The Glade 4.0

Safe havens won't last long if they start seeing extensive use. Someone has to pay for all those kids, and if the cost becomes high the same personal responsibility line will be used to eliminate them. You chose to have sex, now it's your responsibility to raise the kid.

tl;dr "I don't understand polls. Gerrymandering is okay as long as we win! Libtards are angry, it must be right! I have no qualifications, but damnit I know whats right and we're the best so we're going to win!"


What's REALLY funny here is that you're contradicting yourself in a single statement. Because the ONLY reason the GOP controls the Senate and the Presidency is the fact that every person's vote is NOT equal. People in Republican leaning states are vastly over represented in both the electoral college and the Senate.

The reason you're dismissing the polls is because they're telling a story you don't want to hear. That the majority of Americans favor abortion rights, favor all these policies, but because the structure of the federal gov't, you get more voting power.

But whatever. Go you.

2016

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In time, this too shall pass.

For me, this sums it up in a nutshell.

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"If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me." - Alice R. Longworth

"Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the gun." - Ash Williams

I do not like abortion. As a general idea I think it is a bad idea and the Hippocratic oath forbids using a knowledge of medicine to perform an abortion. Specifically, it forbids a pessary being inserted to cause an abortion.

However, it isn't my body growing that baby, and the law of the land allows women to receive abortions if they so choose.

I believe it is a good idea to allow people to choose what happens with their own bodies. But I would also choose to not have diabetes, obesity, and kidney disease if that were possible.

I also don't believe we can put the cork back in the bottle at this point. If the law of the land is changed and abortions are once again outlawed, women will still find ways for it to happen and unethical people will happily take their money, and sometimes their lives or future fertility in botched operations.

I was careful, I never planted a baby in anyone's womb except for my wife. Some of you can say this, some of you may not be able to say this. Making babies is a two person operation way too many guys have walked away from the responsibility of caring for their children.

This is one of those topics where we are not going to agree, like most of the things addressed here. You aren't going to change anyone's mind on this forum. Keep arguing all you want to, but realize your efforts are wasted here.

If you can't tell by now, I'm reluctantly pro-choice. I just wish we taught kids enough that no one ever had to make that choice.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Micheal, won’t be too much longer till you and I have to guard our end of the field, would be better than bad to say a beating heart and brainwaves means it’s no other can make our call but us.

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In time, this too shall pass.

I think you were going for a Malcolm Reynolds impersonation here?

Are you trying to say that someone is going to come and pull your life support because you are old?

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Well, that's how both my father and grandfather talked, so I'm thinking Mal is impersonating them. Only guess I'd guess would be something in the way German translates to English might explain things... but anyway, I seem to be turning into them so I'm not really surprised. I know no German at all but I was raised around it.

I don't want anyone to come in thinking someone's rights are less for any reason, but the weakest are the ones usually getting dealt the short straw first, so yes, someone at some point will weigh my usefullness against my operating costs... and there are those that feel they're good with that, look at some previous posts. Nationalize healthcare and do it the way the VA does it and I'd guarantee it would happen.

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In time, this too shall pass.

Individuals don't matter when weighed against the society.

The fact that the society is nothing but a collection of individuals doesn't matter because the reasoning is only an excuse to justify and thus gain support for actions that these people would be gutted in the street without the moral pass - at least until they can seize enough power to intimidate and kill off anyone else.

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"...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

You are coming across as the Futurama hyper-chicken lawyer...

Maybe revert back to your old persona?

So the VA is euthanizing veterans?

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eh, if the wind happens to blow back in that direction I just might. stay tuned!

No, that would suggest the deaths were humane.

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In time, this too shall pass.

Why can't we have both? See, I still don't think you have any understanding of the right's view on this issue. If you did, you would understand that you just stated conservatives should ignore legal murder in bargain for reducing some of these murders. You can have birth control (but pay for it your damned self) and better sex ed without the need to permit murder for the sake of convenience. This isn't like providing clean needles to addicts to reduce hepatitis - at least the addicts have some level of choice in continuing to use. If you understood the right's perspective on this, you would understand how reprehensible your statement is. That we should continue to stomach the murder of the most vulnerable population is beyond intolerable.


Oh let's not pretend one side is pushing their sexual mores on everyone. But yes, when it comes to a baby's life being on the line, it absolutely should be consequence-laden insofar as you both bear that child to birth. It's not like the right is saying people should have to live with syphilis because they got laid outside of wedlock. If someone truly wants to divorce themselves of most of the consequences of sex, then pretty much all insurances will pay 100% for vasectomies or tubals.

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The Dude abides.

Pretty much this, but I think you're half right. I think the larger part of the argument is not taking life (hence, "pro-life"), but that is pretty firmly joined with the responsibility piece you mention here.

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The Dude abides.

Oh for sure. I didn't mean to deny that "saving babies", so to speak, is the primary motivation. I just meant that the additional element that TheRiov sees as a desire to punish is actually more an assignment of responsibility/obligation - i.e., compulsory not punitive.

On a related note, how do you (and/or anyone else more or less on the pro-life side of things here) think about issues of incidental fetal harm - i.e., where the pregnant woman knowingly or negligently does something that will harm the fetus but where that harm is a side effect rather than the goal as it is in abortion? If the the pro-life position on abortion is to some degree based on a principle that the mother has a moral obligation to the fetus arising from assumption of risk through sex, that principle would seem to extend beyond simply "not killing" and include "not harming" or potentially even "affirmatively aiding". For example, from a pro-life / moral obligation perspective, if a pregnant woman has cancer and decides to get chemo even though it will likely kill or severely harm the fetus, should that be entirely her choice or should it be restricted/punished? What if a pregnant woman abuses drugs or alcohol, engages in risky activities like skydiving or working as a firefighter, or simply fails to do basic pre-natal care like taking pre-natal vitamins, eating healthy, etc.? I know this issue tends to get hand-waived away by pro-life activists as a slippery slope scare tactic, but I think it's a legit question. Is there a limiting principle in there that I'm not seeing, or is it purely a balancing of interests test?

The fundamental logic behind the position of responsibility is obvious in other places in society and even law.

If X creates a condition that removes ability from Y and that condition results in harm to Y X can be held accountable.

Does this change if the condition is existence? No.

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"...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

Ok, cool. Then yeah, I can diggit.


Unless I'm misunderstanding you, you're reframing the abortion question into a life-and-death situation where the mom's death is not imminent, but possible without treatment. I don't see that the answer changes because the principle still applies. I think your later questions were more the core of what you're asking though.


Drugs/alcohol definitely impact the health and development, but not necessarily the life of the baby. I would see this like a parent taking poor care of their child (at any age) and would advocate for removal of the baby from the mother upon birth, which is pretty much what some states do. There's one state somewhere (Tennessee?) where mothers caught abusing drugs have their children removed and are charged with some kind of reckless endangerment or something. The quandary with your situation is how do we stop mom from doing further harm. The options seem to be 1) intensive counseling, therapy, screening, and then removal of custody; 2) forced induction, assuming it's viable; 3) detain mom in medical-psychiatric facility to prevent further harm; or 4) do nothing until child is born and remove from custody. Choices 2 and 3 seem morally repugnant since it is removing the mother's rights to make her own medical decisions and it always feels wrong even when the courts back the decision. I've had to take part in forcing medication onto a patient because they're getting violent and even then, I don't like how I feel afterward.

Realistically though, society has moved in the direction of giving mom chances to get her act together for the sake of keeping a family together so I think option 1 would be the best with threats of criminal consequences for noncompliance (subject to interprofessional review, i.e. physician + social worker + CPS agent + lawyers, probably).


I've never really heard people ask these scenarios, myself. The limiting principle seems to be taking action when mom's choices are endangering the life and wellbeing of the child, unborn or otherwise. The difficulty comes in defining a standard for "wellbeing" that allows room for the freedom of bad parents to be bad parents as opposed to criminal parents. If I didn't answer your question, let me know. Not trying to dodge any points but may have missed something you were driving at.

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The Dude abides.

A woman's ability to have a baby at the time of her choosing with the man of her choosing is a fundamental element of her freedom. A woman who lacks this ability is oppressed on the most basic and fundamental level. Through decades of not just opposing abortion, but also birth control, contraception, and sex education, conservatives have presented to the rest of society that the only acceptable solution is absolute chastity. As a consequence, everyone else thinks that conservatives oppose women's rights. I'm sorry if you don't think abortion is, or should be a major element of women's rights, but the fact remains that right now, it is.

Nine months is a pretty long time.

The late term fetus bears a much closer resemblance to a post-birth baby than it does to the newly fertilized zygote. Meanwhile, the zygote bears a closer resemblance to the sperm and ovum that are its constituent parts than it does the mostly-developed fetus, let alone the actual baby. I will grant you that if one is uncomfortable with terminating a barely sentient three month old baby, then it is reasonable to restrict abortion towards the end of a pregnancy. That concession, that respect for your position comes at a price. You will grant that if one does not consider the monthly menstrual cycle a terrible tragedy, and a nocturnal emission an act of genocide, then a restriction on abortion towards the beginning of a pregnancy is not reasonable.

I am sensitive to the idea that some people feel uncomfortable with abortion because it strikes them as murder, and reducing or eliminating abortion is a worthy goal on its own merits, however the path forward does not run through banning or restricting abortion. Neither does it run through accusing scared and confused young women of murder. By the by, insisting that abortion was murder, and by extension the young women seeking them were murderers, undoubtedly helped the left to paint conservatives as heartless monsters who hated women, minorities, and poor people. I would suggest that the best thing to do would be to flip the script on the heartless conservative narrative. That means you're going to have to stop using the word "murder" in discussions about abortion, and reevaluate your position on the other aspects of women's reproductive rights.

The easier it is for women to make informed decisions about procreation and obtain birth control, the fewer abortions you are going to see. The more options women have, the less concerned we're all going to be about abortion in particular. An outright ban on abortion may require full federal funding for birth control for all women of reproductive age. I do not personally support this, as I take the position that taxation is theft, but realistically this is what's going to be required to ban abortion.

Right now, conservative rhetoric around reproduction degrades family values. The term "planned parenthood" is considered to be a profanity, just like our favorite four-letter words. Meanwhile, when conservatives argue against abortion, they talk about "accepting consequences". Conservatives treat pregnancy like it's a car accident, and in the same breath denigrate a carefully considered decision to start a family.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

Did you just literally equate abortion to masturbation?

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Idiotic meme response is idiotic.

Large quantities of O2 is a sign of life. Footprints are signs of life. A building is a sign of life. None of which are life itself. A sign of life != life.

Heck, sperm and egg cells are actually alive, but we don't call them people either.

You want to argue that a small collection of cells that does not have a sense of self, cannot sustain itself in any meaningful way, has nothing more than some rudimentary reflexes is the same thing as a full grown human, and deserves rights, I can at least understand where you're coming from, without agreeing with you.

Blathering on, posting moronic memes that don't address the actual issues only serve to weaken your argument. Its just throwing stupid strawmen into the mix.


No one is suggesting that a fetus is not alive; but so is that mole I had burned off my arm. It has human DNA, human cells. A genetic test would register it as human tissue. I feel pain there, so there's obviously nerve cells. Those cells process data, react, the small capillaries in it behave like capillaries in other parts of my body, react to stimuli. But it isnt a person. So please STOP with the stupid claims misrepresenting the pro-choice argument.

The ONLY thing this comes down to is the personhood of the fetus. Just because part of your brain gets triggered by the biological instinct to protect things with big eyes and oversized heads that are small and human shaped, and you're incapable of separating that genetically programmed response from a logical understanding of that fetus's actual processing ability, does NOT mean the rest of us can't. You're confusing your own biological urges with a moral (or religious) imperatives.

You lost the scientific debate about life and have now shifted it to a philosophical debate about an artificial construct you are calling personhood?

I will bite. What is personhood to TheRiov?

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I'm still trying to figure out when you think I 'lost' the scientific argument.

As for my definition of personhood, read the effing thread. Its literally the first post. We already covered this.

You're not thinking the Right Thoughts, so you might as well be just a useless pile of meat that's emitting CO2.

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Conservatives don't oppose sex education and excepting some Catholics, don't oppose birth control. She has the right to make her own choices regarding reproduction as long as that right is not in conflict with another life. I'm sorry if you don't think a fetus is alive, but the fact remains that it is.


Neither an ovum nor a spermatid alone are capable of growing into a child unless the other is present. The components of life are either there or not. If the fetus is not alive at conception then there needs to be clearly defined criteria as to when the fetus/infant has crossed the threshold.


I pretty much agree with the above 2 paragraphs. I have always been a believer that convincing women abortion is wrong should be through encouraging responsibility. I also feel it's important for pro-life people to support women through the process of a difficult pregnancy, which is why I donated (when I had income before med school) to Crisis Pregnancy Centers every month. Not every person standing outside a Planned Parenthood clinic with a protest sign is showing up to call girls "whores" and "murderers." Some are actually there in the hopes of directing a mom toward resources that will support her as she bears through the pregnancy.

As it stands though, you're already being taxed to pay for women's abortions. I'd compromise by funding certain methods of contraception if it meant defunding Planned Parenthood. I know Catholics wouldn't join me on that though.


I could make jokes here, but I'll refrain. The term "planned parenthood" is considered profanity because it is synonymous with the opposite. The organization itself is not in the business of helping soon-to-be parents with planned pregnancies and postnatal care. And when conservatives try to convince people that the act of creating life is best reserved for relationships better positioned to providing a better life than single motherhood, they get called puritans. The left has not shown any desire to promote family values and we see this as the culture continues to try to divorce the relationship between sex and building a family. Now it's considered just fine that people will have sex with someone they would feel uncomfortable saying "I love you" too, and that is an unhealthy thing.

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The Dude abides.

This is essentially the attitude that gets conservatives labeled puritan, not the other stuff. Like, birth control and abortion don't incentivize single motherhood, they prevent it. This is obvious. There are other liberal policies that definitely create a perverse incentive towards single motherhood, but it isn't this stuff.

Conservatives by and large believe that it is harmful to a woman to have sex outside of a relationship that is committed enough to want children. Some also believe this about men, but that's much less universal. The only moral use of birth control is for couples that don't want to have any MORE kids. Other use is tolerated on the ground that individuals have the freedom to make "bad" decisions, but they absolutely want social norms to discriminate against such behavior. You've just reiterated Corolinth's post about chastity.

I suspect that if the rules for getting an abortion were that you have to present a marriage certificate and proof you already have 2 kids in order to get one, you would see a lot less calls to ban the practice on grounds that it's murder.