of one homicide per month and your average 13-year-old boy is guilty of one genocide per day.
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