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Texas bans abortion.

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psionl0 said:
You will need to say more than just "slippery slope" if you think my argument was flawed.
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In short, the reason why it came to mind was that the nature was much the same. Your argument was little more than scaremongering by means of seizing upon one part of truth without any heed to the whole picture.

If rights are given by people, then anything is on the cards? Sure! If you ignore all the underlying restricting factors in play, that could theoretically be the case! The big problem with that, of course, is that it is dishonest to ignore the things that make the theoretical possibility extremely improbable.
 
Aridas said:
In short, the reason why it came to mind was that the nature was much the same. Your argument was little more than scaremongering by means of seizing upon one part of truth without any heed to the whole picture.

If rights are given by people, then anything is on the cards? Sure! If you ignore all the underlying restricting factors in play, that could theoretically be the case! The big problem with that, of course, is that it is dishonest to ignore the things that make the theoretical possibility extremely improbable.
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You quoted the highlighted in isolation and spun a whole new cloth that makes it appear that I was just scaremongering (even though it has been pointed out above that rape, incest, murder, theft, slavery, and starvation have all been "rights" at one time or another).

I won't accuse you of being dishonest. You probably missed post #3691 where I linked this to the possible rights of the unborn:
psionl0 said:
OTOH if "we the people" can confer general rights on the human race then we should also be able to discuss the rights (or otherwise) of an unborn child without invoking the "Godsaysso" clause.
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psionl0 said:
You quoted the highlighted in isolation and spun a whole new cloth that makes it appear that I was just scaremongering
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When it's a direct consequence of what you said...

psionl0 said:
(even though it has been pointed out above that rape, incest, murder, theft, slavery, and starvation have all been "rights" at one time or another).
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An interesting defense. Just posting what ends up as "But then anything would be on the cards" is a more than a little bit different than that, so that would end up as a case of moving the goalposts from a line of argument that, IIRC, has a history of being used to argue that anarchy and chaos would be the state of human society if divine authority were not the case to a usage where there's literally no difference between human-based and divine authority-based rules in the first place, which makes it a rather pointless attempt at a point. I will admit, though, that I, myself, was considering whether to highlight how reality strongly supports the view that rights are fundamentally given by the people, rather than by some ("good") divine authority, as Dr Keith had touched upon, but thought that that would distract from the direct point being made. Whatever, though, moving on.

psionl0 said:
I won't accuse you of being dishonest. You probably missed post #3691 where I linked this to the possible rights of the unborn:
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On the topic of whether we should be able to discuss potential rights for the unborn without invoking any divine authority? At least on that, we seem to to be in agreement.
 
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psionl0 said:
Basically any argument about rights is a religious one. The maxims "all men are born equal" and all men have the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" are presumed to be God given rights.

When it comes down to it, there is no moral argument against culling undesirable people out of the human race or forcing "unsuitable" people to have abortions if they become pregnant or forced sterilizations.

OTOH if "we the people" can confer general rights on the human race then we should also be able to discuss the rights (or otherwise) of an unborn child without invoking the "Godsaysso" clause.
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Fetuses don't vote. So they have no rights as far as the constitution goes. We did allow rights to women and children before they got to vote. But they were functional beings separate from the mother. You could ask the state to take care of abandoned women or children, so the state can become parent. But not before they are born. Before they are born they are under the jurisdiction of the mother.
 
Warp12 said:
There is literally no limit to how far some will go to sterilize the act of abortion, is there?

Wild.
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psionl0 said:
You will need to say more than just "slippery slope" if you think my argument was flawed.
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Ask the Aztec about God given Rights, or the Thuggi,. If rights are given by a God anything the Worshippers believe the God wants becomes your rights even your right to be a Human Sacrifice. If rights are given on a Moral bases with everyone known to be equal, then everyone has the same rights. The fact in this world not everyone is equal , not even in the USA, or even on this Forum means that some people have less rights than others.
That is a fact of reality in this Universe unfortunately.
 
psionl0 said:
Basically any argument about rights is a religious one. The maxims "all men are born equal" and all men have the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" are presumed to be God given rights.

When it comes down to it, there is no moral argument against culling undesirable people out of the human race or forcing "unsuitable" people to have abortions if they become pregnant or forced sterilizations.

OTOH if "we the people" can confer general rights on the human race then we should also be able to discuss the rights (or otherwise) of an unborn child without invoking the "Godsaysso" clause.
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Oh yeah sure let's go down the "Without a giant invisible sky wizard to tell us what to do we'd have no standards of behavior and would be killing and raping each other nonstop" crap. I mean it's not like the discussion can go anywhere further away from the topic.

There's no giant invisible sky wizard whispering in my ear and I manage to get to "Don't tell women what to do with their bodies" yet the God Bothers can't so... you know I don't really give a **** if you have a problem with how we get our morals.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Oh yeah sure let's go down the "Without a giant invisible sky wizard to tell us what to do we'd have no standards of behavior and would be killing and raping each other nonstop" crap. I mean it's not like the discussion can go anywhere further away from the topic.

There's no giant invisible sky wizard whispering in my ear and I manage to get to "Don't tell women what to do with their bodies" yet the God Bothers can't so... you know I don't really give a **** if you have a problem with how we get our morals.
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I swear that you have your eyes tightly closed when you are reading a post before you respond. I didn't post anything like that at all!
 
Tero said:
Fetuses don't vote. So they have no rights as far as the constitution goes. We did allow rights to women and children before they got to vote. But they were functional beings separate from the mother. You could ask the state to take care of abandoned women or children, so the state can become parent. But not before they are born. Before they are born they are under the jurisdiction of the mother.
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There is no logical/moral reason why rights can't be extended to the unborn. Whether they are or not is just a matter of consensus.
 
psionl0 said:
There is no logical/moral reason why rights can't be extended to the unborn. Whether they are or not is just a matter of consensus.
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There is the issue of guardianship. If you want to give the baby rights, we will assign the baby to you. Good luck.

Babies are not made to be raised in institutions.
 
psionl0 said:
There is no logical/moral reason why rights can't be extended to the unborn. Whether they are or not is just a matter of consensus.
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It's a matter of do they exist in a form that is Concise and thinks for itself.
You can't prove that scientifically, nor can you prove a soul.
There may simply be a nonfunctional neural network without the software present. So if you have a Choice between the Liberty of the mother and the rights of a collection of cells inside her, her liberty is overwhelmingly more Important. We are taking Liberty of the individual to make an individual Choice! America was founded on The Belief of Liberty not of Restrictions on Liberty, of the forcing of individuals based on Religious Ideals!
It is the Loss of personal Liberty that is the heart and Soul of this Discussion, were does ones Liberty End and another's begin?
 
psionl0 said:
There is no logical/moral reason why rights can't be extended to the unborn. Whether they are or not is just a matter of consensus.
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Other than it doesn't seem to be what the word is actually used for. I don't really see any relevant definition that would apply to non-thinking entities. Even the concept of animal rights for thinking animals (I'm thinking of grown animals that can obviously express some opinion like a dog can) don't seem to be covered by the word yet. I think the word you're looking for here is protections.
 
Crazy Chainsaw said:
It's a matter of do they exist in a form that is Concise and thinks for itself.
You can't prove that scientifically, nor can you prove a soul.
There may simply be a nonfunctional neural network without the software present. So if you have a Choice between the Liberty of the mother and the rights of a collection of cells inside her, her liberty is overwhelmingly more Important. We are taking Liberty of the individual to make an individual Choice! America was founded on The Belief of Liberty not of Restrictions on Liberty, of the forcing of individuals based on Religious Ideals!
It is the Loss of personal Liberty that is the heart and Soul of this Discussion, were does ones Liberty End and another's begin?
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Whether it is on scientific grounds or religious grounds or any other grounds is irrelevant.

If the consensus is that the foetus has rights - or doesn't have rights - then that's it. Some may try to argue that it should or should not have rights and have very persuasive grounds for arguing so but these grounds can't override consensus.
 
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JoeMorgue said:
Oh yeah sure let's go down the "Without a giant invisible sky wizard to tell us what to do we'd have no standards of behavior and would be killing and raping each other nonstop" crap. I mean it's not like the discussion can go anywhere further away from the topic.

There's no giant invisible sky wizard whispering in my ear and I manage to get to "Don't tell women what to do with their bodies" yet the God Bothers can't so... you know I don't really give a **** if you have a problem with how we get our morals.
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Still waiting for a non-troll response.
 
psionl0 said:
"Rights" can be assigned to any body or any thing for any reason. There is no need to muddy the waters by making up different words depending on what rights are being discussed nor where they apply.
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Protection certainly is not a new word. And you haven't established you're using the word "rights" correctly.
 
psionl0 said:
Whether it is on scientific grounds or religious grounds or any other grounds is irrelevant.

If the consensus is that the foetus has rights - or doesn't have rights - then that's it. Some may try to argue that it should or should not have rights and have very persuasive grounds for arguing so but these grounds can't override consensus.
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I'd argue that it's objectively wrong to assign rights based on a fairy tale.

At least science has useful things to say.
 
psionl0 said:
If society were to say (for example) that a foetus has a "right" to live then would you argue that they are marching out of step with you?
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Oh I see, I get it. Now you're going to try and make us have this conversation in some magical alternative universe where pro-life is the more common position?

"Because they are more of us" is a bad argument. It's downright insane when there aren't actually more of you.
 
I'm wondering if perhaps the value of a fetus is lower if the fetus is Texan. Texans would probably say it's higher value than other fetuses, but I'm pretty sure there'd be broad support suggesting it's the other way around.
 
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