Plan B
Barbara Walter's "The View" on Plan B Someone who thinks preventing an embryo from attaching to the uterine wall is the same as birthing a baby and leaving it on the street is irrational. Don't let this woman cook breakfast for you to her a raw egg is the same as a fried egg, untoasted bread is the same as toasted, and leaving the dishes in the sink is the same as washing them. To her not terminating a possible pregnancy has more value than any competing argument. Further her slippery slope argument is fallacious as are almost all such arguments.
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Barbara Walters just described exactly what's wrong with every single political debate in this country.
An overzealous religious nut? Shocking! Cracks me up how the right only cares about life before it's born and where it's going after it dies.
Can we have a rational, calm discussion on this topic?
Not on a fluffy television shows like The View.
Not on unbalanced, biased radio talk-shows like Limbaugh/Hannity/O’Reilly.
Not in newspaper editorials (because the interaction is too slow).
Not at a bar/neighborhood tavern.
Not at the office watercooler because you might compromise your career with something you say.
Rational, calm discussion comes with a lively interaction here on 1gm. It’s the beauty of the internet and the resources of Norm.
(Clicking on Amazon.com link now.)
Its amazing how the value of a "human" non-sentient embryo has more value for some people than most sentient living things. Plus the argument about the "potential" of a developing embryo is equivalently illogical to saying that masturbation is mass murder.
Ignoring the fact that 70% of fertilized eggs fail to attach to the uterine lining on it's own there is the fact that not all rape victims report their crime nor do all hospitals provide EC.
Even in states where EC is provided to rape victims by the states in "rape kits" the Catholic hospitals will take them out and never inform the rape victims about this option.
People like Lieberman don't have a problem with this and feel it is no problem for a rape victim to go from pharmacy to pharmacy looking for one that provides it. Some rape victims are beaten so severely that they can't even physically get out of the bed much less get out and search for EC.
The religious nut on the view is oblivious to the real world. She has no problem with rape victims being punished with a pregnancy they didn't consent to. When it happens to her she'll sing a different tune.
I don't think that was appropriate to say, bookboy.
Love,
Hanna
toast is the same as bread?
I'd go further: a grain of wheat is equivalent to a slice of bread, which she drops on the floor because she insists on paying so much attention to the grain of wheat.
Over 50% of fertilized eggs terminate prematurely and naturally anyway, either by miscarriage or SIDS.
I am worried that the debate around this has got too simplified.
I'm a biologist. I can tell you that life does in fact begin with fertilization. To me, this is not the issue. I beleive that a woman has the right to choose what she does with her body and whether she chooses to birth that child.
The issue to me is CHOICE not life. The right has focused so much on the life question that the left has become stuck on it, saying that an embryo is not alive, but it is and this makes things difficult.
it is important the we claim the biological reality as well as the personal right. i.e.: it IS alive and it IS a choice for the woman, not the society.
if the left chooses to follow the "it's not alive" issue, then it IS a "slippery slope" by declaring embryos not alive, it is easy to justify making them for stem-cell research rather then using bone or skin-sourced stem cells which are just a useful.
it is not too far to talk children not being alive because their brains arn't fully developed or to harvest the disabled for organs. all of the multitude of horrors of eugenics can emerge.
so we have to look at this as an issue of choice and OWN the fact that a life will be taken, but that this is a situation where we will say that it is okay because a mother is uniquely bound to a child and has to be ready and able to bear. the right to abort is clear.
Plus what about quality of life vs quantity of life? This woman apperantly has no problem with unwanted children brought into the world through violent means and who will add to the many in need in homes, food, medicine, loving families, or worse live in an abusive houshold where the teenage mother was forced into pregnancy.
Anyone who believes that such a situation is a better choice than making the rational and indeed difficult decision to not bring a new life into such circumstances clearly does not have quality of life in mind.
Wow.
Miscarriage is common 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. (Note: that does not include unrecognized pregnancies.)
Of course that isn't the same as deciding to kill the baby. If my grandfather should die in his bed that is one thing, if I should smother him in his bed that is quite another. He would have been a person tomorrow except that I deprived him of what he needed to live.
If I abort a baby, it is more like smothering, he would have been a person tomorrow except that I deprived him of what he needed to live.
To ComposerNate: SIDS? Sudden INFANT death syndrome, only happens to infants. So if you are going to pretend that a fetus is not a human being you should figure out what your acronyms mean before you make up statistics.
As for you Cowboy, Norm does run a great site. But touchy subjects on internet discussion sites always seem to devolve into flame wars and made up statistics. I hope you're right but we already have one of the two (though he did guess pretty close to the right number).
Oh and Norm, I agree on the Slippery Slope point. You are right, in fact, most modern lists of the major fallacies include “Slippery Slope” as the name of one of them. That said ad hominim attacks are the oldest fallacies in the book. “don’t let her make you breakfast?” It seems a little foolish to call someone fallacious and then engage in a classic fallacy.
Her point she was trying to make with questioning supporters of Plan B as hypocritical if they then also support universal health care sounds like it comes from Bizzaro world. Somehow she's trying to equate universal health care with the government controlling your choices about your own body? That's one giant leap.
Never mind their inane views, people who don't know what their talking about shouldn't be allowed to express their views on television - the plan B pill prevents ovulation not implantation - if there's an egg that's been fertilized it will not have an effect.
Her argument is fallacious from the initial assumption that a fertilized egg should be afforded the same protections as a fully grown human being. The properties that make a zygote similar to a child almost always do the same for a flake of dandruff, or a hang nail, or dollops of sperm and eggs in separate containers: full chromosomal complements, the ability to develop into a human being under certain conditions . Furthermore, almost all the properties that make a piece of dandruff different from a human being also apply to zygotes: lacking consciousness, lacking nervous systems, lacking responsiveness, lacking the ability to act morally, etc.
As long as we (as rational people) don't challenge the absurd opinion that "human life" begins at conception, we are going to get dragged into arguments. Logically speaking, a rigorous conclusion is only as strong as its axioms, so we should spend as much time questioning the validity of axioms as the logical robustness of arguments that follow from them.
Personally, I think we are ultimately going to have to become comfortable with unresolvable (or continuously fuzzily defined) boundaries between what is a human life and what isn't. For example, a child delivered to term is 100% a human life because it meets all our criteria for human life. A gastrula might be 10% of a human life because it has nervous tissue, but is anatomically not recognizably human, lacks responsiveness etc. A zygote might be 0.5% human, a puddle of semen in one room and an ovulating woman in the next might collectively be 0.001% of a human being. In all cases the entities deserve protections proportional to their satisfying our human requirements. I doubt this sort of thinking will ever become prevalent, but I think it's the most reasonable way to adress slippery slope arguments.
There are two issues at work here, as everyone has noted. First, that bimbo needs to put a cork in it. The magic of the internet is that I can call her a bimbo and if you don't like my tone, you move on. On TV, one expects a little more, particularly if everyone else is trying to have an earnest discussion.
Second, because of her verbal diarrhea, they didn't even get to address the real controversy with Plan B (not saying they would have, but still...):
No one knows exactly what happens to the gametes during that stretch. In any event, the aborted/prevented organism would likely be undetectable to the woman. And to top it off, in vitro fertilization by definition winds up with just that: fertilization, but not necessarily implantation (conception, if you like). Where is the harm? Moreover, where is the difference?
what.is.going.on.in.your.country. I mean...even that this is discussed seriously on TV is so...absurd.
Its like watching children 'debate.' I think I agree with Cowboy here, the best discussion doesn't occur on television!
A) must've been rough for that lady, no wonder she flipped out being on national television and losing an argument 3 to 1... I kind of admire her for sticking to her guns
B) Barbara Walters did a very elegant job of kind of wrapping that conversation up and calming things down
C) Who the hell watches the view? Excellent clip, though.
D) Oh snap! That's Lisa Loeb!
If these people would give people in Darfur or New Orleans even 1% of the 'care' they show for blastulas, we'd all be a lot better off.
It's admirable that Barbara Walters says we need to have rational discussions, but how do you do that with people who are guided by virgin births or virgins in heaven (what's with virgins, anyway?) instead of rationality?
One of the ministers at my church (yes, sane people can still be "believers") has pointed out the obsession of many (i.e., the right wing) in this country with the beginning and the end of life, possible two of the most contentious - and ultimately unresolvable - questions humans will ever encounter.
His point was that there's quite a lot that happens in between these moments that are also critical, and we're not seeing as much debate about how to improve that experience for the bulk of humankind.
A sobering thought, I think.
The issue of abortion is not 'what is life' any more than the issue of homosexuality is 'what is marriage', both of which are the distracting debates presented by the far right. I too am a biologist like James, and agree that the science behind the issue is perfectly clear - yes, a life begins at conception. This seems to give leverage to the far right who hold no value to 'life' when it comes to other beings (even more sentient beings than an embryo, if that even matters). It is incredibly hypocritical to suggest that such a life should be legally protected, and yet have no problem with the killing of other living things. This is where the argument fails. The issue here is choice. I am of the opinion that no government or society or any person other than a woman should have the right to choose what is done with her body. Ken - I completely agree with that minister (a rare moment for me, as I am non-theistic, but thats irrelevant). The obsession is over QUANTITY of life, not QUALITY of life. Often, the choice to not bring a life into the world is a better judgement for the latter case. Bottom line to me is this: if the government is going to claim that using Plan B is murder, than we must therefore become a vegan, non-killing, non-bug-squishing, even non-bacteria-killing society least we be hypocritical.
on slippery slopes.
if we are taking away the idea that "slippery slope" is not a logical argument. then way do we have any problem with the PATRIOT ACT. I mean, it's not like we could call it a step on the slippery slope to fascism.
right?
I loved it when she tried to point out the hypocrisy between supporting universal health care and the right to choose. I don't understand how the government is going to control your body when you are voluntarily treated for an ailment.
It scares me that these lunatics care more about potential life than actual life. I have reservations about the practice of abortion, especially after the first month of pregnancy. However aborting a fetus in its early stages is never going to be tantamount to murder. In addition Plan B cannot even be considered abortion since prevents fertility from even taking place.
Anyways, I try to ingore people like her, especially coming from a show like The View. After all, she's the same person that would deny the existance of global warming, condemn stem-cell research, and believe in creationism. In short people like this deny science all together.
This might seem sexist, but did it seem to anyone else this was headed for chick-fight territory. Whenever chicks fight, everyone wins.
Damn you and you level-headedness, Barbra Walters.
Are there even any figures on how many pregnancies this will prevent? Yes, you can have an accident but, no, that does not mean you will get pregnant. This is for people that are trying to practice birth control and make a mistake while doing so. I'm sure there will (would) be abusers - I don't know how you stop that with ANY drug (perhaps Rush can enlighten us). Meanwhile, for all the woman knows (unless it's been checked), the man's sperm count is so low, she couldn't get pregnant. This is Plan B of birth control for her though, as a responsible adult.
it strikes me as a little odd that just because someone is pretty and thus lands a job as a talk show host, that suddenly she has the right to not only explode offensively about a topic about which she knows nothing, but that somehow she has earned the right to be taken seriously.
please, do us all a favor, producers at the view: if you really are trying to get the subject out there and teach the people that for some reason watch your show something, bring in experts. one from each side and maybe a moderate facilitator who can respectfully bring this vital debate into the forefront. it is offensive to the seriousness of this issue, to the thousands of girls and women it dramatically affects, to have former reality tv stars and burnt-out comedians screaming over each other about it.
Ok that blonde bimbo needs to stop being rich for once. Does she know that to get it now you have to go to planned parenthood or to a doctor... So.. yea, what about the poor girls who don't have planned parenthoods around them? and have to pay for a doctor visit? Yea, it's not like doctor visits are cheap when you have no health insurance!!! People are so selfish, and forget that there are poor people out there. I think she needs to shut the hell up, and realize its a great thing because it's actually preventing an abortion!! Which all those pro life people argue so much about.
Another biologist chiming in. From a biological perspective, how can one say that life begins at conception. Both the egg and sperm are alive, so is the fertilized egg. This is a semantic issue, not a biological issue. Asking biology to define the moment that "life" begins completely depends on definitions that no one seems to be able to agree on.
Mer - y'know, I think Rob (the minister I refered to) is probably fairly "non-theistic" as well (he's certainly non-dogmatic). Just a believer with a brain. And a heart.
We're not all crazy. Or stupid.
I don't see the slippery slope argument in her position (and I'm not sure what she meant when she referred to a slippery slope). She is not saying that a fertilized egg is a baby. She is saying that fertilization is the point at which life begins. In making the analogy to leaving a baby on the side of the road, she is just saying that both a baby and a fertilized egg are lives worth protecting. But that is not a slippery slope argument.
Almost of all the commentators disagree with the premise of her argument and not the mechanics of the argument. You just don't think that fertilization is the point at which life begins or at least that a fertilized egg is not worth protecting. Fine. But that has nothing to do with whether she is "irrational" and I think it is pretty poor for you guys to act like she is just simply not thinking straight. Not everyone who disagrees with you does so as a result of deficient reasoning ability.
What makes this issue so contentious is 1) the stakes are high on both sides and 2) the fundamental disagreement is about when life begins, and there is not really a "rational" argument for when life begins.
Saying that because many embryos don't implant isn't a very good stand-alone argument. It's irrelivant because we have no control over it.
If someone already believes that an embryo is a real human useing this would be like arguing that because 80% of people with a certain disease die, we should kill them off as soon as they get sick.
Also, to clarify what Plan B actually does I checked out their website. According to them it does 1 of 3 things:
1) temporarily stops the release of an egg from the ovary 2) prevents fertilization 3)prevents a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterus
go barbra!
The whole freaking issue is just pablum for the masses. You care so much for the unborn child try eliminating the toxin that unregulated industry freely sprays out into the air, water, and food. Specifically the kind of thing that cause the none too rare miscarriages. This whole debate annoys me.
there is no way to discuss this issue rationally unless you ban all people who hate murder.
I think the country is becoming fed up with the views of the radical pro-life crowd. There is a backlash building and the irrational views of the Bible thumpers are being exposed. Next,sperm count tests will be considered murder. Yeesh!
It is so absolutely amazing to me to hear people who are convinced about things that they have assumed to be true for ever because of how they were raised.
A difficult, and possibly slippery slope here is the fact that if you are considering the possibility that there is a baby at conception, you are also that it is life and that all life is worth saving. If all life is worth saving than masturbation and heaven knows what this woman is doing during menstruation... gross. But for all seriousness, this is compounded by the fact that there is a presumption that life is sacred, across the board. This argument is flawed in that these people who are so devout and against this topic along with something as influential as stem cell research and cloning are immoral for the presumption of a soul either being or not being there.
I don’t know when it was that life started moving towards conception, but it is very difficult to look at these points of view empathetically, and with some it is difficult to keep a straight face.
We all have the freedom to say what we choose, but I would argue that ignorance is not an inalienable right to any of us. If someone is not able to discuss their position and allow the counter point to be argued and possibly even listen to it and adjust their view, they are ignorant, no matter who says they are president. In this world where legislation is continually curbing that which is not in its realm of control, i.e. Abortion, Research, Net Neutrality, it should be all of our choices to educate ourselves to a degree that we are able to not just understand and prove our point, but to be able to come up with solid reasoning for it and to hand it over to the counter pointed side.
I'm burned out. Take care, and please prove me wrong.
oh jesus...
this has nothing to do with hating murder. It's got to do with simple thought process and possibly accepting being wrong. saying that an embryo is a human being is the equivilent to breaking that old saying:
dont count your chickens before they've hatched.
The unlawful killing of one human by another, especially with premeditated malice.
dont count your humans until they've uhm... poked their head out, or at least move on their own (one of our tests for adult death is does it move...)
Right on, Marco. I would have loved to see Loeb break a guitar over that chick's head.
Bah. An ethical view (by itself) can't be 'irrational' or 'illogical'. The people who think you can a priori prove some moral statment (or disprove one) have seriously deluded themselves. I suppose you can point out contradictions or unreasonable consequences, but that's about all.
Yes Mer, masturbation is murder.
So is ovulation without attempting to conceive.
Any man who masturbates & any woman who ovulates without intercourse has committed homicide & should be put to death.
If she has intercourse, but fails to conceive this is just involuntary manslaughter & shouldn't carry a death penalty, only a stiff prison sentence. However any hand-jobs or fellatio is conspiracy to commit first degree murder & both parties should be summarily shot for said sodomy.
I think some allowance can be made for a woman’s first ovulation(community service possibly), but after that they must conceive. I realize some girls start to menstruate at 8 years of age, but I guess that makes them old enough to have children so they should be tried as an adult & sentenced to prison if they fail to conceive with every ovulation. We mustn’t coddle these little baby killers.
Surely no one disagrees with this logic.
as always .. your decisions remain your responsibility.
and as amazed and incredulous of my position as you are.. i remain equally appalled that you can distinguish between murder and convenience on the basis of size and location.
im a religious freak and you condone murder.
shrug
i'll take the lesser of two evils every day of the week and twice on sundays.
People like Stipe are deliberately fudging the issue about Plan B.
People who are pro-choice don't condone murder, especially when Plan B actually stops the ovary from making contact with the sperm.
It is a rare occurence that it will prevent an embryo from attaching to the uterine wall.
That only happens if you take it 6-12 hours after sex. As long as people are mindlu of this time line, they will know when it is morally defensible to take Plan B.
Btw, Stipe, based on your warped reasoning, I can also claim that Christian fundamentalists is against abortion because they condone slavery along with the oppression of women and their sexuality since they believe in the literal word of God in the Bible.
Pro-life is a hokeyor looney bin position for Christians because supporters oppose to the exercizse of free will, which is a right Christians claim God gave to men.
Things are not as black and white as Stipe preferes to see them, and any logical discussion must acknowledge the complexity of the issue.
Anyone who sayes that using Plan B is murder but condones the killing of any other living thing is a hypocrite and should be able to justify their reasoning beyond Stipes favorite 'because it is' logic. Is the killing of other living things murder too Stipe? Is masturbation murder? Really, the more black and white we try to make the issue, the sillier it becomes.
I too am tired of this debate, when the bottom line issue is choice. I do not see a society where women are legally forced to give birth to what is conceived in them, however and by whomever concieved it, as a stable or functional one. Wheres the freedom of choice in that, whichever way you put it?
I almost coughed up my bagel.
I knew there was a distinct reason I didn't watch the view. Too bad Rosie wasn't there...
I'm glad Walters pointed out how out of control that girl was getting. She sounded like a little kid... "I heard everything you said... I wasn't the only one here speaking..."
Then she couldn't just shut up and let Barbara finish the segment, and she kept interrupting her.
I think someone on that show really should have pointed out the contradictions inherent in believing that a zygote is equivalent to a person (person in the philosophical sense). The rhythm method "murders" zygotes too, and the "firefighter in a fertility clinic" thought experiment (if you had to choose, would you save a single two-month-old baby, or a cooler with thousands of zygotes?) shows that no matter what someone says, they do not actually believe that a zygote is equivalent to a person.
Also, I noticed two biologists above who said that it is "a fact" and "perfectly clear" that a life begins at conception. I don't quite understand that - yes, life begins, but we don't treat all living things the same. We accord rights to humans, and specifically "persons" (again in the philosophical sense). And you cannot simply say that the zygote is equivalent to a human because it has human DNA in it - living human cells are not worth as much as a human, or biopsies would be illegal. So it's not, "in fact," "perfectly clear" that personhood begins at conception, even if the zygote is alive. Therefore, there is still a debate about when personhood (and therefore the according of rights) actually begins. Sure, the sperm and the egg may be alive in a biological sense, but life is not the issue - personhood is.
The woman is the host organism and should have all legal rights to do anthing she wants to anything living off of her body. Once the thing living off of her can live independently of her, then it is covered by the social contract (i.e. laws). Until that cord is cut, she is that baby's god.
Done. You can all go back to killing in war now.
at which point she can dump it in the street .. killing in war is justified .. killing a baby is murder. thats the issue and any attempt to complicate it is an evil attempt to condone it.
mer .. you may be tired of this debate and i hope that means youll give up and the right choice can be made through your apathy .. not the best result .. but a better one than currently is the case.
your idea that a woman can conceive randomly and illegally is the first description of an unstable culture ... fix that and you halve the abortion rate ..
but still .. one baby murdered is too many.
did i say halve?
ive fallen for more lies .. the abortions performed to murder a baby fathered by a rapist are by a long way in the minority.
women choose to murder their babies primarily for their own convenience .. primarily because they have been fed the lie that it is their choice and their right.
its not and its not.
Andy,
I knew what SIDS stands for. To clarify, I meant "over 50% of conceptions terminate prematurely and naturally anyway, either by miscarriage or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome."
If you wanted a source, I'd rather you have just asked nicely, Andy.
http://www.allaboutlifechallenges.org/Miscarriage-Statistics.htmThat is, in a nutshell, the whole discussion: The religious right attempt to equate a zygote as a ‘baby’?
I can swath the massofcells in swaddling clothes? Stipe knows how to effectively use emotional-loaded terms. “Murder”…”Baby”…to make his/her point.
Good discussion here, folks.
Well, I think Stipe is definitely the expert on the word murder for his faith condones sines of nearly every strip, along with condemnation of the people who don't believe in it that they will go to hell.
Odd, why religious people did not speak up against Bush use of force to kill innocent Iraqi civilians to set up his new order in the Middle East. After all, they voted for Bush because of his faith?
Morally indefensible, aren't they?
Stipe and his religion champions the oppression of women, a dominant theme in the Bible, to the extent that women should not have any choice to decide whether they want to bear a child, regardless of the fact that they will spend 10 months of their lives to give birth and it involves a lifetime of responsibility. Even though Stipe’s religion preach freedom of will.
So which is which, Stipe? You can’t selectively use parts of your faith to support your views while ignore the other elements that contradict yours.
You are not giving the complete word of your God here. And that's no better than fibbing or lying.
I don't understand all these referrences to masturbation as murder. Her position is not that anything that can possibly turn into a baby should be treated as a baby. Her position is that life begins at conception and all life is worthy of respect. Conception is the stopping point on this slipperly slope you guys have all put her on.
If you don't think life begins at conception, then argue for a different point in time when life does begin. But pretending that her position entails treating masturbation as murder is just blowing down a strawman.
when have i used a biblical reference to promote my standards kes .. show me a biblical reference...
you want me to have book and verse so you can justify ignoring your compromises on the basis that god is not real.
well i dont care if you reject god .. your choice mate .. but youre still condoning murder when you kill human life ..
and your still well short of anything approaching honest when you say people have a right to execute arbitrarily and bear no responsibility. ..
Let's entertain the notion that not allowing an embryo to attach itself to a uterine wall is like leaving a baby on the street to die. You could bring that baby to an orphanage, or in the least, put it by the steps of a church.
Can you do the same with an embryo?
No. Of course not, because relating the two is moronic.
The situations of a woman’s pregnancy are unique as each woman. Women must have the right to control their reproduction with all reasonable control necessary. I think it is going overboard for a woman to kill herself to avoid having a child. Jesus was inclined to leave the judging to God remember Mary Magdalene. PS be very suspicious of someone calling them selves Christian and quoting the Old Testament
Eric - it was never said that it is "clear" where personhood begins, if you can define 'personhood' as a separate thing from any life itself. What biologists can say is that a living thing exists at conception. Nothing more, nothing less.
Stipe - you have yet to answer my question - how is Plan B murder and the killing of other non-sentient living things murder? Not an unclear question here. Also - constantly accusing everyone in this group of "rejecting god" is getting old and pointless, not to mention erroneous. Lets have an adult conversation please, where its actually OK to disagree without attempting to personally attack anyone's character or religious affiliation.
that should say 'the killing of other non-sentient living things NOT murder'. Sorry.
For someone who is quoting God says this, God says that, do I have to say more about the way you state things.
And my point here is clear. I do NOT consider it murder if Plan B is used to prevent the sperm from interacting with the egg.
So you can't say I condone murder : >
Although you are clearly a religious chauvanist who belives in the oppression of the freedom and sexuality of women.
I do see you condoning gibberish on behalf of God though
Stipe - I don't want to seem mean, I really want to know: is English your first language? Most of the time your posts are totally incomprehensible - really garbled.
I say this with all sympathy. English is my third language and I know it is a confusing thing to learn.
I'd like to know so I can be extra patient with your posts in the future. Even though I often disagree with the ideas that I think you're trying to express.
there are two ways plan B works .. one is neutralising the egg before the sperm gets to it .. if i give my opinion of that then whatever small chance i have of being listened to will evaporate entirely .. so i'll restrain myself ..
the other way it works is by stopping implantation after conception.
so sure .. you could utilise plan b and get lucky and not technically murder your own child .. or you could take it and murder ...
your choice.
well then stipe, tell me, where do you sit on these issues:
Do adults have the right to get a tatoo?
Do adults have the right to get plastic surgery, like say breast augmentation?
Do Adults have the right to donate a kidney? Or more importantly, not donate a kidney.
The point I'm getting at is WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU TO TELL ANYBODY WHAT GOES ON WITH THERE OWN BODIES
whether you or your fucking book agrees with it or not.
The lie of choice?!!!
Yeah, right. Like a woman who get's pregnant at 21 shouldn't get to decide to terminate, and finish college and get more out of her life, and be able to better provide for the children she does plan to have
So you'd prefer to live in a world where your own body isn't your to with as you please?
How about the government keeps a list of people, and whether you like it or not, you can be forced to donate organs. I mean, it's in the name of saving lives right. Standing by while someone dies, when all you would have to do is give up one kidney or lung... well that would be murder too wouldn't it?
Shall we outlaw masterbation, that's a crime according to your bible.
You and all your backward ilk really need to get a life, before you tell others what to do with theirs
Stipe, the box comes with the time period for the optimal period of use whereby the sperm can be prevented from ocntact with the ovary.
So no foetus. No murder. No foul.
You have to let people habe the choice to take Plan B in an optimal manner and if they take it later, that is a choice that they will have to live with.
Not you or me.
By the way, why don't you argue to your believers that no Christian should own a gun to prevent them from tempoted to shoot someone with you.
My point.
It's an uphill task to make the case that women should be deprived of certain freedoms simply because they may make the wrong or bad choice.
You cannot totally ignore the possibility that they may make the right choice with Plan B and whether they should keep the child.
Last time I checked, it still innocence until proven guilty.
Thus pro-life is actually a negative position in that women cannot be trusted with certain freedoms. So actually, Pro-life means NO CHOICE FOR WOMEN.
It is a poor faith indeed that distrusts man and his instincts for good. Or exploits the weaknesses of man to score political points.
Hardly godly standards.
"The issue to me is CHOICE not life. The right has focused so much on the life question that the left has become stuck on it, saying that an embryo is not alive, but it is and this makes things difficult."
Thank you, James. I'm in medicine and have been all my adult life, radiology. My degrees are in biology, & theology. As a woman, I have NEVER thought 'the argument' was about life. It is about choice; it is also about control. One of the reasons I married my husband is because he, when I got pregnant 5 years earlier than our plan & was confused about what to do, told me whatever I decided he would support; it was my body. So for us, we then got married a month earlier than planned and had our first child much earlier than our plan. We were lucky. We were adults. We had options.
The young woman on 'The View' I've heard before. I wouldn't place her arguments often in the logical column. As for this particular conversation, she monopolized it with her own misinformed blathering.
its an uphill task to convince me that if people make choices they are not responsible for the consequences.
do the instructions on the box outline the errors and variation in the timeframes they suggest? do they account for the conditions that are not known inside the womans body that .. the shortcomings in observational science that have been mentioned in this thread ..
is there a warning on the packet saying - caution: incorrect use may make you a murderer...?
your arguments about guns and choice are inane and completely contradict your other views on this matter.
Strange, when other people use analogies you criticise them.
As many Christians support the right to own guns despite the ever-present risk of misusing it, it is sheer hypocrosiy for them to be against abortion SIMPLY BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF abusing it.
That's my point.
Times when it is moral to abort a baby includes a rape victim who does not want to give birth to a rapist child.
NO one, not even stipe and his god, can force the rape victim to have the child against your will.
You don't have the right to prevent people from making choices that they can live with.
There are many ways to prevent abortion, however, Christians are trying to belittle contraception while fighting against abortion when the greater awareness andusage of contraception can lower rates of abortion.
Stipe, it is your view, along with other Christians, that contradict your other views on this matter.
when you use analogies they are generally very poorly constructed .. hence i criticise them.
like your analogy here that abortion might be abused like people can abuse guns. if i use a gun correctly then noone is hurt except perhaps the person who deserves to die.
if i use abortion correctly then an innocent baby dies...
you tell me how your analogy is coherent because i certainly cant see it.
neither stipe nor his god can force a woman to not kill her baby no matter what the situation .. we both still call it murder though.
i dont belittle contraception, its just that most contraception is actually abortion .. and those methods that arent are notoriously ineffective.
finally .. it would be nice to know what you think should happen to the rapist in the situation. you seem to jump quickly onto this as an excuse to kill an innocent baby .. yet make no mention about what should happen to the evil man.
let me tell you what god and i think ... we think the justice system should kill the guilty man and protect the innocent child.
you seem to want to protect the rapist and kill the baby.
Stipe has his own personal God who abides by Stipe's rules.
no. hes described quite adequately in the bible .. you read that, youll be able to predict my responses.
Wrong Stipe. Different people interpret the Bible in different ways. Of course, all of these various people feel that they know what God wants. If it were so obvious, there wouldn't be so many different religious views. You seem to think that you and God are one and the same. And if God did need a spokesperson, you're not a very good one. You come across as aggressive and belligerent.
Ouch! Interrupting lady made my head hurt. Put her to work in a fertility clinic and let her save the stem cells from certain death.
to stipe, all I can do is quote the good book
Psalm 137:9 (New Living Translation)
Happy is the one who takes your babies and smashes them against the rocks!
"Behold, here is my daughter a maiden, and his concubine; them I will bring out now, and humble ye them, and do with them what seemeth good unto you: but unto this man do not so vile a thing. But the men would not hearken to him: so the man took his concubine, and brought her forth unto them; and they knew her, and abused her all the night until the morning: and when the day began to spring, they let her go."
- Judges 19:24-25
so you see, raping women and killing babies IS the will of god... great religion there
Excerpt from Monty Python Every Sperm is Sacred
CHILDREN: Every sperm is sacred. Every sperm is great. If a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate.
GIRL: Let the heathen spill theirs On the dusty ground. God shall make them pay for Each sperm that can't be found.
CHILDREN: Every sperm is wanted. Every sperm is good. Every sperm is needed In your neighbourhood.
MUM: Hindu, Taoist, Mormon, Spill theirs just anywhere, But God loves those who treat their Semen with more care.
I predicted abortion for an October election issue. I hope blondie didn’t jump the gun for the religious right.
If religions are going to discourage contraception & promote abstinence then shouldn’t they lower the marrying age to 13 & bring back arranged marriages?
A woman of 18 I know is about to have an arranged marriage. She’s all for it as she is a Moonie from birth.
of course people invent meanings for the bible .. look at evil evil man .. he's invented two whole new stories by quoting verses and not caring about whats happening in the story.
you can make anything say anything as long as youve got enough material to ignore to the contrary and a willful desire to lie.
the fact remains that the bible does not change, and even though there might be differences in theologies .. there is a line you cross when you say god is evil.
some like to cross that line and dance about insanely on the other side trying to draw attention to themselves.
and i was having such a nice slepp too...
You have no right to call yourself "pro-life", unless you are a vegan who grows all their own food, doesn't pay any taxes, and refuses all utilities. Only then can you even be 90% sure that you do nothing to harm another person's life. All of these assholes don't realize that their actions destroy and end thousands of animal and human lives each year. They are all hypocritical assholes who don't understand that a morning after pill prevents a collection of 10 stem cells from further developing. It is like forgetting to water a plant, nowhere near the killing a baby.
sorry for making the same point as mer, just thought it should be repeated
If abortions are criminalized, how should we punish the women who are caught having them?
Jail? Death sentence?
Stipe, you are lying by defending which Christians are against contraception and when you equate as contraception to abortion:
Stipe said: "i dont belittle contraception, its just that most contraception is actually abortion ... and those methods that arent are notoriously ineffective."
Christians have been lying by promoting the view that contraceptions are ineffective and abstinence is better.
Condoms have an 86% success rate even if the user has not used it before. With proper knowledge, condom has a 97% chance of preventing pregnancy.
Christians like Stipe preach abstinence which has a 6-12% success rate.
Christians also fudge up the issue of contraception which prevent the sperm from making contact with the egg.
Thus no foetus or embryo is created.
Thus no murder. no foul.
Use of contraceptions is good and does not equate to abortion.
Btw, Stipe is still avoiding answering his position that a rape victim and other girls who can't take care of babies do not have the right to abortion.
Sad to say, Stipe's religion seems to really condone slavery and oppression of women based on hot air moral positions.
=======
Stipe, morality is more a case by case standard, than an absolute godly standard. If it was absolute, 90% of the Christians in the world today are not going to go to Heaven based on the standard of blind and faultless obedience to the tenets of the Bible.
How many actually live a blameless life?
Even atheists like me practise morality at a higher level than most religious people, especially when we do good deeds for their sake, rather than those who do them to book a place in Heaven or because they fear god.
Simply put, your godly standard is lower than the moral standards where many people like me live by.
Shocking isn't it?
I support a woman's right to abortion.
But if I do get a women pregnant, I will not let her abort the baby because I have a sense of responsibility and only assos ask the mothers of their children to abort their sons. My parents went through hell to raise me and my brothers and I am not going to dishonour their memory.
Stipe, if you truly feel for this issue, you should gunning for those lousy excuses of man who impregnates women without any intention of keeping children.
Your religion's vendetta against women is sadly misplaced.
its interesting..... the definition for pregnancy has changed over the years---when we had Clinton as president pregnancy was definied when implantation occurs (usually 72 hours after fertilization) Now with Bush as president, the medical definition of pregnancy is when fertilization occurs. Now it makes things like Plan B seem like abortion. It drives me crazy..........
Just because something is alive does not make it a viable, complete, and independent human life. One cannot define or judge something by its potential. If we do so then we are all murderers, rapists, thieves, and drug dealers. I have the ability to murder if I choose to do so, but I choose not to because I consider it to be an infringement on another's rights. However, if I were to apply the standards by which conservatives and fundamentalists choose to judge certain issues, I should be jailed or killed for the potential crimes I may or may not commit. It is entirely irrelevent that I would never do so since I have the ability to do so. There is a reason why we have concrete and seperate definitions for a chicken and an egg; they are related but not the same thing.
Likewise a human egg, sperm cell, or zygote is not a human life. It merely has the potential to become one should the correct conditions be met. As someone already mentioned, that is actually not very likely to happen. So even if we decide to play a numbers game, the gamble falls in favor of the zygote never becoming a fully realized life.
Of course there are also far more ambiguous arguments that can be used such as the fact that a child needs to be cared for and nurtured once it is born. I always find it somewhat interesting and not just a little bit disturbing that conservative policy is to support the birth but to to ignore the care. Is it really so important to birth a child that it overshadows the quality of that child's life? What if the mother knows that her child will be sold into slavery or prostitution? Is the lesser of two evils to abort a potential life or to potentially guarantee a life filled with torture and misery?
Some things are worse than death.
Of course, one can always call the bible in as support. But until any religion, any religion at all, can offer even the smallest shred of proof to support the existence of a god, the bible or any other religious scripture doesn't make for a particularly compelling bit of evidence. The fallacy lies in the assumption of truth when, in fact, the participants of any one given religion are always in the minority. Which of your dogmas should I consider correct?
And what of the infite possibilities of religions that don't yet exist? At some point in the future new religions will pop up. Will their beliefs become truer than the old religions? If so, then I start my own now. Mine claims that god hates it when people fail to use their ability to reason. I wish I could save the illogical from eternal damnation, but I cannot. And, while this fact saddens me, there is nothing I can do to stop it. But don't worry, I will weep for your lost souls.
Stipe,
You claim "the fact remains that the bible does not change." No statement could be further from the truth. If that were true, then there would be no new testament. There would be no book of mormon. The bible has been edited, translated, and reformed more times than I care to count. Each time by humans, not god. You don't think mistakes have been made? How about bits and pieces conveniently left out? The Vatican has openly admitted to keeping sections of the bible out of the hands of the public. During the time of the Spanish inquisition entire sections of the bible were removed to support the perpetuation of whichever ideas could most easily be used to manipulate the masses. Hundreds of years later, you are still allowing yourself to be manipulated. Why?
Just here to say that I dont think this point has been emphasized enough, why is the killing of a non-sentient being considered murder? It is the killing of a life, that is not in argument here, however what is often contested is whether or not it is a life that is worth protecting. Is it more important than the life of the mother? I say this as the anti-abortion crowd will often point out that the life could develop into the next Picasso or the next Einstein but they never wonder if a mother not burdened with a child could be the next Picasso or Einstein (Not trying to be sexist but really these are just examples for now)…
Anyway, back to my original point, all life is not equal, if it were you would not eat meat or do anything that can in anyway harm even ants… Now that I think of it, colonies of ants display greater sentience than an embryo… they in effect can be treated as an organism in themselves, with sense organs and appendages that serve specialized functions… but I digress again.
When should life be worth protecting? Well we would argue that despite its complexity the ant colony is hardly worth defending or charging over, it is, after all not human (and we are very specious by nature.) so when does human life become worthy of protection? I would argue that when it comes right down to it we should begin to value life at the time it begins to have its own desires and thoughts, so, in effect, when the neurological system has developed to the point to have thoughts and desires… this does not translate into when it can feel pain (As that is IIRC before the nervous system develops to the point to being capable of desires and thoughts)…
So this is of course a very large area of time we are dealing with, and as far as I know we do not yet know when the fetus gains the ability to think, so perhaps the best idea is to avoid abortions after that point… However I must stress that even after the point that the fetus has gained independent thoughts and desires we should still allow an area of ambiguity and leave the decisions up to the woman (again her body) but we should ensure that she is informed that after this point it is a thinking creature and perhaps it would be best to have the baby and put it up for adoption… Now this is semi-off-topic as the topic is on Plan B…
So on Plan B, I doubt that any case can be made that the life in question is sentient or even anywhere near it… but your saying that even though it can become sentient it is equivalent to murder to kill it… now again, this entity has no desires or thoughts yet, so why is it worth protecting? Simply because it is human? We don’t protect humans that have no desires, all laws and morality deals with the desires of people being thwarted by other peoples desires and we tend to categorize actions that thwart the desires of others as bad, (murder, theft etc…) and desires that help others achieve their own desires as good. This is a brief description but anyway, my pain point is that it is impossible to commit an act (such as murder) against an agent that has no desires…
I hope that made some sence…
Lataz
its interesting..... the definition for pregnancy has changed over the years---when we had Clinton as president pregnancy was definied when implantation occurs (usually 72 hours after fertilization) Now with Bush as president, the medical definition of pregnancy is when fertilization occurs. Now it makes things like Plan B seem like abortion. It drives me crazy..........
What? There's nothing in those quotes misrepresented...
How about this...
Tell me the story of Moses and the plagues
What does your bible say... It says YOUR GOD KILLED EVERY FIRST BORN SON IN EGYPT. And why? Because Pharoah wouldn't let the Hebrews go... So tell me, why didn't YOUR GOD JUST KILL THE PHAROAH???!!!
Why did he choose to kill babies, and children?
I would LOVE to hear your answer
and just to prove my point
please show me where I'm taking ANYTHING out of context. It's a Psalm written by the conquered Hebrews, who seek revenge on the Babylonians, called Lament for Jerusalem.
Fact is, you've never read the bible all the way through, isn't it... You think it's all love and touchy feely, and frankly, it's not.
thats because you dont know what love is.
god wanted israel out of egypt .. are you now going to retract what you think about god and slavery? probably not ... youre not interested in bits of the story that counter your idea of an evil god.
pharoah refused .. numerous times to spoken requests and many times with miraculous signs accompanying the requests. so now you think god is evil when pharoah wont listen to his creator? how about you label pharoah evil and blame him for his actions and trust god to know what hes doing when he takes all the kids off the egyptians to face judgement.
if i thought the bible was all touchy feely lovey dovey .. do you really think id be in here slicing pieces off my soul arguing with you?
why would I retract it. fact is the bible is perfectly ok with slavery, with raping women, killing entire towns, hell, even asking Abraham to kill his own son to prove his faith, (which begs the question, if your god is omnipotent, then why should he need to ask?)
so, in one post, you tell me I misinterpret your god, then tell me that the bible isn't touchy feely lovey dovey. Make up your mind
and again, WHY NOT JUST KILL PHAROAH... he defied him, not the egyptian children...
I guess that explain your warped ass views of justice
the bible is perfectly ok with reporting history .. its ok with talking about slavery and rape and killing towns because those things happen in history. yuo bring the attitude that if it happens in the bible then its because god did it .. which is like saying if it happened in lord of the rings then tolkien did it... (assuming LOTR was historical)
you then describe a greek attribute given to god called omnipotence meaning 'all powerful'. nice description, but leads us down the wrong path when trying to picture a good god. like you say .. how could omnipotent god create bad things .. he doesnt.
when god asked abraham to kill issac he knew the situation... abrahams religious history included human sacrifice as a normal thing .. what do you think would have happened if abraham had said "no"?
and if youre going to guess that god would smite abraham then you havent read all the other stories where people said "no" to god.
i have made up my mind. ive read all the bible and dont think its lovey dovey wishy washy idealistic make believe .. you read the bible and think god is responsible for evil.
my warped view of justice holds people responsible for their actions.
gods sense of justice is perfect .. do you think he would judge those babies unwisely? do you think pharoah would not face similar judgement later on?
your warped view of justice says that people have to experience evil things before they are qualified to judge ...
so then, who created lucifer... you know the angel, that fell from grace and became satan... oh, that would be your god
It's not my fault your book can't keep itself straight
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