Timex
3718
This seems somewhat hard for folks to compromise with then.
Are you fixed on the notion that any kind of termination of pregnancy, no matter how early, constitutes abortion? That human life, and thus rights, begins the moment of conception?
Well, I guess it makes life easier knowing that I will never vote for the same candidate at @HighPlainsDrifter
Not better, just easier. If @HighPlainsDrifter is supporting a candidate, than that candidate has views on conception that can almost certainly not be bridged.
Matt_W
3720
I get that. That’s what I grew up with. But in American politics, this means that given the choice between making abortion rare and making it illegal, you’d choose illegal, even if illegal comes with a host of attendant evils like putting children in cages and electing a man who brags about assaulting women.
ShivaX
3721
And a bunch of abortions anyway where the pregnant woman maybe dies, but we have a thread for that somewhere I think.
This is flat out slander against me; I have never voted for Trump and can’t envision any realistic scenario in which I would.
In addition to about a million and one other things, Trump fails to meet the bar regarding respect for human rights. He fails to meet pro-life standard due to his treatment of people and especially children on the border.
But what I really can’t abide is your statement is not slander against most of Trump’s voters; it’s a simple statement of fact.
Matt_W
3723
Electoral politics in the United States is zero sum. All it took in 2016 was 0.3% of voters in Michigan, 0.6% of voters in Pennsylvania, and 0.6% of voters in Wisconsin to make the same calculus you did and vote for Johnson or Stein or some write-in candidate.
I honestly want a candidate who will say those things, but then turn around and do things by decree if necessary.
Trick the never-Trumpers, then do some good while you can. Only way to get anything done.
Timex
3725
But on some level, like the old Rush song, “If you choose not to decide, You still have made a choice”. To this end, even if you don’t vote for Trump, if you fail to act to defeat him, you are still somewhat enabling his election.
But I’m still curious, in your mind, is there any room for potential compromise on the issue of abortion?
To me, at very early stages of pregnancy, like less that a few weeks, it’s little more than a cluster of cells. I don’t consider that to be a person. It possesses no more similarity to a conscious human being than does my fingernail.
At the very late stages of pregnancy, like the last trimester, it seems pretty much like a person. You can generally deliver the child at that point, and it’ll live on its own. It’s central nervous system is functional, and I find it hard to really say that it’s merely an object.
The middle area gets much more hazy, and I can see there being arguements about exactly where to draw the line… but my question for you is whether you are an absolutist in this issue?
I think the more productive line of reasoning here Timex is that you’re seeing why Democrats are becoming radicalized. Because the right has issues, like abortion, on which there is no compromise, no meeting in the middle, and are willing to do burn it all down to obtain/prevent. And Democrats are told, over and over again, that what compromise means is not meet in the middle but become more like “me” (ie, conservative).
The problem is that the list of things the right mostly won’t compromise on is growing larger and larger every year. Abortion rights = a line too far, or gun control = a line too far, or government run anything = a line too far, or immigration at all = a line too far, or increased taxes for any reason = a line too far, ect.
How do you meet in the middle with that on the other side? Where the argument is essentially “Here is this list of sacred cows that is off the table under every circumstance. The rest we can debate on. I may find more sacred cows next election cycle; pray I don’t alter the deal any further.”
Timex
3727
Well, bear in mind that most people aren’t on the far other side of those issues, even if they have reservations about the far left side’s positions.
For instance, I believe that abortions should be legal in some case… but I also believe that they should be illegal in some cases. I think that most people, including most Democrats, probably believe this. But the extremes on both sides try to paint any disagreement as the other extreme… if you allow ANY abortions, then you must want to allow partial birth abortions. If you think that late term abortions are bad, then you must want to force women into the handmaiden’s tale.
Maybe Highplain’s Drifter is really set on the extreme, wanting to prevent any abortion. There’s little room to compromise on that issue. But I think that most folks in the country exist in the large middle region. (which is, to be clear, essentially where our actual laws exist today… you can’t just go get an abortion at 9 months in most places)
Same thing goes for most of those other issues. Most republicans, hell, most NRA members, support common sense gun control. We CAN find compromise there.
My take away from the the Pro Life Movement is that 50% of the population can’t be trusted to make decisions about their own bodies.
If Never-Trump Republicans in California or Mississippi or whatever want to vote for a third party candidate every day and twice on Sundays, they can have at it. But if they’re in a state where Trump or the Dem nominee isn’t leading by a minimum of 10 points in the polls, voting third party could give the state to Trump, and they should hold their nose and vote for Liz Freaking Warren or zombified FDR if necessary.
The funny thing about not voting for one of the 2 main party candidates is I get told by Clinton supporters it was the same as voting for Trump and get told by Trump supporters that it’s the same as voting for Clinton.
Was there room to compromise with those holding the whip and putting on the chains? Clearly there was because the nation made it decades without deciding on the issue of slavery but that doesn’t mean slavery was morally defensible.
The question I have is “What event happened that makes this a person vs not a person just moments before?”
Birth isn’t it; that’s just a change in location. I can see an argument based on neural complexity but how complex is complex enough? Heartbeat seems a bit arbitrary; I can see why people pick that point but heartbeat is more of cultural importance thing than anything else. Perhaps the point where it becomes too complex for twinning to take place? But again, when exactly is that point?
Everything is just a refinement of what happened before. The big exception to that is conception. A new genetic code is created; everything else that happens after that is just additional steps on what came immediately before.
On the other hand, if someone is to believe that it’s not a person then you are also obligated to believe that once the embryo implants the woman becomes a chimera because she has two different genetic codes as part of her body. If it’s a male, then she’s also a hermaphrodite because she has both male and female DNA, and after enough development she will have both a uterus and a penis. Then when the pregnancy ends she goes back to not being a chimera and not being a hermaphrodite (if the offspring was male).
It makes more sense to define it as a person.
I actually question how many anti-abortion persons actually support the current abortion “compromise” which is effectively anti-abortion persons being forced to work within a pro-abortion regime. For example the most recent Gallup poll found “only” 18% of people supported a ban in all circumstances - but they also found 35% believed it should be legal “in only a few circumstances”. That well could mean legal only in cases of rape or where the child is already certain to die.
Abortion rights have been under effective attack to the point where Missouri is about to lose its only clinic and throughout red states BS “medical procedure” rules and laws have been passed specifically to restrict abortion providers across their states to a handful of places, and with all sorts of legislative mandated scaremongering and unsound medical advice poured on top. Just for ex this lawsuit:
The AMA case in North Dakota focuses on the state’s code requiring physicians to tell patients that the procedure “will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being,” as well as a new state law that would require physicians to tell patients that it may be possible to reverse the effects of medication abortion.
The AMA argues that the requirements infringe on providers’ First Amendment rights by forcing providers to convey a claim “about fetal personhood that is unmoored from medical science” and about medication abortion that is “wholly unsupported by the best, most reliable scientific evidence.”
AMA President Patrice Harris said in a statement that the laws threaten patient-physician relationships, which she called “the cornerstone of health care.”
And that’s what we’re seeing with Trump, imo. Much of the “moderate” compromise position has been because the Supreme Court and the political system has forced conservatives to compromise with their extreme positions, which they would prefer. With Trump you’re seeing those extreme positions, for the first time in decades, have a chance to really come to the fore.
Since I see the “soul” in a Platonic sense to be continuous with the body, imo, it doesn’t make sense to speak of potentiality as being completely human.
CraigM
3733
So let me ask you this, if you do take the hardline stance of conception, do you consider medication or methods that prevent implantation of fertilized eggs in the same light? What about the morning after pills? Are these all the same as abortion in your eyes?
Now, full disclosure, I am strongly disagreeing with your position, but am curious where that line draws for you as yours is an admittedly extreme hard line one.
magnet
3734
Not exactly.
Do what you think is right—propose legislation to fix Obamacare or spend more on basic research of climate change or whatever—but in the constitutional way… don’t call for the abolition of traditions and constitutional structures, like the Electoral College, that make voters nervous about your stewardship.
Joe Biden is one candidate who seems to understand voters’ longing for political quiet after the upheaval we’ve lived through. He hasn’t called to abolish ICE; he is fine with nine justices on the Supreme Court; and he intends to keep the Electoral College as he found it.
It seems like she (and possibly @Timex?) are worried more about the way Democrats want to achieve their goals than the goals themselves. I suppose there is an argument to be made that there is no point in supporting a Democrat who is willing to violate norms merely to punish a Republican for violating norms.
Of course there is also the counterargument that Democrats aren’t trying to restore norms, they are trying to reverse what Republicans accomplished. That’s probably going to drive former Republicans to a third party though.
Yes, let’s argue with a zealot about their pet issue. Surely we’ll come to some new understanding about the human soul.
I could invite my crazy brother over to have a “conversation” about how ever using birth control is immoral while we’re at it!
Based on the rationale discussed above, I find conception to be the most reasonable point to grant human rights. Yes, I know how radical and frankly inconvenient that is.
Some bodies have more cells than others. Some bodies have only one cell!
The rationale I’ve given is absolutely not based on souls, philosophy, spirituality, or religion; other than perhaps the idea that human rights should apply to all humans whether regardless of cell count and regardless of whether they’re in a uterus or a child locked in a cage on the border.
Now, I do have strong viewpoints on those other areas, too, but I think my stated position stands well enough on its own without invoking nonphysical concepts.
