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Texas bans abortion.

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psionl0 said:
No it isn't. These pathetic attempts to dismiss conception as a non-event are a desperate attempt to justify a position that doesn't need justifying.
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These attempts to dismiss meiosis as a non-event are a desperate attempt to justify a position that does not need justifying.
 
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Justice Department again presses to halt Texas abortion law:
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The Biden administration urged the courts again Monday night to step in and suspend a new Texas law that has banned most abortions since early September, as clinics hundreds of miles away remain busy with Texas patients making long journeys to get care.

The latest attempt comes three days after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the nation’s most restrictive abortion law after a brief 48-hour window last week in which Texas abortion providers — following a blistering ruling by a lower court — had rushed to bring in patients again.
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That suspension from just a few days back (someone actually posted a link to it many pages back but I'm not going to look for it) got overturned.
 
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First, my atheist bona fides…

I was born into a Reform Jewish family. I attended Hebrew School and was dutifully Bar Mitzvah’d at 13. However, even prior to that I was starting to have doubts. My Rabbi, being Reform, said one could reconcile the bible story of Adam and Eve with Evolutionary Theory because the stories of the bible were often fables or allegories, not meant to be taken literally. Sill, as a teenager I was probably becoming agnostic and well on the way to committing to atheism.

I do not believe in God, nor souls nor spirits. I still find it pretty incredible that from a self-replicating molecule a few billion years ago we could evolve into beings capable of even some meager understanding of the cosmos. But I don’t believe any Creator or Guide was necessary - that we managed to “Climb Mount Improbable” - borrowed from a title of a Dawkins Book - to where we are in tiny steps guided only by Evolutionary Theory and physics and chemistry.

I only felt it necessary voice this to try to avoid anyone assuming my positions are in any way influenced by religious beliefs or “baby jeebus”. I cannot 100% know that I may not have subconscious things going in my head from my religious upbringing, but on any conscious level any teachings or beliefs I may have had at one time are 50+ years in the past.
 
Fast Eddie B said:
That’s why I’m likely on a Fool’s Errand. I don’t see it as “working backwards”, since I never made a religious argument in the first place.

But I’ll give it a shot as a mental exercise, if nothing else.
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The non-religious reason to oppose some abortions is dependent on when you think a fetus becomes a human. Its hard to imagine an atheist thinking its at conception but its a big world with lots of people, so I suppose one might. I've generally heard viability(outside the womb) from atheists that express reservations about abortion, that's about 24 weeks. Most folks that don't care much about religion but aren't exactly atheists generally go with third trimester in my experience.
But you are on a fool's errand, nobody will change there minds about it.
 
Warbler said:
belief due to faith can be a much deeper belief, than belief due to preponderance of evidence. The latter changes as the evidence changes, the former stays despite ignores the changes in evidence
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FTFY

“In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.”
― Carl Sagan

This is the main problem with religion. It's proponents ignore overwhelming evidence that their concepts of reality are wrong. Facts, evidence and reality trump faith... Every . Single . Time - with no exceptions.

There is a term that is used to describe the act of continuing to have faith in something that has be proven over and over and over again to be wrong... that term is "wilful ignorance"!
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ahhell said:
The non-religious reason to oppose some abortions is dependent on when you think a fetus becomes a human. Its hard to imagine an atheist thinking its at conception but its a big world with lots of people, so I suppose one might. I've generally heard viability(outside the womb) from atheists that express reservations about abortion, that's about 24 weeks. Most folks that don't care much about religion but aren't exactly atheists generally go with third trimester in my experience.
But you are on a fool's errand, nobody will change there minds about it.
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That's my stated position.

The stark reality is that third trimester abortions are very rare, and even when they do happen, it is for valid medical reasons involving danger to the pregnant woman in which carrying to full term is likely to cause her to die, or to suffer severe health consequences.

The other reality is, of course, that its moot. Any woman who does not want to carry to full term has almost certainly decided on an abortion long before viability is even on the table and has already terminated the pregnancy.
 
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smartcooky said:
FTFY

“In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.”
― Carl Sagan

This is the main problem with religion. It's proponents ignore overwhelming evidence that their concepts of reality are wrong. Facts, evidence and reality trump faith... Every . Single . Time - with no exceptions.

There is a term that is used to describe the act of continuing to have faith in something that has be proven over and over and over again to be wrong... that term is "wilful ignorance"!
.
.
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I would call it obstinate obstreporousness. Or reprehensible rigidity.
 
smartcooky said:
There is a term that is used to describe the act of continuing to have faith in something that has be proven over and over and over again to be wrong... that term is "wilful ignorance"!
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.
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Lurch said:
I would call it obstinate obstreporousness. Or reprehensible rigidity.
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Proudly Wrong still works for me. And I actually put thought into it. Pride describes the mental state the best.
 
Fast Eddie B said:
I mentioned a few posts back that I would try to take up the mantle and make a case for the possibility of a non-religious, non-misogynistic individual still arriving at the conclusion that he or she is opposed to abortion. I’ll give it my best shot, but it’s going to take several posts.
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I appreciate the time this will take and I sincerely hope that you don’t catch any verbal flack for making the effort.

I do want to point out that I oppose abortion. I support organizations that try to prevent abortions. I would love to hear that no abortions were performed today.

But, I do not support legal restrictions on abortions.

I don’t say this to derail your efforts or the substance of your posts, but I thought it an important distinction.
 
My promised Part 2, my personal abortion situation.

Just out of High School I got my girlfriend pregnant. Since it was almost 55 years ago, my memories of the entire affair are admittedly fuzzy. I do recall that she and her parents agreed that abortion was the only choice, and I went along with it, in fact paying for half of it. Soon after that my involvement with the girl ended.

It did not have a major impact on my life, which has turned out really well, and I rarely think about it. Still, when I do I think about it, I think of how my son or daughter would have been in their 50’s now, possibly with children and even grandchildren of their own.

I don’t think that experience had an effect on my thoughts on abortion, but it would be naive to say definitively that it might not have on some level.
 
This is one of those times when you’ve got to point out that regret is a function of having second thoughts about what could have happened, and that you can have those no matter what you choose to do or not to do.

(Not meaning to imply regret is your sentiment here but it’s often suggested ‘what if they regret having an abortion?’ which is to me just a non sequitur. What if they do? What if they don’t? Surely the risk that they’ll regret having a child, and all the ramifications of that, is magnitudes worse for everyone, anyway)

I could have had a mess of kids by now. It never occurs to me to think about what a kid from x or y relationship from my past would be like today. It sounds to me like you at least had an outside idea about having kids, that you did not otherwise pursue, to be thinking that way.
 
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Lithrael said:
It sounds to me like you at least had an outside idea about having kids, that you did not otherwise pursue, to be thinking that way.
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Hard to think back to my state of mind 55 years ago, but looking back, at the time I don’t think I had the vaguest even outside idea about having kids of my own. I was pretty much still just a kid myself. This is more a reflection now of “alternative histories” of how things might have been. But my life has worked out so well I don’t waste time reflecting on how it might have been better
 
Yes, that is what I meant though, more or less. Not that you did at the time, certainly not consciously, but that you are at least the kind of guy to spend some time thinking about it at some points in your life. A tautology I guess.

What I mean to say is that someone can just as easily get misty (or not) over a child that was not, even if the nostalgiac relationship never actually resulted in conception.
 
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