kill crips and tards?

[Mort Divine]

I agree, she should not "do it". She should keep her pants on. That's what the family is designed for: shared responsibility of raising children. And within a healthy family unit is where kids thrive.

For humans sex is NOT - despite what the religious right may have one believe - simply for procreation. If it were then we'd have a breeding season.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

None of this matters. Fertilized eggs become humans. That's my point. Once it happens, you are dealing with a human life. No it doesn't look human, but it's not going to be anything else if it is allowed to exist. You can call it what you want.

Go read Cairath's post, please.

Just because a lump of cells might become a human someday does not mean it is a human while it is a lump of cells.

You might as well be arguing that it's wrong to convince someone not to have children, because once they decide to have children, a chain of consequences will lead to them having a child, and it's immoral to disturb that chain of consequences.

Just trying to point out that your line of thinking is impractical and superstitious.

 

[Zephyrus]

God I'm never here when there are good arguments going on, and when I show up I'm 4 pages too late...

Anyways, my stance on abortion: Should only be a last resort in the case of rape and endangerment of the mother. That's where I draw the line and I'm sticking to it.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

Sounds nice and open-minded.

 

[Έρεβος]

Do you think its ok to abort a kid destined to suffer a life of disability, whether its mental or physical?

Abort, no. Sterilize, yes. I would rather live a life of suffering than be cast into oblivion. But passing on flawed genes so that future generations may suffer is beyond disgusting.

 

[Mort Divine]

I'd rather be cast into oblivion.

 

[Έρεβος]

I'd rather be cast into oblivion.

Would you now? I think you would think a lot differently if you actually were in that situation. Suffering is entirely subjective. A great level of suffering to an individual that deals with it constantly is the exact same thing as no suffering to an individual that normally has none. It becomes the norm, and they learn to deal with it just as we learn to deal with the basic level of suffering each of us experience constantly. It becomes background noise, nothing at all. In terms of personal experience, they suffer no more than any of us, they simply are able to accomplish less because it mentally or physically handicaps them.

A greater life form may say the same thing about living like a human. That does not make human life not worth living, it just shows the greater life form is fundamentally ignorant of it.

 

[AchrisK]

For humans sex is NOT - despite what the religious right may have one believe - simply for procreation. If it were then we'd have a breeding season.

I agree, but I think you misjudge Christianity. Yes we may say it belongs between a husband and wife, but that doesn't mean we don't understand that it is much more than procreation. I think you have us confused with the evolutionists.

 

[AchrisK]

Go read Cairath's post, please.

Just because a lump of cells might become a human someday does not mean it is a human while it is a lump of cells.

You might as well be arguing that it's wrong to convince someone not to have children, because once they decide to have children, a chain of consequences will lead to them having a child, and it's immoral to disturb that chain of consequences.

Just trying to point out that your line of thinking is impractical and superstitious.

It *might* become a human? What are the other options? What esle might it become?

I will read his post, and might even respond.

 

[Mort Divine]

Would you now? I think you would think a lot differently if you actually were in that situation. Suffering is entirely subjective. A great level of suffering to an individual that deals with it constantly is the exact same thing as no suffering to an individual that normally has none. It becomes the norm, and they learn to deal with it just as we learn to deal with the basic level of suffering each of us experience constantly. It becomes background noise, nothing at all. In terms of personal experience, they suffer no more than any of us, they simply are able to accomplish less because it mentally or physically handicaps them.

A greater life form may say the same thing about living like a human. That does not make human life not worth living, it just shows the greater life form is fundamentally ignorant of it.

I was homeless for approximately one year of my life, that was absolute hell yet isn't ANYWHERE near as bad as the mental and physical handicaps that many of the people have.

If I had to live homeless for the rest of my life or die, I'd choose death. Obviously if I were forced into a situation in which I had an awful disease or handicap from birth, I'd much sooner take death over life.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

It *might* become a human? What are the other options? What esle might it become?

I will read his post, and might even respond.

Thanks for the nitpick. Feel free to substitute in the word "will" if you just can't get over that.

 

[Έρεβος]

I was homeless for approximately one year of my life, that was absolute hell yet isn't ANYWHERE near as bad as the mental and physical handicaps that many of the people have.

If I had to live homeless for the rest of my life or die, I'd choose death. Obviously if I were forced into a situation in which I had an awful disease or handicap from birth, I'd much sooner take death over life.

You are missing it entirely. Being homeless is a temporary situation, with a framework of experience for it to contrast against, and create pain. For those born with handicaps, that is all they know. The fact is that you would NOT choose death, because you would have no reason to. Just as you've no reason to now, because you've no framework of "better" experience for your current experience to seem so horrible contrasted against.

I also find it hard to believe that many humans at all would prefer death to something as relatively painless as being homeless. Humanity naturally has a much stronger will to live than that. The only reason any sane individual would choose death over being homeless is that excessive comfort, without discipline, is far more addicting than cocaine.

The fact is that people DO live with it, and DO desire to live with. A very small minority of the painfully afflicted ever want death, and that is almost always due to people such as you convincing them their life is "so horrible" that death would be better, or dreadfully increasing suffering with no end in sight.

 

[Valerie]

It *might* become a human? What are the other options? What esle might it become?

I will read his post, and might even respond.

Stop focusing on that and respond to the other part of his post which you're so conveniantly ignoring:

does not mean it is a human while it is a lump of cells.

 

[AchrisK]

The importance that is placed upon human life comes entirely from Judeo-Christian values. It is not something that people are born with at all. You only have to look at some of the different cultures (such as areas of the globe that are predominantly Hindu or Buddhist) to see that the idea that human beings are above everything else on the planet is not universal or "natural".

Societies influenced by a different religion? Hmm.

It is an idea that is imprinted upon us by our own society and mainly by the Judeo-Christian doctrine which obviously holds mankind in an especially high regard. This belief has helped shape western moral constructs even in countries that nowadays are much more secular so it really doesn't apply just to religious people at all. It's simply an idea that people in most western countries are spoonfed with. That doesn't make it right or logical, however.

But I believe it is right, and I think we are all pretty glad we are not held as equal with animals. It's time To Serve Man!

A human zygote which is nothing more than a lump of cells (with no central nervous system, no brain and therefor no sentience) already has more rights and is deemed more important than a full grown specimin of any other species (which in many cases is very much sentient and in some cases even fairly intelligent and capable of experiencing complex emotions just like humans). That tiny lump of cells has more rights than, say, a cow. The cow that spends her entire sentient life standing inside a 1x2 meter box in her own filth until we deem it necessary to kill her off so she might provide us with meat. That's fine. But if you kill that lump of cells (which incidentally for the first few weeks is basically the same as that of any other mammal aside from the chromosome count) you've suddenly committed murder.

That's right.

I don't condone the mistreatement of animals (except by eating supermarket meat/eggs, but that's another topic), but there is no way you're going to convince me that we should be seen as equals to animals.

That is the arrogance and the hypocrisy of the society we live in.

Or common sense.

And yes you can argue all you want about how humans make beautiful music and whatever other great things we have accomplished. But those are also the same humans who are currently busy depleting the planet which we live on of its natural resources and destroying its eco system. Something very few other species on this planet can be accused of. Not to mention the various genocides and other indignities that mankind has orchestrated over the centuries. If you're going to judge a species' worth on its accomplishments you need to calculate it per saldo and not just look at the positives. And per saldo I don't think humanity comes off all that well. Certainly not well enough to feel superior over anything else on this planet. The fact that we have attained a level of self-conscience doesn't change any of that whatsoever.

What is "per saldo"?

I am not arguing that humans are superior because they do a bunch of good things. I already said that. I know that besides the good, humans are destroying everything and are the cause of most problems. Even that in and of itself should be enough to illustrate how we are different from, and superior to, animals. I am saying we are humans and are not the same as animals because we do different things; things animals are not even close to doing or even hinting at doing. Animals just do animal things. Yes they vary in degrees of initelligence, but none of them is even remotely comperable to humans. If you think so you are in denial.

 

[AchrisK]

Would you now? I think you would think a lot differently if you actually were in that situation. Suffering is entirely subjective. A great level of suffering to an individual that deals with it constantly is the exact same thing as no suffering to an individual that normally has none. It becomes the norm, and they learn to deal with it just as we learn to deal with the basic level of suffering each of us experience constantly. It becomes background noise, nothing at all. In terms of personal experience, they suffer no more than any of us, they simply are able to accomplish less because it mentally or physically handicaps them.

A greater life form may say the same thing about living like a human. That does not make human life not worth living, it just shows the greater life form is fundamentally ignorant of it.

Very insightful post.

 

[AchrisK]

Thanks for the nitpick. Feel free to substitute in the word "will" if you just can't get over that.

But isn't that somwhat central to the argument? I assumed it was. It is important from my point of view. I didn't mean to nitpick.

 

[CAIRATH]

It *might* become a human? What are the other options? What esle might it become?

Nothing, or as Susperia explained more fully...

It's a practically microscopic little cell-blob that is "pre-human" if anything. And the mother's immune system will fight to rid of it, because it is a foreign object. That is sometimes why miscarriages happen and she'll get her period a few days later, never knowing she was even pregnant. Never knowing that conception ever even happened. That's nature.

The whole "human potential" argument simply makes no sense. The amount of potential people that could conceivably have been born but never were is astonishingly large (permutate all the sperm of every man that has ever lived with all the eggs generated by every woman that has ever lived and you have a starting point). And until a gestation period has reached the fetal stage there is no (bio)logical reason to consider it a human being. It is only a potential human being just like the sperm in your scrotum is. Just one step further on its way. And that doesn't at all mean it is already guaranteed to be a human being as Susperia and cookiecutter already pointed out.

My point is that until the gestation period has reached the point where you could consider it to be a potentially sentient human being (which I'll concede is a grey area to be sure, but it certainly isn't in the first few weeks of pregnancy) it is ridiculous to consider it an act of murder to abort it. That doesn't mean abortion should be encouraged but it shouldn't be made impossible to do either if there is reason to do so (i.e. if a woman is raped).

After that period I think there are still valid reasons to do it but only if the suffering caused by not doing it outweighs the consequences. If the mother might die as a result of the pregnancy then I think it is still valid even if the fetus has matured to the point where you would consider it to be a fully grown (albeit tiny) human being. Another good reason would be if it can be determined with certainty that the baby is going to be born with some horrible and painful birth defect and has no chance of growing old or ever having a normal life free of suffering. In that case aborting the pregnancy before the baby reaches a level of sentience where it can suffer seems like the most humane thing to do.

In the end it just comes down to this. Rational people approach issues like abortion (and euthanasia as well, but that's a whole different topic) simply on the basis of whatever generates the least suffering is usually the best solution. People like you, who come from a religious background, approach it from the angle that human life starts at the moment of conception and it is sacred above anything else. I'll never agree with that (and I'm assuming the feeling is mutual).

 

[ohiogrinder]

I'd rather kill bloods, but thats just me.

 

[Έρεβος]

I'd rather kill bloods, but thats just me.

Bloods?

 

[Zephyrus]

I agree with CAIRATH's argument, and I'm Catholic.