GOP set to adopt official abortion platform without exceptions for rape and incest

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Hitokage said:
BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE:

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/08/paul-ryan-cosponsored-all-most-extreme-anti-abortion-bills
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Here's a rundown of other extreme anti-abortion measures Ryan cosponsored:

The Sanctity of Human Life Act: This bill would have written into law that zygotes are legal people from the moment of conception. Like other, similar bills, it grants fertilized eggs the same rights as adult humans, and would make in vitro fertilization and some forms of contraception the legal equivalents of murder.

The Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act: Ryan cosponsored this bill in 2006, 2007, and 2010. It would require doctors to provide medically dubious information to all women seeking an abortion after 20 weeks gestation. The bill includes specific language that the Department of Health and Human Services would need to include in a brochure that doctors would be required to give to women. The brochure includes language like "the process of being killed in an abortion will cause your unborn child pain." It would also require doctors to offer "anesthesia or other pain-reducing drug" for the fetus.

The Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act: This bill, introduced in 2005, 2007, and 2011, federalizes state laws on parental notification for minors seeking an abortion. The bill requires doctors to notify the minor's parent or guardian in writing and wait 24 hours before providing an abortion.

The District of Columbia Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act: This 2012 bill would ban abortions in the capital after 20 weeks gestation. It failed in the House on July 31.

In addition to cosponsoring these bills, Ryan has cast 59 votes on abortion issues, all of them anti-choice, according to a tally by NARAL Pro-Choice America, a leading pro-abortion-rights group.
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You'd have to be pretty naive to think that he would as a vice president change his tune.
 
As an outsider this discussion is so hard to grasp, as far as i know the only party here who is against abortion is the SGP, a hardcore christian party who has 2/3 seats in a 150 seats parlement.
 
Arjen said:
As an outsider this discussion is so hard to grasp, as far as i know the only party here who is against abortion is the SGP, a hardcore christian party who has 2/3 seats in a 150 seats parlement.
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Yurop are baby killing heretics.

America should nuke us because we aren't pro life.
 
Arjen said:
As an outsider this discussion is so hard to grasp, as far as i know the only party here who is against abortion is the SGP, a hardcore christian party who has 2/3 seats in a 150 seats parlement.
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Maybe so, but:
*DUTCH ALERT*
http://www.nu.nl/politiek/2894886/sgp-noemt-kans-zwangerschap-verkrachting-heel-klein.html

Summary: SGP Party-leader Kees van der Staaij agrees with statements that chance of pregnancy from rape are extremely small and therefor not a reason to have an abortion.

Maybe he's only one in 150, but it's not like every republican agrees with Akin either.
 
Duffyside is just trolling you all, but I must admit that I was fooled by him initially.
Seriously, that righteous indignation and fury is so hilariously over the top, which coupled with his random "Gotcha!" and believed moral as well as intellectual superiority-moments, gives me the impression that he's feigning it all.

MIMIC on the other-hand is genuine, I think.
 
MIMIC said:
Murder? No. Manslaughter (or something similar)? Maybe.
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Let me verify: you think we should send our soldiers to prison when they get back from Iraq?

Also, why manslaughter? A war is about as premeditated and cold-blooded as you can get. Murder one for sure. I mean, technically we could probably RICO the entire US Army, but let's not go overboard here.

MIMIC said:
You mean allowing someone to be put out of his or her misery? I have no issues with that. The key issue is that they were explicit in their wishes.

If you're trying to tie this into the abortion issue, I've already said time and time again that it's about preserving the life of those who can't speak for themselves because to rob someone of human life otherwise is to commit the worst of tragedies.
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Minors have no legal voice in the medical system. Their voice is their guardian; they are deemed to act with the child's best interests in mind. DNR orders filed by parents for children are respected just as if the child had, as an adult, filed it themselves. Do you think this is right? In this case, the parent has chosen, using their personal judgement, to inform people that their child should be allowed to die even when resuscitation is possible.
 
MIMIC said:
So how would I control it in order to have a kid WITHOUT passing along a hereditary disease? Other parents do it. What's the secret?

Hint: it's not within their control
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You know what else isn't entirely within a couple's control? Getting pregnant. Even if contraception is taken, it can fail, and even if people have unprotected sex, pregnancy might not occur. In fact, some couples face great difficulty conceiving despite having sex for that explicit reason.

While there are more options for shifting the odds one way or another with sex than with hereditary disease (abortion, in the latter case, aside), there are no guarantees. Even if a couple has sex, pregnancy remains outside of their control. As with bearing a kid with a genetic illness, sex might not lead to pregnancy, but the only 100% guarantee to avoid pregnancy is abstinence.
 
MIMIC said:
I'm trying to find that out, but it's a little hard when you won't answer my question.
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Which question? I've provided an answer to everything you've phrased as a query.

MIMIC said:
Your definition is considerably narrow and self-serving when the actual definition of a person goes well beyond that.
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I do not concede that it is narrow. The example that you attempted to show as excluded was in fact included, so you have not shown that it excludes things that it shouldn't.

There is no such thing as "the actual definition of a person". There are only definitions, some of which are more sensible and accurate than others.

MIMIC said:
I'd appreciate an actual definition that works in the real world and is all-inclusive.
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My definition is an actual definition. You're either using the word "actual" very wrongly or you're just getting desperate for lack of genuine criticism to apply against my position.

My definition definitely works in the real world. Unless you can show me that there are inconsistencies or contradictions in its coverage, I'm going to be very satisfied with my definition as it stands. In less than twenty words it includes the overwhelming majority of what it should include*, and includes almost nothing that it shouldn't. You'll be hard pressed to find something better.

However, no definition of person can conceivably be all-inclusive, which is why I prefer a structural definition built to host multiple sets of criteria, each of which may independently include someone as a person.

MIMIC said:
Or I can offer you one and you can see why yours doesn't fit.
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Feel free to offer me your definition, but you'll also have to offer me reasons to adopt it in place of my own. You have to demonstrate that my definition doesn't fit, not merely present an alternative.

MIMIC said:
EDIT: And your attempts to justify those events as "social interactions" is very weak at best.
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This assertion is not very valuable unless you demonstrate deficiencies in my claim. You haven't even so much as described the deficiency you allege.

Most of those examples are fundamental ground-floor social interactions that provide a basis for many of the social interactions that the person will engage in for the rest of their life.

The traditional steps by which we induct the newly born as members of society is not just a social interaction, it's a defining social interaction of incredible importance.

* Including the vast majority of possible non-human persons.

P.S.

Dilly said:
Yurop are baby killing heretics.

America should nuke us because we aren't pro life.
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Don't be a fool. If we can't take a "European vacation", these policies will affect real people, not just the poor.
 
Christine said:
Which question? I've provided an answer to everything you've phrased as a query.
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Do you value life?

My definition is an actual definition. You're either using the word "actual" very wrongly or you're just getting desperate for lack of genuine criticism to apply against my position.

My definition definitely works in the real world. Unless you can show me that there are inconsistencies or contradictions in its coverage, I'm going to be very satisfied with my definition as it stands. In less than twenty words it includes the overwhelming majority of what it should include*, and includes almost nothing that it shouldn't. You'll be hard pressed to find something better.

However, no definition of person can conceivably be all-inclusive, which is why I prefer a structural definition built to host multiple sets of criteria, each of which may independently include someone as a person.

Feel free to offer me your definition, but you'll also have to offer me reasons to adopt it in place of my own. You have to demonstrate that my definition doesn't fit, not merely present an alternative.
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A "person" in all cases is analogous to a human being. And even embryos are scientifically considered human beings (in that they have all of the genetic information of a Homo Sapien...which is in the earliest stage of development: from embryonic, to fetal, to child, and then to adult).

A human being contains human life, and even the staunchest proponent of abortion must concede that even a 32-week-old baby still in the womb is an example of human life. And this human development begins at fertilization.

A person, while it may include it how a being behaves socially, is also defined biologically.

This assertion is not very valuable unless you demonstrate deficiencies in my claim. You haven't even so much as described the deficiency you allege.

Most of those examples are fundamental ground-floor social interactions that provide a basis for many of the social interactions that the person will engage in for the rest of their life.

The traditional steps by which we induct the newly born as members of society is not just a social interaction, it's a defining social interaction of incredible importance.

* Including the vast majority of possible non-human persons.
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Well I still don't agree but since this isn't something that I care to debate, I'll concede to being wrong because it's not really relevant.
 
MIMIC said:
Do you value life?

A "person" in all cases is analogous to a human being. And even embryos are scientifically considered human beings (in that they have all of the genetic information of a Homo Sapien...which is in the earliest stage of development: from embryonic, to fetal, to child, and then to adult).

A human being contains human life, and even the staunchest proponent of abortion must concede that even a 32-week-old baby still in the womb is an example of human life. And this human development begins at fertilization.

A person, while it may include it how a being behaves socially, is also defined biologically.
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Where do you draw the line? If a woman puts an egg in a petri-dish and I masturbate onto it did we just create a life? Should we rush it to hospital and demand they implant it into someone before it dies?

I think that is ridiculous.
 
speculawyer said:
Where do you draw the line? If a woman puts an egg in a petri-dish and I masturbate onto it did we just create a life? Should we rush it to hospital and demand they implant it into someone before it dies?

I think that is ridiculous.
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Its now ridiculous that sperm fusing with ovum starts the life process?

'Ridiculous' would be storks.
 
Yeah, it's not that radical of a notion that a newly fertilized egg is a human being.
It is the truth after all, and I'm saying that as someone who am for abortions remaining legal.
 
SquiddyBiscuit said:
Yeah, it's not that radical of a notion that a newly fertilized egg is a human being.
It is the truth after all, and I'm saying that as someone who am for abortions remaining legal.
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Eh, calling it a human being just because it has human DNA doesn't seem quite right to me. It displays basically no human physiology and its completely unable to survive outside of the mother, its not like a fetus at 8.5 months that could be kept alive.
 
The_Technomancer said:
Eh, calling it a human being just because it has human DNA doesn't seem quite right to me. Its completely unable to survive outside of the mother, its not like a fetus at 8.5 months that could be kept alive.
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But it's the first stage of a human being, neither viability nor how developed it is change this.
I think the disagreement arise from the terms "human" and "human being" being used in a colloquial sense to refer to persons, not microscopic lifeforms.
 
MIMIC said:
Do you value life?
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Not in and of itself, no.

MIMIC said:
A "person" in all cases is analogous to a human being. And even embryos are scientifically considered human beings (in that they have all of the genetic information of a Homo Sapien...which is in the earliest stage of development: from embryonic, to fetal, to child, and then to adult).
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I have not been presented with a reason to believe that all animals of the human species are persons. The characteristics I associate with personhood and the attributes that give me reasons for valuing persons are not present in fetuses.

MIMIC said:
A human being contains human life, and even the staunchest proponent of abortion must concede that even a 32-week-old baby still in the womb is an example of human life. And this human development begins at fertilization.
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I do not contest this.

MIMIC said:
A person, while it may include it how a being behaves socially, is also defined biologically.
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What reasons support a biological definition of personhood?

MIMIC said:
Well I still don't agree but since this isn't something that I care to debate, I'll concede to being wrong because it's not really relevant.
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The relevance is that these events are usually the beginning of the relationships which create many of my reasons for valuing persons.
 
Devolution said:
Why do people keep bringing up the human being aspect? No human being is allowed access to your organs without your permission.
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For that matter, a person (e.g, a human being with rights) is not allowed access to your organs without your permission.

echoshifting said:
The relevant question has always been whether or not this is a human being or is merely becoming a human being. It's disingenuous to suggest there is no debate over this point.
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I don't think that these questions should be up to debate really.
If you define a human being as a member of the species homo sapiens, then a fertilized egg would count as a human being as it has the genetic make-up that is in line with other members of homo sapiens.

Obviously, we can define words differently, as many do not consider a human being to include fertilized embryos and fetuses, but I don't think it has any bearing on the debate.
If human being includes fetuses, then you just use the term "person" in your arguments.
 
speculawyer said:
It is clearly life. So is a tumor and the blood that I donate. But is is a human with protected rights?
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I'd argue that it is a human whose continued development is determined by decisions of the mother and the fickle ways of chance. Legal personhood can be granted at birth, but I'm not about to let legal terminology sway me into dehumanizing that life.
 
speculawyer said:
It is clearly life. So is a tumor and the blood that I donate. But is is a human with protected rights?
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Doesn't matter if it's a human being and or person. No person is allowed rights to your organs without your permission. No one has told me what makes a fetus special other than "well the mother brought it into the world and it didn't have a choice." Who did have a choice in being brought into this world?
 
Devolution said:
Doesn't matter if it's a human being and or person. No person is allowed rights to your organs without your permission. No one has told me what makes a fetus special other than "well the mother brought it into the world and it didn't have a choice." Who did have a choice in being brought into this world?
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Precisely.
Even if you think the fetus has a right to life, like you and me, it requires some special reasoning to argue that someone as the right to use your body for several months, put you at risk of serious medical complications (and even death), and to finally leave your body and mind permanently affected by the experience.
 
I actually consider many fetuses to be persons or at least well on their way to personhood long before they are born, but these persons are basically never aborted unless there are tragic medical complications.
 
SquiddyBiscuit said:
Precisely.
Even if you think the fetus has a right to life, like you and me, it requires some special reasoning to argue that someone as the right to use your body for several months, put you at risk of serious medical complication (and even death), and to finally leave your body and mind permanently affected by the experience.
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It's either to punish women for having sex or some religiously rooted idea that fetuses are magical human beings whom are sacred. You don't see people having shitfits over how many living breathing people are dying. It's always "well fetuses don't have anyone to speak for them" too when you ask them why they're not anti-war, anti-poverty, anti-capital punishment, anti-imperialist, anti-deforestation, anti-chevron (and any other corporation that's poisoning the local peoples just to get at oil for example) or anti-debeers. There are so many fucking things wrong in this world where "life" here and now is suffering, but their agenda? Slut shaming and rendering women back in reproductive shackles. Oh how righteous indeed.
 
Devolution said:
It's either to punish women for having sex or some religiously rooted idea that fetuses are magical human beings whom are sacred.
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Disagreed with both counts.

You don't need any magic or mystical mumbo jumbo to find life sacred or meaningful or important or even 'the most important thing there is'.

And if just the very notion of considering a fetus to be a living human, (outside of the argument of choice and actually carrying it to term) is punishment for having sex, its punishment for both men and women alike.
 
NullPointer said:
Disagreed with both counts.

You don't need any magic or mystical mumbo jumbo to find life sacred or meaningful or important or even 'the most important thing there is'.

And if just the very notion of considering a fetus to be a living human, (outside of the argument of choice) is punishment for having sex, its punishment for both men and women alike.
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And yet you haven't answered why a fetus is special in regards to using a woman's organs above any other living breathing person in need of them.
 
Devolution said:
And yet you haven't answered why a fetus is special in regards to using a woman's organs above any other living breathing person in need of them.
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I've answered several times, but just to be clear, when it comes to a conflict between the rights of a mother or that of an unborn child that she carries (defined as living or not, person or not), the woman's rights take exclusive precedence, period, full stop.

That a woman has these rights doesn't diminish that unborn life one iota, but that's my perspective, and I'm not about to support trying to legislate that.
 
NullPointer said:
I've answered several times, but just to be clear, when it comes to a conflict between the rights of a mother or that of an unborn child that she carries (defined as living or not, person or not), the woman's rights take exclusive precedence, period, full stop.

That a woman has these rights doesn't diminish that unborn life one iota, but that's my perspective, and I'm not about to support trying to legislate that.
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I know you don't want to legislate it but you haven't explained to me what makes a fetus special.
 
SquiddyBiscuit said:
Precisely.
Even if you think the fetus has a right to life, like you and me, it requires some special reasoning to argue that someone as the right to use your body for several months, put you at risk of serious medical complications (and even death), and to finally leave your body and mind permanently affected by the experience.
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I think Judith Thomson's violinist thought experiment is a good illustration:
You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist's circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. [If he is unplugged from you now, he will die; but] in nine months he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you.[4]​

Thomson takes it that you may now permissibly unplug yourself from the violinist even though this will cause his death: the right to life, Thomson says, does not entail the right to use another person's body, and so by unplugging the violinist you do not violate his right to life but merely deprive him of something—the use of your body—to which he has no right. "f you do allow him to go on using your kidneys, this is a kindness on your part, and not something he can claim from you as his due."[5]

For the same reason, Thomson says, abortion does not violate the fetus's right to life but merely deprives the fetus of something—the use of the pregnant woman's body—to which it has no right. Thus, it is not that by terminating her pregnancy a woman violates her moral obligations, but rather that a woman who carries the fetus to term is a 'Good Samaritan' who goes beyond her obligations.[6]
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The Wiki article goes into various criticisms of the argument (and responses to those criticisms), but I think the core of it is solid.
 
Devolution said:
I know you don't want to legislate it but you haven't explained to me what makes a fetus special.
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I find life, and especially (but not always) human life to be special, unique, and as sacred as anything in this world could ever be. That's not a perspective that I've gained through religion, as I'm not religious, but as just another living person with my own conscience and perspective.

Brian Griffin said:
It's just, like, his opinion, man.
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Or just this ;P
 
NullPointer said:
I find life, and especially (but not always) human life to be special, unique, and as sacred as anything in this world could ever be. That's not a perspective that I've gained through religion, as I'm not religious, but as just another living person with my own conscience and perspective.
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This isn't an explanation of the reasons why you hold life sacred, merely a statement that you do hold such a value.

You've appended a disclaimer that you did not develop these values through religious instruction or practice. Can be you sure that you did not acquire them through exposure to cultural norms which find their ultimate root in religious doctrine?
 
Duffyside said:
I'm positive I've chosen to not respond to you, but you've demonstrated a case where I sort of have to. It's of no concern of mine if people I don't respect misstate what I say or have done; hopefully they're doing me a favor by weeding out the dopey people who just happily believe anything they see because they don't like me, and all I'll be left with are the people worth conversing with.

But, you're accusing MIMIC of something I did, and I can't let that slide. I was the one who posted in the Chick-Fil-A thread. From what I can tell, MIMIC never did.
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Oh, my mistake! Seems that I've completely mixed a few posters up. Absolutely my bad. Very sorry about that, MIMIC, and Duffyside. I will take care not to do so in the future.

Amended:

Human lives are valuable. Early stages of pregnancy aren't as valuable as the mother's rights to make choices (be it to deliver or abort), in many people's opinions.

Duffyside has his opinions, for example, his post in the Chick-Fil-A thread.

Some opinions are not as valuable as others.
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I think the 'pro-life' side is not so much pro-'life' as much as they are anti-choice. For all I know, a significant number of women would choose to carry to term. There should not be a blanket ban against abortions.
 
Christine said:
This isn't an explanation of the reasons why you hold life sacred, merely a statement that you do hold such a value.

You've appended a disclaimer that you did not develop these values through religious instruction or practice. Can be you sure that you did not acquire them through exposure to cultural norms which find their ultimate root in religious doctrine?
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I'm not poetic enough to explain my views on life appropriately. I'm sure cultural norms play a part, but I try my best to question my own assumptions and come to my own conclusions.

Honestly I have a hard time believing that I'm being asked to explain why life is meaningful and special in the first place. Being alive is the only reason I am here to experience the world and form relationships. When I look into the eyes of my buddy's daughter I am filled with nothing short of awe and wonder and respect that we are capable of producing such unique personalities and lil agents of change. When she struggles to form words or navigate her environment I am floored by our ability to develop our own faculties.

If it wasn't for life we wouldn't be having this conversation, or any conversation. Life is truly a gift. But a gift that comes with some hard choices.



Man, how noble in reason, infinite in faculties, how like a God, etc etc yadda yadda.
 
Devolution said:
Why do people keep bringing up the human being aspect? No human being is allowed access to your organs without your permission.
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Seems that atheist-GAF and science-GAF love to talk about evolution and how perfect it is all the time, so I'll borrow a page from their book.

You evolved that way. Tough toenails. You don't like it? Get your tubes tied, don't have sex, or any number of other options but if you get pregnant you have nothing to blame but SCIENCE. You got thrown an unfortunate roll of the genetic dice...sorry.
 
Pollux said:
Seems that atheist-GAF and science-GAF love to talk about evolution and how perfect it is all the time, so I'll borrow a page from their book.

You evolved that way. Tough toenails. You don't like it? Get your tubes tied, don't have sex, or any number of other options but if you get pregnant you have nothing to blame but SCIENCE. You got thrown an unfortunate roll of the genetic dice...sorry.
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Basically the entire story of human civilization is using technology to overcome our biological limitations.
 
Pollux said:
Seems that atheist-GAF and science-GAF love to talk about evolution and how perfect it is all the time, so I'll borrow a page from their book.

You evolved that way. Tough toenails. You don't like it? Get your tubes tied, don't have sex, or any number of other options but if you get pregnant you have nothing to blame but SCIENCE. You got thrown an unfortunate roll of the genetic dice...sorry.
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... what the fuck?
 
Pollux said:
Seems that atheist-GAF and science-GAF love to talk about evolution and how perfect it is all the time, so I'll borrow a page from their book.

You evolved that way. Tough toenails. You don't like it? Get your tubes tied, don't have sex, or any number of other options but if you get pregnant you have nothing to blame but SCIENCE. You got thrown an unfortunate roll of the genetic dice...sorry.
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Science can remove the fetus.

Hooray!

-edit

Just read the 'evolution is perfect' line. :lol
 
How about we let people do what the hell they want with their own bodies instead of having a bunch of corrupt bureaucrats interfering in our lives, holding our hands and telling us what we can and can't do? Nah, that would be too sensible.
 
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