Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: midnight Target on April 30, 2005, 06:42:25 PM
-
Anyone read this yet? The most startling part of the book claims that the one event that had the greatest impact on reduced crime rates is..
Roe v Wade
Here is a review.
http://www.englishrules.com/archives/2005/freakonomics.php
-
Originally posted by midnight Target
Anyone read this yet? The most startling part of the book claims that the one event that had the greatest impact on reduced crime rates is..
Yeah, if you are an idiot maybe you could view crime as related to abortion. I view abortion as a crime, so crime has only increased since R v W
-
Makes you rethink capital punishment eh?
-
That seal it! We should open as many abortion clinics as possible in high crime areas!
-
Personal attack
-
Dead babies do not grow up to be criminals? :rolleyes:
-
Yeah Tumor, the author's rationale is that unwanted children grow up in less than ideal circumstances and therefore tend toward criminal behavior.
So when you kill 'em early, problem solved.
-
Originally posted by Tumor
Dead babies do not grow up to be criminals? :rolleyes:
Dead unwanted babies do not grow up to be criminals.
-
Originally posted by Sandman
Dead unwanted babies do not grow up to be criminals.
"unwanted" babies ?
-
HArd to argue with the numbers, but it turns out .. Nuke, that the author might agree with you. This of course doesn't change the facts.
From an interview (Levitt is the author)
Levitt: I have gotten a whole lot of hate mail on the abortion issue (as much from the left as from the right, amazingly). What I try to tell anyone who will listen -- few people will listen when the subject is abortion -- is that our findings on abortion and crime have almost nothing to say about public policy on abortion. If abortion is murder as pro-life advocates say, then a few thousand less homicides is nothing compared to abortion itself. If a woman's right to choose is sacrosanct, then utilitarian arguments are inconsequential. Mainly, I think the results on abortion imply that we should do the best we can to try to make sure kids who are born are wanted and loved. And it turns out that is something just about everyone can agree on.
-
Originally posted by NUKE
"unwanted" babies ?
Believe it or not (http://aia.berkeley.edu/)
really... it happens (http://www.ncsl.org/programs/cyf/ailaws.htm)
-
If we killed everyone, there'd be no more crime!
-
Levitt: I have gotten a whole lot of hate mail on the abortion issue (as much from the left as from the right, amazingly). What I try to tell anyone who will listen -- few people will listen when the subject is abortion -- is that our findings on abortion and crime have almost nothing to say about public policy on abortion. If abortion is murder as pro-life advocates say, then a few thousand less homicides is nothing compared to abortion itself. If a woman's right to choose is sacrosanct, then utilitarian arguments are inconsequential. Mainly, I think the results on abortion imply that we should do the best we can to try to make sure kids who are born are wanted and loved. And it turns out that is something just about everyone can agree on.
woa that's way to much common sense for a political argument ;)
-
Originally posted by Gunslinger
woa that's way to much common sense for a political argument ;)
No no no!! More dead ones means less you have to want!
-
Originally posted by Sandman
Believe it or not (http://aia.berkeley.edu/)
really... it happens (http://www.ncsl.org/programs/cyf/ailaws.htm)
Just want to make sure I understand the underlying logic here.
They are better off dead than abandoned?
Has anyone told the grown-up foundlings?
- SEAGOON
PS: Hey, wait a minute, why limit the benefits when we could eliminate crime entirely simply by killing everyone!
-
Originally posted by Seagoon
Just want to make sure I understand the underlying logic here.
They are better off dead than abandoned?
Has anyone told the grown-up foundlings?
- SEAGOON
PS: Hey, wait a minute, why limit the benefits when we could eliminate crime entirely simply by killing everyone!
Or go a step further. WE could geneticly screen everyone at birth just like in that ethen hawk movie. The ones that don't add up we send to the camps for "clensing"
-
Ah Gunslinger, you've discovered the wonderful secret of Eugenics. GATTACCA here we come.
Anywho, Leveritt's theory isn't new just repackaged.
A conservative critique of Leveritt:
Pre-emptive Executions? (http://www.amconmag.com/2005_05_09/feature.html)
-
Originally posted by Seagoon
Just want to make sure I understand the underlying logic here.
They are better off dead than abandoned?
Has anyone told the grown-up foundlings?
- SEAGOON
PS: Hey, wait a minute, why limit the benefits when we could eliminate crime entirely simply by killing everyone!
Draw your own conclusions... I'm led to believe that unwanted children that actually survive childhood tend to make up a large proportion of the prison population.
Personally, I don't consider crime rates to be a good justification of Roe v. Wade. It's an off tangent argument. I do believe that what a women does with her own womb is her business and that the government should stay out of it. Hell... I think people should have the right to do whatever they like to or with their own bodies.
-
this all most like when some people whinned about sterilizing crackheads. how much does a crackbabie cost the healthcare system? i could go on and on about that.
-
The book simply reinforces with statistics the obvious.
Like most attempts at truth and logic, it tends to piss off those that have surrendered their brains to political or religious groups.
Just another case where the social morality of the moment is in direct conflict with rational facts.
-
i don't think the conservative dogma on abortion will ever deviate, regardless of the data, give it a few decades tho, when the voting demographic starts to take on the tone of pro-sports.
it will be ushered in, embraced as fiscal resposibility.
-
Originally posted by Sandman
I do believe that what a women does with her own womb is her business and that the government should stay out of it.
Including staying out of any aspect of financing it.
So I guess we agree.
-
Personal attack
-
Originally posted by Skydancer
Personal attack
Not quite as safe as yah thought. The guy is a friend of mine.. and while I may (and often do) disagree with his opinions, I think he's a heluva human being.
Care to take a guess what I think about the cheap attack you just launched on him with this drivel you just posted 'behind his back'?
-
And surprised as you may be.. I agree with Hangtime.
-
I just had a thaught (yes my head is still attached afterwords)
With all the people out there that can't have children and how long the process is to adopt them I just don't see a need for abortion because of economic instability.
The makes a good point not defending abortion with his findings but the lack of care and love for said "unwanted" children. It's all real sad if you ask me. I may be a little old fasion but I believe a woman doesn't have a right to choose.....that baby BY LAW is only half hers.
-
Well, Hang and MT, I thank you for your kind words.
But Hang.... did you have to quote him? ;)
The whole point of putting him on ignore is so he no longer clouds threads with more of his incorrect, incoherent, unreasonable and fallacious spew.
It's akin to washing the bird droppings off your windshield; it's so much easier to see the things that count once you eliminate the "stuff".
He perfectly illustrates it in your clip. Anyone that can read and understand KNOWS I don't want the government in control of anything the Founders didn't specifically put in the government's purview. I'm a Jeffersonian. Not that he would know what that means, but you and MT would.
I've repeatedly said I have no problem with a woman's "right" to choose an abortion, yet he repeatedly misstates my position. I have to assume he's just not intelligent enough to comprehend simple statements. He probably foams over because I also say the government shouldn't be in it at all... not in the decision nor in the funding of the decision whichever way it goes.
Anyway, thanks... but please, in the future, just let the ankle-biting little Yorkie yap to himself.
-
Anyway, thanks... but please, in the future, just let the ankle-biting little Yorkie yap to himself.
ROFL!! Only been back a short time.. but damn.. seems like there's a true lack of class acts floatin around on the boards these days. I saw that nastygram and I winced.. even if it was addressed to somebody I didn't like it woulda triggered my sphincter.
Ok.. back ta lurking in the tall weeds.
-
I think it is pretty safe to draw a correlation between Row v Wade and the drop in crime 18 years later.
Most crime is commited by who? Young males.
50% of the crime commited (in the U.S.) is commited by 5% of the families.
Those are statistical truths. They are niether evil nor good.. they are just statistical truths.
I'll have to look it up, but something like 80% of the prison population grew up in "single parent households" (read, single mother). Another interesting statistic that I haven't verified, every year spent in childhood without a father raises your chances of going to jail by 5%.
Who are getting abortions? For the most part, women who's children would grow up to be criminals. Thus, the drop in the crime rate.
Is it good? No. Is it evil? No. Is there a very strong corellation? Yes.
-
all of you people are wrong, the "unwanted" children should be put in govt training camps where they will wear uniforms,learn to obey orders and march, and when they are old enough they will be put into our military.
-
Today is my birthday. I have only one more thing to add : MT likes fried chicken.
-SW
-
Wulfie!!
Hot damn, yer still kickin! Happy freakin birthday... and don't sweat the candle thing. If yah can't blow 'em out, it's ok to spit.
:)
-
Originally posted by Sandman
Draw your own conclusions... I'm led to believe that unwanted children that actually survive childhood tend to make up a large proportion of the prison population.
Personally, I don't consider crime rates to be a good justification of Roe v. Wade. It's an off tangent argument. I do believe that what a women does with her own womb is her business and that the government should stay out of it. Hell... I think people should have the right to do whatever they like to or with their own bodies.
Hi Sandman,
Please don't get me wrong, although we are philosophically at different poles on this subject, I have sincerely appreciated your thoughtfullness and the lack of vitriol in your posts.
Yes, a lot of what the studies term "unwanted children" do make up a large proportion of the prison population. But then again the largest part of the incoming prison population are the children of single mothers, and no one sane has yet published a book stating that the Swiftian solution to the crime problem is euthanize all the welfare moms.
We also seldom stop to consider that for all the "future criminals" removed by abortion we also aborting future doctors, future artists, future scientists, and even possibly future AH programmers. To abort a child is in part to play God, it is to assume that we know that such a child would be a criminal and malefactor and live a wretched life. It is also to terminate the potential joy such a child would bring to the tens of thousands of couples in the US waiting to adopt. How can anyone know the final outcome of a life while it is in the womb and assess that any human being is not worthy of being born?
And that ultimately is what we are talking about in abortion, not "a woman's control over her own body" but a women's ability to decide to terminate another life. Anyone who has seen an Ultrasound, knows this is a human life, and not a blob of tissue. I still remember the last ultrasound of our son Graham which was done on one of the new Super-cool 3D ultrasounds. We saw the expressions on his face, watched him suck his thumb, cry at one point (he was PO'd at being prodded and poked by the technician) and all that at a point in my wife's pregnancy when she could have legally elected to terminate him. Even an ardent feminist like Naomi Wolfe, confronted with her own pregnancy and ultrasound pictures was forced to publicly concede in 1995 that the "part of my body" argument was bogus and that this is in fact a life.
As a society we recognize that fact of personhood but have taken the confusing position that a woman should still have the absolute right to decide to end the life of that person. The rather bizzarre position was graphically illustrated by the fact that Scott Peterson was convicted of a double-homicide for killing his wife and his unborn child. The truly odd consideration is that Lacy Peterson could have legally killed the same child on the same day that she herself was murdered.
Apparently we have decided that the the womb must continue to be the most dangerous place in the United States for a person to be.
- SEAGOON
-
well... i guess logicaly that it would make sense to have mandatory abortions for poor minority women.
I mean... if it would save just one person from murder or prevent one unwanted baby..
skyprancer.... I don't care what women or anyone else does with their body.... I do not think that a fetus is really "a womans body" any more than it is a part of the fathers body.
Why is it a crime of murder to kill the baby of a pregnant woman by injuring her? Shouldn't the only crime be the injury of the mother and not that cancerous lump in her belly?
lazs
-
I have read freakenomics:
Very good and interesting book! They tackle some data that seems to promote discussion... I am amazed that the author would receive death threats because they clearly only pointed to available data and never took a side on the abortion issue...
But the death threat s will generate its own type of data that may bring about another interesting book in the future...
I picked the book up the other day out of boredom and lucked out, was a very good read...
TOJO
-
Originally posted by midnight Target
Anyone read this yet? freakonomics.php[/url]
Yeah, I thought it was a good book.
...and actually brought this up in the death penalty tread but didn't get any bites.
-
Midnight,
Why not give your audience more information than just the book review which places Levitt on a pedistal without questioning anything about the man other than accepting his toilet tissue plastered on the walls of his Ivory Tower.
This is from "Pre-emptive Executions by Steve Sailer.
Full text - http://www.amconmag.com/2005_05_09/feature.html
The embarrassing truth, as Levitt admitted to me when I debated him on Slate.com in 1999, is that when he dreamed up his theory with John J. Donohue, he looked at crime rates in 1985 and 1997 and paid little attention to the vast crack epidemic that laid waste to urban America in between.
It makes no sense to credit abortion for any subsequent improvement in the behavior of the first post-Roe generation, when abortion so dismally failed to keep them on the straight and narrow when they were juveniles. Instead, the most obvious explanation for the ups and downs of the murder rate is the ups and downs of the crack business.
This generation born right after legalization is better behaved today in part because so many of its bad apples are now confined to prisons, wheelchairs, and coffins. About two million people are now in jail, four times more than in 1972. (Levitt attributes roughly one-third of the recent fall in crime to increased incarceration.)
The leaders in the decline in murder in the later 1990s were black male 14- to 17-year-olds, who by 1998 were killing at less than one-third the rate of their older brothers just five years earlier. These African-American kids born in the early ’80s survived abortion levels similar to those faced by the crime-ridden 1975-79 generation, but seeing their big brothers gunned down in drive-by shootings may have scared them straight.
I believe Levitt when he says he has no political axe to grind about abortion—but he does have a bit of an ego about his ideas. To find a justification for his naďve initial hypothesis, he has been stubbornly straining his formidable cleverness. (Although in Freakonomics he employed the simplest way to deal with these objections: he ignored them completely.)
-
Originally posted by bustr
Midnight,
Why not give your audience more information than just the book review which places Levitt on a pedistal without questioning anything about the man other than accepting his toilet tissue plastered on the walls of his Ivory Tower.
Or... I could teach you to fish and you'd eat for a lifetime.
It would seem, bustr, that whether or not I posted more info, you would not have read it. You see, the excerpt you posted was already a part of this thread. Maybe "my audience" doesn't include you?
-
Naw, doing a littel reading about the man showed quite a bit of ideological support\bias in place for him that wanted his results to be true without questioning him to any depth on the basis for the hypothesis. Kinda like Michael A. Bellesiles and his discredited work - Arming America: The Origins Of A National Gun Culture.
The average person may only read the initial information in this thread and the intersting hypothesis by Levitt you present. But thats it, and they may go away thinking it 100% factual which becomes favorable to your version of reality. By giving them both sides, his hypothesis shows it's holes in the daylight and your validity to sway oponion with it.
-
Here's a cool idea. Read the book.
-
(best Jay and Silent Bob impersonation)
"...any nekkid pictures innit? Dude, I mean, you can pick up on some pretty freaky babes at the abortion clinic... like; they MUST be 'doin it' or they wouldn't be there.."
-
we really have missed you Hang..
:D
-
It was alot of nice Levitt biographical info with interesting hypothesis on questions most of us would not have thought of nor probably will ever need to. Sumo's and cheating teachers in Chicago.....kinda interesting. I knew about the sumo arrangements from living in Japan.....................the book was pablumised for quick general public consumption to move it for the fast initial $buck before the reviews dropped off. Crack gangs and MacDonalds, I liked that one........
-
Anyone who has seen an Ultrasound, knows this is a human life, and not a blob of tissue. I still remember the last ultrasound of our son Graham which was done on one of the new Super-cool 3D ultrasounds. We saw the expressions on his face, watched him suck his thumb, cry at one point (he was PO'd at being prodded and poked by the technician) and all that at a point in my wife's pregnancy when she could have legally elected to terminate him.
I only saw an ultra sound on my youngest, and it wasnt 3D either :(
But.....It was probably the coolest thing I have ever seen. My daughter was swimming, trying to suck on her toes, squirming and at one point appeared to look right at us on the screen. (I know, she was looking towards the ultra sound probe thingie and not us)
My wife still could have legally obtained an abortion at this point in her pregnancy. My daughter had arms, legs, head, face, fingers toes etc. She was not some lump of flesh but a very tiny human being.
If you guys ever get a chance to view an ultra sound I highly recommend it.
-
Originally posted by Seagoon
Apparently we have decided that the the womb must continue to be the most dangerous place in the United States for a person to be.
- SEAGOON
True enough... but I think the alternative is worse. I don't believe for one second that this is something that the government could handle well.
Still, we shouldn't forget that every year millions of women (and their husbands) choose life.
-
8 weeks:
The unborn child, called a fetus at this stage, is about half an inch long. The tiny person is protected by the amnionic sac, filled with fluid. Inside, the child swims and moves gracefully. The arms and legs have lengthened, and fingers can be seen. The toes will develop in the next few days. Brain waves can be measured.
(http://www.wprc.org/image/photos/08weeks454x371.jpg)
Well within the first trimester; a target for vacuum aspiration.
Just so ya know what we're all talking about here.
-
Originally posted by Toad
Just so ya know what we're all talking about here.
Sure do... it's a parasitic being. ;)
-
Originally posted by Sandman
Sure do... it's a parasitic being. ;)
so cold! ;)
-
Just try to call 'em like I see 'em. ;)
-
I realise the shock jock humor... however a parasite is defined as a seperate species and injures the host.
-
Originally posted by Holden McGroin
I realise the shock jock humor... however a parasite is defined as a seperate species and injures the host.
ooooohhhh common logic....how refreshing!
par·a·site ( P ) Pronunciation Key (pr-st)
n.
1. Biology. An organism that grows, feeds, and is sheltered on or in a different organism while contributing nothing to the survival of its host.
2. One who habitually takes advantage of the generosity of others without making any useful return.
One who lives off and flatters the rich; a sycophant.
3. A professional dinner guest, especially in ancient Greece.<---????
-
Originally posted by Toad
8 weeks:
The unborn child, called a fetus at this stage, is about half an inch long. The tiny person is protected by the amnionic sac, filled with fluid. Inside, the child swims and moves gracefully. The arms and legs have lengthened, and fingers can be seen. The toes will develop in the next few days. Brain waves can be measured.
Toad, if you haven't already done so, check out an amazing website called Just the Facts (http://www.justthefacts.org/clar.asp) and make sure you click on "Video Clips" and check out "8 weeks" - obviously the realplayer version is better.
- SEAGOON
-
or·gan·ism Audio pronunciation of "organism" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (ôrg-nzm)
n.
1. An individual form of life, such as a plant, animal, bacterium, protist, or fungus; a body made up of organs, organelles, or other parts that work together to carry on the various processes of life.
2. A system regarded as analogous in its structure or functions to a living body: the social organism.
spe·cies Audio pronunciation of "species" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (spshz, -sz)
n. pl. species
1. Biology.
1. A fundamental category of taxonomic classification, ranking below a genus or subgenus and consisting of related organisms capable of interbreeding. See table at taxonomy.
2. An organism belonging to such a category, represented in binomial nomenclature by an uncapitalized Latin adjective or noun following a capitalized genus name, as in Ananas comosus, the pineapple, and Equus caballus, the horse.
2. Logic. A class of individuals or objects grouped by virtue of their common attributes and assigned a common name; a division subordinate to a genus.
3.
1. A kind, variety, or type: “No species of performing artist is as self-critical as a dancer” (Susan Sontag).
2. The human race; humankind.
4. Roman Catholic Church.
1. The outward appearance or form of the Eucharistic elements that is retained after their consecration.
2. Either of the consecrated elements of the Eucharist.
5. Obsolete.
1. An outward form or appearance.
2. Specie.
Hmmm... Organism is not synomous with species... go figure.
-
Originally posted by Sandman
Sure do... it's a parasitic being. ;)
Well, at least your are half right..it's a being.
-
par·a·site ( P ) Pronunciation Key (pr-st)
n.
1. Biology. An organism that grows, feeds, and is sheltered on or in a different organism while contributing nothing to the survival of its host.
Sounds 100% correct to me...
Thanx Gun... ;)
-
no... not really... if a parasite is a totally foreign oraganizm then a baby would not apply as it is at least half genetically the same as the mother.
lazs
-
What I never understood is the contradiction of the law on the definition/ and legal protection of the life of a fetus
On one hand, abortion is legal, on the other, you can be charged with murder for killing a fetus.
So, we legally protect the same fetus that can be legally aborted and killed.
-
Originally posted by NUKE
What I never understood is the contradiction of the law on the definition/ and legal protection of the life of a fetus
On one hand, abortion is legal, on the other, you can be charged with murder for killing a fetus.
So, we legally protect the same fetus that can be legally aborted and killed.
Not hard to understand at all.
Can you be arrested for cutting off your own finger?
-
Originally posted by midnight Target
Not hard to understand at all.
Can you be arrested for cutting off your own finger?
Well, is a finger a human life if someone else cuts mine off, yet only a finger if I do?
A fetus is considered a life in one instance, and not a life in another.
-
Originally posted by midnight Target
Not hard to understand at all.
Can you be arrested for cutting off your own finger?
Prolly not, but they do put people in the nuthouse for protection against further self mutilation.
Is that what you are suggesting they do to womenwho get abortions?
-
Originally posted by NUKE
A fetus is considered a life in one instance, and not a life in another.
No.. it's considered a crime in one instance and not a crime in the other.
-
Originally posted by midnight Target
No.. it's considered a crime in one instance and not a crime in the other.
Yeah, it's a murder in one case, legal in the other. That doesn't bother you?
The law does consider a fetus a life in one case. How else could they charge someone with murder when killing a fetus?
-
The one that owns the womb makes the call... sounds okay to me.
-
Originally posted by Sandman
The one that owns the womb makes the call... sounds okay to me.
But if the government protects it as a life in one case, why does it not protect it as a life in the other?
Seems like they are having it both ways.
-
The govt. isn't defining a life, it is defining a crime.
-
Originally posted by midnight Target
The govt. isn't defining a life, it is defining a crime.
It is defining a life by applying the crime of murder to the killing of a fetus. It can't be murder if it's not a life. Otherwise, a person could not be charged with murder.
Don't know how much more simply it can be said.
-
Originally posted by midnight Target
Not hard to understand at all.
Can you be arrested for cutting off your own finger?
No, neither can someone be charged with murder for cutting off someone else's finger unless it directly leads to their death.
Scott Peterson was not convicted of killing Lacy Peterson twice, nor was he convicted of killing Lacy's "parasite", he was convicted of killing another human being entirely. At the time that human being was residing in Lacy's womb, but that was just their location from a legal point of view.
Understand, in order to find him guilty of murdering that pre-born child, the jury had to determine that it was his intent to kill him, independent of his desire to kill his wife. In other words, that the death of his son was not just an unintended consequence of killing his wife. Murder involves intent, that is the great difference between murder and manslaughter.
Now Lacy could determine to kill the same human being, and because of his geographical location, (i.e. in or almost entirely outside of her body), NEVER be charged with murder. The child could have been, for instance, the product of someone else's egg, and placed in her womb artificially, and she automatically would be granted the ability to kill that child - while no one else could. This is not only unfair to the child, it frankly destroys the equal protection clauses of the law.
- SEAGOON
-
I can't understand why people get so worked up about hearing the results of research. From what I gather the author did not have a political agenda and truly tried to find real answers.
This is akin to people having a fit over scientific research that says women are better then men at doing some things and vis versa. heaven forbid that we actually try to learn something through science!
Talk about shooting the messenger. :rolleyes:
Oh, and maybe if that Steve Sailer guy disagrees so much, maybe he should do his own research and write his own best seller.
-
Originally posted by Sandman
Believe it or not (http://aia.berkeley.edu/)
really... it happens (http://www.ncsl.org/programs/cyf/ailaws.htm)
Thank you. You saved me the trouble
-
Originally posted by Gunslinger
that baby BY LAW is only half hers.
LOL too bad it rarely works that way in divorce court.
-
Originally posted by NUKE
I view abortion as a crime, so crime has only increased since R v W
You can view it as such but the law currently and in the forseeable future doesnt agree with you.
Wondering if anyone has any Data on how many and what countries do not have legalised abortion.
Might make an intresting list
-
Originally posted by NUKE
It is defining a life by applying the crime of murder to the killing of a fetus. It can't be murder if it's not a life. Otherwise, a person could not be charged with murder.
Don't know how much more simply it can be said.
One more time... the mother gets to decide if it's a life or not.
The government is fairly consistent. If you take a life, it's a crime.
Again... it's a life when the mother says so.
Simple. No need for government intrusion. No need for an endless litany of exceptions and exclusions that come with any proposal to ban abortions outright. The mother decides.
-
Originally posted by Sandman
One more time... the mother gets to decide if it's a life or not.
The government is fairly consistent. If you take a life, it's a crime.
Again... it's a life when the mother says so.
Simple. No need for government intrusion. No need for an endless litany of exceptions and exclusions that come with any proposal to ban abortions outright. The mother decides.
I believe the law decides what is considered a life in the case of murder. If by law a fetus can be regarded as a life, who's death can bring a murder charge, then it has been defined as a human life by the law, not the mother.
It's either a life or it's not. one or the other, not both
-
It's a shame there are no pig farms around here. I want to teach one to sing. ;)
-
Originally posted by Sandman
One more time... the mother gets to decide if it's a life or not.
The government is fairly consistent. If you take a life, it's a crime.
Again... it's a life when the mother says so.
Simple. No need for government intrusion. No need for an endless litany of exceptions and exclusions that come with any proposal to ban abortions outright. The mother decides.
Hi Sandman,
Simple indeed. But unfortunately it completely undercuts any coherent arguments against infanticide, or "neonaticide" as Evolutionary Psychologist Steven Pinker (Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University) chose to reframe the term for killing a newborn in his article "Why they Kill their Newborns." [New York Times Magazine, November 2, 1997]
Pinker argued out that the only real difference (for scientists) between children in the womb and out newborns is that one has been born and the other hasn't. He argued that a mere change of address cannot possibly make them "persons" who can be murdered:
"Several moral philosophers have concluded that neonates are not persons, and thus neonaticide should not be classified as murder. Michael Tooley has gone so far as to say that neonaticide ought to be permitted during an interval after birth. Most philosophers (to say nothing of nonphilosophers) recoil from that last step, but the very fact that there can be a debate about the personhood of neonates, but no debate about the personhood of older children, makes it clearer why we feel more sympathy for an Amy Grossberg than for a Susan Smith."
Apparently Pinker wants to use the term "Neonaticide," because "several moral philosophers" (Pinker conveniently omits to name them) "have concluded that neonates are not persons," and by his very use of the term it would seem that Pinker believes that these Moral Philosophers have a point. Pinker confirms this elsewhere in the article; "It seems obvious that we need a clear boundary to confer personhood on a human being and grant it a right to life" he says and then points out that "To a biologist, birth is as arbitrary a milestone as any other. Many mammals bear offspring that see and walk as soon as they hit the ground. But the incomplete 9-month-old human fetus must be evicted from the womb before its outsize head gets too big to fit through its mother's pelvis. The usual primate assembly process spills into the first years in the world. And that complicates our definition of personhood." To complicate the already complicated issue further Pinker asks "What makes a living being a person with a right not to be killed?" and then helpfully points out "No, the right to life must come, the moral philosophers say," (again Pinker fails to name these mysterious moral philosophers) "from morally significant traits that we humans happen to possess. One such trait is having a unique sequence of experiences that defines us as individuals and connects us to other people. Other traits include an ability to reflect upon ourselves as a continuous locus of consciousness, to form and savor plans for the future, to dread death and to express the choice not to die. And there's the rub: our immature neonates don't possess these traits any more than mice do." [remember, by neonates he means "newborns" he's using the term to prevent an emotional reaction]
So it would seem that according to Pinker we have good reason to believe these infants errr... "Neonates", have no more right to be called "persons" than mice do. This is inevitable seeing that, for men like Pinker, all important distinctions have to have a purely biological basis. While it would appear that nothing is capable of granting us an inherent right not to be killed, or even to be called "persons," other than his "completion of the primate assembly process," Pinker still insists on using terms that can't possibly have any meaning in his system, and setting up boundaries that simply appear completely arbitrary.
We have come to the point societally where our definitions of person and non-person, murder and morality have become completely capricious. You worry about the dangers of an overbearing government defining "personhood" too strictly, I worry that at this rate nothing will be left to stop us from stripping anyone we want to of personhood and deeming them worthy of death on the whims of the culture. At present those are the very old, very sick, and the not-yet-born but every day the defintion of "useless eaters" is widening.
One major test of whether a society is good or evil is how it treats its most defenseless members. We are currently failing, and only getting worse with time .
- SEAGOON
-
Probably the most hypocritical thing about the less-government-conservative movement is their wish to have the government define a philosophical argument .... when does life begin.
Incredible.
-
perhaps you or your wife is correct there MT except for the fact that... Most conservatives feel that about the only thing government should do is protect individual life and liberty.
If the fetus is indeed a human being and not a lump of crap.... then.. conservatives have a right to protect it.
lazs
-
Originally posted by midnight Target
Probably the most hypocritical thing about the less-government-conservative movement is their wish to have the government define a philosophical argument .... when does life begin.
Incredible.
Ewwweee MT used an adjective, everyone take notice of his skills!
-
his wife wrote it.
lazs
-
Originally posted by T0J0
Ewwweee MT used an adjective, everyone take notice of his skills!
Thanks, but I've had my fill of cheerleaders... maybe Ripsnort could use your support.
-
Originally posted by midnight Target
Probably the most hypocritical thing about the less-government-conservative movement is their wish to have the government define a philosophical argument .... when does life begin.
Incredible.
MT,
Actually, that argument is pretty much over, everyone except the most staunch abortion advocates (who have difficulty using the word "life" at all) would grant that life begins at conception, but the argument is over whether this "conceptus" is a person or whether this life can be legally protected. After all, cattle are also alive but we can legally kill and eat them. PETA, of course, regards this as murder, but this only goes to illustrate an earlier point namely that when it comes to making ethical decisions of enormous importance, for instance:
What is a person?
Which human lives may we take and under what circumstances?
Biology alone is incapable of answering these questions, it is incapable of answering why killing your 1 year old is murder, teenagers murdering their newborn are often excused, and killing an infant in the womb is a legally protected right. For instance the statement "Killing a baby is an immoral act", cannot find a basis in biology. Where in human biology do we find a basis for the terms moral and immoral, right or wrong? How does science provide us with any means of defining these terms? For instance, the biologist would laugh at the idea of a crocodile who ate a child being called "immoral" or "evil," but somehow, the same biologist would "know" it would be immoral if he did it.
At the moment all we have are competing interest groups and arbitrary or utilitarian decisions like: "A Mother may opt to kill her child, as long as a portion of the head is still in the birth canal, even if that child would be otherwise viable." But when it pops out, we make an arbitrary decision that to kill that child is now "murder." All of this parsing, and the fact that definitions can change overnight by legal fiat has a coarsening effect over time and means that respect for human life overall sinks ever lower.
- SEAGOON
-
well said seagoon.
I am very leary of the cheapening of human life. especialy for convienece sake. abortion and assisted suicide... both seem to cheapen.
on the other end... I think that the death penalty shows how much we revere the innocent life and how much of a dim view we take of people who would take it away for their convienence or gain.
killing in war sets the moral tone that it is ok to kill others if they are trying to kill you.
executing a murderer sets a moral tone that we will not tollerate people taking others lives into their own hands... the most extreme penalty will be paid..
Abortion and assisted suicide take the moral tone that.... it is allright to kill a human being if they are in the way.
lazs
-
Holden actually babies are parasitic literally. They consume the mothers nutrients and strip the mothers bones for calcium.
I believe that while an abortion is always tragic sometimes it's a better option. The parents life could be destroyed, on some cases both the childs and the parents.
If the parent is not able or willing to support the child its crazy to force her into keeping the child. Is it better to find dead babies in the junk then? What about crack addicted newborn with aids from birth?
The sad reality is that if you force a messed up person to deliver you either use the societys money to support the poor orphan and pray it'll survive without becoming a sociopath - or put the child into grave danger in the hands of the messed up parent.
-
Originally posted by lazs2
it is allright to kill a human being if they are in the way.
Stand between a buffet of ribs and SOB, you're life will be forcefully aborted by a semi-truck full of pain and drool.
-SW
-
I have eaten with SOB and even I was smart enough to stay out of arms reach... not so for the unfortunate mother who brought her toddler too close...
siaf.... babies aren't parasites by defenition... the babie is part of the mother and geneticaly half her.. not a seperate organism... you would have to define a breat feeding infant as a parasite in order to make the connection or... a cancer.. they are not really "parasites".
lazs