The experts are mistaken. It takes a lot more equipment and technical expertise to perform an abortion, and at much greater risk to the mother. Killing babies is relatively easy, and the tools of the task are easily obtained and employed. Find a bucket of water, a high cliff, or a windswept crag, and you’re all set.
I think the argument posed is what we would term a “strawbaby”.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
The experts are mistaken. It takes a lot more equipment and technical expertise to perform an abortion, and at much greater risk to the mother. Killing babies is relatively easy, and the tools of the task are easily obtained and employed. Find a bucket of water, a high cliff, or a windswept crag, and you’re all set. [/quote]
Pretty much what the ancient Romans and Greeks did.
[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
The experts are mistaken. It takes a lot more equipment and technical expertise to perform an abortion, and at much greater risk to the mother. Killing babies is relatively easy, and the tools of the task are easily obtained and employed. Find a bucket of water, a high cliff, or a windswept crag, and you’re all set. [/quote]
Pretty much what the ancient Romans and Greeks did.[/quote]
Pretty much what the ancient everybody did. And the modern Indians, Chinese, Arabs, Japanese… hell, every culture has practiced infanticide in one way or another. What do you think the story of Hansel and Gretel was all about?
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
The experts are mistaken. It takes a lot more equipment and technical expertise to perform an abortion, and at much greater risk to the mother. Killing babies is relatively easy, and the tools of the task are easily obtained and employed. Find a bucket of water, a high cliff, or a windswept crag, and you’re all set. [/quote]
Pretty much what the ancient Romans and Greeks did.[/quote]
Pretty much what the ancient everybody did. And the modern Indians, Chinese, Arabs, Japanese… hell, every culture has practiced infanticide in one way or another. What do you think the story of Hansel and Gretel was all about?[/quote]
I just thought it was a scary story to put children to bed.
These ethicists are basically right in one thing in that there is no difference “ethically” in whats done to the child whether producing the death of a child inside or outside the womb and that the only difference is a matter of location and hopefully get people to realize that.
An interesting thing about what contributed significantly to the early growth of Christianity was Christians saving these children who were exposed to the elements(usually girls) and raising them as their own.
In an increasingly post christian culture who’s to say that the majority wouldn’t be fine with what these guys propose, values don’t appear from a vacuum.
[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:
These ethicists are basically right in one thing in that there is no difference “ethically” in whats done to the child whether producing the death of a child inside or outside the womb and that the only difference is a matter of location and hopefully get people to realize that.
An interesting thing about what contributed significantly to the early growth of Christianity was Christians saving these children who were exposed to the elements(usually girls) and raising them as their own.
In an increasingly post christian culture who’s to say that the majority wouldn’t be fine with what these guys propose, values don’t appear from a vacuum.[/quote]
Christianity and Islam both owe their exponential growth in recent centuries not so much to proselytizing or forced conversions, but rather to the bans both religions have had from earliest times on infanticide, abortion and even birth control. Easiest way to keep the churches and mosques packed is to be fruitful and multiply.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
The experts are mistaken. It takes a lot more equipment and technical expertise to perform an abortion, and at much greater risk to the mother. Killing babies is relatively easy, and the tools of the task are easily obtained and employed. Find a bucket of water, a high cliff, or a windswept crag, and you’re all set. [/quote]
Pretty much what the ancient Romans and Greeks did.[/quote]
Pretty much what the ancient everybody did. And the modern Indians, Chinese, Arabs, Japanese… hell, every culture has practiced infanticide in one way or another. What do you think the story of Hansel and Gretel was all about?[/quote]
That’s just abandonment. Hansel and Gretel’s parents were too pussy to go through with it.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Christianity and Islam both owe their exponential growth in recent centuries not so much to proselytizing or forced conversions, but rather to the bans both religions have had from earliest times on infanticide, abortion and even birth control. Easiest way to keep the churches and mosques packed is to be fruitful and multiply. [/quote]
OMG, if this bullshit didn’t come out of the University of Pittttbullll I don’t know what did.[/quote]
Oh? What part of my statement do you disagree with?
Notice I did say “in recent centuries”. Recruitment by sword seems to have fallen out of favor.
It would be interesting to compare annual recruitment due to proselytizing vs recruitment due to new births. Let’s just use the Catholic Church and Sunni Islam, since the numbers are equivalent, both actively proselytize, and both have similar policies on reproduction (Protestants are not all pro-life, and they tend to put condoms on their John Thomases, as any Monty Python fan knows). Also, if you’re born into a Catholic or Sunni family, you’re pretty much gonna be a Catholic or a Sunni.
I say more babies than converts by a long shot. You obviously don’t agree. Let’s see who finds the answer first.
Gross hyperbolic exaggeration?
“The journal?s editor, Prof Julian Savulescu, director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics,” When I read this I wondered what in the hell “practical” ethics are. My question might be answered further in the article when he says, “?The goal of the Journal of Medical Ethics is not to present the Truth or promote some one moral view. It is to present well reasoned argument based on widely accepted premises.?”
Maybe the word premises is where I get hung up; I believe laws are usually passed according to a society’s widely accepted values and/or morals. In other words, do most people agree that it’s not OK to steal or kill or whatever happens to be illegal. So, while these “premises” may be widely accepted, I think (hope) that most of society is still not OK with killing babies.
“He said the journal would consider publishing an article positing that, if there was no moral difference between abortion and killing newborns, then abortion too should be illegal.” I happen to agree with this point pretty strongly, the difference being that I support the outlawing of abortion rather than the legalization of infanticide.
“They argued: ?The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus in the sense that both lack those properties that justify the attribution of a right to life to an individual.?” Are we, as a society, ready to accept this as OK? I hope not.
I actually agree with the point that these guys are making that a fetus and a newborn are equivalent entities. But for me, I take that as all abortion should be illegal or instead maybe we should start calling it “ante-natal infanticide” as the guy at the end of article said. This is the logical problem with anyone claiming a fetus is just a blob. It has many human characteristics very early on and it seems as though the biologic start of life would be conception, or at the very least implantation in the uterus. That leaves the philosophical argument of personhood. As Peter Singer and the people that wrote this argument have very correctly put, if you define personhood as anything different than biological start of life and are not ok with infanticide, then you hold a double standard.
Kanzi says, “nobody makes a monkey out of me!”
The problem with defining personhood is that depending on how broadly you define the term, you start including a lot more members into the club of “personhood” that aren’t necessarily human, and start to exclude a lot of humans.
A corporation is legally a “person”, but it isn’t human. Is dissolution of a corporation on par with homicide?
And how about dolphins and chimpanzees? Undoubtedly some of them are more intelligent and literate than a lot of humans.
Should they be considered persons, with equivalent rights as human persons? If not, why not? Should personhood be dependent entirely on chromosome count? Before you answer yes, understand that you risk excluding people with Down’s Syndrome. We’ll get back to that.
Pictured above is Kanzi, a male bonobo with a command of pictogram vocabulary of about 450 words. He can communicate intelligently with scientists and reporters, which is more than one can say for many politicians. He can also craft stone knives using ancient flint-knapping techniques, build a fire and toast food on it, without the use of lighter fluid, match-light briquettes or compressed propane gas. These are skills that I have observed to be lacking in many supposedly intelligent humans.
I would say that Kanzi is a person, and that all chimps, bonobos and other great apes are at least as much potential persons as the least intelligent members of our species. A normal human has forty-six chromosomes. A chimpanzee has forty-eight. A person with Down’s syndrome splits the difference, with forty-seven. Notably, 98 percent of our 21st chromosome is identical to that of a chimp. The 21st chromosome is the one that is duplicated in Down’s Syndrome humans. Genetically and behaviorally, a Down’s Syndrome person has at least as much in common with a chimp as with a human. Maybe more.
I mean no offense to Down’s Syndrome people. This is just the way it is. Severely disabled Down’s Syndrome people could not compete with Kanzi in terms of manual dexterity, reasoning or communication.
Either a chimp is a person, or a Down’s Syndrome person is not. My money is on the former.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:
These ethicists are basically right in one thing in that there is no difference “ethically” in whats done to the child whether producing the death of a child inside or outside the womb and that the only difference is a matter of location and hopefully get people to realize that.
An interesting thing about what contributed significantly to the early growth of Christianity was Christians saving these children who were exposed to the elements(usually girls) and raising them as their own.
In an increasingly post christian culture who’s to say that the majority wouldn’t be fine with what these guys propose, values don’t appear from a vacuum.[/quote]
Christianity and Islam both owe their exponential growth in recent centuries not so much to proselytizing or forced conversions, but rather to the bans both religions have had from earliest times on infanticide, abortion and even birth control. Easiest way to keep the churches and mosques packed is to be fruitful and multiply. [/quote]
I think they owe it more to tying the strong sexual urges of young men and the need for security in whatever form of older women into a neat package, calling it “marriage”.
This frees men from competition over the most fertile females and makes them cooperate to further the prospects of their offspring.
Furthermore, it shortens the courtship period which is now prolonged to 30 by some women and therefore leaves room to raise your offspring right, which is somewhat at odds with fucking everything that moves.
This all made so much sense, we had to scrap it.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Kanzi says, “nobody makes a monkey out of me!”
The problem with defining personhood is that depending on how broadly you define the term, you start including a lot more members into the club of “personhood” that aren’t necessarily human, and start to exclude a lot of humans.
A corporation is legally a “person”, but it isn’t human. Is dissolution of a corporation on par with homicide?
And how about dolphins and chimpanzees? Undoubtedly some of them are more intelligent and literate than a lot of humans.
Should they be considered persons, with equivalent rights as human persons? If not, why not? Should personhood be dependent entirely on chromosome count? Before you answer yes, understand that you risk excluding people with Down’s Syndrome. We’ll get back to that.
Pictured above is Kanzi, a male bonobo with a command of pictogram vocabulary of about 450 words. He can communicate intelligently with scientists and reporters, which is more than one can say for many politicians. He can also craft stone knives using ancient flint-knapping techniques, build a fire and toast food on it, without the use of lighter fluid, match-light briquettes or compressed propane gas. These are skills that I have observed to be lacking in many supposedly intelligent humans.
I would say that Kanzi is a person, and that all chimps, bonobos and other great apes are at least as much potential persons as the least intelligent members of our species. A normal human has forty-six chromosomes. A chimpanzee has forty-eight. A person with Down’s syndrome splits the difference, with forty-seven. Notably, 98 percent of our 21st chromosome is identical to that of a chimp. The 21st chromosome is the one that is duplicated in Down’s Syndrome humans. Genetically and behaviorally, a Down’s Syndrome person has at least as much in common with a chimp as with a human. Maybe more.
I mean no offense to Down’s Syndrome people. This is just the way it is. Severely disabled Down’s Syndrome people could not compete with Kanzi in terms of manual dexterity, reasoning or communication.
Either a chimp is a person, or a Down’s Syndrome person is not. My money is on the former.
[/quote]
What if we define a human as a being produced by two humans’ genes?
[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9113394/Killing-babies-no-different-from-abortion-experts-say.html[/quote]
Killing Babies No Different from Abortion
Of course. People didn’t know this? The infant stage, and the previous fetal stage, have always been the same individual human life. Just like the infant is the same individual human life as it’s future elderly stage.