Legacy (& abortion rights...)

First capital punishment. In my mind there are some very specific conditions to the use of capital punishment. First there are some people who are unredeeemable and will be nothing but liabilities to society even while incarcerated. If they have no intention of making amends for their crimes, then I would have them humanely euthanized. For those who are willing to atone for their crimes it would be a waste not to give them the chance.
As for killing in war, in war the military personel are merely pawns, cannon fodder of the government. Another asset to be exploited just like tanks, aircraft, ships, etc. The problem is that in war despite all the "rules" that are established to make war "civilized." war is by its nature uncivilized. Even the most civilized nation will resort to barbaric means of resistance if desperate enough. What's the answer? I have no idea.

Insurgents are getting killed in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is a war.

Very true. We are in the equivalent of an undeclared war in Afghanistan and Iraq right now, very similar to the many years of hostilities in Vietnam. There are no rules in unconventional warfare and it is almost impossible to put organized troops against guerilla warfare and win. It can be done if, and only if, the rules are thrown out the window.

That's not exactly true, the rules for guerilla warfare are well known they were learned in winning the insurgency in Malaysia, but it is a much more difficult, skilled level of warfare, requiring a highly trained, proffessional, army. Something I was trying to subtly hint the US armed forces are often less than being.
To be clear, the position of the civilised world is that capital punishment is a barbaric thing that a we just do not do. My thoughts are an atempt to provide an ethical framework to support that position. Either murder is ethically fine , as long as it's carried out under the right circumstances, or it's fundamentally wrong. If the former then a major reassessment of the criminality of homicide is required allowing perpetrator to argue that it was acceptable in the context of the situation they were in. If the latter we should seek to minimise as far as reasonably possible its occurrence. I hold to the latter, and I don't see why that is in anyway controversial. 9 out of ten cats would agree with me.
As human beings we all know innately that there are some things that are just wrong, or just right, they are written into our genes they are so profoundly positive to our survival. Murder we know to be something that is just wrong, and I would rather have to argue the delicate justification for warfare than dispute something we instinctive know to be true. Sometimes you just have to accept some doublethink to make the world possible.

Well, the US military is for the most part follows a conventional warfare doctrine. Essentially this is dumb brute force. This method is highly effective in taking land. The problem is holding it. Holding an area of land means that you are basically sitting ducks. It calls for significant expenditure of resources and manpower, but you are still vulnerable to the small hit and run attacks, that call for very little expenditure of resources and manpower, and also cause the other side to inflict high collateral damage, tarnishing political support. Warfare sucks and unless another way is found to settle irreconcilable political differences it's not going away.
As for capital punishment, something else is going on in various societies to cause them to believe there is a need for capital punishment. In the seventies capital punishment was all but eliminated in the US, but then the violent crime rate soared and it was felt that it had to be reenstated. I don't know if this has proven to be a deterrent or not but given the disparity between the US and other developed countries.

As I said, this is not something that the US military is constitutionally good at.
I'm not quite sure what you're getting at, on capital punishment, America and Japan are the only developed countries to still have it and the US has 5.7 homicides per 100000 while Japan has only 0.5. So it really doesn't seem to have an impact on crime either way.
America's crime wave seems most likely to be a demographic blip which resolved itself regardless of policing tactics.

I really don't know of any military that has been able to deal with unconventional warfare effectively. There is however the special forces which work well in surgical strikes, but this doesn't remedy the problem it just gives the insurgents a taste of their own medicine.

Like I said, the malaysian counterinsurgency was effectively won and wrote the rule book for future engagements of that nature.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayan_Emergency

lkm wrote:

I'm sorry, I was seeking a clarification on your views. If the rightness of the death penalty is a matter for those who deserve it, it stands to reason that the rightness of abortion is a matter for those who seek an abortion. Do you agree or disagree, if so why?

The rightness of capital punishment is dependent on the crime. The worst the crime the more it is justified. It represents the removal of an inherently dangerous element of humanity, and is fundamentally an act of self preservation, just as is opposing a dangerous force or ideology is in war.

Abortion on the other hand is simply the killing of an innocent, underdeveloped human life solely on the basis that the mother would be uncomfortable for a few months.

The parallel you seem to be attempting to draw is that the gestation or perhaps raising of a child represents an inconvenience just as housing a criminal for life is, and therefore if capital punishment is justified, so is abortion. But that only works if you consider the criminal and mother to be the victims, when the truth of the matter is the public and child is victim, subject to the crime and the foolishness of the criminal and the parents respectively.

Abortion is a matter of point of view. You say it's killing an innocent life, I say it's ending an unwanted pregnancy. By your logic "pulling out" is the killing of millions of half-lives. The difference is Pro-choice is allowing those who believe as you do to make their choices based on their values and beliefs, and those who feel as I do to make choices based on their beliefs. Nobody is forcing anybody to get an abortion against will and their beliefs. Pro-life on the other hand is forcing people to carry a pregnancy to term against their will and beliefs. Pro-choice is NOT, nor has it ever been pro-abortion.
Again the religious right doesn't care about the unborn. They are not pro-life they are anti-fornication, they just don't have the courage or the integrity to admit it.

davamanra wrote:

OK, since the can of worms has been opened, it's time for my two cents, or rather ten bucks!
...

You know, I'm not going to try to dispute this only because I'm sure that there are circles were this contains an element of truth. The religious right uses theological arguments for social policy on people who are not interested in theology.

This despite they can make sound social policy on the fact that it works, and that argument would be far more effective.

davamanra wrote:

Abortion is a matter of point of view. You say it's killing an innocent life, I say it's ending an unwanted pregnancy. By your logic "pulling out" is the killing of millions of half-lives. The difference is Pro-choice is allowing those who believe as you do to make their choices based on their values and beliefs, and those who feel as I do to make choices based on their beliefs. Nobody is forcing anybody to get an abortion against will and their beliefs. Pro-life on the other hand is forcing people to carry a pregnancy to term against their will and beliefs. Pro-choice is NOT, nor has it ever been pro-abortion.
Again the religious right doesn't care about the unborn. They are not pro-life they are anti-fornication, they just don't have the courage or the integrity to admit it.

Let me ask you something. At point did conception cease to become a choice?

In the case of rape or incest. In the case of taking reasonable measures to prevent pregnacy, but becoming pregnant anyway.

At the point where conception became the least likely outcome of intercourse.

You've got rape or incest.

Everything else is negligence.

Didn't say it wasn't, just pointing out that a sizable number of people do get pregnant without deliberately choosing to do so, as you well know, therefore conception is not something that can be chosen, as you stated it was.
The parallel I was attempting to raise was entirely the opposite, if the potential future of an embryo can be termed by you "an inconvienient life" how exactly is the life of an actual adult sentient, alive, human being on death row not also to be called "an incovienient life", and thus why does the latter not deserve similar consideration to the former, in your world view?

If reasonable measures are taken to prevent pregnancy that is most definitely NOT negligence.
"Life" is still open to one's point of view. A gamete, a zygote, an embryo, a fetus, can all be considered or discounted as "life." If you CHOOSE to regard any of these states as life, more power to you. Make your life CHOICES accordingly. If however one doesn't agree with you you do not have the right to take their choices away from them.

davamanra wrote:

If however one doesn't agree with you you do not have the right to take their choices away from them.

No, I definitely think there should be one definition of life. History has shown that if we don't, one of us will inevitably not make the list.

lkm wrote:

The parallel I was attempting to raise was entirely the opposite, if the potential future of an embryo can be termed by you "an inconvienient life" how exactly is the life of an actual adult sentient, alive, human being on death row not also to be called "an incovienient life", and thus why does the latter not deserve similar consideration to the former, in your world view?

Inconvenient was a sarcastic term. While both can be inconvenient for one prospective or another, only the latter has earned an early one way ticket to their maker.

Well if we are going to work from only one definition of life, shouldn't that be the rationally derived scientific actuallly real definition of life?
So sufficient inconvienience warrents death?

Commodore wrote:

davamanra wrote:

If however one doesn't agree with you you do not have the right to take their choices away from them.

No, I definitely think there should be one definition of life. History has shown that if we don't, one of us will inevitably not make the list.

Fine, let's go ahead and use the definition that allows both the right and the left to coexist peacefully. The definition that has been the basis of legal use for centuries. The definition that was accepted EVEN by the religious right AND the Republican party until the Roe v Wade decision. A miscarried fetus doesn't get a birth certificate a stillborn doesn't get a birth certificate. Only a LIVE BIRTH is considered to be a life in the eyes of our legal system, so let's stop the religious right from perverting our legal system for their own twisted agenda. After all there is supposed to be a separation of church and state.

I would argue that the definition should be based on science, not law. If not, what is law based on?

Past compromises for peaceful coexistence?
The definition is still arbitrary in spite of all the science. Look at all the stink that has been raised over the definition of a planet!?!?!
Gamete, zygote, embryo, fetus, survive outside the womb, blah, blah, blah. Sorry, but this is a new world. The definition of life and death has been changed dramatically over the past hundred years. For a long while, if your heart stopped you were dead. Period. Now were are "playing God" every single day with defribulators and CPR as well as in vitro fertilization, artificial insemination and fertility drugs and capital punishment. Even if a person is "brain dead" they can be kept alive almost indefinitely, and some people even recover from this form of "death."
This is a new and wonderful world in which we are living where we actually can control the quality and consequences of life. But this also calls for some hard decisions, and I don't believe those decisions should be based on the selective, archaic, hypocritical and narrow minded beliefs of our religious right.

I realise this is somewhat of a trivial detour on this discussion, but what would everyone's position be on a hypothetical technology for abortion which rather than destroying the embryo instead harvasted it to be frozen allowing it to be either donated and implanted elsewhere or stored and then reimplanted at some later date when a child is then wanted? Would this be more morally acceptable, or yet a greater travesty of the natural order?

There are actually some purist groups that are doing this with in vitro embryos, regarding them as life and trying to find adoptive parents for the hundreds of thousands(!!!!) of them. My feeling is very simple, instead of "adopting" a POTENTIAL child embryo, how about adopting one of the thousands of ACTUAL parentless children here and around the world who are in dire need of happy and loving homes. Maybe that was "God's will" for infertile couples.

I find myself repeating a lot of what was already said. I would like to humbly ask that this previous post be read to prevent going in circles.

davamanra wrote:

OK, since the can of worms has been opened, it's time for my two cents, or rather ten bucks!
The religious right never has cared about "unborn children." They have been spitballing ideas for years after Roe v Wade and "saving the life of the unborn child" is the first thing they have found that they can make stick. the "unborn child" angle was just what they needed to tug at people's heartstrings. After the sexual revolution, they were against the ropes and so they only pursued abortions past the first trimester and the came up with all the rhetoric to pursue that. Later when they got enough political clout they pushed for moment of conception. They also stopped making exceptions for rape and incest. Now they are not just pursuing ending abortion they are trying to stop birth control or teaching safe and responsible sex. Their true agenda which they don't have the courage or the integrity to admit is simple. Stop the "sin" of fornication. Treat sex the way it was a couple of hundred years ago, as some dirty and disgusting act, only to be performed by married heterosexual couples, only for the purpose of procreation and only in the missionary position. Sound crazy? Where do you think the term "missionary position" came from?
The answer to the question "what came first the chicken or the egg" was actually answered by Aristotle two thousand years ago. The chicken came first, because the chicken is an actually chicken where the egg is merely a potential chicken. He also placed the moment of the beginnig of life at four months, because that's when the mother becomes aware of movement from the fetus. This time frame was adopted and accepted by the church for over a thousand years. but of course the church changed their "eternal" laws whenever it suited their political agenda, as is the religious right today.
Why does the religious right care so much about the "potential" children but care nothing about the "actual" children where are these loving compassionate people when it comes to giving the thousands of parentless children in this country happy and loving homes? "That's not our problem."
The religious right considers abortion against God because it was God's will that a woman become pregnant. Isn't it also against God's will for an infertile couple to get pregnant through artificial
means? If God wanted that couple to have children of there own he would have made them fertile. If it's "playing God" to disrupt the pregnancy process, it is also "against God" to interfere in the conception process, and yet the religious right doesn't seem to have a problem with in vitro fertilization, artificial insemination or surrogate motherhood. Is it not "playing God" to create life in a laboratory? Creating a little abomination in a test tube, something right out of the pages of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein?" Is it not "against God" to conceive a child with the equivalent of a turkey baster? In comparison homosexuality is downright tame!
Abortion is murder. An infertile mother takes fertility drugs and ends up getting pregnant with seven fetuses. Inevitably they are born premature, two stillborn, another dies three days later because of an under developed heart, two suffer brain damage and are mentally retarded and two are healthy. "This is a blessing from God." If abortion is murder then this mother is guilty of three counts of reckless manslaugter and two counts of reckless endangerment. Some "blessing."
Life begins at the moment of conception. Then why is there a problem with birth control? Conservatives don't want to pay to take care of children that the parents can't afford to support and the church, despite preaching be fruitful and multiply turns it's back on it's obedient congregation when they need help supporting all their children after all the money that have put in the collection plate.
If God had meant man to fly, he would have given us wings. If God had NOT meant man to fly he wouldn't have given us the brains to figure out how. If God had not meant man to control his environment and overcome nature, including pregnancy termination and artificial conception, he wouldn't have given us the brains to figure out how.
If abortion is murder then so is capital punishment. If abortion is against God's will then so is artificial conception, organ transplant and Keeping somebody on life support even though they are brain dead.

Quote :

If abortion is murder then so is capital punishment.

Attack of the Killer Embryo's? Or Zygotes?

I don't see Embryos attacking people. Maybe we need to look at choices. Murderers choose to murder people, but an Embryo doesn't choose to be in its mothers womb.

For me, the whole concept of when the soul is imbued is irrelevant as I believe a soul is an inevitable byproduct of a mind.

But that does not get us any closer to an answer, as when someone is unconscious they are still considered alive. Could the Embryo be considered an unconscious human?

Since the brain is generally considered scientifically to be the seat of consciousness, should the limit be set at the date the brain has developed?

Using the date when the baby starts kicking is, frankly, useless. That could simply mean the nervous system and muscles aren't developed enough.


As for our legacy...

I agree that it should be like Athens. We should be remembered for having a progressive society, democracy, and culture. Indeed, it's the only way we'd be remembered.

There's a difference between an unconscious person and a brain dead person, given an embryo has no eeg reading prior to 12 weeks, you could, if you wished I suppose, consider an embryo brain dead. If that helps.

NoMoreLies wrote:

Quote :

If abortion is murder then so is capital punishment.

Attack of the Killer Embryo's? Or Zygotes?

I don't see Embryos attacking people. Maybe we need to look at choices. Murderers choose to murder people, but an Embryo doesn't choose to be in its mothers womb.

For me, the whole concept of when the soul is imbued is irrelevant as I believe a soul is an inevitable byproduct of a mind.

But that does not get us any closer to an answer, as when someone is unconscious they are still considered alive. Could the Embryo be considered an unconscious human?

Since the brain is generally considered scientifically to be the seat of consciousness, should the limit be set at the date the brain has developed?

Using the date when the baby starts kicking is, frankly, useless. That could simply mean the nervous system and muscles aren't developed enough.


As for our legacy...

I agree that it should be like Athens. We should be remembered for having a progressive society, democracy, and culture. Indeed, it's the only way we'd be remembered.

You've taken my words out of context and that makes any effort to have a reasonable discussion futile.

davamanra wrote:

Commodore wrote:

davamanra wrote:

If however one doesn't agree with you you do not have the right to take their choices away from them.

No, I definitely think there should be one definition of life. History has shown that if we don't, one of us will inevitably not make the list.

Fine, let's go ahead and use the definition that allows both the right and the left to coexist peacefully. The definition that has been the basis of legal use for centuries. The definition that was accepted EVEN by the religious right AND the Republican party until the Roe v Wade decision. A miscarried fetus doesn't get a birth certificate a stillborn doesn't get a birth certificate. Only a LIVE BIRTH is considered to be a life in the eyes of our legal system, so let's stop the religious right from perverting our legal system for their own twisted agenda. After all there is supposed to be a separation of church and state.

Why don't we just follow the Hippocratic Oath?

In which case everythings fine because doctors already are pro-freedom.

How do you do no harm by killing a fetus?

Clearly there will never be an agreement as to what one would consider a life or as to what is right and wrong with respect to the disposition of that life. This is where pro-choice is the way to go. It allows those who believe as the religious right believes to make choices according to their beliefs but it allows those who believe differently to make choices according to their beliefs.
Commodore, clearly with respect to this issue there can't be a reasonable discussion. You have conveniently dismissed most of my points and have taken much of what has been said out of context. "Killing a fetus" is nothing more than slick rhetorical sleight of hand by the religious right to hijack the word "fetus" and equate it with life. Of course the next step would be to equate embryo then zygote, etc. Catholics have been using this trick for years trying to equate sperm to the "seed of life" to stop young males from masturbating!
Sorry, I'm not going to let you play those games, as well as ignore my argument about the legal definition of life. If you will not or can not address the points that have been made then don't expect others to respect these slick rhetorical tricks, conservative dogma and flawed logic.

If a fetus isn't alive, explain premature birth.

And which point did I miss? That's its all a vast right wing conspiracy designed keep people quivering in the pews? Talk about slick rhetorical tricks, liberal dogma and flawed logic.

If you want to engage in social commentary, how bout this. Since the 60's the left has tried to remove all responsibility from personal conduct, and are to willing skirt all common and scientific sense to do it, because gosh darn it, responsibility's a real kill joy. And it's not like it effects anyone, right?

No, it does effect everyone else sooner or later.

88% of all abortions are performed in the first 12 weeks, before any barin activity begins, the majority before the 8th week. Thus the majority of abortions are performed on embryos not fetuses.
You were the one the who cited the hypocratic oath, it's not my problem that the vast majority of its upholders differ from you in its interpretation.
Clearly the problem with a free society is that everybody else is free to do things that you don't like.

Well said lkm.
Another point is that only women are directly affected by abortion and what right do we as men have to dictate to them what they can or can't do with their bodies. They should be allowed to CHOOSE what to do based on their values, beliefs and life circumstances. If I were a women I would want as many options made available to me as possible and I will decide what is right for me. Perhaps, Commodore, you could put yourself in the shoes of a pregnant women and see how your perspective might change.
You skipped over almost all the points made in my 21.09.08 3:55 post and repeated on 24.09.08. As for the right wing conspiracy, I find it laughable the way the right constantly devalues everything the left says by calling them liberal as if liberal is a bad word, then having the audacity to adopt words like "change" and "reform" in their conservative rhetoric. Change and reform is the recise goal of a liberal!
The left has not tried to remove responsibity from personal conduct. They want to be able to control the consequences of the actions. The right has tried to remove responsibilty by treating things like drugs as if they are evil substances that cannot be used responsibly and so a few irresponsible people are used as examples to deprive the rest of the population of the pleasure of their use. They are also doing the same thing with sex in teaching only abstinence instead of responsible sex practices.
I imagine that you consider the vast majority of Americans responsible enough to handle firearms and alcohol, and despite our clear philosophical differences I agree. But I also consider these same Americans responsible enough to handle drugs, sex and gambling and shouldn't have there freedoms infringed upon by the clearly hypocritical and bigotted "responsible" conservatives. I don't for one second imply that the left is correct about everything, but at the same time there is no way that the right is either.
Again I would really encourage you to read my ENTIRE post of 21.09.08 and at least be willing to acknowledge that in today's world there is room for Mankind to empower himself and make choices that he/she was not able to make less than a century ago.

It does confuse me how the right embraces freedom and rejects liberality, when liberalism is the politics of freedom.

The right embraces freedom for business, not citizens, even though they won't admit it. Basically they want freedom on their terms. Freedom of THEIR religion, speech, press, etc. but oppression of everyone else's.

Isn't that the definition of totalitarianism, or do I have my political science wrong?

If it encompassed business and church as well then yes. As it stands it is basically a plutocracy/theocracy.

How about we come at legacy from an oblique angle and try to pin it down with a slogan.
I vote for: "Not that Evil"

Well, words without actions don't mean much but how about "Truth, Knowledge, and Integrity"

lkm wrote:

There's a difference between an unconscious person and a brain dead person, given an embryo has no eeg reading prior to 12 weeks, you could, if you wished I suppose, consider an embryo brain dead. If that helps.

Yes, it does help. Very much. With our current level of medical science we consider brain dead people to be dead. So we simply put the abortion limit at 12 weeks. Which is, if I remember rightly (not leftly), the limit they have in France.

Well, as I think has already been stated, the vast majority of abortions are carried out before twelve weeks, and if the system was better geared towards providing prompt service perhaps still more could be earlier but I suspect that a large number of late term abortions are for medical reasons which won't become apparent until that point in the pregnancy is reached. There's no way to provide for that with an arbitrarily inflexible date.

I was thinking, given today's medical technology, a dedicated group of doctors could, without too much trouble, develop a safe, simple and easily reversible tubal ligation procedure to allow women to have complete control over their reproductive system. Have the procedure done when they reach puberty and this would eliminate any possibility of pregnancy. Then, later on when they are ready to have children, they can have the procedure reversed and have children at a time of their choosing. Also, they could have the procedure un-reversed so that they could have control over how many children they want and when to have them.
The most hilarious thing would be watching the religious right having to go back to the drawing boards to come up with an excuse to protest this!

No, the most hilarius thing would be watching te Liberals bemused when the religous right don't protest it!

Although, they might never choose to have children (something that's already happening in nearly all developed countries) leaving the population in steep decline. Almost, if not all, population growth going on now is in developing countries.

I believe its generally not an accident, even in developed countries. However, most are about at replacement.

I seriously doubt liberals would be bemused by the right's acceptance of this procedure. It would be a complete shock if the right DID accept it! Their hidden agenda is pretty transparent when you look at their attitude about other related issues. With respect to teenage pregnancy: Abstinence. With respect to HIV: Abstinence. With respect to birth control: No real justification NOT to use it, just don't, and instead of using birth control, abstain. I guarantee, if this procedure would be developed, the right would raise as much hell as they did with Roe v Wade.
In developing countries I believe this would be a welcome procedure by many. Many families can't even afford to take care of the children they have. Instead of paying eighty cents a day to these child sponsorship charities to take care of little Habib or Jorge, how about we pay the equivalent of about six months sponsorship to have this procedure performed on their mothers so that they don't have any more children they can't afford. Although I might sound liberal in some my comments, I am in fact moderate and I don't agree with an UNCONDITIONAL welfare program, which I consider these children sponsorship programs to be. The last thing these developing countries need are more mouths to feed.

There's already plenty of methods of contraception, I fail to see how another would do anything drastic to the abortion rate, short of allowing embryo's to be retrieved for storage or donation, or better yet the engineering of a new organ to store fertilzed eggs until a pregnancy is desired, even years later.
There're already plenty of methods to promote family planning today, they just have to be funded.

No method of contraception is 100% effective, that's why abortion is so important as a contingency. The method I am proposing is essentially reversible sterilization. The problem that family planning has is with the ridiculous attitude of the religious right with their lame excuses to stop abortion and birth control, essentially taking away women's control of their own bodies and empower themselves. Funding for family planning is a problem, but instead of recurring expenses for oral contraction and spermicidal medications, a simple procedure could be done that would eliminate pregnancy (until the time was right) for a one-time fee.That fee would pay for itself many times over in developing countries by minimizing the number of children to feed.