“It is morally wrong to kill a human” is a gross oversimplification of most peoples’ moral stance. For example, the US government kills humans on a regular basis under a wide variety of differing circumstances, yet most of us are okay with it, and even facilitate it in one way or another.

Let me clarify.

The basic principle is that there is such as a thing as a human being. The fact that it is hard to draw a line - are neanderthals human? - does not change the fact that humans exist. You and I are human.

“It is morally wrong to kill a human�? is a gross oversimplification of most peoples’ moral stance. For example, the US government kills humans on a regular basis under a wide variety of differing circumstances, yet most of us are okay with it, and even facilitate it in one way or another.

I feel like I am giving a philosophy lesson today!

The goal of ethical systems is to handle collisions of rights. That is why even though killing is wrong, it is ok to kill in self-defense. That is also why there is the Just War Theory. Many people would argue that it does not apply to Iraq - but many people would also argue that it does apply to stopping Hitler.

These facts do not invalidate the basic principle that killing is wrong.

Justin: Fair enough. Killing is wrong. I certainly won’t argue with that.

Thanks for the Carlin elwedriddsche. Good stuff.

Out of genuine interest, I am going to attempt once more to bring this discussion kicking and screaming back to where it began:

KPATRICKGLOVER WROTE: If a circuit court judge started saying that he was abducted by aliens, there would be calls to remove him from the bench. Why? Because if he believed something that ridiculous his ability to think rationally and do his job would be in question.

If a state senator declared that Santa Claus was real, would we leave him in place or would we push to drive him out of office? Would you feel comfortable having decisions that effect your life being made by someone who believes a fat, jolly man slides down his chimney every year?

I ask again. If a US Senator were to publicly announce that he had seen God and spoken to him, perhaps even received a commandment from him…how would this revelation be received by the public? Has this ever happened? I hear politicians talk of speaking to God (in their prayers), but rarely of God speaking to them.

I only ask because I expect many Christians feel government and politicians in general are too secular. Many Christians probably feel that politicians only give lip service to religion…instead of going the “Full Monty” for the one and true Truth, so to speak. They probably feel the same way about their school boards and judges - that more needs to be done in the fight against moral laxity, etc etc.

On the flipside, it’s apparent to me that most politicians certainly know that there is only so much god-talk the public will accept…so that’s why supposedly devout leaders (like, say George W) don’t go on all the time in public about God, even though they claim from time to time to be acting on a mission from Him. As nutty as the average voter is about Zeus, they still expect their leaders to be rational to a point…that’s why ranting endtimes nutbars like Jack Van Impe or Pat Robertson will never (hopefully) hold office…or at least will continue to have a limited chance of getting in…if they ever do run.

While most politicians give lip service to religion - they also seem to be very careful about how they speak about religion. While they proclaim “praise God” with frequency and conviction, I don’t hear many reliving on CNN the one time Zeus descended from the heavens in his ectoplasmic glory to answer their prayers in person…in turn giving them the conviction to shout “praise God” on national TV.

Is it because they fear secular backlash and disbelief of their supernatural tale? Of course not everyone gets a visit from God…but I have heard a couple of good ones from Evangelicals…close relatives included…and it has almost always been my experience that TrueBelievers frequently have an example of a time or situation where they felt, heard or otherwise sensed God’s presence. So if my family members will share their near God “proof” experiences with me (almost all experienced at times of high stress and lack of sleep, I might add) why won’t politicians?

Furthermore, what obligation does a public official have to recognize his or her own biases?

Zilch played along:

Some gays do, after all, have babies.  Not as many as, say, Christian heteros do (I’m willing to bet), but significantly more than, say, men with vasectomies or people under three.

Men with vasectomies have no say in the debate anyway. They had the God-given responsibility to reproduce and snippily said “Duh, not me!“. Only real men have the mandate and the authority to force women to have every baby they help start.

As for people under three, they have the right to make babies too, if they’re males. If they’re females, they have to right to be instructed to reproduce…

I stand by my original assessment, though. Gays make fewer babies per sexual union than any other subset and they teach other’s babies how to be fabulous.

I had to learn how to be fabulous the hard way and that’s no fun. I highly recommend having Brock teach your baby how to be fabulous. It’s less stressful and more efficient!

This is what I get for being busy for a day.  I agree mostly with Justin and much of this is a rephrasing according to my own perceptions of reasonable argument.

Michael Stiber:
That may be true. But, generally speaking, it takes a certain kind of religious certitude in one own’s infallibility to exercise power over how how other adults, who disagree with you, seek medical care for their own selves.

Oh yeah, I forgot how valuable relativistic ethics are in determining right and wrong.

Michael Stiber:
Who are you to say that your belief that a fetus has rights independent of it’s mother should supersede other’s beliefs that a fetus is a part of a woman’s body and has no special rights?

I am nobody, but I do have the ability to reason.  So I think I my reasoning for taking a stance should speak for itself.  If people choose to disagree then I am more than willing to let them do so and act on that ability if they can back it up with more sound reasoning than I for my position.  After all if a legislator is to be allowed to legislate shouldn’t he first be tested to have sound reasoning?

Michael Stiber:
A “baby�? one week from its due date is not a baby; it’s a fetus. The difference: a fetus is part of a woman’s body. A premature infant isn’t. It’s a pretty obvious difference, isn’t it?

Nope.  So you think because of its dependence on its mother the fetus should be granted no rights?  Why isn’t that logic extended to people dependent on an iron lung, pace maker, organ transplant, or even kids dependent on parents after they are born for food and shelter?

Michael Stiber:
What’s the difference between a zygote and a scraping of cells from the lining of someone’s mouth, given cloning technology? Both sets of cells could potentially become human beings.

Given cloning technology, nothing.  Given the natural course of nature, everything.

While some religious groups see an embryo as a human life, looked at in a cold, rational light they are no more than tiny balls of cells.

An acorn is alive, bacteria is alive, a cell with human DNA and the natural purpose to create an entirely new being is alive and certainly a human being.  It doesn’t matter where it is along the developmental stage.  The same rights that protected my life at the age of three protect me now and when I turn fifty.  There is no reason discrimination should happen on the basis of level of development.

They can, of course, become a human under the right circumstances, but so can eggs and sperm, and with the advent of cloning so too can skin cells. These cells cannot all merit human status.

No they can’t all merit human status.  Before we had the technology to clone what did we do to draw lines on moral principles?  Nature maybe?  Skin cells naturally do not become humans.  They are not a developmental stage in the life of a human.  Ability to clone is as irrelevant to the morality of abortion today as it has been since the existence of homo sapiens sapiens.

Similarly, the “potentiality argument�? views the potential to develop into a human being as conferring the status of a human being. This is akin to saying that a home improvement warehouse is the same thing as 100 houses, since it holds that potential. Neither of these makes any sense to neuroscience. How can a biological entity that has no nervous system be a moral agent?

This is a false analogy.  A home improvement warehouse is not similar to 100 houses because it can’t turn itself into 100 houses.  An embryo has the natural ability to become a human being.

Sexy Sadie:
I don’t think a fetus is a person; therefore, I see absolutely nothing wrong with me or any other woman going to get an abortion.

Considering all the points made so far about whether a fetus is human or not and if so at which point, etc. upon what basis is this opinion made and why should it be universally applied through legislation if you think it should?

Sexy Sadie:
It’s called “live and let live,�? and it’s the only moral code that I subscribe to. And I consider myself a far more moral person than you because of it.

I suspect that is pretty easy when relativistic ethics are entirely unquantifiable to begin with.

Sexy Sadie:
What is being argued is whether or not it is privy to the same rights as a real woman, and I personally to not believe it is. To each their own.

Do you find any value in laws or governance?

rgjp:
I propose that the next comments on abortion come from a woman or no one at all. Do women have any less worthy a moral compass than men, with respect to issues of death and life? Well, then, let them decide and let’s leave myself, Daryl and Justin out of it.

[Devil’s Advocate]The intereseting thing about philosophers when they question the nature of existence is that they ultimately must admit that the only way to be able to understand existence would be to remove ourselves from it to observe it.  It seems to me men are in the perfect position to come up with a solution to the problem of abortion, because we are outside of the scenario and most able to look over the facts and come to consensus without letting irrational emotional distractions get involved.[/Devil’s Advocate]

zilch:
It might help if you could tell us if you think abortion should be permitted
a) when the mother’s health is endangered?  If so, how endangered must it be?
b) when both mother and fetus are likely to die, if she carries to term?
c) when the mother was raped?  By her father?
d) when the baby is anencephalic?

I think this is mostly a distraction from the topic at hand(that being the larger issue of the general case).  I will chime in only with, in the case of rape abortion is still wrong because two wrongs don’t equal a right.  And in the case of health problems for the mother or child, I would say that is a much grayer issues and we would be here longer splitting hairs with that than we are with this, therefore I won’t begin to venture into that terrirtory.

zilch:
If you believe fertilized eggs are human beings, then what about the estimated 50% of fertilized eggs that are spontaneously aborted?  Were they human beings too?

Yes they were human beings, but you can’t assign a moral position of right or wrong to this if the woman had no intention or control over the miscarriage(at least that is true in most cases).

zilch:
What if a fertilized egg doesn’t implant because the woman does gymnastics, or runs from her rapist?  Is that an abortion, is the woman guilty of depriving a human being of its rights?

I don’t expect the woman to know she’s pregnant if implant hasn’t even occurred.  Most(if not all) early pregnancy tests can’t tell whether or not you’re pregnant until implantation has occurred.  She can’t be guilty(in the sense of being morally in the wrong) of abortion if she has no idea there is a person developing in her.

rgjp:
The skin cells in my cheek grow and replicate until they are murdered by the swab.

They will not grow and replicate into another human being.  You aren’t murdering them with a swab, just killing them.  No moral issue present.

zilch:
And what if the woman aborts because she’s running from her rapist, but she’s hoping that she will abort?  If she hops while running away?  Is that murder?

That’s an unlikely if not impossible scenario.  It takes at least 24 hours for the sperm to make their way to the egg and another five to six days more to implant.  As with football and play call reviewing, there needs to be indisputable evidence to overturn an officials ruling on the field.  Indisputable evidence in such a scenario would be nearly impossible to come by.  I think anything short of a confession on the part of the woman should grant a status of not guilty.

Ulfrekr:
You cannot, ultimately, prevent a woman from aborting a fetus. You can make it more difficult, but there will always be ways, be it back-alley clinics, a fall down the stairs, etc.

This can be said of any action human may desire to take whether it be a morally wrong one or not.  It’s basically the same argument the anarchist uses for that style of governance.

rgjp:
it is a distraction to the real question vis a vis public policy formation.

I know the thread was on public policy formation, but this particular tangent seems to be pretty entrenched in the morality of abortion question.

rgjp:
As I’ve stated, if the chief question is one of public policy and whether or not we are to limit or maintain access to legal abortion, then I find it telling that I have yet to hear a rebuttal from anyone on my point that banning abortion is a futile and destructive act due to the likely rise (IMO) of an unregulated abortion black market.

The anarchist could use the very same argument to dispense with laws and governance all together.  So whatever argument made for the value of law instead of anarchism would be the counterargument.  rgjp, do you value laws?  If so, why?

zilch:
a) a human-chimp hybrid

Did nature create it?  If so, how?

zilch:
b) a human with a (genetically engineered) mouse gene (to replace the faulty one he was born with, say)

Technically, if you are replacing one human gene with a gene that it happens to share with another animal, aren’t you really just replacing one combination of quadratic biological machine code with another?  The creature in that case would still be entirely human.

zilch:
c) an egg and sperm close enough for some molecular interaction at their peripheries, but no penetration of the zona yet
d) an egg and sperm touching, but the sperm still has its tail, and the genetic material is still separate

Not human.

zilch:
e) a homo erectus
f) a homo sapiens neandarthalis
g) a homo floriensis

These are extinct so it doesn’t matter presently and will not matter in the future.

If there is any difference between the following two logical arguments, then by all means point it out to me:

1. “Even if you think abortion is cold-blooded murder, you shouldn’t try to make it illegal because other people might not agree with you.  Look at NOW—they say abortion is ok, so they should be free to choose.  If you disagree, just don’t have an abortion yourself but don’t try to tell others what to do.�?

2. “Even if you think having sex with 8-year-old children is wrong, you shouldn’t try to make it illegal because other people might not agree with you.  Look at NAMBLA—they say sex with children is ok, so they should be free to choose.  If you disagree, just don’t have sex with 8-year-olds yourself but don’t try to tell others what to do.�?

Here’s the difference. The word “think” in example 2 should be replaced with the word “know”. The first example is an opinion, held only by a percentage of the populace. The second example is a fact.

Strawmen and other logical falacies aside, did you ever provide a source for that chart of yours?

KPatrickGlover, I believe if you had written your post to say we need some standard for determining competency; the ability to apply logic, critical thinking skills, then no one would have gotten themselves in a huff about it. This thread wouldn’t have launched yet another abortion debate. And, I believe, if we had a standard for determining competency, which I also believe we desperately need, discovery of the candidate’s religious beliefs would not be essential to weeding out the undesirables. There just has to be a correlation with the fundies. Dontcha think?

arc_legion: once there’s a fetus or any other developmental flesh-ball kicking around in there…

That was almost as funny as a child = a “crotch-dropping.“

rgjp: I think it is generally accepted that it is almost impossible for a non Christian to attain the rank of President in the US.

We did come very close to a Jewish VP in 2000. But that was back when we were still the United States.

rgjp: women’s viewpoints on abortion should be given more weight than men.

That point of view sucks. Women host the nugget, men supply the seed, but it is their seed which has the potential to become their child too. Beyond emotional attachment, because a person cannot directly experience it is not a good reason to invalidate their voice in the cause. (I am not a homosexual, but I should still have an equal voice for or against same-sex marriages. I am not terminally ill at the moment, but I should still have an equal voice on the Right to Die issue.)

Daryl Cantrell: Can anyone name a single example of this government “forcing” Christian beliefs onto anyone?

Liquor stores on closed on Sundays

But seriously, I can think of many, many reasons to be concerned.

Justice,

This thread wouldn’t have launched yet another abortion debate.

Nah, frame it any way you like - if the shoe fits, and so on and on…

That point of view sucks. Women host the nugget, men supply the seed, but it is their seed which has the potential to become their child too.

Nope. It’s hard and dangerous work to grow a sprog, not to mention that popping it out of the toaster seems to sting a bit. How much effort is it to shoot wad, on the other hand? When it comes to raising the rug rats, it’s usually the mom having to do it alone when the sperm donor gets the roving eye. In short, there’s a huge difference in investment in a pregnancy and as far as I of the XY persuasion is concerned, the mom calls the reproductive shots.

@ KPatrickGlove:

Here’s the difference. The word “think�? in example 2 should be replaced with the word “know�?. The first example is an opinion, held only by a percentage of the populace. The second example is a fact.

You are not making a consistent case. The only reason you offer for why one is a fact and the other is not is that one has broader popular support than the other. In other words, tyranny of the 51% majority is wrong but tyranny of the 95% majority is acceptable.

Needless to say, using sheer popularity as a guide is how we got the holocaust, slavery and all manner of horrible atrocities.

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to provide an intrinsic reason that separates the two positions. Appealing to how popular they are is verboten.

I’m sorry, Theocrat, but a fertilized egg is not a human being. A fetus does not become a person human until it can live outside of the womb (usually occurs around four months or so of pregnancy). That’s my idea, anyway, and I’m sticking to it.

Justin: Yes, and perhaps the in-between cases need to be treated differently. But for plain old 23 chromosome homo sapiens, the standard rules apply.

  You mean 23 matched pairs, otherwise your definition of “human” would only encompass spermatazoa and unfertilized ova.  In addition, according to that definition of “human”, trisomics, monosomics, people with Turner Syndrome, metafemales, people with Klinefelter Syndrome, and XYY “males” would all be considered “not human”.

Sexy Sadie:
I’m sorry, Theocrat, but a fertilized egg is not a human being. A fetus does not become a person human until it can live outside of the womb (usually occurs around four months or so of pregnancy). That’s my idea, anyway, and I’m sticking to it.

And by that reasoning Sexy Sadie is the first to flunk the rational and logical reasoning test barring her from running for state or national political office or from being appointed to judge anyone in any court of law.  Who would have guessed an atheist would be the first to fall to the test.  I like it KPG.  You’ve got my support. 

elwedriddsche,

Nah, frame it any way you like - if the shoe fits, and so on and on…

Not sure what you mean by that, but when I see an entry like this, I wonder how long it will take for the abortion debate to break out. (Usually within a half a dozen comments it seems.)

Nope. It’s hard and dangerous work to grow a sprog, not to mention that popping it out of the toaster seems to sting a bit. How much effort is it to shoot wad, on the other hand?

Limiting voices to only those capable of direct experience would certainly quiet things down. But it is also hard and dangerous work to be a soldier fighting in a war. That means civilians should have less say in whether or not we engage?

That point of view sucks. Women host the nugget, men supply the seed, but it is their seed which has the potential to become their child too. Beyond emotional attachment, because a person cannot directly experience it is not a good reason to invalidate their voice in the cause.

So explain to me why others, who had nothing to do with conception, have any say in the issue? Isn’t it the business of the viable/fertile couple (the seed giver and the egg holder)? And isn’t possession 9/10ths of law? The wife now owns the sperm and egg - She should get to decide whether she wants to keep supporting the occupant they create.

(I am not a homosexual, but I should still have an equal voice for or against same-sex marriages. I am not terminally ill at the moment, but I should still have an equal voice on the Right to Die issue.)

That’s OK Justice, it isn’t necessary to prove your innocence (unless it’s an insult to you to be thought of as gay) and if you accept marriage for heterosexuals, you should also accept it for homosexuals. Otherwise it’s inconsistent allowance of a basic right.

And, except if you’re the one dying or the one being kept alive, you really have no say unless it’s your spouse or kid. Live and let die, dude.

We wanted to talk about abortion and, by hell, we did! Rivers run and it’s up to each person whether they want to ride the thread-drift down one.

I wonder how long it will take for the abortion debate to break out.

Exactly. It looks like the opening post hit a conservative nerve, otherwise why bother to derail a thread with a diversion like abortion?

But it is also hard and dangerous work to be a soldier fighting in a war. That means civilians should have less say in whether or not we engage?

It’s a nation that goes to war, soldiers are just expendable tools. The decision to go to war has at least two dimensions to it. First, is the war just? This is a question for everybody except American soldiers - it is my understanding that they sign away the right to speak their mind freely in case they disagree. Second, can the war be prosecuted with the assets at hand? This is not a question on which chickenhawks should get a vote.

Wow.  I came to this late and, quite honestly, have yet to see anything really new or worthy of addressing, so I’m pretty much just going to stay out of this one and let people do their thing.

But I did think this was quite precious.

1. “Even if you think abortion is cold-blooded murder, you shouldn’t try to make it illegal because other people might not agree with you.  Look at NOW—they say abortion is ok, so they should be free to choose.  If you disagree, just don’t have an abortion yourself but don’t try to tell others what to do.�?

2. “Even if you think having sex with 8-year-old children is wrong, you shouldn’t try to make it illegal because other people might not agree with you.  Look at NAMBLA—they say sex with children is ok, so they should be free to choose.  If you disagree, just don’t have sex with 8-year-olds yourself but don’t try to tell others what to do.�?

Ah yes.

The problem, of course, is that no one is making the argument that people shouldn’t try to stop abortion ‘if they think that it is murder.‘  That’s lunacy.

Of course, it’s also lunacy to insist that stomping on an acorn is the equivalent of chopping down a 100 year old oak. 

Pro-choice advocates are simply pointing out that legislation probably shouldn’t cater to the Acorns = Oaks lunacy.  They’re not saying people don’t have the right to be lunatics, or that lunatics shouldn’t mumble to themselves or lampposts, because, by golly that’s what lunatics do.  And, in what I would argue is much the same vein, pro-lifers try to protect the people that suddenly leap into existence at the moment of conception.  ‘Cause that’s what pro-lifers do.

The environmental lobby should really steal a page out of the Right-to-Lifer’s playbook:

Your honor, it’s not that we don’t want them to chop down -that- tree, it’s the fact that thousands of potential trees are being slaughtered as these demons drive their vehicles in to the woods.  Oh, the Horror, the horror!  Who will weep for the poor and powdered acorns!

[it’s more effective if you picture Marlon Brando delivering the line]

We kill people all the time.  Killing people isn’t necessarily murder.  Sometimes we don’t actively kill people, we just choose to let them die, because it serves a greater good [triage].  And sometimes we simply let people die because we, quite frankly, can’t be bothered to give a shit about the fact that they’re dying.  And those are actual conscious, aware, frequently-screaming-weeping-quietly-bubbling-as-the-life leaks out of them in a tide of blood and shit real people.

Go sell the ‘human life is sacred’ bullshit somewhere else. 

Finally, having sex with an 8 year old isn’t ‘having sex.‘  It’s rape.  For the same reason that sticking your dick in an unconscious man or woman is rape.  If you can’t figure this one out, you need to go back to the root of American jurisprudence “your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose.“

Aha!  You fool, you’ve wandered into my snare!  A fetus can’t consent to being murdered, just like an eight year can’t consent to sex!

Yeah.  Right.  An excellent point.  We should really be concerned about whether or not an ‘acorn’s’ rights are being violated.[/sarcasm]

But blurring those lines is a lot of fun, I admit.  If you squint really hard, that guy’s beard   could just be a dirty, but clean-shaven face.

I feel like I am giving a philosophy lesson today! 

I’m sorry Justin, I would have thought you understood my point, namely that we do in fact make distinctions about when killing is appropriate or justifiable.

  Ulfrekr:
  You cannot, ultimately, prevent a woman from aborting a fetus. You can make it more difficult, but there will always be ways, be it back-alley clinics, a fall down the stairs, etc.

Theo: This can be said of any action human may desire to take whether it be a morally wrong one or not.  It’s basically the same argument the anarchist uses for that style of governance.

While that’s true to a certain extent Theo, it’s much easier to, say, prevent someone from doing drugs by limiting their access to them than it is to effectively prevent a woman from doing something to her own body. Because a woman cannot be separated from her body, effectively preventing her from aborting her fetus would be insanely difficult compared to most other things we try to prevent people from doing.

Here’s my question: let’s say we make abortion illegal, under the logic that it’s synonymous with murder. Should we then prosecute women for attempting to get an abortion? If they succeed in aborting their fetus, would it be considered a capital crime? What if they do not directly kill it, but endanger it through behaviors like drinking, smoking, or strenuous exercise? Is this reckless endangerment? At some point, might we not decide that it was morally reprehensible for the woman to do anything EXCEPT enter a chemically induced coma for nine months, so as to best protect the fetus from any possibility of intentional or accidental abortion? If we aren’t going to do all of these things, then why bother making abortion illegal in the first place?

This is my problem with the whole movement to legislate morality, and why I fear the influence certain moral issues have on our public policy. I think everyone has the right to think abortion is immoral, and to vocally oppose it. The same goes for racism, addiction, indoctrinating children into certain worldviews, etc. But just because we think something is immoral does not mean we have the right or the obligation to make it illegal. Morality may be a good starting point, but there’s got to be something more behind it.

Man, I have got to start typing this crap out faster. Every time I post, 8 people have already said what I wanted to say in a much more cogent, succinct, and generally entertaining fashion. Maybe I’ll go back to lurking for another 8 or 9 months.

Here’s my question: let’s say we make abortion illegal, under the logic that it’s synonymous with murder. Should we then prosecute women for attempting to get an abortion? If they succeed in aborting their fetus, would it be considered a capital crime? What if they do not directly kill it, but endanger it through behaviors like drinking, smoking, or strenuous exercise? Is this reckless endangerment? At some point, might we not decide that it was morally reprehensible for the woman to do anything EXCEPT enter a chemically induced coma for nine months, so as to best protect the fetus from any possibility of intentional or accidental abortion? If we aren’t going to do all of these things, then why bother making abortion illegal in the first place?

Another example of employing the fallacy of the beard (continuum).

Basic principle: killing a human being is wrong
Grey area: endagering other human being to varying degrees

The point of the fallacy of the beard is that the grey area does not invalidate the basic principle. It does require that grey area cases be treated carefully. That is why our society has laws for murder and laws for reckless endagerment.

We may or may not decide to punish people pregnant women for drinking alcohol. We do punish drivers for drinking alcohol for basically the same exact reason - they are endangering other human beings. However we decide the alcohol case, the decision does not impact upon the “basic principle case” - that killin a human being is wrong.

Brock, first of all I am not a dude. I am a woman. Second of all, I am a strong advocate for the right for same-sex couples to marry, to adopt, etc. and have been even here. You entirely missed my point for saying, “I am not a homosexual,“ and your condescending attitude just really pissed me off.

I am absolutely FOR a woman’s right to choose to terminate a pregnancy for any reason that woman decides is good enough, and I am absolutely AGAINST anyone telling her she cannot. But I also think it absolutely sucks that people completely dismiss the voice of what might have been the father. Even given that view, I do not believe the father should have the right to decide for the woman. It is just a situation that sucks.

And actually, this:

except if you’re the one dying or the one being kept alive, you really have no say unless it’s your spouse or kid

is a crock of shit. I don’t have a say if I am the one dying, being kept alive, or the parent or spouse of one thereof, and I am surprised that came from you. I have paid attention to the things you have written, and you seemed to have noticed the fundamentalists are all over that one. Remember Terri Schiavo? Even better, how about Dr. Kavorkian?

elwedriddsche,

otherwise why bother to derail a thread with a diversion like abortion?

A diversion . You know, so many regulars here have said something about the same ol’ same ol’, whatever that may be for them… for me it is the “you are all a bunch of godless murderers” thing. All I did -I thought- was mention it as the same ol’ same ol’. I think it was just taken wrong.

You make a good point about soldiers/war.

Justice,

don’t mind me, I’m just bullshitting around.

Sorry, Justice, my response was quite snarky. I, as a man, gave the woman the absolute last right to say whether she wants an abortion and you, as a woman, included the man in the decision. I had no idea you were being so generous (because I thought you were a male or forgot, if I knew). The gender of the speaker makes some difference with this subject.

Yes, you have the MOST say if you are dying. I guess I omitted making that distinction.

I’d like to try to explain why I took such offense at your “I’m not a homosexual” line:

All my life I’ve heard well meaning people who aren’t gay say “...But by the way, I’m not gay” and it makes me feel like they’re trying to avoid the negative repercussions of being assumed gay. It feels like they’re giving an open-minded consideration then chickening out.

If someone is so afraid of being mistaken as gay that they have to give an unqualifier, I usually wonder how normal and appropriate they think being gay actually is.

On the other hand they may be trying to suggest that it’s even more generous of them to support gay rights when they have no personal stake in the equality measures. I’m always confused as to the reason for making sure others know one isn’t gay.

It seems I misunderstood the meanings of your remarks (the ones I quoted) and for that I apologize. Sorry I pissed you off for no general good.