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1 hour ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

It really is, though. "Is a fetus alive?" If yes, abortion is murder. If not, it's not.

The question isn't if it is alive, but whether it is both a human being, and a separate being from the mother. It isn't murder to kill a tick, even when it has the blood (and thus DNA) of humans in it as while it is alive, as it isn't human. It isn't murder to remove your cancer even though it is alive, as it isn't a separate human being, even if it contains a different (albeit similar) functioning human genetic code to the human being it is being removed from. Even if you try to distinguish between the mother and fetus using a greater difference in DNA it is complicated by microchimerism, which is believed to be an almost universal part of pregnancy where the mother incorporates the DNA of a fetus that is either growing, or has died, in their womb into their body, and parts of their body will grows cells with the fetus's DNA within them. Personally I don't think it becomes a distinct human being from the mother until it is capable of growing outside the womb (even if it requires extreme medical help to do so), but the main point is that this isn't some simple question. Despite how many like to pretend, few things in life are.

Plus many states (mainly the ones that have horribly thought out "trigger" laws) have also taken this to mean that you cannot abort fetuses that are already dead, and posing a threat to the health of the mother. The anti-abortion movement is forcing mother to choose liberty or death. Is removing a septic fetus from a body also "murder", or is abortion a more complicated question than that?

 

2 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

 

You're taking the word "life" here and plastering on additional meanings which nobody was actually referring to. "Pro-life" doesn't mean the maximum number of people being alive. It means not taking away the life of the unborn because they are innocent of any wrongdoing, and we typically don't support terminating the lives of such people.

You seem to be missing the point here. Pro-Life doesn't accurately describe the movement, it is merely propaganda, same as calling the Ministry of War the Ministry of Peace would be (sorry to use 1984 as an example, as I would rather not bring its hyperbolic dystopian baggage, but it an easy to understand example of the way a name that lies about its nature in the same way "Pro-Life" does is propoganda). Despite the name members of the movement have successfully assassinated at least 7 people, have perpetrated 41 terrorist bombings, 173 arsons, and numerous attempts at all three, and the name "Pro-Life" is used to disguise how violent the movement generally is. Anti-choice or anti-abortion more accurately does, as that is what the movement is trying to accomplish, taking away a woman's choice to have an abortion.

 

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7 hours ago, Dr. Tarrasque said:

The answer is because they're sanctimonious pieces of shit

 I'm not even sure why I'm arguing with you. You're not even arguing with me, you're just angry with some guy who doesn't exist outside your own head.

6 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

It isn't murder to kill a tick, even when it has the blood (and thus DNA) of humans in it as while it is alive, as it isn't human. It isn't murder to remove your cancer even though it is alive, as it isn't a separate human being, even if it contains a different (albeit similar) functioning human genetic code to the human being it is being removed from.

A tick's own cells contain no human DNA, and a tick will never develop into a human infant. Cancer will never develop into a human infant either.

6 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

sorry to use 1984 as an example

I'm just glad you didn't talk about the Handmaid's Tale.

6 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

a name that lies about its nature

For instance, a fetus has no choice in whether it's aborted or not.

6 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Despite the name members of the movement have successfully assassinated at least 7 people, have perpetrated 41 terrorist bombings, 173 arsons, and numerous attempts at all three, and the name "Pro-Life" is used to disguise how violent the movement generally is.

Are you sure you want to start assessing political movements based on acts of violence committed?

Like, really sure?

EDIT: Sorry, forgot this one.

6 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Is removing a septic fetus from a body also "murder", or is abortion a more complicated question than that?

"Removing something alive such that it dies" is not the same as "removing something dead," and I don't think that's a very complicated position to hold.

Edited by AnonymousSpeed
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You're conveniently not addressing the most central point:

6 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

The question isn't if it is alive, but whether it is both a human being, and a separate being from the mother.

Considering a week-old fetus to be a human is, frankly, just as asinine as saying that a toddler is not. It's estimated that up to 50% of all feti don't survive the first three weeks after the fertilisation. "Estimated", because most of the time, the parent won't even notice that they've been pregnant. Do you think that this is a tragedy equal to a miscarriage after six or seven months of pregnancy? Do you think that that, in turn, is a tragedy equal to a toddler dying? If so, why isn't the prevention of very early miscarriages the absolute top priority of all medical science, when every second person dies from it? I'm sorry, I 100% do not see how "Every fetus is a human being" is even remotely defensible.

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1 hour ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Are you sure you want to start assessing political movements based on acts of violence committed?

When you name your movement Pro-Life...

 

1 hour ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

A tick's own cells contain no human DNA, and a tick will never develop into a human infant. Cancer will never develop into a human infant either.

You will never develop into a human infant. Are you no longer a human once you grow out of that stage?

If we include things that developed from human infants, instead of the bizarre definition you are trying to use now, the cancer still fits that description.

 

1 hour ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

For instance, a fetus has no choice in whether it's aborted or not.

What choices are fetuses capable of making? It has the agency of the cancer...

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2 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

 I'm not even sure why I'm arguing with you. You're not even arguing with me, you're just angry with some guy who doesn't exist outside your own head.

What, you haven't seen the likes of Mike Pence who's calling for a national ban despite how often their ilk they've claimed "states rights"? Here's a few of their response.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders

Mary Miller

Matt Gaetz

Karianne Lisonbee

Ken Paxton

You really want to pretend that folks like this aren't sanctimonious pieces of shit?

Edited by Dr. Tarrasque
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1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

When you name your movement Pro-Life...

Alright, let's take your own definition of a human being from 8 hours ago:

9 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Personally I don't think it becomes a distinct human being from the mother until it is capable of growing outside the womb (even if it requires extreme medical help to do so), but the main point is that this isn't some simple question. Despite how many like to pretend, few things in life are.

The number of aborted fetuses which meet this definition is certainly above 7 per year, yet alone in total.

Relevant reading.

1 hour ago, ping said:

Do you think that this is a tragedy equal to a miscarriage after six or seven months of pregnancy? Do you think that that, in turn, is a tragedy equal to a toddler dying? If so, why isn't the prevention of very early miscarriages the absolute top priority of all medical science, when every second person dies from it?

How many tears do you shed for people who are starving to death in Africa?

Look at this: "Historical studies suggest that around one-quarter of infants died in their first year of life and around half of all children died before they reached the end of puberty." Would this mean it was okay to kill infants and pre-teens in ancient times?

41 minutes ago, Dr. Tarrasque said:

sanctimonious pieces of shit

Do you get a free smoothie if you say this enough, or...?

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

What choices are fetuses capable of making? It has the agency of the cancer...

What choices are newborn babies capable of making? This is a completely ridiculous point.

Edited by AnonymousSpeed
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9 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

What choices are newborn babies capable of making? This is a completely ridiculous point.

That was literally your point

2 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

For instance, a fetus has no choice in whether it's aborted or not.

I was pointing out to you how ridiculous it was. Nice to see you agree.

 

13 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

The number of aborted fetuses which meet this definition is certainly above 7 per year, yet alone in total.

Relevant reading.

Source for the first, as that would be breaking the Roe v. Wade ruling as much as banning all abortions is (outside of a serious and compelling risk of life to the mother, which is getting into self-defense territory).

Also your "relevant reading" was explicitly pre Roe v. Wade, back when things were up to the states. That is what happens when this question is up to whatever state wants it, like the Supreme Court just allowed...

 

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1 minute ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

That was literally your point

I was pointing out to you how ridiculous it was. Nice to see you agree.

I'm sorry, but I honestly have no idea how you got to that.

"A fetus has no choice in whether it can be aborted or not," it is incapable of making any choices, including that one, but it would still be wrong.

"A newborn baby has no choice in whether it is killed or not," it is incapable of making any choices, including that one, but it would still be wrong.

I do not see how this ends up in your position's favor at all.

1 minute ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Source for the first

You can google these numbers. Number of US abortions is over 600,000 a year. Third-trimester abortions account for ~1% of US abortions, which may sound small, but let's do some simple math. That's roughly 6,000 per year.

16 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Source for the first, as that would be breaking the Roe v. Wade ruling as much as banning all abortions is (outside of a serious and compelling risk of life to the mother, which is getting into self-defense territory).

Also your "relevant reading" was explicitly pre Roe v. Wade, back when things were up to the states. That is what happens when this question is up to whatever state wants it, like the Supreme Court just allowed...

Sorry, but "breaking" Roe is not actually a concern of pro-abortion states or advocates. In practice, they do what they want. Years ago, the Supreme Court approved a federal ban on partial birth abortions 5-4 instead of 9-0, but they remained functionally legal in states like New York.

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52 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

How many tears do you shed for people who are starving to death in Africa?

You realize that even if we as a country would want to do anything about it, the same people in the "pro-life" camp would do everything in their power to prevent such action arguing we should deal with the problems in our country? Same as how the response has been with the Ukranian defense against Russia.

52 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Do you get a free smoothie if you say this enough, or...?

Nah I'm just testing Republican logic. They like to claim that the liberals are the snowflakes that get too easily offended and deny reality.

Edited by Dr. Tarrasque
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57 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

How many tears do you shed for people who are starving to death in Africa?

Look at this: "Historical studies suggest that around one-quarter of infants died in their first year of life and around half of all children died before they reached the end of puberty." Would this mean it was okay to kill infants and pre-teens in ancient times?

What

Look, I can only guess what point you're trying to make (and try to give the benefit of the doubt that it's not this), but I'm not going to waste my time and try to respond to something that you might have, but just maybe, intended to imply.

Edited by ping
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2 hours ago, Dr. Tarrasque said:

What, you haven't seen the likes of Mike Pence who's calling for a national ban despite how often their ilk they've claimed "states rights"? Here's a few of their response.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders

Mary Miller

Matt Gaetz

Karianne Lisonbee

Ken Paxton

You really want to pretend that folks like this aren't sanctimonious pieces of shit?

This is one of the reasons why I stopped voting, btw. So far, the only sane response was the Texan Attorney General closing his office for an day.

Edited by Armchair General
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17 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

 

"A fetus has no choice in whether it can be aborted or not," it is incapable of making any choices, including that one, but it would still be wrong.

"A newborn baby has no choice in whether it is killed or not," it is incapable of making any choices, including that one, but it would still be wrong.

I do not see how this ends up in your position's favor at all.

The nonsenical point you were making was

3 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

 

10 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

a name that lies about its nature

For instance, a fetus has no choice in whether it's aborted or not.

that a fetus being incapable of making choices in general, somehow makes the name Pro-Choice one that doesn't describe the movement that wants women to be able to chose to have an abortion. This was made in response to me pointing out the hypocrisy of a movement that calls itself Pro-Life taking lives, and endangering numerous other lives.

Unless you were making some point entirely unrelated to the what you were commenting upon that is some strange value judgement, in which case I would say that a fetus that can't live outside the womb, isn't a separate life from the one who is carrying it. It would be no more wrong than a woman removing a tumor, or donating a liver, even though the tumor and liver are incapable of making a choice independent of the woman.

 

53 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Sorry, but "breaking" Roe is not actually a concern of pro-abortion states or advocates. In practice, they do what they want. Years ago, the Supreme Court approved a federal ban on partial birth abortions 5-4 instead of 9-0, but they remained functionally legal in states like New York.

As far as I can tell reading through the New York law you are scare mongering about, it mainly did three things. First made it legal to abort fetuses that were already dead, even in the third trimester. Second the death of a fetus was no longer murder, but abortions beyond the middle of the second trimester are still illegal without a serious threat to the mother's life, or the fetus being already dead. Third it made more medical institutions legally allowed to perform abortion.

 

5 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

"Removing something alive such that it dies" is not the same as "removing something dead," and I don't think that's a very complicated position to hold.

Was this statement of your a lie, or were you grossly misinterpreting New York abortion law (or simply parroting people who were) ?

 

1 hour ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

You can google these numbers. Number of US abortions is over 600,000 a year. Third-trimester abortions account for ~1% of US abortions, which may sound small, but let's do some simple math. That's roughly 6,000 per year.

I guess New York aborting more dead fetuses may have inflated this ~1% number you got from google huh. Can you dig a little deeper and see how many of those third trimester abortions were done to save the life of the mother, and how many of them were removing dead fetuses?

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1 hour ago, Dr. Tarrasque said:

Nah I'm just testing Republican logic. They like to claim that the liberals are the snowflakes that get too easily offended and deny reality.

You are literally repeating the same insult over and over again.

1 hour ago, ping said:

What

The point was pretty clear imo.

17 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

The nonsenical point you were making was

I'm gonna be honest, you've lost me entirely. I apologize.

15 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

It would be no more wrong than a woman removing a tumor

If you will permit it, I would like to put this quote away for later reference.

11 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Can you dig a little deeper and see how many of those third trimester abortions were done to save the life of the mother, and how many of them were removing dead fetuses?

If medical necessity were the issue, why are they abortions and not c-sections?

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6 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

The point was pretty clear imo.

Honestly, I'm not convinced that there even was a point. Very pizza cutter-shaped.

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5 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

I'm gonna be honest, you've lost me entirely. I apologize.

Yeah I kinda had the feeling. Sorry if I got a bit patronizing trying to summarize the points that were being made previously.

 

6 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

If medical necessity were the issue, why are they abortions and not c-sections?

I must admit I do not have the medical expertise necessary to answer that in any detail. Despite how routine C-Sections are, it is still a major surgery, with some serious health risks attached, and other medical conditions might makes too dangerous to perform.

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11 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Yeah I kinda had the feeling. Sorry if I got a bit patronizing trying to summarize the points that were being made previously.

I must admit I do not have the medical expertise necessary to answer that in any detail. Despite how routine C-Sections are, it is still a major surgery, with some serious health risks attached, and other medical conditions might makes too dangerous to perform.

No, it's my fault. I think I kind of get it with a little more review

That's fine. I'll more than that I haven't excavated the bottom Earth for statistical data. Not a doctor either, and I didn't make friends with kids in medical school.

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21 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

It's because we know that unborn people are people. Sorry guys. It really is that simple.

People aren't allowed to use other people's bodies to stay alive without their consent. Removing the woman's right to refuse consent makes unborn people more than people. Sorry, dude. It really is that simple.

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Why is anyone here bothering to debate the ethics of abortion? There is no way to reach any kid of accord on the matter, much less sway someone to the other side. However, @AnonymousSpeed, I really am quite curious about what other 'positive changes' you'd like to see the U.S. Supreme Court make. Since you are pro-life, would I be correct in assuming you are hostile to the Obergefell v. Hodges and Lawrence v. Texas decisions?

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21 minutes ago, Seafarer said:

People aren't allowed to use other people's bodies to stay alive without their consent. Removing the woman's right to refuse consent makes unborn people more than people. Sorry, dude. It really is that simple.

Adding on to this, I'm 99.9% certain that in the U.S. at least you cannot donate a dead person's organs even to keep someone else alive if that person while they were alive didn't give their consent to donating their organs.

Banning abortion would give dead folks more rights than living women ;/

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4 hours ago, UNLEASH IT said:

Personally I think the fetus is a person but women should be able to get abortions anyway.

The most powerful man in the thread.

47 minutes ago, Seafarer said:

People aren't allowed to use other people's bodies to stay alive without their consent. Removing the woman's right to refuse consent makes unborn people more than people. Sorry, dude. It really is that simple.

Imagine if conjoined twins got to chose like that.

45 minutes ago, Sock Puppet said:

I really am quite curious about what other 'positive changes' you'd like to see the U.S. Supreme Court make. Since you are pro-life, would I be correct in assuming you are hostile to the Obergefell v. Hodges and Lawrence v. Texas decisions?

This doesn't even deserve a real response. It's a pathetically transparent attempt to say "you're a bigot and your opinions are bad". I'm tired of seeing this trick, and you should feel bad for having such a thin playbook.

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Man... I wanna say something, and I've tried talking about it before, but it gets so hostile here and I'm bad at articulating my points and arguing, so I end up making myself look silly. However, I make myself look silly all the time everywhere else and I have no problem with it, so I really have nothing to lose. Live and learn!

I've come to the conclusion that abortion is a topic that's a complete minefield of morals and emotions, and while I don't like it much at all, I can see and understand why it's necessary in some circumstances and desired in others. It's not my choice or anyone else's to decide for someone what to do with anything; I could give suggestions and advice, but it's ultimately up to an individual to decide what they want to do.

You could view the recent Supreme Court decision as a way for women to make better informed decisions when it comes to sex and parenthood and all that, but it doesn't take into account that we just don't live in a perfect world (to put it nicely), and abortion can appear as a viable alternative compared to raising a child or putting them up for adoption if the parent(s) don't want the child or are unprepared for them. Some people don't want a living reminder of their trauma or decisions they've come to regret, either.

Disregarding abortion for a moment, I think I might have mentioned bodily autonomy to some degree somewhere before, probably in this thread a long time ago. Basically, it's the right to make decisions about your own body, more or less. For instance, if someone needs an organ donation, no one can force you to give up the requested organ; if you want to donate, that's up to you. A better example can be found right on a driver's license, at least here in the USA. In the case of an accident where the driver passes away (which doesn't necessarily have to be the case, it's just an example), their organs can be recovered and donated if they've registered to be an organ donor; there will be a graphic somewhere on the license indicating that they're a donor, so @Sunwoo is entirely correct.

Anyway, I think bodily autonomy is a fundamental human right, just as much as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and all that. Abortion falls under that category, but the reason it gets so messy (from what I've seen and from what I understand) is because of some of the following issues:

  • whether the mother wanted the child to exist in the first place or not
  • whether it can be considered as taking a life or not/whether it's OK to terminate the pregnancy
  • at what point can the child be considered "human"/when is it "alive"
  • who should be prioritized if it reaches a point when both lives can't be saved
  • and probably a bunch of other issues I can't think of

It's very messy and gross, everyone disagrees, I don't like it, the Pope is Catholic, and... I think it really just boils down to what you choose to believe. There's no right or wrong answer to these questions. Abortion doesn't elicit the healthiest debates, but they're necessary. We all may not agree with what we have to say, but most of us here can at least agree that Bury the Light is unironically a fantastic song despite the memes... right?

5 minutes ago, Sock Puppet said:

Why is anyone here bothering to debate the ethics of abortion? There is no way to reach any kid of accord on the matter, much less sway someone to the other side.

I think you're right, but challenging yourself with civil arguments against others from time to time is good for the brain and can help you form your own conclusions on certain matters if you really take the time to think about it, so it's not like there's nothing to gain here. It could also be a colossal waste of time, but I have the time for that.

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20 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

It's a pathetically transparent attempt to say "you're a bigot and your opinions are bad". I'm tired of seeing this trick, and you should feel bad for having such a thin playbook.

Why are you so defensive? I asked you what changes you'd like to see made because I am curious about what kind of America U.S. conservatives want to live in. I asked about those two cases in particular, because they're a prime target for review, since first was fairly recent and second hinged on the right to privacy, which was a central issue in Roe. If you don't have any opinion on those two, or don't wish to share it, that's fine. But I asked a question--what you would like to see the SC achieve--in good faith, and you responded by flaming me. 

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