The Glade 4.0

If that aspect were decided up on Coro, there would be no debate...

Any right enshrined in natural law would be inviolable, as natural laws cannot be broken. I'm not sure which "rights" you're referring to with this statement, but elmo's ideas of rights cannot be found in natural law. In nature, we are just animals, you are no different, from a rights perspective, as a cockroach.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

This is also not true, although it would certainly have more weight toward the "pro-life" side.

Don't believe me? Tell me, if a man breaks into your home to stay warm in the dead of winter, when it's cold and snowy outside, does he have a right to be there? Even though your home is sustaining his life, can you not kick him out?

Now, one can make arguments about whether the sex act is an explicit invitation to the person or confers a responsibility for care on the mother (and I probably would agree), but the subject would not be without debate.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Well, that's not quite an accurate statement. If we were to decide unilaterally that a fetus were to be classified as a human being, there are still compelling arguments to allow abortion. Abortion debates are currently silent on the morality of forcing a child to be born into a world with parents that actively reject it. There are also the issues of rape victims, and the potentially fatal pregnancy. Just because some women have the conviction and fortitude to bear a child knowing it will kill them does not mean that all women should be legally obligated to make the same choice. Likewise for rape pregnancies - it's wonderful that some women have the moral fiber to bear the child anyway, but that doesn't mean all such women should be legally obligated to do the same. I am certain that there are other similarly compelling arguments that could be made, but no one bothers to think of them or bring them up because we are not arguing based off of shared assumptions.

The flip side would be if we were to decide unilaterally that a fetus is not classified as a human being. This also would not end the abortion debate, and I can offer empirical evidence. As it stands, legally the fetus is not classified as a human being, yet the pro-life proponents insist on objecting that definition, and for good reason: it is their strongest argument against abortion. Furthermore, even if we take the assumption that a fetus is not a human being, this does nothing to absolve the guilt of terminating a pregnancy. The decision to have an abortion is not a pretty one, and no woman makes it lightly, despite attempts to portray them as amoral serial killers. Just because something is not human and that we can legally kill it with impunity does not necessarily mean that we should. Deer hunting is legal, and yet there are a great many people who do not do it. There are many people who argue that killing animals should be illegal despite irrefutable evidence that the animals in question are not human. Furthermore, unlike the developing fetus, these animals will never become humans. If we can construct arguments for why it should be illegal to kill non-human animals, than surely someone can come up with arguments for why it should be illegal to abort a fetus that isn't a currently a human but will be in the future. Again, nobody bothers to make these arguments because we do not share an assumption on whether the fetus is or is not a human.

_________________
Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

You pretty much restated exactly what I said.

As an addendum, I would also like to point out that we have come to a group consensus that humans are human beings, and yet that agreement has not ended the debate on the morality of the death penalty.

_________________
Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

Regarding the debate... The point of life is the debate. To state that you can't have "reasonable" debate until everyone holds the same position completely ignores that it the point of debate.

Everything else you mentioned would just be qualifiers to the determination of the application point of current laws.

You don't believe in inherent rights so there is no point in discussing it with you. Legal definitions mean absolutely nothing to me (you know this) so there can be no bridge between us.

However you cannot deny that a zygote, a blastocyst, a fetus (all human and living) is exactly a living human. Life does not arise from non-life and no species changes species in its life-cycle.

_________________
"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Yeah, see...that's what I was saying.

See?




Yes, you can, but that's not the point. Laws don't protect "a living human." Laws protect "human beings" or "persons."

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

_________________
“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

When something becomes human is the point of debate because we are unable to debate the morality and legality of abortion until everyone is on board. Otherwise, we debate the definition of life and humanity not abortion. You are demonstrating the same fallacious thinking as other parties involved, which is why the debate is unable to progress in any meaningful fashion. You are arguing the definition of humanity and life while thinking that it's an argument about abortion.

To reasonably debate abortion, we have to all be on the same page regarding the classification of the being in question. If I think it's plant, you think it's animal, and Elmo thinks it's mineral, we can't debate whether it's moral to bury it in the ground.

_________________
Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

That's where the pro-life argument has the edge, if it's in debate you should err on the side of life presumably.

The pro-choice edge is the realist notion that abortion, it can be argued, does relieve burdens not only on individuals but on society in general up to and including reduced crime rate.

_________________
“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

*bites tongue* way, way too easy.

_________________
"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

I'm not asking anyone to suppress their sex drive. I'm asking people to take responsibility for their actions. Hump away young people, just realize that there is a very real concequence to your actions. In addition, I feel current abortion law refuses to acknowledge the male. It took two people to decide to make the zygote/fetus/whatever, it should take two to decide to end it.

_________________
A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

While at least partly true, some people try to use this as an argument against abortion, where it doesn't hold up. In that case, the argument itself is causing the "very real consequence" in a circular way, like this:

Abortion should not be allowed because people should take responsibility for their actions; sex has consequences--but sex has that particular unwanted consequence only if abortion is not allowed.

In this manner, the argument feels like a puritanical or Catholic attempt to control people's sexuality by ensuring that some or all methods of eliminating that consequence are not permitted.



Perhaps this is true. I've occasionally felt this is the case. However, to play devil's advocate, the male in the partnership should have to carry the fetus to term then and deal with the childbirth. He does not have an equal partnership in the matter as it stands, biologically. Maybe he should take responsibility by ensuring any woman he decides to have sex with agrees with him on what to do in the unlikely event that their contraception fails.

It's a complex issue, to be sure.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Except for the fact that now, with abortion legal, the consequence is severely diminished, and in the past, when abortion was illegal, it was largely not an issue. People were married off early and the families were expected to help support any children. This is no longer the case.

If you ban abortion it turns sex before you're financially and emotionally mature enough to support a child into Russian roulette. You get unlucky and your life is over. You'll likely have to skip getting a college education which pretty much ensures you're stuck in a McJob for the rest of your life. No rational person would take such a risk, it's essentially banning sex for smart people before their mid-20s.

At least that would be a very small demographic.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

If you're a lazy **** who is unwilling to go to night school, yes.

_________________
“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

You seriously think people can handle holding down a full-time job to support themselves and a baby, actually raising the child, AND going to college?

That's not correct. The assumed initial posit is that abortion should not be allowed because it allegedly violates the rights of another individual. Because it can violate the rights of another, people must act in a way responsible for their own actions so as not to incur such a violation. This means abstaining from sex or accepting those consequences.



Appeal to tradition and pity. There are ways to greatly mitigate their risks. That doesn't mean people don't still accept the slim possibility of a real and severe consequence.

And even if what you are posturing is the case (it's a de-facto ban of sex), you haven't established why this is wrong.

_________________
"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

On the flip side, if she gets pregnant, the guy has the possibility of being on the hook financially for the next 18 years for a moments passion. So the male already bears the burden of being helpless once the decision to have intercourse is made. Your second point is exactly what I'd like to see more of. Sex is a very cavilier topic in our society. I don't believe that sex should be taboo, or that one should be ashamed of any aspect of sexuality. The result is what is ignored. We aren't giving young people all the information they need to make an informed decision.




Smart people don't have this issue anyway. They see that there are many more risks associated with sex then an STD or pregnancy. If you are financially or emotionally immature- perhaps sex is the last thing you should be having. I realize that if one had the ability to look at themselves in that light, abortion would be a very rare occourance.

As to russian roulette- well it's already like that for both parties.

_________________
A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

Um, yes.

Anecdotal support: my girlfriend just graduated from a private nursing program at a JuCo with around 100 other students (across multiple campuses). A full half of them (roughly) had at least one child, were gainfully employed, and went to school. Furthermore, this college does not allow part-time enrollment. I don't know what percentage of those graduating with children were single-mothers, but it was not insignificant either.

Lazy people can't manage to have children and not receive at least some form of post-secondary education. There is no other excuse, when you consider that my anecdote is a full-time only private institution. A state school which permits part-time enrollment would be even easier.

_________________
“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

I'm not sure how this qualifies as an appeal to tradition, the current status quo is not how it used to work, and the proposed change is not how it used to work either. Appealing to pity is not a fallacy, because a major purpose of allowing abortion is to make life more manageable for the underprivileged. Maybe you should learn about how black culture amongst poor blacks tends to treat women that don't put out. It's bad.

As far as why the de-facto ban of sex is wrong, people hit puberty before they're teenagers. Expecting them to suppress that natural drive for over a decade can't possibly be healthy.



Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't being in a nursing program have an undergraduate degree as a prerequisite? That's already a major advantage income-wise, plus I'd be very interested to know how many of those single mothers were actually working towards becoming a first-time nurse, rather than already being one and just there for a required recertification.

It depends on the nursing program. There are several types of certification in the nursing field. Most are modelled similarly to technical degree programs (2 years of post-secondary work), while a few result in a Bachelor's level degree concurrent to the nursing certification, IIRC. There may be one that requires more than 4 years of post secondary work, but I'm not sure.

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Nursing degrees are an undergraduate program, the one my sister is in at least

_________________
Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut