[mike777]

Abortion esp in the USA remains an extremely emotional issue even 50 years after Roe..

I am pro choice but to even say women view a fetus as "an unwanted parasite at cost to her autonomy" seems a step too far.


AS far as legal rape goes of course that is repugnant


For most of human history...rape during war was considered legal.



In our families lifetime:

As Russia came over the Oder river roughly 1-2 million women, girls and young boys were raped and raped over and over and over again.
Abortions ran into the hundred of thousands.
War crimes=zero.

We can see this was repeated in Korea and China by Russia and Japan.


My only point is can we discuss abortion with deep love and kindness.

[Vampyr]

Those who wish to ban abortions have the wrong focus. Putting aside questions of rape, incest or danger to the life of the mother, why not instead campaign for safe, effective, accessible and affordable contraception?

[mike777]

Vampyr, on 2012-October-26, 01:22, said:

Those who wish to ban abortions have the wrong focus. Putting aside questions of rape, incest or danger to the life of the mother, why not instead campaign for safe, effective, accessible and affordable contraception?

You are from London England.....is that really I mean really a prlb.....in London or England?

Here in the USA contraception control is close to zero cost if you really need it.

Let me put it this way ...cheaper than a cell phone....

This seems to be a solution in need of a problem...

with that said if you have zero zero money and zero access to birth control....let the forum know.....we can direct you....

[Trinidad]

dwar0123, on 2012-October-25, 17:10, said:

It is hard for me to accept that any "MOM" that is advocating the death of her child is really doing that from the "MOM" perspective.

It seems that I haven't explained this sufficiently clear.

I am not saying: "Let women decide whether they want to kill the life inside them.". I am saying: "Let women decide whether what is in them is 'life'.". And if it is not "life" then it cannot be murdered and the "abortion is murder" argument cannot come into play. And you cannot speak of "the death of her child", because "death" requires "life".

And why should it be the woman who decides when the life of her baby has started? Because she can judge that an awful lot better than all politicians together can.

Rik

[mike777]

Trinidad, on 2012-October-26, 02:05, said:

It seems that I haven't explained this sufficiently clear.

I am not saying: "Let women decide whether they want to kill the life inside them.". I am saying: "Let women decide whether what is in them is 'life'.". And if it is not "life" then it cannot be murdered and the "abortion is murder" argument cannot come into play. And you cannot speak of "the death of her child", because "death" requires "life".

And why should it be the woman who decides when the life of her baby has started? Because she can judge that an awful lot better than all politicians together can.

Rik

Trin if as a man or husband you feel this way, cool....
If you are the Father and have no issues...ok....

I just think this is more of an emotional issue than you say in this post for you as the father and for the mother of the fetus.


but you dont really say so....

[gwnn]

Trinidad, on 2012-October-26, 02:05, said:

It seems that I haven't explained this sufficiently clear.

I am not saying: "Let women decide whether they want to kill the life inside them.". I am saying: "Let women decide whether what is in them is 'life'.". And if it is not "life" then it cannot be murdered and the "abortion is murder" argument cannot come into play. And you cannot speak of "the death of her child", because "death" requires "life".

And why should it be the woman who decides when the life of her baby has started? Because she can judge that an awful lot better than all politicians together can.

Rik

What if she decides that even 36 weeks into the pregnancy it is not life what is inside her? I know what you mean and I appreciate it, but sometimes personal experience can be very unreliable. I think fetuses have a quite uniform evolution in the womb, much more uniform than the morality or personal experience of all mothers (I am not saying that some morals are superior to others, just that they have a large range over any scale you would choose). So if a mother feels that her 10-week fetus is alive and another mother feels that her 20-week fetus is not alive yet, one of the two mothers are very probably wrong about their experience. Of course you can also say that any mother is free to define life any way she likes, as long as it is in her womb, and I sympathise with that argument but it sounds like a slightly different argument to me.

[Trinidad]

mike777, on 2012-October-26, 01:51, said:

You are from London England.....is that really I mean really a prlb.....in London or England?

Here in the USA contraception control is close to zero cost if you really need it.

Let me put it this way ...cheaper than a cell phone....

This seems to be a solution in need of a problem...

with that said if you have zero zero money and zero access to birth control....let the forum know.....we can direct you....

Well, Mike, there is a little more to it than having condoms available at the drug store, at low cost. I am not worried about that in the USA: they are there (at least in the parts where I have been).

But just compare the rates of teen pregnancies in the USA, the UK and the Scandinavian countries. Then you will see that in reality this contraception is not as accessable as it seems. That has everything to do with the moral attitude about sex.

I don't know Mourdock. I don't know whether he has kids, but he doesn't strike me as the guy who would walk into the drug store with his teenage daughter to go and buy condoms together.

Rik

[Vampyr]

mike777, on 2012-October-26, 01:51, said:

Here in the USA contraception control is close to zero cost if you really need it.

If only that were so -- some people cannot even afford the doctor in the first place, though Obamacare may well minimise this problem (though it is not clear to me whether family planning care will be everywhere exempt from co-payments or what the deal will be with prescriptions.) Romney wants to reduce funding for Planned Parenthood, which (where it is available) is able to provide lower-cost care. He doesn't want abortions, but he does not wish to eliminate the need for one. Many in his party also object to contraception being provided by insurance companies. In addition, young people on their parents' policies may not know how to go about accessing the insurance for medical care without their parents getting involved. In fact, it used to be the case that, in some states, minors cannot receive contraceptive care without their parents' consent; I do not know whether this is currently the case.

Also a decent balance has yet to be struck between safety/convenience/effectiveness. ("among" just seems so wrong!)

Quote

with that said if you have zero zero money and zero access to birth control....let the forum know.....we can direct you....

While I approve of your sentiments, I don't think it is entirely appropriate for these forums to branch off into the provision of affordable family planning. You could, however, make an online donation to Planned Parenthood (which also provides preventive--and in some places, more than that-- medicine to women and men).

[Vampyr]

Trinidad, on 2012-October-26, 02:25, said:

Well, Mike, there is a little more to it than having condoms available at the drug store, at low cost. I am not worried about that in the USA: they are there (at least in the parts where I have been).

But just compare the rates of teen pregnancies in the USA, the UK and the Scandinavian countries. Then you will see that in reality this contraception is not as accessable as it seems. That has everything to do with the moral attitude about sex.

In many cases teens are simply too embarrassed to march into the local drugstore and buy condoms, even if the store is otherwise empty. And what if you bump into your English teacher or your friend's mother?

Condoms are often used incorrectly, which reduces their theoretical effectiveness. More importantly, they are not the final answer, as preventing pregnancy really needs to be under the woman's control. Fair this may or not be, but it is she who will suffer the consequences (often, completely on her own).

[mike777]

I understand those in England think romney is going to ban access to contraception for those with zero money.

again are you denied access in the UK?

You seem to really want to believe this is a prbl in search of a solution.....

---


Trin seems to think the problem is men and women are looking for a solution and there is none rather than men just dont give a damn....and some women



Silly.

my take is there are many many more men and women who want children and dont have a safe, cheap, effective way to have them.....that is where the real issue is.....

---



you guys seem to think the huge issue is no money for birth control but the real money is in making babies......cheap...safe...effective.....

[Trinidad]

gwnn, on 2012-October-26, 02:19, said:

What if she decides that even 36 weeks into the pregnancy it is not life what is inside her? I know what you mean and I appreciate it, but sometimes personal experience can be very unreliable. I think fetuses have a quite uniform evolution in the womb, much more uniform than the morality or personal experience of all mothers (I am not saying that some morals are superior to others, just that they have a large range over any scale you would choose). So if a mother feels that her 10-week fetus is alive and another mother feels that her 20-week fetus is not alive yet, one of the two mothers are very probably wrong about their experience. Of course you can also say that any mother is free to define life any way she likes, as long as it is in her womb, and I sympathise with that argument but it sounds like a slightly different argument to me.

Remember that this is a moral discussion, not a scientific one. Science is not involved in the question when "life" starts.

You are reasoning in a scientific way: There is one well-defined answer to the question when life starts. We just haven't found it yet. To exaggerate a little: If we do more research, and get smarter than we are now, we might find that answer. Then we will know precisely when abortions should be legal and when not.

That is not at all how I see it. Just like with other moral questions, there is no single, well-defined, correct answer to the question when life starts. You will not get a single, well-defined, correct answer by searching harder. The one correct answer does not exist. Call it a 0 by 0 division, a singularity, whatever.

It is and remains a moral question about "life" without an answer. The one person who can decide best on this, from many points of view, including the moral one, is the woman herself.

Now if it would be so that men have a much better track record on making decisions about "life" than women, I would certainly reconsider. But I don't think we can really say that, can we?

Rik (a man)

[mike777]

It is and remains a moral question about "life" without an answer. The one person who can decide best on this, from many points of view, including the moral one, is the woman herself.

Now if it would be so that men have a much better track record on making decisions about "life" than women, I would certainly reconsider. But I don't think we can really say that, can we?

Rik (a man)
----

so rik as the father of the fetus ;;;;

Imust say you make this sound so easy ...

----


But I don't think we can really say that, can we?

Rik (a man)

[gwnn]

Trinidad, on 2012-October-26, 03:09, said:

Remember that this is a moral discussion, not a scientific one. Science is not involved in the question when "life" starts.

You are reasoning in a scientific way: There is one well-defined answer to the question when life starts. We just haven't found it yet. To exaggerate a little: If we do more research, and get smarter than we are now, we might find that answer. Then we will know precisely when abortions should be legal and when not.

That is not at all how I see it. Just like with other moral questions, there is no single, well-defined, correct answer to the question when life starts. You will not get a single, well-defined, correct answer by searching harder. The one correct answer does not exist. Call it a 0 by 0 division, a singularity, whatever.

It is and remains a moral question about "life" without an answer. The one person who can decide best on this, from many points of view, including the moral one, is the woman herself.

Now if it would be so that men have a much better track record on making decisions about "life" than women, I would certainly reconsider. But I don't think we can really say that, can we?

Rik (a man)

Yes, I am a man and worse of all, trying to inject some objectivity into moral questions. Shame on me. No I am not saying that it is a scientific question that has one specific right answer, you are reducing my position to that, good for you, and I probably deserve that, but that is not what I was trying to get to. I am saying that the same moral principles should apply to everyone, as far as possible. The subjective experience of mothers (which I concede I will never understand or feel) should not be the sole criterion.

So you are essentially saying that the mother is free to define 'human life' for the purposes of the moral principle 'do not take a human life' whichever way she chooses, as long as it is in her womb. Again, that is a different argument than saying that a mother is the best expert on what is going on in her womb (it turns out that mothers are often swayed by an ultrasound image, for example, but OK). I repeat my question which you conveniently ignored: if a mother deems that a 36-week-old fetus is still not alive, does she get to abort it (in your opinion)?

I am uncomfortable with that kind of definition of moral principles, we do not apply the same principle for deciding whether or not an act of murder is self-defence, for instance. We are also not applying that principle to giving voting rights to children, we are not just asking their parents and friends whether they are mature enough. We have a clear line and it is good that we have a clear line.

I am not really arguing for or against abortions but rather some 'pro choice' arguments which suffer from several flaws. Sometimes they could just as well be applied to someone choosing to kill a newborn baby (e.g. no, it would never affect me if we knew that she will not do it again, so why bother?). In this thread we have already heard that pro-life people are condoning murdering innocent doctors. And I know that a lot of 'pro life' arguments are just citing scripture which is even more absurd. I am just arguing for an argument that is devoid of subjective experience, emotions, holy books and would explore the issues with defining the principle "do not kill" for these cases.

[Zelandakh]

The comment about human mothers having a way to shut down an unwanted pregnancy reminded me that many animals (including humans) do indeed have a mechanism to terminate a non-viable pregnancy, called reabsorption/resorption. I assume noone would consider this murder? So in fact nature does have a line on abortion and that line is considerably later than a trimester. However, the vast majority of such cases are indeed in the first trimester and later cases carry some risk to the mother and other siblings. It seems to me that conditions such as VTS could easily provide the basis for a "natural" line to be drawn on the abortion issue.

[helene_t]

Trinidad, on 2012-October-26, 03:09, said:

Science is not involved in the question when "life" starts.

It is a semantic question, of course, but given a definition of "life", it becomes a scientific question when it starts.

I don't think it is particularly relevant, though. The reason why murder is immoral is that it would have negative impact on society and on individuals if murder were to become socialy accepted. Once you have mused about why that is so, you might wonder if those concerns apply to abortion as well. You might come to the conclusion that they don't, and then you might wonder if that automatically means that abortion is ok. There could be other reasons to be against abortion, some that bear no familiarity to the murder issue. It could be that people opposed to abortion are so for other reasons which could be reasonable enough but they (well, some of them) prefer to use the murder analogy because it sounds more compelling.

[Trinidad]

helene_t, on 2012-October-26, 04:24, said:

Trinidad, on 2012-October-26, 03:09, said:

Science is not involved in the question when "life" starts.

It is a semantic question, of course, but given a definition of "life", it becomes a scientific question when it starts.

There is a reason why I put quotation marks around "life". They are there to denote the moral meaning of "life".

From a scientific point of view, life started a very long time ago. The egg cell and the sperm cell are life and life is probably going to continue for a while. If scientists would want to define the start of the life of an individual (and to the best of my knowledge they are not interested to do that, but I am not a biologist), they would probably conveniently define it as the moment of birth, as long as they can put all political and moral issues aside.

Since -from a scientific point of view- the start of the life of an individual is a matter of definition, rather than a matter of fact, science is not going to help us on this one.

Rik

[phil_20686]

So I will add a few a points:

(1) On Todd Aktin: the problem is that he wasn't exactly wrong. Psychological trauma is associated with elevated levels of cortisol, which is the human stress response hormone, and cortisol massively increases the chance of an early miscarriage. The result is that among women who get raped you only get about half as many pregnancies as you would expect. Sufficient levels of cortisol can suppress menstruation entirely for extended periods of time, and I believe this is not an uncommon response to extreme emotional trauma, particularly PTSD in female soldiers. I presume that Aktin heard some of this and reinterpreted/misunderstood this in some form of reinforcement bias.

(2) At trinidad: You seem to think that its `clear' that there is no answer to this question. But this is itself an expression of a philosophical point of view that thinks its not clear because it isnt measurable/scientifically definable. Those of us with other philosophical predilections can easily conclude that life must/probably begin(s) at, or within a few days of, conception. The forging of two separate dna sequences into a single unique one is clearly a less arbitary line than any other time between conception and birth.

(3) @Vampyr on contraception. I ran the numbers once for this for the UK. Suppose that all UK women between 15-25 were having regular/semi regular sex using the most effective contraception, like the pill/long term patch. These are reported as being about 98-99% effective per year, but that is still leaves 1-0.98^10 = 18% (10% if you use 99), of women 15-25 (of which the uk has about 6 million), which gives 600,000-1,000,000 women with (at least one) unwanted pregnancy in this period. So no, I don't think "safe affordable contraception" is a solution really (even assuming that you believe contraception is moral, which is not a given).

(4) Hrothgar: So I am quite interested in this. When I think of mainline protestant theology I think of Anglicanism + church of scotland + evangelicals, because that is what we have in the UK. So I have looked out a copy of Luther's Large Cathechism, which you can fine online at http://bookofconcord...5-ourfather.php , and it says (quote numbers refer to the numbers on the internet for the verses, they are not the same as the text one that I have)

Quote

(2) But praying, as the Second Commandment teaches, is to call upon God in every need.


(18) In the second place, we should be the more urged and incited to pray because God has also added a promise, and declared that it shall surely be done to us as we pray, as He says Ps. 50:15: Call upon Me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee. And Christ in the Gospel of St. Matthew 7:7: Ask, and it shall be given you. For every one that asketh receiveth.


(22) never doubt that such prayer is pleasing to Him and shall certainly be answered.


(28) Therefore, every one of us should accustom himself from his youth daily to pray for all his wants, whenever he is sensible of anything affecting his interests or that of other people among whom he may live

And his small cathechism, discussing the meaning of "give us our daily bread" in the Our Father,

Quote

Daily bread includes everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, land, animals, money, goods, a devout husband or wife, devout children, devout workers, devout and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, self-control, good reputation, good friends, faithful neighbours, and the like.

And that was roughly in keeping with my understanding of Lutherans and Prayer, (I know a couple of German Lutherans). Re providence, I did eventually dig up the following quote from "The bondage of the Will" another Martin Luther text

Quote

It is the fault, therefore, of the instruments, which God does not allow to be idle, that evil things are done, with God himself setting them in motion. It is just as if a carpenter were cutting badly with a chipped and jagged ax. Hence it comes about that the ungodly man cannot but continually err and sin, because he is caught up in the movement of divine power and not allowed to be idle, but wills, desires, and acts according to the kind of person he himself is.

Wikipedia article on Lutheranism and Providence says

Quote

God preserves his creation, cooperates with everything that happens, and guides the universe.^[135] While God cooperates with both good and evil deeds, with evil deeds he does so only inasmuch as they are deeds, but not with the evil in them.

So I am not sure if my understanding is wrong on this, or if the ECLA is out of step with other Lutheran Churches on this issue. I think this is similar to the Catholic conception of providence and God's responsibility in regards to evil actions and their consequences.

PS: Obviously you are right that I tend to overgeneralise, its hard not to when you talk about Protestantism. The last figure that I heard was that there are 44,000 denominations. And this medium doesnt tend to lend its self to long accurate and considered repsonses.

[Trinidad]

gwnn, on 2012-October-26, 03:59, said:

I repeat my question which you conveniently ignored: if a mother deems that a 36-week-old fetus is still not alive, does she get to abort it (in your opinion)?

Two points and they are both counter questions, which is horribly impolite, my apologies, but they clarify my point of view:

1) Do you know anybody who would be better suited to answer the moral question whether the 36 week old fetus inside her body constitutes "life"? (Note that this is different from "alive". A sperm cell is also "alive" and we -presumably- have no moral problem with aborting sperm cells.)

2) Do you know any woman who has been pregnant for 36 weeks and now suddenly decides for an abortion? Usually late abortions are performed because the woman didn't have the possibility to chose for an early abortion. If the woman is free to make her choice at an early stage, this problem would be very rare. (Abortions for medical reasons are not part of this discussion.)

To summarize, from 2): It is a non-problem since it does not arise and from 1): Yes, of course, who am I to think that my morality is better than that of the woman in question?

Rik

[kenberg]

I am sometimes amused by wording. This morning's Washington Post has an article discussing Obama's standing with various demographic groups. Toward the end it says:

Quote

In a rapidly diversifying country, the percentage of the nation's population that is white drops 2 percent every four years, said David Bositis, a senior research associate at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. And even among white voters, Republicans perform best among older voters, who will age out of the voting rolls in coming years.

"age out"? This is an intriguing way of putting it. I am hoping not to age out for a while yet.

[y66]

Guest post by Krugman

Quote

Nate Silver — whom everyone interested in this election should be reading — is bemused by Intrade, which is showing a much higher chance of a Romney victory than his analysis (and he’s actually less bullish on Obama than other quant sites, like Drew Linzer’s Votamatic).

You should probably also know that Nate is, predictably, being accused of deliberately skewing the numbers — no doubt as part of a grand conspiracy also involving the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Area 51.

If you’re new to this, there are two basic approaches to election analysis at this point. One is the campaign reporter style, full of impressionist reporting about who won the news cycle and who has “momentum”, whatever that means (politics ain’t beanbag, but it ain’t billiards either). The other is poll-based. And that mostly means state-level polls at this point: there are more of them, and we have an electoral-college system, not a popular-vote system.

The impressionistic style has been all about Romney on the rise, a narrative that is to a large part being fed by the Romney campaign itself. But the state-level polling doesn’t show it.

In fact, the state polls pretty much say that Obama would win if the election were held right now, taking Ohio, Wisconsin, and Iowa, and quite possibly Virginia. Florida is a dead heat, too. (See the Pollster map). Nor is there any sign of movement in Romney’s direction after his big post-first-debate bump.

So why is Intrade trending Romney? One possibility is that Romney supporters are trying to manipulate the results — as Nate points out, other markets and betting forums are much less Romney-friendly. Another is that Intrade traders actually buy the spin cycle.

Whatever is really going on, we’re now getting close to a showdown between styles of political analysis. By inclination, I of course trust the nerds. But we’ll soon see.