Roe v. Wade is dead

[Massdriver]

15 minutes ago, legend said:

 

In practice I think that's a reasonable way to act. I also think there are some good consequential and game theory reasons that can justify it!  

Agreed. 

[skillzdadirecta]

45 minutes ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

Why do fertilized eggs take priority over a fully cognizant woman?

 

Interesting that the one woman in this topic asks a pretty relevant question and she's completely ignored...

 

[crispy4000]

1 hour ago, legend said:

 

You "lived as" an unfertilized egg in the same way you "lived as" a fertilized one.

Simply not true from a biological standpoint.  Your life didn’t begin as an unfertilized egg, but in the combination of two cells into a new single-celled organism.

 

I don’t this should be controversial, but here we are.
 

1 hour ago, legend said:

If your value for others is purely transactional, then you should have no problem with aborting fertilized eggs.

It’s not transactional to think that I wouldn’t want to have been aborted and wouldn’t wish it on others.  I already made it through.

[crispy4000]

9 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Interesting that the one woman in this topic asks a pretty relevant question and she's completely ignored...

 

I agree this is where the argument should be.  Not what qualifies as a human.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

8 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Interesting that the one woman in this topic asks a pretty relevant question and she's completely ignored...

 

Par for the course. 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

1 minute ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

Par for the course. 

Excuse me, miss, but the men are talking /s 

[skillzdadirecta]

2 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

I agree this is where the argument should be.  Not what qualifies as a human.

This is LITERALLY what the whole "debate" is about. Like literally.

[crispy4000]

9 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

This is LITERALLY what the whole "debate" is about. Like literally.

The pro-life position relies on attributing intrinsic value to unwanted unborn human life.  The best arguments against it are not to imply the biology textbooks get it wrong on when life begins.  But to say in most or all circumstances, it doesn’t matter.

[Guest]

15 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Interesting that the one woman in this topic asks a pretty relevant question and she's completely ignored...

 

The below kinda shuts down any meaningful discussion. I’m not even bothered by it, and I respect her position to not care what dude’s think, but if this is the position…what exactly is there to discuss on a question that is inherently opinion?

 

On 5/18/2022 at 7:11 PM, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

I also don’t give a man’s opinion on abortion much regard. 

 

[Jason]

Feels like we're back on IGN.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

It's still a valid question that seems to be ignored everywhere.

[Massdriver]

Just now, crispy4000 said:

The pro-life position relies on attributing value to unwanted unborn human life.  The best arguments against it are not to imply the biology textbooks get it wrong on when life begins.  But to say in most or all circumstances, it doesn’t matter.

This is a rhetorical technique trying to make it sound like anything other than that ethical position is unscientific . But biology textbooks have nothing to say about the ethics of destroying fertilized eggs. This is philosophy. You would still have to explain why it’s wrong to destroy a fertilized egg whether it was human or not. 

[crispy4000]

Just now, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

It's still a valid question that seems to be ignored everywhere.

I gave my reasons earlier if you’d like to discuss them.  Or not.

[crispy4000]

9 minutes ago, Massdriver said:

But biology textbooks have nothing to say about the ethics of destroying fertilized eggs. This is philosophy. You would still have to explain why it’s wrong to destroy a fertilized egg whether it was human or not. 

I think the pro-life position implodes absolutely if it’s not human.  Which is why people get tempted to go down that rabbit hole to convince pro-lifers that it’s subhuman.

[Guest]

Just now, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

It's still a valid question that seems to be ignored everywhere.

The question is valid, but you aren’t interested in the answer from me as based on your previous response, which didn’t quote me but was implicitly directed at me being that it was a response to a question I asked. Which is fine! There are people here who I haven’t engaged with in well over a year here because I find literally no value in anything they have to say.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Truthfully, it was directed at anti-choice men in general, as I’ve been dealing with a ton of frustration outside this board on the subject. And the question wasn’t really directed at you, just in general because the discussion seems to ignore that. 

[Massdriver]

7 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

We are in agreement here.  Furthermore, I think the pro-life position implodes absolutely if it’s not human.  Which is why people get tempted to go down that rabbit hole to convince pro-lifers that it’s subhuman.

I honestly don’t know what your position is.

[crispy4000]

2 hours ago, crispy4000 said:

To be pro-choice, I would need to be convinced that ending innocent human lives intentionally is generally an appropriate recourse to reducing suffering that isn’t life threatening.  And believe we could put limits on this type of thing as a society without being arbitrary and hypocritical.

 

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

Truthfully, it was directed at anti-choice men in general, as I’ve been dealing with a ton of frustration outside this board on the subject. And the question wasn’t really directed at you, just in general because the discussion seems to ignore that. 

Gotcha. Also, to be honest, I try to be careful in our interactions because I know there are times where I have not communicated effectively with you and caused friction I would also rather avoid moving forward as I genuinely have no ill will toward you  

[CastlevaniaNut18]

1 minute ago, sblfilms said:

Gotcha. Also, to be honest, I try to be careful in our interactions because I know there are times where I have not communicated effectively with you and caused friction I would also rather avoid moving forward as I genuinely have no ill will toward you  

Thank you. I know we’ve had a contentious history at times, but I hope our more recent interactions have suggested we’re past most of that. 

[legend]

2 hours ago, crispy4000 said:

Simply not true from a biological standpoint.  Your life didn’t begin as an unfertilized egg, but in the combination of two cells into a new single-celled organism.

I don’t this should be controversial, but here we are.

 

Yes, from a biological standpoint, "you" being the fertilized egg is as true as "you" being an unfertilized egg, which is to say neither are true in any useful way. You're giving fertilized eggs this special magical position that doesn't exist in physical reality. The difference between an unfertilized egg and a fertilized egg is ridiculously tiny relative to all the additional matter and processes that had to integrated to eventually have a born version of you. It is but one tiny step in the casual chain.

 

But you're right, this shouldn't be complicated. It ought to be profoundly obvious how ridiculously incomplete and how much external forces and processes and combinations are required to go from a fertilized egg to a person. Yet here we are. It frankly insulting to all of humankind to give fertilized egg this kind of magical value and must be particularly infuriating for women.

 

2 hours ago, crispy4000 said:

It’s not transactional to think that I wouldn’t want to have been aborted and wouldn’t wish it on others.  I already made it through.

 

That still wouldn't go deep enough. Why do you care about people? Why should they be treated the same? I'm asking you this because any possible reasonable answer to care about people, how they're "treated" involves their unique properties compared to other aspects of physical reality. There's a reason why I don't "care" about rocks, but do about people. There are certain qualities that make "morality" even a meaningful concept to discuss at all. And the properties are not ones possessed by fertilized eggs.

[legend]

I'm going to drop out from this discussion from this point on. @crispy4000 I think you're a good guy on the whole, or at least from what I can tell. But I do think you're using some shitty "moral" reasoning here, the kind which constantly ends up animating people to do some really terribly shit to this world, even if not you specifically. Over the past five years I've gotten really tired of watching the world being burned down by the "righteous" who give the worst justifications for their actions. I'm tired of the worst and yet easily predictable outcomes happening. Almost anyone of us could write a novel on that just with the pandemic. I wish these topics were just academic masturbation. But they're not. It's everywhere from "effective altruists" coming from the tech crowd (supposedly my crowd) engaging in religious nonsense disguised as secular rationalism, to the right wing constantly being awful people. Roe getting killed is just the latest shit show and we don't seem to be getting better, we seem to be accelerating toward worse times run by worse people. 

 

But I'm clearly not going to convince you of anything on this message board, and even if I did, you're not likely to be the kind of mind that really needs to be changed. So continuing this discussions just seems like an exercise in frustration, because I'm really tired of it all.

[crispy4000]

2 hours ago, legend said:

 

Yes, from a biological standpoint, "you" being the fertilized egg is as true as "you" being an unfertilized egg, which is to say neither are true in any useful way. You're giving fertilized eggs this special magical position that doesn't exist in physical reality. The difference between an unfertilized egg and a fertilized egg is ridiculously tiny relative to all the additional matter and processes that had to integrated to eventually have a born version of you. It is but one tiny step in the casual chain.

 

It's a critical step in answering the question of when our lives actually began and what we genetically are.  Don't know what else I can say to convince you that our lifecycles are very much a physical reality.

 

It's also a little odd to me that you continue to single out an unfertilized egg as "you" at some point.  What about a sperm that would later meet it?  Wouldn't "you" have to simultaneously be both for your view to be consistent?  This is where I'd be most open to talking about a hypothetical human-to-be instead.

 

2 hours ago, legend said:

 

But you're right, this shouldn't be complicated. It ought to be profoundly obvious how ridiculously incomplete and how much external forces and processes and combinations are required to go from a fertilized egg to a person. Yet here we are. It frankly insulting to all of humankind to give fertilized egg this kind of magical value and must be particularly infuriating for women.

 

 

I don't believe that getting into the weeds of our early development takes anything away from the totality of why we're here as we are.  If anything, it gives us further insight.

 

2 hours ago, legend said:

That still wouldn't go deep enough. Why do you care about people? Why should they be treated the same? I'm asking you this because any possible reasonable answer to care about people, how they're "treated" involves their unique properties compared to other aspects of physical reality.

Being the direct product of human reproduction is the most fundamental thing that makes us like-beings.  I don't think it's any moral stretch to say that we shouldn't go off killing each other without just reason.  After all, we wouldn't want the same done to us or others, now or in retrospect.

 

1 hour ago, legend said:

I'm going to drop out from this discussion from this point on. @crispy4000 I think you're a good guy on the whole, or at least from what I can tell. But I do think you're using some shitty "moral" reasoning here, the kind which constantly ends up animating people to do some really terribly shit to this world, even if not you specifically. Over the past five years I've gotten really tired of watching the world being burned down by the "righteous" who give the worst justifications for their actions. I'm tired of the worst and yet easily predictable outcomes happening. Almost anyone of us could write a novel on that just with the pandemic. I wish these topics were just academic masturbation. But they're not. It's everywhere from "effective altruists" coming from the tech crowd (supposedly my crowd) engaging in religious nonsense disguised as secular rationalism, to the right wing constantly being awful people. Roe getting killed is just the latest shit show and we don't seem to be getting better, we seem to be accelerating toward worse times run by worse people. 

 

But I'm clearly not going to convince you of anything on this message board, and even if I did, you're not likely to be the kind of mind that really needs to be changed. So continuing this discussions just seems like an exercise in frustration, because I'm really tired of it all.

 

No worries, I don't take any of this personally.  Or that you think I'm a belligerent anti-mask wearing karen for that matter.

[Air_Delivery]

I don't think we are really people until we start making memories so 

I'll dip out now. 

[Uaarkson]

No such thing as life, we’re all just a bunch of quantum field vibrations 👍

[Signifyin(g)Monkey]

Quote

Being the direct product of human reproduction is the most fundamental thing that makes us like-beings.  

Is it though?  If an alien came to earth and abided by the broad norms of human decency, would they be *more* or *less* of a ‘like-being’ than a serial rapist who kidnaps children, grinds them up into paste and bakes them into pies for his evening meal, Titus Andronicus-style?  Despite being the product of *non-human* reproduction?

 

I think the definition of a human being (or a ‘human-like being’) is a bit more behavioral than you’re giving it credit for.  I’m not sure we can count human reproduction as the ‘most basic’ element of it.

[marioandsonic]

Fundamentally, this whole debate seems to be revolving around the question: What does it mean to be "human"?  What is at the core of being a sentient being?  It's something that philosophers have debated for centuries.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Signifyin(g)Monkey said:

Is it though?  If an alien came to earth and abided by the broad norms of human decency, would they be *more* or *less* of a ‘like-being’ than a serial rapist who kidnaps children, grinds them up into paste and bakes them into pies for his evening meal, Titus Andronicus-style?  Despite being the product of *non-human* reproduction?

 

I think the definition of a human being (or a ‘human-like being’) is a bit more behavioral than you’re giving it credit for.  I’m not sure we can count human reproduction as the ‘most basic’ element of it.

I would tread very lightly on the subject of behavior as the defining characteristic of humanity. Such language about behavioral differences have been amongst the most common ways that racists “prove” the subhuman status of racial and ethnic minorities.

[AbsolutSurgen]

The debate about when a person becomes a person is one that can never be answered.  But, IMHO, is mostly tangential to the debate.

 

The fundamental discussion on the morality of being pro-choice vs. pro-life should be on how willing you are to push your own morality onto others.

 

I believe that life begins at conception.  However, I recognize that other people don't share my belief, and have valid reasons (that I disagree with) for believing that it starts at a different point in time.  It would be hubris to think that my point-of-view on this should trump everyone else's.

 

Being pro-choice recognizes that your own morals should not be enforced on the rest of society.

[crispy4000]

1 hour ago, Signifyin(g)Monkey said:

Is it though?  If an alien came to earth and abided by the broad norms of human decency, would they be *more* or *less* of a ‘like-being’ than a serial rapist who kidnaps children, grinds them up into paste and bakes them into pies for his evening meal, Titus Andronicus-style?  Despite being the product of *non-human* reproduction?

 

I think the definition of a human being (or a ‘human-like being’) is a bit more behavioral than you’re giving it credit for.  I’m not sure we can count human reproduction as the ‘most basic’ element of it.

 

34 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

I would tread very lightly on the subject of behavior as the defining characteristic of humanity. Such language about behavioral differences have been amongst the most common ways that racists “prove” the subhuman status of racial and ethnic minorities.

 

Don't forget to "prove" the subhuman status of the mentally disabled, political dissidents, criminals, etc.  This is also used to justify the death penalty in the developed world.

I'd be open to live in harmony with another species of a rational kind similar to us, should we ever find one.  But with the recognition that neither of us owe it to one another anymore than our own.  If they came here wanting to conquer us and farm us for food, that's their own prerogative.  I wouldn't blame them for turning on us if it was in the interest of their species.

[AbsolutSurgen]

Just now, crispy4000 said:

 

 

Don't forget to "prove" the subhuman status of the mentally disabled, political dissidents, criminals, etc.  This is also used to justify the death penalty in the developed world.

I'd be open to live in harmony with another species of a rational kind similar to us, should we ever find one.  But with the recognition that neither of us owe it to one another.  If they came here wanting to conquer us and farm us for food, that's their own prerogative.  I wouldn't blame them for turning on us if it was in the best interest of their species.

[CitizenVectron]

4 minutes ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

The debate about when a person becomes a person is one that can never be answered.  But, IMHO, is mostly tangential to the debate.

 

The fundamental discussion on the morality of being pro-choice vs. pro-life should be on how willing you are to push your own morality onto others.

 

I believe that life begins at conception.  However, I recognize that other people don't share my belief, and have valid reasons (that I disagree with) for believing that it starts at a different point in time.  It would be hubris to think that my point-of-view on this should trump everyone else's.

 

Being pro-choice recognizes that your own morals should not be enforced on the rest of society.

 

This is an important point, and I think one that gets lost in a lot of polling about views on abortion: there are a lot of people who are individually against abortion, but also believe that it should still be the choice of the mother.

[finaljedi]

 

[Massdriver]

26 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

I'd be open to live in harmony with another species of a rational kind similar to us, should we ever find one.  But with the recognition that neither of us owe it to one another anymore than our own.  If they came here wanting to conquer us and farm us for food, that's their own prerogative.  I wouldn't blame them for turning on us if it was in the interest of their species.

 Species, like race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, etc., are morally irrelevant attributes and such beliefs have already led to moral atrocities against animals on this planet and could be used to justify slavery, rape, and a host of other morally repugnant actions against a species that possesses similar attributes of personhood, reasoning, and sentience. Imagine if homo erectus was still around today and people murdered, raped, and enslaved them.  

[crispy4000]

1 hour ago, Massdriver said:

 Species, like race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, etc., are morally irrelevant attributes and such beliefs have already led to moral atrocities against animals on this planet and could be used to justify slavery, rape, and a host of other morally repugnant actions against a species that possesses similar attributes of personhood, reasoning, and sentience. Imagine if homo erectus was still around today and people murdered, raped, and enslaved them.  

 

I don't think any atrocity we could do to another animal would be on the same level as killing another of us unjustifiably. 

 

As for Erectus, I think that members of homo genus are a close enough relative to err on the side of treating them as "us" ... if that were an issue today.  Neanderthals would have been a better example to use here, given how far back in time Erectus is by comparison.