[quote]Aragorn wrote:
He may choose to go the science only route, but that’s not what he said in his first post.[/quote]
You’re 100% correct. However, I’ll argue it on any grounds he wishes.
[quote]jnd wrote:
I was genuinely curious about the “science” of pro-life…
jnd
[/quote]
You mean biology?
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]jnd wrote:
I was genuinely curious about the “science” of pro-life…
jnd
[/quote]
You mean biology?[/quote]
If one’s wife is raped and becomes pregnant, it’s biologically cogent for her longterm pair bond mate to seek to abort the pregnancy. The same holds true for her. Why is the husband obligated - biologically or ethically -to devote enormous resources to raising offspring that is not his own and not taken on of his own volition?
Was my sister obligated to bring the pregnancy brought about by her rape to term?
[quote]H factor wrote:
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
[quote]H factor wrote:
I think I can take the position that I do care, but am realistic to look at the examples of history and see what happens when abortion is made illegal. It doesn’t stop it, it makes it unsafe.
What is the more pro-life position:
-
Encourage use of contraceptives to avoid unwanted pregnancies. Allow women who decide to get an abortion to have it done in a safe manner by medical professionals. Make late term abortion illegal except in cases where the woman’s life is in danger.
-
Discourage the use of contraceptives and hope people don’t have unwanted pregnancies. Make abortion illegal so those women who still decide to terminate a pregnancy must get it done on the black market putting the life of themselves at risk in addition to their fetus. [/quote]
There’s no reason you have to be against encouraging use of contraception just because you’re pro-life. Only kneedragger thinks that. Therefore you’re not really covering all options available for decision either.
Further that’s not really the crux of the matter. Or, it may be for you, but not for many others: just because you believe something that happens to be difficult or problematic to practically enforce it does not follow that your position must be wrong. Unpopular maybe, but not morally wrong to hold.
As jackkrash said in another thread: Just because we can’t define the terms in razor clarity does not mean that they are not worth fighting for. The same goes for moral obligation: Just because something is difficult to enforce does not mean that we don’t have a moral obligation to try all the same. You recognize this yourself in many other ways when the talk becomes about small government or gov’t overreach, or torture for intelligence gathering or many other areas when you have argued a position that is difficult to administer or executively run in politics but you view as an ethical obligation.
The stakes here are just as high if not higher. So it does not make sense AT ALL that this suddenly becomes a pragmatic or utilitarian position. It may turn into that, but that is not automatic nor does it follow that it SHOULD be automatic.[/quote]
I put the 2nd one because often people who are the most pro-life are also the most against contraceptive use.
I will never understand why the single best tool to avoiding unwanted pregnancies (which are the only ones that end in abortion) is not pushed more by people who are pro-life. [/quote]
Sure, but that still doesn’t address the rest of my post my friend.
Also, the whole contraception thing is highly location specific. I’ve never in my life met a pro-life person who didn’t believe in contraception or who didn’t support its use. In person of course, not the interwebz.
Going along with the spirit of my last post, believing as many evangelicals do that sex before marriage is wrong and discouraging it is not in any way shape or form the same as not approving of contraception when faced with the situation that sex is already happening.
In other words, if I talk to someone and they say “sex before marriage is wrong” and I say, “ok. But someone has already made that decision to be wrong. They’ve already decided. So would you rather they have a condom or not?” I’ve never met a person, in real life, that is pro-life and would say “no I don’t want them to have a condom”. They may say all kinds of other things like it’s wrong, its stupid, sinful, risky, whatever. But I’ve never heard seen someone be against contraceptive use when sex is already a given.
Obviously, they would prefer sex not happen early and before marriage. Frankly, abstinence is the only 100% effective method of birth control. Unfortunately that assumes the person will stick to their guns as a teenager or young adult. Or a person in general lol.
There’s a significant difference. Even my mother, who is one of the most conservative people in the midwest I think, absolutely agrees with me. So you have to be able to parse someone not wanting sex before marriage to be acceptable or encouraged with someone who actually believes contraception is bad.
None, and I mean NONE of my extremely conservative evangelical relatives hold the latter view. They ALL want someone to be protected, they just don’t want it to be happening in the first place. This view I can 100% understand.
Again, this is location specific and I know there are people out there that are pro-life and hate contraceptives. I know they are there, but I personally have not met them and it seems you have. That’s fine. That’s understandable. But it’s a minority view as far as I can possibly tell…and as is usual the minority is the most vocal.
[quote]Bismark wrote:
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]jnd wrote:
I was genuinely curious about the “science” of pro-life…
jnd
[/quote]
You mean biology?[/quote]
If one’s wife is raped and becomes pregnant,[/quote]
This is where the science portion of your argument ends.
The only thing biology obligates is that the pregnant female carries the baby. Biology doesn’t obligate the baby live, death is a biological fact as well.
You’ve moved past science and are now into logic and morals.
Logic dictates that the couple should act in their best interests. If that means ending the life of the child, than that is what that means.
Morally is the only time when there is even a question to be asked. Is it moral to punish the child to the fate of death for the sins of the rapist? Does that not create a victim? Is it moral to force a raped woman, against her will, to carry the child of her rapist? Does that not make her a victim?
No, assuming she is in America or any other country that has legal abortion or health of the mother exceptions, she was not obligated.
Health of the Mother exceptions, which rape and incest certainly fall within, are a very small portion of the abortions performed. If those were the only abortions being performed, there would be very little argument and it wouldn’t be an “issue”. I’d be a medical procedure we all wished was unnecessary, but unfortunately there are evil men who do evil things in the world.
It’s obviously a very emotional subject for you, and that’s fine. Your use of the word obligate is going to make for a long debate. I’m very sorry your sister had to (and likely continues to) suffer. But pregnancy due to one’s own volition is not the same conversation as pregnancy due to assault and force.
Ending a pregnancy that is resultant from assault and force has some moral standing in that, there is a victim either way, from start to finish. It becomes a matter of what course of action has the least suffering. I would imagine in most cases, the abortion would be the least.
[quote]jnd wrote:
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
[quote]jnd wrote:
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
[quote]jnd wrote:
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:
The pro-life position is the only scientifically, logically and morally sound position. [/quote]
Exactly how did you determine that pro-life is the ONLY scientifically…sound position?
Please respond ONLY with cites from reputable scientific sources (not - I knew someone who had an abortion and she is now fucking nuts)- otherwise I am calling BS on your claim.
jnd[/quote]
Going down this road is not going to end well, we’ve been down this fork many times in the past.
But do note that beans is taking the totality of all those fields, not just science sources.
In other words, his argument is much closer to a Philosophy of science argument than a scientific research hypothesis. Besides, this is a topic that touches on all ethical and philosophical areas so they are appropriate to call into discussion.
His position is a position that I happen to agree with as well. But you should know his claim wasn’t pure science it is philosophy of science because it takes ethics and morality into the discussion.
[/quote]
His response does not say- philosophical- it says scientific- which is the process of gathering knowledge to understand the world.
Philosophy is different than the scientific method- therefore I was curious to hear how the pro-life position used science to arrive at the only sound decision.
jnd[/quote]
Come on, please read his post again. I’ll quote it: [quote]countingbeans wrote:
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:
The pro-life position is the only scientifically, logically and morally sound position. [/quote]
Scientifically–the part you picked out.
Logically–NOT “empirical science” very MUCH more “philosophy” or “ethics” or “philosophy of science”. Logical argument, proposition/premise/conclusions…aka philosophy.
Morally–obviously ethics and morality. Again, very much argued logically.
It’s right there in his statement man. That’s a false position you’re trying to force him into from something he didn’t even say. In fact, he all but explicitly said something completely different. I know you are a very smart dude and by all I’ve read here you have an excellent grasp of statistical analysis. I feel like this is something easily noticed from his words.
He may choose to go the science only route, but that’s not what he said in his first post.[/quote]
I swear I honestly read it differently. I saw it as three distinct areas:
- Science
- Logic
- Morals
The details of 2 & 3 are debatable in an opinion-based forum, whereas 1 requires empirical evidence and a very distinctive process. I wasn’t trying to force beans into a position, I was genuinely curious about the “science” of pro-life…
jnd
[/quote]
Ok, that’s fair. I didn’t think it was malicious. I misread stuff all the time, and that’s why I was trying not to jump down your throat while still trying to clarify beans’ post from my understanding. “Force” was a bad word choice and not thought out so I apologize. I was writing off the cuff and couldn’t think of a better way of phrasing that thought even though it didn’t hit my intention quite right.
I don’t think you can have this discussion based only on science. The science that says it’s a human being is undisputed, but as a couple people have already reminded us all above, you have to look to things other than science to say whether or not we should care that its a human being.
[quote]Bismark wrote:
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]jnd wrote:
I was genuinely curious about the “science” of pro-life…
jnd
[/quote]
You mean biology?[/quote]
If one’s wife is raped and becomes pregnant, it’s biologically cogent for her longterm pair bond mate to seek to abort the pregnancy. The same holds true for her. Why is the husband obligated - biologically or ethically -to devote enormous resources to raising offspring that is not his own and not taken on of his own volition?
Was my sister obligated to bring the pregnancy brought about by her rape to term? [/quote]
There are two things going on here: one is a general argument and the second is a personal experience. I’m not going to pretend to pass judgment on personal experience because that is unknowable for someone who has not been there and it is unspeakably horrible to live through. One cannot make a judgment on that person living a nightmare.
However, speaking strictly to the general philosophical argument, your general argument is not biological at all. It is an application of a philosophical set of views. There is nothing biological that says anything about any obligation to anybody for any reason.
Further it ignores the possibility of adoption, which does not require him to raise the offspring of someone not his.
Ethically is a more complex and interesting question to ask, but again only in the general rather than individual concrete sense. Rape pregnancies are extremely rare and I don’t know that people would be too upset about getting the pro-life position if there were exceptions for rape and incest. I don’t think anybody pro-life would really be upset about that. In any case, you know that it is inappropriate for a general position to be predicated on less than 1% of the total cases without very extraordinary circumstances. As beans already pointed out though, there is already a victim in this awful circumstance, and these circumstances are already covered under health of the Mother clauses to the best of my knowledge.
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
Rape pregnancies are extremely rare and I don’t know that people would be too upset about getting the pro-life position if there were exceptions for rape and incest. I don’t think anybody pro-life would really be upset about that. Therefore it is inappropriate for a general view to be predicated on less than 1% of the total cases without very extraordinary circumstances.[/quote]
Pro-lifer here. Not only would I be fine with rape and incest exceptions I would want the exceptions.
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
[quote]H factor wrote:
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
[quote]H factor wrote:
I think I can take the position that I do care, but am realistic to look at the examples of history and see what happens when abortion is made illegal. It doesn’t stop it, it makes it unsafe.
What is the more pro-life position:
-
Encourage use of contraceptives to avoid unwanted pregnancies. Allow women who decide to get an abortion to have it done in a safe manner by medical professionals. Make late term abortion illegal except in cases where the woman’s life is in danger.
-
Discourage the use of contraceptives and hope people don’t have unwanted pregnancies. Make abortion illegal so those women who still decide to terminate a pregnancy must get it done on the black market putting the life of themselves at risk in addition to their fetus. [/quote]
There’s no reason you have to be against encouraging use of contraception just because you’re pro-life. Only kneedragger thinks that. Therefore you’re not really covering all options available for decision either.
Further that’s not really the crux of the matter. Or, it may be for you, but not for many others: just because you believe something that happens to be difficult or problematic to practically enforce it does not follow that your position must be wrong. Unpopular maybe, but not morally wrong to hold.
As jackkrash said in another thread: Just because we can’t define the terms in razor clarity does not mean that they are not worth fighting for. The same goes for moral obligation: Just because something is difficult to enforce does not mean that we don’t have a moral obligation to try all the same. You recognize this yourself in many other ways when the talk becomes about small government or gov’t overreach, or torture for intelligence gathering or many other areas when you have argued a position that is difficult to administer or executively run in politics but you view as an ethical obligation.
The stakes here are just as high if not higher. So it does not make sense AT ALL that this suddenly becomes a pragmatic or utilitarian position. It may turn into that, but that is not automatic nor does it follow that it SHOULD be automatic.[/quote]
I put the 2nd one because often people who are the most pro-life are also the most against contraceptive use.
I will never understand why the single best tool to avoiding unwanted pregnancies (which are the only ones that end in abortion) is not pushed more by people who are pro-life. [/quote]
Sure, but that still doesn’t address the rest of my post my friend.
Also, the whole contraception thing is highly location specific. I’ve never in my life met a pro-life person who didn’t believe in contraception or who didn’t support its use. In person of course, not the interwebz.
Going along with the spirit of my last post, believing as many evangelicals do that sex before marriage is wrong and discouraging it is not in any way shape or form the same as not approving of contraception when faced with the situation that sex is already happening.
In other words, if I talk to someone and they say “sex before marriage is wrong” and I say, “ok. But someone has already made that decision to be wrong. They’ve already decided. So would you rather they have a condom or not?” I’ve never met a person, in real life, that is pro-life and would say “no I don’t want them to have a condom”. They may say all kinds of other things like it’s wrong, its stupid, sinful, risky, whatever. But I’ve never heard seen someone be against contraceptive use when sex is already a given.
Obviously, they would prefer sex not happen early and before marriage. Frankly, abstinence is the only 100% effective method of birth control. Unfortunately that assumes the person will stick to their guns as a teenager or young adult. Or a person in general lol.
There’s a significant difference. Even my mother, who is one of the most conservative people in the midwest I think, absolutely agrees with me. So you have to be able to parse someone not wanting sex before marriage to be acceptable or encouraged with someone who actually believes contraception is bad.
None, and I mean NONE of my extremely conservative evangelical relatives hold the latter view. They ALL want someone to be protected, they just don’t want it to be happening in the first place. This view I can 100% understand.
Again, this is location specific and I know there are people out there that are pro-life and hate contraceptives. I know they are there, but I personally have not met them and it seems you have. That’s fine. That’s understandable. But it’s a minority view as far as I can possibly tell…and as is usual the minority is the most vocal.[/quote]
Isn’t one of the biggest religions in this country against contraceptive use? The Catholic Church. Your more conservative areas (and I live in one) seem to be against sex ed (unless it’s abstinence only which fails compared to a combination of abstinence and contraceptive education) and against the use of contraceptives.
The more religious, more socially conservative states have the highest instances of teen pregnancy. Heck you had a major party Presidential candidate spokesperson talking about women holding aspirin between their knees.
All I’m saying is I don’t see the pro-life candidates coming out preaching about women using protection or getting on the pill if they are going to be sexually active. This would undoubtedly LOWER the amount of unwanted pregnancies and therefore the abortion rate.
The single best tool if one is going to be sexually active (and acting like people won’t is stupid and ignores human nature) is some form of contraception. Those who tend to be the most against contraception? Some of the biggest “pro-life” people out there. If one was pro-life and really wanted less abortions they would stop focusing on making it illegal and start focusing on lowering the rate by avoiding unwanted pregnancies.
[quote]H factor wrote:
Isn’t one of the biggest religions in this country against contraceptive use? The Catholic Church. Your more conservative areas (and I live in one) seem to be against sex ed (unless it’s abstinence only which fails compared to a combination of abstinence and contraceptive education) and against the use of contraceptives. [/quote]
I completely agree it fails. And I am in no position to say you are not accurately assessing the situation in your locale; I am quite sure you are an accurate judge of your local area. What I am saying from my other post to you is that this is a location specific effect, with different places in the same state or in different states being completely different. In other words, not monolithic. Further, it is definitely, definitely a minority view.
Lastly, I’m sure you’ve probably tried this already…but have you tried asking the people around you? I mean, if you drill into it you might find that their concern is more along the lines of people using it for an excuse rather than thinking contraception is intrinsically sinful/evil. What I have found on this topic specifically is that if you ask a general survey question you get a pretty black/white answer. If you ask more probing questions about why, sometimes you get a much more graded picture.
Then again, sometimes not lol. And we all know people like that.
He is a retard. Also, unfortunately I don’t care that the more socially conservative states have a higher level of teen pregnancy–that doesn’t matter as far as the moral crux of abortion goes, and it is full of confounding factors as well. Is it suggestive? Perhaps. But that’s about it and a statistical argument does not a moral argument make, unless you are a utilitarian. And that is one major reason utilitarianism is flawed deeply.
I think this is due to several things: 1) the “appease the base” rule political candidates must follow or be considered “not conservative enough” by the fringe…this also goes towards having shit journalists mangle their stances and convince otherwise reasonable people that they are something else entirely, 2) the irrelevance of the contraception question to abortion as a moral issue. Again, while in the absence of #1 this would make sense to lower unwanted abortions, and you will probably find a bunch of pro-life candidates who privately agree with this completely, it also doesn’t address what pro-life candidates see as the root evil. Not a statistical issue, it’s a moral issue.
But I do agree with you, I would like to see a pro-life politician speak up on contraception in a positive light.
[quote]The single best tool if one is going to be sexually active (and acting like people won’t is stupid and ignores human nature) is some form of contraception. Those who tend to be the most against contraception? Some of the biggest “pro-life” people out there. If one was pro-life and really wanted less abortions they would stop focusing on making it illegal and start focusing on lowering the rate by avoiding unwanted pregnancies.
[/quote]
Agree with the first sentence, disagree with the last. The middle sentence is mostly Catholics and not even all of those, but I am not a Catholic.
Ok, first I agree with a lot of the things you posted. Second, let’s try again to clear this up.
What I’m saying is that there is a difference between being against the use of contraceptives and being against being sexually active. This isn’t always well articulated–or articulated at all in such a polarized subject as abortion–but it is quite different and there are a majority of people who hold this view. I would go so far as to say that the majority of pro-life people hold this view of contraceptives being morally neutral, or good preventatives. Catholic officials don’t, but then I would wager a hefty sum of money that a lot…a LOT…of Catholics don’t hold the official line on all the things the Vatican says including this subject. So again, it’s not monolithic. Besides which there are dozens and dozens of Christian denominations that don’t believe what the Vatican does, and there are even more other pro-life people who are not religious, or not Christian, that don’t believe contraception is bad.
Put another way, there’s a difference in evangelicals being against people using condoms as an excuse to be sexually active and being against the use of said condoms once someone ALREADY decided or is sexually active. Finding this out about people usually requires more than a brief conversation as the initial stages revolve around “abortion is wrong”.
Hopefully that makes more sense.
Now that I am somewhat better at managing my time [at least I hope the trend continues] I have to ask a question; How do ALL forms of contraception work, save the barriers like condoms/diaphragms?