Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

This is what I think about when I think about the hypothetical. My wife gets pregnant. The fetus is healthy and the pregnancy is normal. She goes into labor and goes to the hospital. A complication emerges where delivering the baby runs a high risk of killing her. She is incoherent from pain meds and loss of blood. The medical people ask me: "should we save your wife or save the baby?"

I am sorry, but if I were to say "her whole purpose in life is reproduction; if a baby is delivered, she will have performed that function, and thus have meaning. Save the baby,"* I would be the shit husband of all shit husbands.

*of course, if before hand she had expressed her wish to sacrifice herself for the baby, if it came to that, then things would be different. I am not criticizing someone who does what I described in that context.

** Lest someone claim that this scenario is far-fetched, I will point out that partial birth abortions, while exceedingly rare, are usually done for this very reason. As well, this exact scenario happened for a couple I know. The wife (miraculously) survived, as did the baby, but the guy was in fact the shit husband of shit husbands.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

I will also point out that while it's true that one side defines "child" in such a way as to include embryos and the other does not, if you say "child" to someone they are going to 999/1000 picture an actual baby, toddler, preschooler, or pre-adolescent when they close their eyes.

It's going to be a very odd duck that pictures a fetus.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

I am sure you don't.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

Sorry, I forgot that you were anti-science. :p

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

LOL A fetus looks more like a baby than it does a collection of cells. Come on with you.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

Not at all. I actually do science for a living. I think science is a wonderful way to understand the world and predict how it will behave. I think it is a pretty piss-poor way of coming up with universal moral truths or defining the true purpose (there can only be one!) in life.

I am pretty sure we are at the point of first principles here (as if this whole discussion isn't a collision between first principles), so I don't think this is a conflict that can be solved through disputation. I am religious. If I recall correctly (and I deeply apologize if I am wrong), you are not. Your notion that the whole meaning of human life is reproduction is one I disagree with at a fundamental level. I am sure you would similarly disagree with my belief that the primary purpose in life is to enrich the lives of other people and to know God. I find your position kind of sad and empty, and pulls for more pity from me that I am normally inclined toward you (not because you are beneath it, but because I assume your life is happy generally). I can't imagine being happy with such a worldview; I hope it works for you. I can't see how, but I don't need to.

I am sure you find my beliefs any number of negative adjectives. But here we are.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

Feminism isn't a plot to "feminize men", as you suggested recently, either, or to destroy America or marriage, or the family, or to create an immoral society, etc.

Social conservative goals, i.e. their notion of an ideal traditional society, just tends to clash with feminist goals of full equality. The more extreme on either side the more they clash. Even the most extreme social conservatives, e.g. in Muslim dominated countries, aren't actually out to subjugate women for its own sake. They're out to maintain a pure society that isn't polluted by evil western ideas such as women not dressing modestly, tempting men into evil, people using drugs, alcohol, following ungodly ways, etc. etc.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

1) You asked "how do we know if being a decadent society is a bad thing?"

2) Now that you've looked up the word, you get to decide if it is a bad thing.

3) good luck.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

It isn't about coming up with universal moral truths, its about establishing a baseline of fact. If what I said is fact, and if it is a fact that the causal chain of events from conception leads to birth of a human being, then it seems to me that there should be a compelling reason to interfere in that chain of events. I do not find a woman's convenience to be a compelling reason, especially if she began that chain of events out of convenience as well.

If I recall correctly, the bible instructs you to be fruitful, no? Even ancient peoples recognized the central importance of reproduction.

No, I find the idea of God to be a glorious concept. For people unable to conceive of virtue as a form of excellence separate from God, I prefer it. Of course, this doesn't contradict the biological imperative.

Happiness is a matter for personal enrichment, not the purview of broad political movements whose promise for it is demagoguery.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

It's easy to lose the thread. The thing you said that led me down the "sad" path was your statement that reproduction is the main purpose in life. That's the context in which to read my response.


Actually, it instructed Adam and Eve to be fruitful. Christians of course, vary in how they interpret and apply this command to Adam and Eve. The Bible also describes the purpose of the first marriage to be companionship.

Most of the Bible's statements of purpose for human beings regard their relationship to God and their treatment of other human beings. (e.g. Micah's 'do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with God', the Ten Commandments).

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

no need to debate outliers to try to prove a point. Some people do dumb things.

Awfully sweet of you to make such a concession :)

My point with A.) was not as well executed as I'd like. Women can have all kinds of changes that may affect their thinking (a certain bias to continue pregnancy, I consider it a practical limit on abortions even without laws to regulate it) but I put my trust in their thinking. I understand you could look at is as evidence for biological determinism, but I'll put it out there and let you have your way with it if you like ( figuratively speaking of course ). Even if such a thing didn't exist I would still be pro-choice because to me women are humans that happen to be women as opposed to your inverted formulation.


The rest of your points about the topic boil down to biological destiny fused with catholic dogma ( not the religious aspects of course )

When it comes to any questions about whether a non-raped women can have an abortion

unless this:
Wasn't just a joke.

What it comes down to is I believe what makes us humans transcends our sexual dichotomies. We are male/female as animals, that influences us as humans because humans are animals but the vast majority of our evolutionary heritage, that separates us from other primates, has little to do with our gender or race for that matter.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

Can I just say how much I regret that you abandoned this little debate? It's always amusing, if not hilarious, to see you in 'action'.

A fertilized egg is a baby, a child, a human - truly hilarious. Good luck getting a rational person to believe that. Hell, even the people of Mississippi know better, despite KKK Barbour's support. No wonder that "the earth is 6,000 years old"-crowd are the main faction (literally) toothlessly protesting abortions.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

The issue is a fetus, not a 'fertilized egg'. Perhaps in all your laughter you missed the causality of those things you list.

Has Twinswords hacked your account?

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

He's always had contempt for you guys too, it's just that you usually can't tell because he's talking about Muslims.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

For you it is, as you've said that you don't believe that life begins at conception. Most "pro-lifers" disagree, so it seems perfectly appropriate to mock these beliefs. Hell, most "pro-lifers" disagree with themselves, as the most recent result in Mississippi shows. Fertilized eggs are babies, except when it's inconvenient to the pro-lifer - like when IVF is outlawed as a result.

LOL. No, I really don't like that guy.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

This is a topic loaded with emotion. Some people feel they can make a rational argument in favor of abortion and some people feel they can make a rational argument against it. However, despite the Supreme Court's ability to deduce a right to privacy and by extension a right to abortion, this subject has little to do with reason.

My main objection to the pro-abortion argument is the way that the fetus becomes detached from the thing that I think most people feel that it is...a human being. I think the use of euphemisms like "the right to choose" and "reproductive rights" shows that people really are uncomfortable with what abortion is.

And I'm glad that people are uncomfortable. Several people here have talked about the fear of becoming a decadent society. I think when people stop feeling uneasy about killing an unborn child will be a very sad day, indeed.

Women will probably always seek abortions and I don't think anyone wants to go back to women having them in back alleys. But to celebrate it and make it seem like it's some victory for women is pretty twisted, particularly when women have access to every conceivable type of birth control. In so many cases it's carelessness and because they are told not to worry because this is just a cluster of cells, it diminishes women instead of making them some kind of victors. Actually, it diminishes us all. I think this is the main concern of people who are anti-abortion.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

What most people believe according to you is now an argument? That is, you object because pro-choicers have the temerity to disagree with a group you label a majority? Well, your allies generally believe that life begins at conception, and that a fertilized egg is a human being, a cute baby (when viewed through a microscope), an innocent child. So let me see you defend that.

No, choice language is used to draw people in who may be uncomfortable with abortion personally, but do not think that they should force this down the throat of others - not because "pro-abortion" people are uncomfortable with abortion.

Should that day ever arrive, one can always move to a society where life is valued, and people do feel uneasy about killing an "unborn child". Like Iran, Saudi-Arabia, or Pakistan. Perfectly good countries that are not decadent.

REALLY? And here I was, thinking that they were obediently waiting for Rick Perry to tell them that they can't.

Well, you're "one". You may not consciously wish for it, but it's the inevitable result of the policies that you advocate. Should you now claim that you do not actually want abortion to be outlawed, then you're being inconsistent - because you labeled even the "I am uncomfortable with abortion but want it to remain legal"-type pro-abortion, and contrasted it with the position of "pro-lifers" like yourself.

Why? It's too bad if it make you uncomfortable, but the fact that women are in control of their bodies, not individuals like Haley Barbour and Rick Perry, is a victory. Also, I will just point out that your allies generally also oppose birth control - which supports the idea that it's really not about fetuses for most "pro-lifers", it's about control.

Citation needed.

LOL. No words.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

Sulla, I'm a hell of a lot closer to being anti-abortion then I was before reading this discussion thanks to you.

I'm still against making abortion illegal, but I have to admit that I can't come up with any good arguments against you. And that puts me in the same camp as everyone else arguing with you here.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

Sure, but we also say that a pregnant woman is "with child" or "carrying my child" or "having my baby." When we talk about a fetus, we typically say "the baby just kicked" or "what is your baby's name?" People refer to ultra-sounds as "baby pictures." etc.

(Conversely, though, if I ask a pregnant woman who has given birth twice already "how many children do you have?" she's likely to say "two, and one more on the way," not "three." If I ask a woman who had a miscarriage "how many of your children are living and how many are dead" she's likely to exclude the miscarried fetus from the count, or at least to specify them as a distinct category.)

So, it's not like either use of the word is strange, or invalid, per se, as long as it is clear from context which definition is meant.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

I don't buy the potential argument at all because it strikes me as bizarre to classify something based upon what it will be rather than what it is, because it's not true that a fetus will necessarily develop into a living human being, and because this principle doesn't satisfactorily distinguish between things that we agree aren't human beings and things that are. If what something will necessarily become determines how we treat it, why don't we treat all the people in the world as dust? That we'll become worm food eventually is far more inevitable than that a week-old fetus will become a human being. After all, that fetus might be miscarried or it could be put on ice indefinitely and remain a bundle of cells and nothing more. To become a person, it requires constant inputs from the mother's body that may or may not be forthcoming. While it's certainly more likely for a zygote to become a baby than it is for any given egg or sperm to do so, it is inevitable in neither case.

This line of reasoning strikes me as an ex post facto argument, something conjured into being because you've already determined what you want the answer to be. I'm much more inclined to make my guiding principle for determining what is and isn't human something valuable in and of itself, like sapience. Of course that standard is even more problematic than the potential argument, since it's at least possible that newborns or people with severe mental handicaps fail the test, and I, unlike Peter Singer, am not at all willing to deny personhood to them.

So I prefer to muddle along. It seems plain to me that simply being located inside of a woman's body isn't enough to deny personhood in and of itself, so I am comfortable outlawing abortion past the point of viability unless the life of the mother is at risk. It also seems similarly plain that simply having a unique genetic code is morally meaningless, so I'm perfectly comfortable with the Morning After pill and first-trimester abortions. As to the remaining harder cases, I don't know and am happy to let the more opinionated sort it out.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

How would is it bizarre? We do it with infants. We accord infants a set of rights based on the presumed inevitability of their majority. We don't say, "This child could die of many things. Car accidents, abductors, IDS, etc. It is bizarre to designate it as a person deserving rights."

It is the same with a baby gestating in the womb.

Because the point of living isn't "to be dust", that is the end result but not the purpose. The end result of a fetus may be to be dust one day, but before then it is gestating in order to live. There is also no utility to "treating people like dust", while there is a great utility in treating babies like humans.

It is also useless.

An infant can stop breathing in his crib, or die of fever, or be shaken by a cruel babysitter and die of brain trauma. A child can be abducted and murdered, or break her neck on her bike, or get hit by a car while he's walking to school.

Neither the fetus, nor the infant, nor the child, are useful citizens. Neither their survival, nor indeed yours and mine, are assured. Yet we grant them a full array of rights, regardless of their fragility. That the vicissitudes of life might kill a fetus, an infant, or a child doesn't strike me as a compelling case to ensure it with the thin fingers of an abortionist.

Certainly life may get in the way of existence regardless of our age. But you are arguing that the development from fetus to child can be interrupted by various things terminating the fetus. That isn't being denied here. What is being argued is that one method of terminating the fetus, the extirpation of it, should be limited if not banned. Barring intervention from the outside world or the mother's health, a fetus will become a squealing child. That is simply causality. You mention things which interrupt the process; to be sure, falling down the stairs can kill a baby. But that a child can be killed in any manner of ways doesn't seem to defend the notion that they should be.

I don't think that is an ex post facto argument. I am not applying any argument here retroactively. Logic tells us that the natural course of development for a conceived child is to become one of us. I am saying that because this is true, this child is due more consideration than a "monkey or a dog", which was your original post. The chain of development links us all to this original state, and since there is no rational point at which we can say "At this moment we are human, and at this moment we are not", I recognize the humanity of gestating infants. Not because I am sentimental; because reason suggests it is the most logical position to have.

If you didn't say it, I was going to. :)

Yes, I do not think infants are any more sapient in the ten minutes outside of the womb than they are ten minutes before they left. And if not, then what difference of note is there at 3 months in this regard?

I am fine with the morning after pill too, since it terminates the embryo before it attaches to the uterine wall. I am not fine with first trimester abortions, since again, it is an arbitrary and meaningless distinction. There is no significant difference between a child at 10 weeks and one at 13.

Again, my position is the choice was made at coitus, with plenty of opportunities for people to make the risk of pregnancy statistically implausible. What pro-choice people forget is that the price of liberty is consequence. Abortion is a cheap and bloody method for people to escape the consequence of "sexual liberation".

A populace which has a regime of coddling technocrats protecting them from the consequences of choices might as well be thralls.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

Thanks Globalcop, I'm glad to be of service. :) It is very rare to find someone open minded on this subject.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

No, that isn't my argument. I'm saying that society is now too complex and too expensive. Like they used to say in the 1960s: if you didn't have a job, it's because you didn't want one. I had my first job when I was 16 and earned enough spending money to go out with my girlfriend. These days, kids skip the old summer job or part time job because that time is better spent studying for the SAT. It's a different era with different rules. Unemployment for today's youth is the highest it's been for 50 years.

I said this in my previous post also. On this point, we're agreed, but I think it also aids my argument more. And yet, irresponsible parents cannot raise responsible children; they can only raise their children to also be future irresponsible parents.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

Before I begin, I'll just state that I'm pro-choice, but I'm not hostile to pro-life positions, either. When I wrote that reply to you earlier, I was only pushing back to the extent that you characterized abortions as a cyst that needed to be removed. While that could very well be the case for some people, for the people I know that have had abortions, they were not decisions taken lightly. Maybe the younger generation is different, I don't know. With that said...

I think I have a relevant reply to harkin, but to paraphrase: crap parents almost always produce crap children who become crap parents. I'm all for more personal responsibility as the way to prevent abortions. But if that were truly the way forward, nothing is stopping us from instilling that responsibility in people while abortion is legal. Unless you think the best way for a teenage girl to learn responsibility is to have an out of wedlock child?

That's true if you could somehow make teenagers avoid libertine sexuality. While evangelicals are gaining in numbers, I believe all other denominations are down in memberships and people are, in general, attending church less. Do you have a plan for people to adopt Christian morals without Christianity?

I'm all for this. If we could stick those long term birth control devices in young girls and develop birth control pills for boys, I think we'd really have something. I'd be fine with banning abortion if you get rid of most of the possibility of error in the first place.

China's much better off than India. Violent crime in the U.S. has trended downward since the 1990s and we're near historic lows.

What about the population booms in Africa and India? At least two billion people starving in squalor for their brief, miserable lives. I can understand your reasons for rejecting the pro-choice stance. However, can you at least concede that the majority of us on the other side also have legitimate moral claims against suffering?

http://api.ning.com/files/5DIKRfRfkm...yML/starve.jpg

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

I don't think feminism had a specific goal to feminize men, but it did end up having that effect. Just on the grounds that women have taken a lot of roles that men used to dominate renders men less masculine. Men have changed a lot over the past 40 years, but even if they hadn't, they would still be more feminine vis-a-vis the older generation of men. If there are fewer "man" roles exclusive to them, then by necessity men's traditional identities must erode. Pretty soon, we won't even get the big piece of chicken.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

I guess it would be useful to define "feminize" and "masculine" in this context. I think someone asked Sulla to do so a while back but the discussion got sidetracked into whether there is such a thing as sexual harrassment. What working definitions did you have in mind when you wrote the above?

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

Awesome!!! And so funny from someone who loves to invoke the straw man.

The first time a human gives birth to a dog or a chimpanzee, your argument will have weight.

I disagree completely - you are only making excuses. How many 16 year-olds do you see in front of Home Depot looking for work? And sorry but college degrees are fast becoming the most overrated commodity out there. The government's explosion of worthless college grad jobs is coming to an end. People are actually going to have to produce but they have to want to work first and this coddled generation doesnt get that.

Responsibility of actions solves almost every societal ill. You are really only saying that we shouldn't expect or demand that people act responsibly and in fact we must compound the irresponsibility by killing children before they are born to contaminate the world with more irresponsibility. In the long run this philosophy only makes things worse, it promotes chaos, as just about every urban area has shown.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

Next time Al Gore visits the lab, take a photo.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

Actually something is, we have a culture, media and government that condemn personal responsibility and tell us that any predicament we may find ourselves in due to our own ignorance/laziness/stupidity, the government has an easy solution that someone else will pay for.


"We must kill these children before they are allowed to suffer" is something that will go on forever. Teaching the people in these areas responsibility and healthy cultural attitudes stops the suffering/killing.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

???

What an odd statement.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

We actually agree about this; there's a real lack of personal responsibility. Unable to come up with an argument against abortion that will convince most people? Appeal to the government to force them to do what you want them to do.

And you're also right about the starving masses in some parts of Africa. It's totally due to the irresponsiblity of the parents. If only those lazy asses would all get jobs as hedge fund managers, things would be fine.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

When you read these statistics, keep in mind that birth control methods are available and affordable everywhere in the US.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

I agree with this, but that's not what happened here. If there is to be a reasonable discussion of abortion, I think it's important to acknowledge that people disagree on a variety of things, including whether the unborn can be classified as "persons" and, in particular, whether that makes sense when we are talking about earlier stages of development (zygotes, embyros, fetuses pre viability, sometimes it makes sense to focus in on subsets of these). Sulla's comment to which miceelf objected seemed to me to be trying to sidestep this by assuming as a given that all agreed that we were talking about a philosophical person, a child. IME, that's a common practice among pro lifers,* and one that makes compromise on even the things on which there should be some agreement impossible, because so much demonization goes on. Specifically, I know plenty of pro-lifers who can't imagine that there's a disagreement about the status of the unborn, that others don't share the emotions they bring to the topic, and thus imagine other reasons for the different views, reasons that are often monstrous.

*I don't consider myself on either side of this argument in a particular strong way, although I don't think it makes sense to make abortion illegal currently or could be handled well by the law beyond what we can already do. I'm being descriptive of what I've seen here, not critical, and I think some people on the pro choice side similarly are unwilling to see the opposing argument as one that can be held in good faith, and would, in fact, class Amanda among those. One counterpart for the "they must agree about personhood, really, and thus just think babies can be killed for convenience" position is "they must agree with me about the extent of coerciveness that is required to enforce pregnancy, and thus really be focused on control or sexism." And, for the record, I think there are problematic attitudes on both sides for some, but there are also other disagreements that people of good faith can have.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

From my earlier link:

Fifty-four percent of women who have abortions had used a contraceptive method (usually the condom or the pill) during the month they became pregnant. Among those women, 76% of pill users and 49% of condom users report having used their method inconsistently, while 13% of pill users and 14% of condom users report correct use

It's clear that among other things, better education, understanding of birth control methods would be useful.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

The only missles I know of that specifically target women's wombs belong to 98% of the male population. The other 2% are a specialty weapon, the Sullivan Class (and its variant, the Sandusky) which have radically re-wired guidance systems.

On a more serious note, anyone who thinks being pro-life somehow makes one immune to the horrible consequences of war needs to check themselves.

Not as odd as saying an unborn child at the time it's aborted has no resemblance to a human being and is just a collection of DNA and then following it with a "I actually do science for a living" claim.

Re: What's the Matter with Kansas topic
 

I'm glad you brought up this part of the discussion.

Erica seemed to be saying "they don't agree with Frank that how they are voting is against their self-interest" and "if that was it, the answer would be for the Dems to improve their messaging." In fact, I think Frank is arguing that the Dems should do the latter, that they are conceding the argument on the wrong topics. Based on my memory of Frank's argument, however, which he may have updated anyway, it is politically simplistic, so I'm inclined to agree with a number of the comments in the diavlog.

Yeah -- I don't think they see it as voting against self-interest, but as in prioritizing, framing the issues as broader overall values and not linking them to particular effects on themselves. I think this is more how most people vote, although I could be projecting somewhat. I think people frame even the effects on themselves directly that they see as part of an overall "is this good for the country." On the other hand, I know lots of liberals who perceive themselves as voting against their own interests for the good of the country, I wonder if there's some element of that on the right. I don't see it in the rhetoric or the policies so much. For example, when there's an obvious direct effect on a major block, like with Medicare or SocSec, it's made clear that it would not affect current old people.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

What's weird about the argument, as stated by Sulla, is that it doesn't seem to be based on an actual belief that the unborn (post-implantation, I guess) have moral claims, that it's inherently wrong to kill them. Maybe that's just a side effect of how he's phrasing the argument, but it's unusual.

On the potentiality argument:

No we don't. We recognize infants as persons, sure, but I find it hard to believe that anyone would deny that (although yes historically people obviously did). I understand why pro lifers often find it hard to understand how people can't see that this is just as true of the unborn, but that doesn't seem to be your argument.

What do you think a "person" is that we recognize the personhood of children prior to majority only as a matter of potentiality?

I don't think this argument comes down to "utility," but I'm curious what you are getting at here.

Yes, no one claims that "personhood" is defined by whether one is a "useful citizen."

Right -- on what basis do we legally require a woman to remain pregnant? One basis would be that the unborn have rights (are persons); another, short of that, is that they are at least so morally significant as to outweigh the burden on the pregnant woman. So far I don't think you've addressed either of these arguments, so it seems that you have some other basis for your argument which I don't think has been satisfactorily explained.

Absolutely. Is the claim that as a result the fetus is a "person" or has moral weight? I think that's something that can be reasonably argued, but so far you haven't. You've merely asserted it, and DZ has said that he disagrees and noted that he considers "sapience" significant. The question is what gives the moral weight or is the essence of "personhood" such that potentiality is sufficient?

(I think for many people this seems so obvious -- again, like how for others an infant is a person -- that it seems a ridiculous question, but it's not. It's one of the two major disagreements, and thus deserves to be fleshed out more than it usually is.)

This is only so if the unborn have moral significance such that we can say a pregnant woman must continue with the pregnancy, provide the embryo and fetus with the sustainence that it needs and eventually become a mother. (If one thinks the unborn are persons, than she already is a mother, but there is a version of the "moral significance" argument that doesn't require that you see the unborn as a person. In many ways we don't treat even wanted fetuses as persons, after all, so I understand why people are sometimes skeptical about the claim by prolifers that they clearly are.)

That's simplistic. It is more from a societal standpoint than on the individual basis, true, but we also, as a society, tend to celebrate the choice not to have an abortion and thus one could reasonably argue that the debate over abortion ends up justifying "alternative lifestyles" that you certainly dislike -- such as single women (and teenagers) having children -- more than the alternative would. Would changing the law mean that we go back to condemnation of such things, and turn back the sexual revolution? Unlikely.

On the personal level, of course, people who are the most convinced that our current sexual mores are fine (basically, sex outside of marriage for adults is fine, although one shouldn't be careless about it or indiscriminate, and various other caveats common in the various social subgroups), are not necessarily the ones who are going to feel a need to choose an abortion and many of these people will also be among the least likely to be affected by changing the law. There's a connection between youth and failure to use birth control effectively, as well as between moral qualms about what one is going and such a failure. But in any case birth control is so effective that people aren't going to fundamentally change their sexual behavior based on the abortion law changing.

Re: What's the Matter with Kansas topic
 

Yeah I don't know what Frank says these days and I think that any brief discussion will likely be lacking and accurate summary of his views. Suffice it to say simplistic formulations, bad, dems not ceding territory, good.

Yes I agree here I was making a much more narrow point based strictly on where Amanda was heading. She was stating that religious voters value their standing in in the local church/town/social circle over any loss of economic income in supporting candidates. Now I took from Amanda that they were linking their voting for a particular candidate or party to reducing their economic security and still would make the choice to so. They are will to suffer a "tactical" loss for the tribe to gain a "strategic" advantage. I went along with that line of reasoning to say that any strategies in trying to sway these voters that don't take into account this dynamic ( call it a sunk cost fallacy or something like it ) are missing that it is a strongly held belief that strengthens even as the economic repercussions become more apparent. I was probably not as clear about the latter part.

She made other points about the cost of living in these areas and such that are also variables to consider.

I think there are people on both sides willing to sacrifice. The obvious case for liberals is that they will deal with higher taxes and regulation on certain business that they themselves either own or work for in exchange for creating a more level playing field for all americans to work from. There is no such rhetoric on the right because it does them no good to point out the obvious costs on their side and/or mitigate them ( changing medicare from defined benefits to defined contributions as you say ) or they try to sell the "have your cake and eat it too" narrative. Such things as reduced taxes always mean more revenue, supply side/trickle down economics, removal of waste/fraud/abuse, reducing foreign aid, etc etc.

Of course if we had a reasonable debate based on actual figures and agreed upon trade-offs it would make the choices that "sacrificers" and non "sacrificers" a bit easier.

Re: Values Added: Rootin' Tootin' Edition (Amanda Marcotte & Erica Grieder)
 

You may disagree with my statement, but it's comprehensible. I have no idea why Al Gore would visit my lab, why I would take a picture of it, or what your point in saying it was. Was it an attempt at a joke?