Abaddon:
Hellrider
We'll just have to disagree on this I guess.
I agree. We`re getting nowhere.
Law is made on facts. You still going to insist emotions are important in making law? Got any quotes by law makers?
Seriously.... Yes, references coming in a minute, but just consider this:
-If law is completely devoid of ethics and morality, how can anything be considered wrong, and why should anything then be punishable? The fact is, that when a person commits a crime, society demands punishment! Not just protection of society, not just rehabilitation. Of course, you can argue that the law should be devoid of societys thirst for revenge (as many has done), which truly is an emotive motif, but as it is, this is simply not the case. In the U.S., they even have the death penalty. If the law was just about rehabilitation and protection of society (as in, keeping a harmful individual away from society, for the benefit of society as a whole) – then the death peanlty should not exist, because it is unnecessary and an unecessesarily cruel form of punishment. The death penalty is all about revenge (an emotional motive). Prison sentence is both about protection of society, rehabilitation (although it can be argued whether or not most correctional facilities are that concerned with rehabilitation) and, yes, revenge! Now, perhaps it shouldn`t be this way. (That would, of course, present us with some peculiar problems: If a pedophile rapes little children, and rehabilitation has been tried on this pedophile, without effect, then the logical solution would be, not to incarsarate him for his crimes, but move him into a community existing only of adults, lets, for arguments say, and enclosed town where only adults live. Now, would you agree that this would be the appropriate way to deal with someone that has raped children? Or...would you want...punishment!?). The fact is, ethics and emotions are an inseperable part of law. In fact, most universities and law schools have, as a part of their legal department, a sub-department called “department og law and ethichs”...
Also, I am very surprised that you don`t see that your stand in this issue, is ethically motivated, and I certainly agree, to a certain degree, with the ethical motivation for your stand on this issue. You are pro-abortion, partly because it is ethically wrong to force another human being to carry a fetus full-term. You would equate this with something like ...kidnapping? If the state forced women (by removing the right to free abortion, as in the sense: Taking away the rights of doctors to perform this procedure, and prosecuting the doctors that still would do it) to carry a fetus until its birth, this would be as if the state “kidnapped” or “took control over” the womans body, correct? This is the base of your argument, right, or at least part of it? Well, guess what: This is an emotional, ethically based motif, and if you cannot see this, then I am just shocked, appaled and ...basically, I am at a loss for words. You are for abortion because it is wrong (ethically and emotionally) to force a woman to carry a fetus full-term. It would be unethical for the state to take this right away from a woman. This is your argument. And guess what: The state agrees. And hence, they have allowed abortion by law. Consequently, the law has a deep, ethical and emotinal foundation.
Now, I found no quotes references as to establish for you (from the mouths of a lawyer or something like that) whether this is the case or not, simply because everybody knows it is, but I did find some litterature in which it is discussed to what degree we should allow emotions and ethical considerations be a fundamental part of our law.
In an essay entitled "morals and the Criminal Law, " Lord Devlin wrote:
"Society means a community of ideas; without shared ideas on politics morals and ethics, no society can exist. Each one of us has ideas about what is good and what is evil; they cannot be kept private from the society in which we live. If men and women try to create a society in which there is no fundamental agreement about good and evil they will fail; if, having based it on common agreement, the agreement goes, the society will disintegrate.
"For society is not something that is kept together physically; it is held by the invisible bonds of common thought. If the bonds were too far relaxed. the members would drift apart. A common morality is part of the bondage. The bondage is part of the price of society; and mankind, which needs society, must pay its price " (The Philosophy of a Law, ed. R.M. Dworkin, Oxford Press, 1977).
Professor Robin Bradly Kar, of Loyola Law School (Los Angeles), in a short essay called “
The Deep Structure of Law and Morality”, writes:
Morality and law share a deep and pervasive structure, an analogue of what Noam Chomsky calls the deep structure of language. This structure arises not to resolve linguistic problems of generativity, but rather from the fact that morality and law engage psychological adaptations with the same natural function: to allow us to resolve social contract problems flexibly.
Richard Posner is very critical to how much emotions should be reflected in Law. In “The Problematics of Moral and Legal Theory”,he says: ”:
I)t is particularly clear that legal issues should not be analyzed with the aid of moral philosophy, but should instead be approached pragmatically.”
...which, of course, I disagree with fundamentally,because not only is it not desirable, but an impossibility.
I'll not ring round law schools to prove the law is normally based on emotion; why should I defend YOUR argument, such as it is?
Well, I don`t really care what you do or what you don`t, but if you were interested in finding out the truth on an issue,especially an issue on which you have some weird, unclear ideas, you would make an effort. You could at least Google “Law and Ethics”.
You excuse the inconsistencies in your argument; mine is simple, no fully formed brain, no perception of pain, not the same.
Oh, we`re going there now, are we. When someone, during a debate, starts yelling “I won the debate, I won the debate”, it`s usually a clear indication that they certainly didn`t. What`s more important though, is that it makes me just want to shake my head and switch off my computer.
As you don't WANT to involve knowledge (medical, scientific), I have to apply the same logic you applied above to you; Your argument is invalid because you don't want to base it on knowledge.
When I said “I couldn`t care less if fetuses have the neurological tissue of a potty plant until week 35, because this is not the point”, I said that to prove the point I have been stressing all along: That this issue is a highly ethical issue! Yes, medical considerations are of course part of this issue, but that doesn`t mean that this issue is, was and always will first and foremost an ethical issue. But ok, let me respond to your medical arguments, and the validity of these arguments:
You claim that at 16 weeks, a fetus only has “a few grams of neural tissue”. How many grams? I forget if you mentioned that, but...3? 4? Anyway, I tried to clarify this by mentioning that the fetus, at this stage, weighs about 100 gram. Well, I weigh 100 kilos. My brain weighs..what? 3kgs? 4 kgs? .See...
You claim that all the basic development of the featus (development of neural tissue, brains etc) is basically finnished at 20 weeks into the pregnancy, and that after week 20, the primary activity of the fetus is to grow. Still, you insist that it is ethically responsible to perform abortions up until week 16 (or week 20 ??), but not in the weeks 20-40. And....???? Why? If nothing neurolgically important happens after week 20 (just growth), then there is no logical reason why abortions shouldn`t happen between week 20 and 40, if there is no difference of significance in the neurological status of the fetus in week 19, and in week 38. Does something “magical” happen between week 16 and 20, is that what you are saying?
The point here is: What is it about fetuses that disqualify them from being counted as humans, or living creatures with human value? You tried with the “potential”-argument, but I showed you that that argument works much better for me than for you. The fetus has a tremedous potential for life, intelligence and (in the future) a productive life. You claim that the neurological development is just about done in week 20. Still, you persist in claiming that fetuses are virtually “braindead”, and that abortion therefore should be allowed up until week 16! (or was it 20?) – but not after this (even though there is very little neurological difference between a fetus in week 20 and a fetus in week 38!!). Your claim that they are braindead, is probably an argument to hide the fact that we simply don`t know whether or not the fetus feels any discomfort when it is hacked up and pulled out, in week 16. (Did I make you feel at unease with that statement? Angry? If so, try to forget your anger with me for a second, and try to analyze the feeling instead. Why do you think you felt at unease, or got angry? Think.).
What is it about fetuses that disqualifies them from having human value?
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Is it because they can`t breathe or eat on their own? Well, in that case, everyone who are connected to a life-support machine (but are not braindead) have no human value.
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Is it because they can`t take care of themselves? In that case, people on life-support machines, children under the age of...7? – and old people in beds at nursing homes have no human value.
You've yet again indulged in circular argumentation, I ask 'what's the difference between forcing a woman to give birth and forcing her to get pregnant and you tell me the word used to describe non-consensual sex; thank you, I know. WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE? Answer the question. In terms of violation of bodily rights and freewill, what is the difference?
I`ll give you this: I agree with your stand on this issue, to a certain degree. Yes, I can easily see that it is ethically questionable to force a woman to go pregnagnt for nine months and to have a baby that she doesn`t want to have. Not only can I see this, but I am constantly evaluating this as one (of, in my view) many ethical considerations. You are under the impression that there is only one ethical consideration on this issue, the womans rights. I am perfectly aware that there are more than one wthical consideration on this. However, the point here is that different ethical principles collide! This what it`s all about! And this is what is both extremely difficult, but also very fascinating about ethics. You are touching this subject with your:
You will cry concern for the unborn, and then would kill one if a woman is raped, and then lecture on greater good, ignoring the fact you now have destroyed your own stance.
I could remind you that I was the first to point out the difficulty in this, when I have argued that abortions sometimes are necessary, such as in situations of rape, incest and illness in the fetus (or woman). And the point I made, a point which you of course have ignored, was that: “Just because we may be forced to violate ethical boundaries, this doesn`t mean that we should remove the ethical boundaries alltogether”. This can easily be exemplified. We, as humans, have this view that murder is unethical. However, we violate this principle all the time (much to often), but we always do this knowing that we are crossing an ethical boundary, but we justify by means of other ethical considerations. Let`s say there is war. Nazi-Germany has invaded my country (and yours...). You are part of the resistance movement. You are hiding out in the woods with 20 jewish children and some of their mothers, and you all have to be quiet, because you are waiting for a boat to come pick you up , and german patrols are looking for you. If they find you, all the resistance fighters will be shot, and all the jewish children sent to the death camps .There is a mother with an infant among you, she also has two older children. All the children are quiet, but the infant simply wont stop crying, the mother has done everything, even tried to gag the child with a rag, but it doesn`t work. She hears a german voice in the distant, yelling out a military command, and so, in desperation, she strangles the infant.
Horrible. She crossed a very definnite ethical boundary, but she did it to serve a greater purpose, an equally (??) ethical purpose: To save the lives of a 20 children and several adults.
This doesn`t mean that infanticide should be allowed indiscriminately, does it?
And yes, I know, my “running assumption”, that fetuses are humans, is present in this analogy, but on the other hand, the “running assumption” that fetuses are not humans, or shouldn`t be considered as something with human value, is present in everything you write, without it being proven, neither medically, scientifically and especially not ethically, that they are not.
The point is: We, as humans, are forced to trespass ethical and moral boundaries on a daily basis. This doesn`t automatically mean that these ethical and moral boundaries should be moved or removed. If we did, there would be anarchy.
"You will cry concern for the unborn, and then would kill one if a woman is raped, and then lecture on greater good, ignoring the fact you now have destroyed your own stance".
Personally, I can`t believe I have even dignified that statement with a response.
Caedes:
To start off, you have still failed to show where I have judged Forscher. I have asked him a perfectly legitimate question, and I stated that it is not very christian to judge other people and call them murderers. There is nothing judgmental in anything I wrote in my initial post just a healthy dose of sarcasm. If you can show me how I have judged Forscher then please do so.
You have allready done that, with your “healthy dose of sarcasm”. I have allready responded to this queston in my previous post. If my point wasn`t seen by you, then that`s your problem. Let the readers of the thread be the judge on whether you showed prejudice and judgmental behaviour towards Forscher or not. I say you did, and I showed how by merely quoting your post. Ask the other participants here whether or not you did.
So you are pre-judging people when you have no evidence to base it on, since you have stated in other posts that sometimes abortion is ok I think your opinions are looking more illogical and tenuous than ever.
See my reply to Abaddon on this issue. Only a ...intelectually challenged person...would fail to see that even though we, as humans, sometimes have to weigh ethical principles towards eachother, and then, as a result, choosing to lay more wight on the one than the other, this does not excuse our behaviour, nor does it establish a presedence for ridding ourselves of the ethical principle that in some situations are outweighed by other principles. The fact that both you and Abaddon continue to harp on this, even though I have offered an explanation that is considered as legitimate among all philosophers and others that write and do research on ethical questions, is just ...beyond me.
Perhaps some people do have abortions for the wrong reasons, I don’t know, but you cannot judge one person by the actions of another.
Which is exactly why the abortion-board should be back.
Pro-abortion? I have never met anybody who is pro-abortion or made the argument that you made so your I fail to see that any point is being made at all. You are trying to argue against a point that has been made by nobody but yourself. The whole point of the pro-choice argument (a very important distinction in the name that you have failed to grasp) is that you or I cannot choose for someone else, so nobody in the pro-choice camp is by default pro-abortion (whatever that actually means) no matter how much it would suit you to say that they are.
Terms such as “pro-choice” and “pro-life” are just ridicolous words invented to hide what we are really talking about here, and not just that, but hide them from ourselves! The whole term “pro-choice” rests on the belief and the running assumption that there actually is such a thing as a “choice” in this matter, and that there actually is a choice can only be the case if it can be established as fact that fetuses do not have human value, that fetuses do not have ethical and legal rights. In the same manner, the term “pro-life” is equally misguiding, because it is a word designed to hide the fact that “pro-life” is not only “pro-life” in regards to the fetus, it is also “anti-life” in regards of the reluctantly pregnant woman. By laying weight on the ethical and legal rights of the fetus, equally, the ethical and legal rights of the woman is removed (if she want`s to have an abortion, that is). Personally, I hate to use fanciful words and expressions when it is clear as day that these terms and expressions are designed with an agenda. Much better to just call a spade a spade.
The conclusion you are inevitably heading towards is that you seem to think that you personally should have the choice to make life or death decisions for other people. You feel so morally superior to other people that you think only someone who thinks like you do should make the decision to kill or not kill a foetus. Of course if anybody else makes that decision (without you knowing why they made that decision) you automatically lable them a murderer. That is an extremely hypocritical position to take.
No, not really. The conclusion I am heading towards, is the conclusion that if it is established (once again) as an ethical and legal principle that fetuses have ethical and legal rights, then the pregnant person would (once again) have to make her case in front of a board of doctors, and of course no priests (that was way back then), the priests would (or should) be substituted with experts on ethics and experts on ethics and law. If the woman has some imprtant ethical reasons for why she shouldn`t carry the fetus full term, then the board should allow her to have an abortion (of course, this is all based on the hypothesis that the courts once agains should decide that fetuses have ethical and legal rights).
All your other arguments on the issue of your entitlement to an opinion are irrelevant since they are not based on a position that I take, they are based on your assumptions.
??? Say what? So none of my arguments are relevant, because they are based on a position you do not take? Well, the exact same thing could be said the other way!
Both you and Abaddon are discussing this with the running presumption that fetuses do not have the right to be considered as creatures with human value (ironically, based on a completely unlogical and backwards medical reasoning, you still claim that they do...after a certain number of weeks), that fetuses do not have ethical and legal rights! In fact, that there even exists such a thing as a “choice” in matters of whether to carry a fetus full term or not, relies on these running assumptions of your! While, in fact, that there is such a thing as a choice, could only be established as a matter of fact IF, and only IF, it could be establlshed as fact that fetuses do not have human value, that fetuses do not have ethical and legal rights.
And I am just shocked beyond belief that you are intelectually unable to realize this.
