the Catholic Church must stop dehumanizing atheists by saying we are not fully human

"The Catholic Church makes a distinction between being human and being fully human, and it does not consider atheists to be fully human. It believes that being fully human requires a relationship with its imaginary God, and that by excluding this from our philosophy we are not fully human. Most of the time they phrase it subtly, by saying that you require religious faith to be fully human, and sometimes they let the mask slip and explicitly say that atheists are not fully human. And most worryingly, they teach this dangerous and arrogant theory of dehumanization to children through the ethos of Catholic schools."

etc.

http://www.michaelnugent.com/2012/10/04/dangerous-arrogance-the-catholic-church-...

Atheists and gay people, apparently:

Perhaps most startling of his remarks on gay marriage and secularization was his saying the Church must “promote those values that permit the full development of the human person.”

We can infer from this that the Pope has decided that all gay people — in fact, all people who don’t adhere to the Vatican’s interpretation of moral values — are “less than” fully developed humans.

(emphasis added by the article writer)

Although to be honest I have to ask, who among us can claim to be a "fully developed human person"? Can the pope himself make such a claim? Is not the process of living one of continuous development?

Consider the source.

Just as soon as the secular world stops dehumanizing people with Downs Syndrome by systematically eradicating them before birth.

>4 nathanielcampbell: soooo...your philosophy based on the eye for an eye model? Very turn the other cheek.

If one believes that X makes you more fully human, does it mean you think that those without X are not fully human?

I did a little Googling and, within a few results, "makes us fully human" are ascribed to love, sex, storytelling, tai chi and yoga. So, is Big Yoga telling us that people who don't do Yoga aren't human?

As Tim says in >6 timspalding:, I think you are making too much of a turn of phrase which is not that uncommon.

None of us (including the pope) is "fully human" in the sense that none of us has developed our full human potential; we are all of us still maturing, developing, growing, exploring, learning until the day we die. who among us can claim to be a "fully developed human person"?, as southernbooklady asks in post >2 southernbooklady:.

Different groups and individuals have their own ideas about how to develop our full human potential, and in what direction. Because of the wonder of human diversity, we will have different ideas about it. So when someone expresses what it means to him and/or his group, it will be different to what it means to others. Expressing one's own ideal about it is not necessarily dehumanising someone whose ideal is different.

I see that Michael Nugent, author of the article, is chairman of the group Atheist Ireland.

Worth another look at #2 here?

>6 timspalding: I've long had a problem with declarations that we aren't fully human without love. Or sex.

And the catechism doesn't say "more fully human" as you do, it says, and I quote Nugent's article:
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, Part One, The Profession of Faith, reads: (27) “The dignity of man rests above all on the fact that he is called to communion with God;” and (44) “Man is by nature and vocation a religious being. Coming from God, going toward God, man lives a fully human life only if he freely lives by his bond with God.”

(Aside: No God, no dignity.)

>7 John5918: I'm not the one doing so, John, though yes, Nugent may very well be "making too much of a turn of phrase". But still I think he's making a very valid point.

Your CEO is doing what all marketers do: "to be happy/fulfilled/fully human you have to buy our product!" Except of course that your CEO doesn't actually have a product, but that's a different discussion.

And you don't seem to understand your own catechism? By saying that "man lives a fully human life" it implys that such a thing is possible, whereas you say that "we are all of us still maturing, developing, growing, exploring, learning until the day we die" implying that we can never achieve it.

I think the truth is that we all are fully human. Period. This talk of "potential" is in some ways nonsense. I have the potential to weigh 200 kg. So what!

"Expressing one's own ideal about it is not necessarily dehumanising someone whose ideal is different", but sometimes it is.

(Aside: "freely lives by his bond" Hah!)

a culture which rejects God cannot be considered fully human

Hasn't that statement already lead to extreme bloodshed? Hasn't it already justified the murder of millions? If your culture says about a neighboring culture that it can not be considered fully human, wouldn't they be well advised to stock the barricades?

I note that, in another thread, the top-poster, so upset at the dehumanization involved in speaking of something making you "fully human", has now expressly contrasted schools run by religious people with schools run by "humans" ( http://www.librarything.com/topic/142226#3635795 ).

>11 timspalding: See response over there :-)

Yeah I saw that response, and you deserve the same consideration for your turn of phrase that you offer to the writers of the catechism.

>13 Arctic-Stranger: Personally I think that a post typed out in a few minutes by some lone, uneducated "ass", as I was called, would be slightly more excusable than one published after several years of learned peer review, including guidance by the holy spirit, but then we probably have different motives.

I have said it before and I'll say it again. I apologise. I hope to do better in the future.

Fair enough. But the civil authorities are still coming after you :)

As opposed to human authorities?

> 4

I'm happy to "dehumanize" any old first-trimester fetus. They don't have to have Down Syndrome. "If a fetus is a person, why does it look like a steamed prawn?"

4: 31% of abortions are by women describing themselves as Catholic. 37% are by women describing themselves as Protestant. 18% of those describe themselves as born again or evangelical. Who is it again who is "dehumanizing" Downs Syndrome babies?

Here's the citation for StormRaven's statistics:

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html

Fair enough. But the civil authorities are still coming after you :)

I hope you know that this will go down on your permanent record...

Since we're going to throw this stuff around as if it mattered, the same source indicates that "others" and nones have the highest rates of abortion.

21: That's not unexpected. But pretending that it is "secular society" that is having all the abortions is just pushing one's head in the sand. Large numbers of women who identify as religious of varying stripes seek out and have abortions.

Indeed. As you see it, however, that wouldn't really matter, would it? I mean, if it's a personal decision, it doesn't matter if every religious person in the world decides against it.

23: No, it would'nt. It was nc blaming secular society for abortions. But given that about 70% of abortions are had by religious women, that is a fairly erroneous claim.

>24 StormRaven:: "It was nc blaming secular society for abortions. "

I never did so. I suggested that secular society aborts more Downs Syndrome babies than do religious people -- if you are at all familiar with, for example, Mormon practices, you know that this is so.

(And if about 70% of abortions are had by religious women, yet according to this topic on a new Pew study, about 80% of the US population identifies as religious, then it would appear that the 20% non-religious are having 30% of the abortions, which is disproportionate in their favor.)

#4: Just as soon as the secular world stops dehumanizing people with Downs Syndrome by systematically eradicating them before birth.

#25: I suggested that secular society aborts more Downs Syndrome babies than do religious people

"Systematically eradicating" are not words used with statistically variation. They imply intent and systematization, not secular women aborting a slightly higher percentage fetuses with Downs Syndrome then religious women.

>26 prosfilaes: "Systematically eradicating" are not words used with statistically variation.

I agree that they imply intent, and are thus problematic. That said, I looked up the statistics for abortion rates of fetuses that tested positive for Down's Syndrome and in the US, the UK and Europe the rates are high--in the 90 percentile. That figure suggests--if not a formal policy, then at least a common practice to advise aborting Down's Syndrome fetuses.

The statistics did not ask the religious affiliation of the women who had the abortions, however, so there is no evidence one way or the other whether they identified as religious or not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_syndrome#Abortion_rates

All the prenatal tests are apparently done in either the first or second trimester.

#26: "(And if about 70% of abortions are had by religious women, yet according to this topic on a new Pew study, about 80% of the US population identifies as religious, then it would appear that the 20% non-religious are having 30% of the abortions, which is disproportionate in their favor.)"

Well, according to a 2001 Guttmacher study, the abortion rate for (American) Catholic women was 22 per 1,000 women; the rate for Protestants was 18 per 1,000 women. (20-some% higher.)

Which, you know, is disproportionate.

25: So, despite the fact that religious women have the vast majority of abortions, you assert that the "secular" abort most of the Downs Syndrome pregnancies. With no evidence for your assertion but a hand wave about Mormons.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Back on ignore for you. You clearly have nothing worth bothering with to say.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

30: Good to see you laugh. Of course, given that the only available evidence suggests that something like 30% of the Downs Syndrome babies who are aborted are aborted by Catholic women, it may not seem so amusing after all.

Why does this sort of thing make me think of Scott DesJarlais?

I'm still taking offense to the original rhetorical gambit in #4 that equated the "dehumanized" atheists of the thread title with fetuses. Fetuses do not and should not receive the same consideration as women, men, and born children, whether they are atheists or not. The forced birth movement is still in the ascendant, I'm afraid, and this sleight-of-hand is its stock in trade.

32: I agree completely. A brainless fetus is not a person.

But the hypocrisy of the Bible-thumping crowd should also be pointed out here. Most abortions are had by people from their own ranks, so blaming the secular side of the debate for the prevalence of abortion, whatever the reasons for those abortions, is simply a lie.

>32 paradoxosalpha: Fetuses do not and should not receive the same consideration as women, men, and born children, whether they are atheists or not.

No argument from me.

I confess I find the resistance to providing access to adequate birth control options inexplicable in a group of people who are against abortions.

~30

I preferred JGL's version that went on for a page and a half, but I guess that Storm just isn't as religious. Personally, I think that the Holy Rite of HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! is a beautiful one with deep significance, that should not be slighted by those of too little faith.

35: Typing that while using a phone keyboard takes more time.

~36

Ah, then you are forgiven your lapse.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Just trying it on for size.

I think this laugh therapy is good for us.

HOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHAHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO

Well THAT felt good. Not that anyone will get down this far.

40: I did.

Did you catch the one HA?

42: Yep. Right there in the middle.

Perhaps it should all be offset by one column? Then in among all the OHs is one single AH.

"I'll have whatever she's having"

~42 et seq.

You know, I still don't see it.

Story of your life?

Sorry, too good to pass up!

~47

That is OK. You go with what you have.

FWIW, you do make a good straight man.

Here it is:

>20 Jesse_wiedinmyer: "I hope you know that this will go down on your permanent record..."

Oh, don't you worry, I've gotten to understand this lot fairly well. Every time I utter the word h u m a * I'll be hearing it won't I?

>21 timspalding: "nones have the highest rates of abortion"

Actually, nature has the highest rate of abortion? And as some here seem to equate nature with "God"...

"Only 30 to 50% of conceptions progress past the first trimester."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion#Spontaneous

>32 paradoxosalpha: "forced birth movement"

Read this earlier today:
"the whole question of whether to have a child or not should be the decision of the woman concerned, in consultation with her partner, if need be, but at least that her fears, plans and purposes are amongst the main considerations governing the question of bringing children into the world."
http://churchandstate.org.uk/2012/07/entrusted-by-god-with-the-defence-of-the-in...

As opposed to god-marketers attempting female birth-factory-enforcement.

What I like about his way of phrasing it, is that it gives the reasons why it should be her choice. She's the one who has the best chance of knowing whether bringing this child into the world is a good idea or not. Mr Ratzinger, sitting snugly in his palace in the Vatican, hasn't the foggiest.

>51 DiogenesOfSinope:: Perhaps if you knew that some of your interlocutors on this thread had lost children to miscarriages, you might be more circumspect in your reasoning. Though given your record on social decorum, that may be too much to hope for...

> 52 Perhaps if you knew that some of your interlocutors on this thread had lost children to miscarriages

Uh, the stats he cited suggest that's almost inevitable. As the father of at least one known miscarriage myself, I don't see what good any "circumspection" on the issue would serve.

It's entirely possible that some of the interlocutors in any particular thread about abortion will have had (...or will know women who have had...) abortions, too.

That in itself does not make the subject off-limits.

Perhaps I was too darkly cryptic in my meaning. Diogenes throws out the stats on miscarriages as if they speak for themselves to demonstrate that any moral objection to abortion is stupid. My point was that suffering a miscarriage in your own family does not automatically make you pro-choice.

And the reason is simple. The vast majority of miscarriages ("natural abortions") occur because there is something fundamentally wrong with the embryo/fetus -- chromosomal abnormalities, etc. -- that prevents that child from being carried to term.

There are no such malfunctions in healthy children who are aborted simply because their parents didn't want to have a child.

"Children" are not aborted.

Definition 1a of "child" from the Oxford English Dictionary:
"The unborn or newly born human being; fœtus, infant. App. originally always used in relation to the mother as the ‘fruit of the womb’."

Dehumanizing your victim so that you can feel morally justified in killing him or her is a long-standing practice. I'm pretty sure that's the whole point of this thread.

There are no such malfunctions in healthy children who are aborted simply because their parents didn't want to have a child.

This is not always true, and depends very heavily on how you describe a "malfunction".

~55

"There are no such malfunctions in healthy children who are aborted simply because their parents didn't want to have a child."

So, ah, you think it would be a good idea to force parents who don't want to have a child to have that child. A way of promoting more love in the world, no doubt.

First result on googling "child, definition":

child/CHīld/
Noun:
A young human being below the age of full physical development or below the legal age of majority.
A son or daughter of any age.
Synonyms:
kid - baby - infant - bairn - offspring - babe - son

I've a colleague who keeps an aborted fetus on her desk. Not a child.

If I had been aborted I would be in heaven right now with god and jesus.

I blame my parents.

from http://www.worldometers.info/abortions/

"According to WHO, every year in the world an estimated 40-50 million women faced with an unplanned pregnancy decide to have an abortion. This corresponds to approximately 125,000 abortions per day."

- It seems to me that anti-abortion fanatics have bitten off more than they can chew.

>57 nathanielcampbell: and 61: It was only a matter of time, I suppose, before Google would be considered more authoritative on the definition of English words than the Oxford English Dictionary.

That said, the child my wife and I lost to a miscarriage two years ago was and will always be my child. My first child. And I was from that moment and will always be a father.

>59 StormRaven:: "This is not always true, and depends very heavily on how you describe a "malfunction"."

True -- there are, of course, many conditions that can occur in the womb that endanger the life of the mother or will make the child's life essentially non-existent but which don't lead to natural miscarriage. That is why you will find many of us pro-lifers readily willing to concede to the extraordinary ethical difficulties--and this necessary legal exemptions for--the health and life of the mother and child.

But a perfectly healthy woman carrying a perfectly healthy child, whose sole crime is that his or her existence is an inconvenience?

And if you try to play the Downs' card, we circle back to my original point. Go ahead, if you like, and dehumanize those humans who have Downs syndrome. Make them less worthy of your respect and love. Justify their death.

#65: But a perfectly healthy woman carrying a perfectly healthy child, whose sole crime is that his or her existence is an inconvenience?

Why is there a question mark there? You're reciting a standard well-worn line, to which you know the well-worn answers.

And I was from that moment and will always be a father.

No, you were not, and are not. There is substantially more to being a father than contributing chromosomes to a fetus. Someday, when you actually are a father, you will look back on your statement here and realize just how juvenile your thinking was.

But a perfectly healthy woman carrying a perfectly healthy child, whose sole crime is that his or her existence is an inconvenience?

Pregnancy always has risks. The risks of pregnancy are greater than those of abortion. Who are you to say that a woman must risk her life when she doesn't want to because it makes you happy that she do so?

And if you try to play the Downs' card, we circle back to my original point.

No one has played the Downs card but you. You seem obsessed with Downs' syndrome children. Would it make you feel better if women who did not want Downs' syndrome babies had them and placed them in institutions? I don't see you running out to adopt a couple disabled children.

>68 StormRaven:: "The risks of pregnancy are greater than those of abortion. "

The standard pregnancy issues in two living human beings. The standard abortion leaves one of them dead. The former is "more risky" than the latter?

>67 StormRaven:: "No, you were not, and are not."

And here I thought the point of this thread was that it was the Catholics who disregard the humanity of atheists.

Now we see that it's really the other way around. Not only do you dismiss the humanity of my dead child, but you also dismiss my own office as that child's father.

If I thought that your arrogance would allow it, I would demand that you apologize.

Words cannot express the disgust welling up inside me at your despicable cruelty.

#70: And here I thought the point of this thread was that it was the Catholics who disregard the humanity of atheists.

Now we see that it's really the other way around.

That's a complete logical failure. Whether or not atheists are disregarding the humanity of Catholics does not change whether or not Catholics are disregarding the humanity of atheists, and in a moral sense does not justify it.

Not only do you dismiss the humanity of my dead child

Yes, as do many Catholics and a huge percentage of the world's Christians.

Words cannot express the disgust welling up inside me at your despicable cruelty.

From tu quotue to an appeal to emotion? Logical fallacies abound in this post, I see.

Not only do you dismiss the humanity of my dead child, but you also dismiss my own office as that child's father.

You do not have a dead child, and you are not a father. You have no "office" as a father. You simply are not one. You are a sperm donor to a fetus. Until you actually have a child, you will not understand how infantile your ranting on this point is.

Before my son was born, my wife had three miscarriages. While these were sad occasions, I was not a father when those took place, nor after, until my son was born and I actually had to undertake actually being a father.

My best friend had a son. His son was killed in a car accident. He was a father who lost a child. His experience losing his son and my experience regarding my wife's miscarried pregnancies are in no way comparable.

You demean actual fatherhood, and actual children with your fetishization of fetuses and the arrogance you display when you claim the title "father" despite your manifest lack of qualification for it. You are a disgusting and childish person.

Someday you may grow up. Given your infantile view of the world, I doubt it.

It was only a matter of time, I suppose, before Google would be considered more authoritative on the definition of English words than the Oxford English Dictionary.

Nathaniel, you're merely firing up the rhetoric, that is all. We all know--including you--that the most common usage of "child" ISN'T "fetus". Just word tricks, played for the same reason pro-lifers call the other side "baby-killers".

Sorry about your loss. I've suffered the same. I do not, however, consider myself a "mother", nor would I expect anyone else to reasonably do so.

> 70

Your histrionics here have certainly not increased my tendency to take you seriously as a "father" or a thinker.

Under the U.S. tax code, a parent may only take a deduction for a child after the child is born alive. The Social Security Administration will only issue a social security number for a child if it is born alive.

Do the IRS and the Social Security Administration also "dismiss the humanity of your dead child"? I think not. I think it is more likely that you are being ridiculous.

The standard pregnancy issues in two living human beings.

Nope, just one. A fetus isn't a person. The law is pretty clear on this.

The former is "more risky" than the latter?

Yes. A woman faces greater risks carrying a child to term than she faces getting an abortion. You seem to hate living women who decide that they don't want to face those risks, and want to make sure they run a greater risk of injury and death.

Why do you want women to be forced to face injury and death? Why are you in favor of killing adult women?

>76 StormRaven:: "The law is pretty clear on this."

And up until fairly recently, the law was pretty clear that negroes were only 3/5 of a person.

"Why do you want women to be forced to face injury and death? Why are you in favor of killing adult women?"

You got any stats to show that any more than a very small percentage of pregnancies lead to the death of the mother?

(Gosh, my mother must have been really lucky. Two live children and she didn't die! What are the odds?)

125,000 abortions a day. Every day. 365 days a year. Year after year after year, etc.

Who's going to stop abortion? Who's going to talk all these women into no longer having abortions but carry to term?

No one, that's who. Some things are just going to happen and there's not a god dam thing anyone can do about it. It's those libertarian ethics we hear so much about. Most people if not all people are strict libertarians - when it comes to themselves. Just like the marijuana thing. Or the alcohol thing back a hundred years ago. No one, not even a government, can make people do this or not do that in their private lives - if enough people decide that X activity is their right and their choice.

So, sorry Charlie, uh. I mean Nat. No one is listening to you. No one cares about your opinion about how they should or should not conduct their private lives. No one cares about your heartfelt beliefs and moral convictions.

Can you understand this, Nat, or is everyone's ultimate choice just to ignore you and pretend you are a potted plant - IF you continue to be pushy on this subject?

I can't speak for others here but you BORE me with your precious morally-superior rants.

The attempt to come to grips on this issue through the use of dictionaries is absurd.

The attempt to come to grips on this issue through the use of statistics might actually lead someplace, though.

Maternal deaths are rising in the US, have been rising for a generation now. (I'm away from my office references, too lazy to google for it, it's in the 10- or 20- per 100,000 range, I forget exactly.)

The rates are still a couple of orders-of-magnitude lower than they were in a state of nature, but it remains shockingly callous -- anti-life, even -- of the forced birth/anti-abortion forces to decide that other people must subject themselves to the risk.

I had not been following this topic. It surprised me that it had become an abortion topic, and fairly quickly.

Taking Bob's lead, I tried to find unbiased statistics on maternal deaths from live birth, from abortion, and post abortion.

I was not successful at finding any stats that seemed to me to be unbiased. I had hoped for something on CDC's website.

It may be that the reporting is not adequate.

One stat that kept coming up though, that I fully believe, is the large number of deaths from illegal abortions. Tying this topic to the other topic on contraception, it seems to me more important that we as societies move towards easier access to contraception.

#79: We've hit the crux of a extremely heavily argued issue, a basically unresolvable question of personhood. Most of the arguments here are going to be absurd.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/02/18/the-biblical-view-thats-youn... is an interesting article on the history of some of the religion here, though.

>82 prosfilaes:: Those of use who study historical theology for a living have long known and understood this. Throughout the Middle Ages (the period I study and am thus most familiar with), the standard theological opinion was the fetus was "ensouled" (i.e. received its soul and thus became a human person) after the first trimester.

There were, however, dissenting opinions. For example, the newest Doctor of the Church and icon of the Feminine Divine, Hildegard of Bingen, believed that ensoulment occurred one month after conception.

These various theological opinions, of course, were in many ways simply "guesses", as the scientific knowledge about human development in the womb was essentially zilch. It shouldn't come as a surprise, therefore, that the Church would revise its theology on personhood in the womb in light of advances in scientific knowledge. (I will repeat that for those who just dropped their coffee cups: the Church should change its ideas on human development to keep up with advances in scientific knowledge. Evolution-deniers can put their fingers in their ears and start humming a song.)

The principal reason that the Church has pushed personhood back to conception is that science can't point to a specific time in gestation when the bundle of cells all of a sudden becomes a human being. Since there is, then, no good reason to pick one arbitrary point--1 month? first trimester? second trimester?--the only ethically sufficient answer is to push it back to the start.

When I was born almost 7 weeks early, it was considered a miracle that I survived. Today, 7-week premies are routine in the NICU. With the advances in scientific knowledge and technology, who knows how far back we will push the point of viability outside the womb?

There seems to have developed on this thread the unfortunate (and groundless) assumption that I would order every women everywhere, on the pain of death, to carry their children to term. I openly admit that legalized abortion is a very tough, very sticky, very difficult ethical conundrum, and I know that it is highly unlikely it will be completely outlawed, nor do I think that a draconian complete ban is appropriate.

But to simply ignore the life of the child in the womb is a dark step down this road of inhumanity. To dehumanize others to justify their deaths is precisely what we in a liberal society should fight against. Peter Singer has amply demonstrated that there's no real logical reason, once you've made the killing of a child in the womb morally acceptable, why infanticide shouldn't be acceptable, too. After all, a child 2 days outside the womb can no more survive on its own than it could a week before; and the mother who would be inconvenienced by a child when she's in the first trimester will be just as inconvenienced after the child is born.

And when we make the criterion for whether you can kill another human or not the measure of how "burdensome" they are on you, what's to stop us from killing all "inconveniences"? How about our parents when we tire of having to care for them in old age? You may not feel sick, Dad, but you're too much of a burden on our family, so you need to die.

Finally, I was able to dig up a good report on maternal mortality rates, via UNICEF and the WHO: http://www.unfpa.org/webdav/site/global/shared/documents/publications/2012/Trend...

The nitty-gritty of the stats are beyond my mathematical abilities, so I skipped to the data tables. The maternal mortality rate in the United States in 2010 was 21 per 100,000 (reported at 880 maternal deaths for that year), with a lifetime risk of maternal death of 1 in 2400.

The best comparanda I could come up with in a quick google search was from a 2007 chart in the NYTimes (http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/31/how-scared-should-we-be/ ), which indicates that, for example, the lifetime risk of dying in a car accident is 1 in 84 and of dying by drowning is 1 in 1134. Thus, despite twice the risk, are we all running out to stop women from going for a swim?

It should also be noted that abortion itself carries risks. According to a recent report (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_128793.html ), women who have multiple abortions are at increased risk for premature and low birth weight babies thereafter.

I wasn't able to find what seemed like a non-biased source for actual mortality rates from abortion (for the mother, of course; the mortality rate for the child is pretty much 100%). Planned Parenthood claims that maternal mortality rates are 11 times higher than for abortion, which (if I'm doing the math correctly), would put the abortion maternal mortality rate at about 2 per 100,000. Pro-life groups, on the other hand, claim that worldwide, "Some 68,000 women die of unsafe abortion annually, making it one of the leading causes of maternal mortality (13%)." (This latter claim was sourced to here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2709326/ )

And up until fairly recently, the law was pretty clear that negroes were only 3/5 of a person.

Unborn fetuses are not eligible for social security numbers. Cannot qualify for benefits, tax deductions, or any other services provided to people. They do not count when the census is taken, and as a result count for zero when representation is determined. There are so many laws that exclude fetuses from the definition of "person" that to overturn this would require that almost everything about how our government works to be radically changed.

You got any stats to show that any more than a very small percentage of pregnancies lead to the death of the mother?

The stats show that in the U.S. about 21 pregnancies in 100,000 cause the death of the mother. But that is at least partially because they get good care, including, when necessary, abortions such as the one that Rick Santorum's wife got.

Let's put this in perspective. During 2007, the most deadly year for U.S. service personnel in the recent past, the mortality rate for active duty military personnel was about 90 per 100,000. While I will readily concede that 90 is larger than 21, it is kind of amazing that in the deadliest year in recent history, when the country was prosecuting two wars, the mortality rate for pregnant women in the U.S. was in the same order of magnitude as that of active duty U.S. service personnel.

The simple truth is that your policy will result in the deaths of many women. Actual wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters will die because of your infantile fetishization of fetuses. You think by bringing up Downs' babies you can claim some kind of moral high ground. You can't. Your position is one that only those who are the scum one would scrape off the bottom of one's shoe should hold. You are arguing for the death and injury of actual living persons. Your arguments are morally vile. Only truly reprehensible people would hold your position.

>84 StormRaven:: "Cannot qualify for benefits, tax deductions, or any other services provided to people"

Neither can two gay people who want to get married. Most states have passed laws specifically outlawing gay marriage. I guess there's no point in trying to change that, eh?

"Your position is one that only those who are the scum one would scrape off the bottom of one's shoe should hold."

Wow, I'm arguing for saving lives, you are arguing for taking them. And yet I'm the scum?

I want to extend human rights, you want to curtail them. I'm to be trodden underfoot?

Let's take up the cause of the unborn when we solve the problems of the born.

>86 LolaWalser:: "Let's take up the cause of the unborn when we solve the problems of the born."

Why must they be mutually exclusive? There are far more people suffering malnutrition in Africa than in the United States. Should we wait to help the hungry in the United States until we've fixed the problem in Africa?

#87

Exactly what kind of "help" are you talking about? What help are you extending to the born? It's easy to windbag abstractedly about what's none of your business, such as whether a woman is allowed to continue or terminate a pregnancy. But, help, you say? How do you propose to "help" them, these unwanted children? Adopt them, love them, raise them, set them on their feet? Really? Then why are there so many orphans, abandoned children, abused children, around?

You don't really wish to help, you wish to impose your view of morality on others.

Neither can two gay people who want to get married.

The unborn have no rights. Walk into court one of these days and argue for, say, the 1st Amendment rights of a fetus. You'll be laughed out of court. This sort of legal nonrecognition of fetuses as people is not unique to the U.S., and is, to my knowledge, universal.

Wow, I'm arguing for saving lives, you are arguing for taking them. And yet I'm the scum?

You're arguing for killing women. You've got no leg to stand on. You can pretend you're not advocating killing women, but the reality is that you are.

That's why you are the scum. You want to kill women to satisfy your fetish for fetuses.

I want to extend human rights

You want to take away a woman's right to self-determination. You want to force her to risk injury or death when she does not want to. You are not in favor of "extending human rights". You are in favor of death. You are not "pro-life" you are "pro-killing women".

>88 LolaWalser:: "You don't really wish to help, you wish to impose your view of morality on others."

Not only this assumption baseless, it's also quite cruel. What do you know of my motivations? What do you know about what I do to care for the people in my community?

You just don't want to face the moral judgment that killing another human being brings.

#90

Piffle.

Your evasions speak volumes, though. Come on, then. What help exactly do you propose to extend to all the unwanted children?!

>89 StormRaven:: "You're arguing for killing women. "

For someone who keeps arguing about legality, you seem to have a very odd understanding of agency and moral culpability. I am not in way arguing for killing anybody -- in fact, if you had read a single word of what I've written, you would know that my entire argument is based on not killing people.

You also completely neglected to read my post 83, in which I admitted that this is a very difficult ethical issue and that I do not believe a complete and total ban on abortion -- especially when the life of the mother is at stake -- is appropriate.

Let me say that again so that you stop making these baseless and absurd accusations against me: I do NOT believe that abortion should be banned when the life of the mother is at risk.

Now, the maternal mortality rate in the US is about 21 pregnancies out of 100,000. Let's multiply that by a factor of 100, to give us a "life of the mother is at risk" rate of about 2000 out of 100,000 pregnancies. The abortion rate is around 20,000-30,000 out of 100,000 pregnancies.

About 10 percent of abortions performed today in the United States would, therefore, be performed to save the life of the mother.

How about the other 90% of abortions?

>91 LolaWalser:: My wife and I do not earn a lot of money, but out of what we do earn, we give as much as we can, mostly to support the church we left in Indiana, which served an impoverished area of the city with a soup kitchen, food bank, and as many other services as its very limited budget could provide.

We volunteer our time to help out at local food banks and pantries where we live today.

We are also educators, and thus devote our lives to teaching, which we know is the single greatest gift we can give and the single most important factor in breaking cycles of poverty and underachievement.

What do you do?

Edited to add: You've also completely dodged the central issue here. These children are "unwanted" as you say. Is the solution to unwanted humans death? Is that your solution?

I am not in way arguing for killing anybody

Yes, you are. You are in favor of forcing women who do not want to to continue their pregnancies and face an increased chance of death. Some of these women will certainly die.

You are in favor of killing women.

You just want to evade this and pretend you can claim some sort of moral high ground. You can't. You are an advocate for death. You are the scum in this discussion.

-- in fact, if you had read a single word of what I've written, you would know that my entire argument is based on not killing people.

No. Your argument is based on your fetish for fetuses.

I neglected post 83, because your theological arguments are worthless bullshit built on a fetish for fetuses and a policy that condemns women to death. You also completely ignore the concept of female autonomy.

Your "theology" is moral slime. Those who formulated it, and those who advocate for it are worse than slime.

I do NOT believe that abortion should be banned when the life of the mother is at risk.

Then abortion should never be banned. Being pregnant increases the risk to a mother's life. By your argument here, all abortions should be legal at all times.

But that's not what you are arguing. You are arguing that women who do not want to face those risks must be required to in order to satisfy your infantile fetish for fetuses.

You are pro-death. But only so long as it is women who are dying.

How do the statistics on maternal death break out? Specifically do non pregnancy health factors impact maternal mortality rates?

Are there reliable statistics on maternal deaths from abortion and from post abortion complications?

I tried to find such information, but was not successful.

>94 StormRaven:: "Then abortion should never be banned. Being pregnant increases the risk to a mother's life. By your argument here, all abortions should be legal at all times."

And by your argument, pregnancy should be banned. It is increases the risk to a mother's life. We can't have that. Ban it!

And while we're at it, we should ban automobiles, whose risk to our lives is 28 times higher than that of pregnancy. (The lifetime risk of death from pregnancy is in 1 in 2400; that of driving a car is 1 in 84.)

But SR has revealed to us just how risky pregnancy is. I can't believe the risks my mother took to have me -- obviously, most women don't want to take that risk. Better to abort the fetus than risk giving birth. After all, we don't need children, do we?

How lucky my mother must have been, to survive not just one but two pregnancies! Wow! With that kind odds, we should get her playing the lotto!

>96 nathanielcampbell: And while we're at it, we should ban automobiles

And guns.

>95 richardbsmith:: Again, Richard, the only good study I could find was the following, from the UN and WHO: http://www.unfpa.org/webdav/site/global/shared/documents/publications/2012/Trend... (PDF)

The major factor it appears to focus on separating out is HIV/AIDS.

#93

And you STILL haven't answered the question! Why is that?

You've also completely dodged the central issue here.

No, I haven't.

These children are "unwanted" as you say. Is the solution to unwanted humans death? Is that your solution?

I don't pretend I have a "solution" for other people's problems and I don't pretend I have the right to moralise about their choices.

That's what YOU do.

Now, I'm going to cut this short and summarise the obvious: you do NOT wish to "help" the unwanted children in any real, tangible, significant way--because you CAN'T. (See, I'm giving you credit, sight unseen and details unknown, that you are "a good person".) Not only are you NOT going to adopt ALL the unwanted children, you probably won't do so even for six, or three, maybe not one. And when/if you have children of your own, I bet you aren't going to go for the full theoretical number. And that's your convictions about the sacredness of human life and every fetus notwithstanding. Because you too, with your ridiculous religion, operate in a reality which imposes limits--to the best laid plans, and to the workings of our loftiest ideals.

So what your "help" amounts to is nothing but the call to impose YOUR morality on others. You would have all the unwanted fetuses brought to term, whatever the opinion of their parents (or mother alone). You would then have these unwanted children--well, I tried to get it out of you, but you evaded it, so I must speculate--imposed on the people who don't want to or can raise them. That's a lovely start in life. And if not then, what? The orphanages? The street? The way it worked in the good old Middle Ages? {Your Vision Here}

However you picture it, it's not happening without imposition and dictatorship, without your church's totalitarian control over every womb in the kingdom. And that, to you, would be more humane than the society we have now?

>98 nathanielcampbell:: "I don't pretend I have a "solution" for other people's problems and I don't pretend I have the right to moralise about their choices. "

My parents are underwater on their mortgage, and if my father loses his job again (as he did a few years ago), I will have to support them. I don't have the means to do that, however. So instead, I will kill my parents. That way, they aren't a drain on my resources.

Are you going to moralise about my choice? Are you going to tell me that killing my parents is wrong?

>98 nathanielcampbell:: "And you STILL haven't answered the question! Why is that?"

If I recall correctly, your question was, "What am I going to do to take care of all the unwanted children?"

Well, frankly, I don't have an easy solution to that.

But at least I don't grasp at the easy solution you offer: kill them. That's your solution.

And while we're at it, we should ban automobiles

You see, what you fail to notice is personal autonomy here. When someone gets into a car, they usually do so voluntarily. They accept the risk they run.

When a woman chooses to become pregnant voluntarily, she chooses to run the risks of her condition. But if she chooses to lower that risk and terminate her pregnancy, you would deny her that choice. You would force her, against her will, to run the risk of injury and death because you have a fetish for fetuses.

That is why you are pro-death. You would compel women who do not want to run those risks to run those risks. And some of those women who you force to carry their baby to term will die from complications of their pregnancy.

You deny female autonomy and promote female death and have the temerity to call yourself "pro-life" and assert you are trying to "expand human rights".

You are neither pro-life or pro-human rights on this. You are pro-death and for the restriction of human rights. Your position of vile, and you want to evade that truth.

But that's your usual dance: dodge, weave, evade, dissemble, lie.

#100

A completely bullshit proposal as analogy to real-life problems of real-life women simply doesn't work.

No, I'm not going to moralise about it because if you don't know by now that killing is wrong--or at least, the consequences such an act will draw--it would be useless. I'll just let the law get you.

>103 LolaWalser:: " if you don't know by now that killing is wrong"

I'm going to savor the irony that I, who have been arguing consistently that killing human beings is wrong, am being lectured on the immorality of killing by someone who supports the killing of unborn human beings.

>104 LolaWalser:: Hey, SR was the one who suggested that the little child my wife and I buried two years ago was not, in fact, a child. That all we lost, in our deep pain and suffering, was a bundle of little cells, not to be mourned, not to be cried over.

You want to talk about "stinking little turds"? Let's talk about StormRaven and his absolutely depraved and demeaning dismissal of my and my child's humanity!

He's the one who dismissed our "problem" as not a problem, as just a thing! He's the one who declared our suffering useless and improper!

104: The little turd is young and foolish. Maybe at some point he'll grow up and recognize his pile of bullshit theology for what it is, but I doubt it.

105: I'm going to savor the irony that I, who have been arguing consistently that killing human beings is wrong

The irony is that you haven't been arguing that at all. You've been advocating the death of human beings because you have a childish fetish for fetuses.

Like I said, your position is one that can only be held by slime.

Let's talk about StormRaven and his absolutely depraved and demeaning dismissal of my and my child's humanity!

You aren't a father. You are a child who doesn't understand the first thing about fatherhood.

Perhaps you should go tell the IRS, the SSA, the Census Bureau and a couple dozen other organizations that they are "depraved and demeaning" towards your non-child. They dismiss its humanity as well.

109: You have the temerity to call be the turd whose thinking is bullshit, while you walk around in your arrogance and declare that the child my wife and I lost was not a child!

You are, and your thinking is bullshit.

I have been through three miscarriages you sniveling weasel. I have also been through my best friend's experience of the death of an actual child. The two experiences are not comparable in any way.

Your whiny and self-righteous claims to be a "father" are demeaning and insulting to every actual father who has lost an actual child. You talk about my arrogance, but your ignorant rantings demonstrate that you are truly the arrogant one to arrogate to yourself a claim you simply do not have the right to.

>111 StormRaven:: I should apologize, for it seems that you, too, have experienced the pain and suffering of loss. I grieve with you for that.

And yet, your experience seems to have hardened you against it. I was asking for compassion, and you offered "bullshit" instead...

Here is an example of exactly how nathanielcampbell is pro-death. He wants women to die so that mindless lumps of protoplasm can be saved.

nathanielcampbell, you are a killer. Everything you stand for is responsible for Savita's death. If there is the Hell you believe in, your advocacy of the bullshit policies that devalue women's lives and murder them means that you are going straight there. And you'll deserve it.

Didn't Nathaniel say he was in favor of exceptions for the life of the mother?

#114: In theory, legally the doctors should have had the right to make exceptions for the life of the mother. But Ireland refused to make the exceptions clear in law.

>115 prosfilaes:

But can Nathaniel be blamed when he's on the other side of that?!

>115 prosfilaes: So the problem is one of unclarity in the legal system? From everything I read about it this has been a tragic wake-up call to the government and they are now, belatedly, going to clarify the law.

#118: I would make a distinction between accidental unclarity and willful obfuscation; from what I understand, the lawmakers didn't encode the judicial rules in law so as not to make anyone feel they were safe to take advantage of them.

116: Yes, he can. The Irish laws in place were extremely close to the regime nathaniel advocates for, including an "exception for the life of the mother". And we can see how that worked out in practice. The reality is that the policies that anti-abortion advocates favor kill women. The anti-abortion lobby isn't the "pro-life" lobby. They are pro-death.

Oh, and look at some of the other side effects of devaluing women's lives: Irish doctors would break women's pelvises rather than perform Cesarean deliveries. Why? Because doctors believed a woman could only have four Cesarean deliveries before the scarring reduced her fertility, and they wanted to make sure that women could keep pumping out more babies than that. Most of these operations were done without the woman's consent. They resulted in permanent damage to the women subjected to them.

So not only is the Catholic church pro-death, they are pro-pain for women. It's a vile organization, and only gets more vile the more you look at it.

>113ff, esp. 119: "The Irish laws in place were extremely close to the regime nathaniel advocates for"

Except that they aren't. I'm not necessarily advocating for a dramatic change in the legal status quo in the United States, vis-a-vis abortion. Rather, I'm advocating for a dramatic change in the moral status quo in the United States, vis-a-vis abortion. I'm trying to get people to wake up the moral complexities of human life, rather than shrugging them aside. (By the way, I would suggest that the next time you go to a "baby shower", you remind the expectant mother that it's not a baby until it's born, so maybe you should call it "bundle of cells not yet human" shower.) Mine is an argument of persuasion, not coercion; an argument for individual conscience, not federal legal mandates.

I am not advocating the coercive use of statutory law to effect that change.

(Anyone want to take bets on whether SR will ignore this statement and continue to declare that I advocate that which I do not advocate?)

#120: By the way, I would suggest that the next time you go to a "baby shower", you remind the expectant mother that it's not a baby until it's born, so maybe you should call it "bundle of cells not yet human" shower.

en.Wiktionary defines "baby shower" as "A party celebrating the pending or recent birth of a child, involving guests giving gifts (typically babycare items) to the parent(s)." That is, it's about a born child, not a fetus.

I'm trying to get people to wake up the moral complexities of human life, rather than shrugging them aside.

The funny thing is, a lot of pro-choice people want people to wake up to the moral complexities of human life instead of shrugging them aside. They'll point out that instead of beating on the drum of the life of the fetus over and over, proper sex education and making birth control easily available would cut down on a huge number of abortions. They'll point out that the many of the same people who argue against abortion are also against birth control or any governmental support that would help the mother or the child. You don't get to place yourself as the only side dealing with moral complexities.

>121 prosfilaes: proper sex education and making birth control easily available would cut down on a huge number of abortions

And a lot of religious people would argue the same thing. See how much we have in common?

>121 prosfilaes:: "A party celebrating the pending or recent birth of a child"

Most baby showers I've been forced to go or my wife has contributed gifts for in the past few years were for children not yet born -- the recent exception was for a couple who had just adopted a beautiful baby girl.

"proper sex education...making birth control easily available...government support that would help the mother or and the child"

I'm pretty sure I've said time and again that I support all of these things. I think there are two key societal changes that will vastly help the situation: (1) better education (not just sex ed, but education across the board, which we know is the silver bullet to the many ills associated with poverty); and (2) better social support for women who want to have children, so that abortion isn't the default and only available choice. (I'm "pro-choice" in the sense that, if a woman chooses to carry her child to term, we should do everything we can to help her, rather than encouraging an abortion as the "best" choice. It consistently boggles my mind that pro-lifers are considered "paternalistic" because they advocate one type of choice, yet the pushers of abortion who persuade especially poor and minority women that abortion is somehow "best" are given a pass. Then there's the twaddle being spread by one CBS journalist that "pro-lifers are just trying to build up the white race," nevermind that abortion rates among minorities are higher than among whites, sometimes almost double.)

The fundamental misconception floating around this thread seems to be that if I'm pro-life, I must also match up with the stupidest version of pro-life: gun-loving, woman-hating, war-mongering redneck. My pro-life philosophy, in fact, compels me not only to oppose abortion on moral (but not necessarily legal) grounds, but also to be a moderate pacifist, to oppose capital punishment, and to advocate gun-control far in excess of what even most Democrats would propose.

But I also think that the pro-abortion side often has a fundamental moral disconnect, as well: they value the rights of the mother absolutely, and ignore completely the rights of the child. If the pro-life side supposedly ignores the mother (and I hope I've made it clear that this pro-lifer has extreme concern for the life of the mother, too), then the pro-abortion side just as easily and callously ignores the life of the child.

I'm trying to get people to wake up the moral complexities of human life, rather than shrugging them aside.

By claiming that the moral status of a lump of brainless protoplasm is equivalent to a walking, breathing, thinking woman. But it's okay if she dies in agony. She's just a woman. You've got a handful of cells that need saving.

Nothing but "moral choice" compelled Irish doctors to subject a couple generations of women to a painful and unnecessary procedure that involved leaving many of them them with a pronounced limp, constant pain, and other consequences including, for some, an inability to walk. When you devalue women's lives in the way you advocate, that's the real world result you get. You could just own up and admit that the consequence of the positions you advocate will result in pain and death for women. But you won't. You'll evade and dissemble. As always.

The pro-death lobby has the most childish view of the "moral complexities of human life" possible. And, like you, they have the temerity to try to argue that they are the ones with a nuanced position. The vast majority of pro-life advocates argue for a right to terminate up to a particular point in a pregnancy - usually something on the order of 20 or so weeks, after which the rights of the fetus would predominate. But for the pro-death lobby this isn't enough, because a fetus must be fetishized from the moment of conception.

But that's about what I would expect from nathaniel "pro-death" campbell.

#123: Most baby showers I've been forced to go or my wife has contributed gifts for in the past few years were for children not yet born

Really? I don't know what you would get a fetus. Most baby shower gifts I've heard of were for babies, not fetuses; fetuses can't really use anything, especially not clothes or cribs.

The fundamental misconception floating around this thread seems to be that if I'm pro-life, I must also match up with the stupidest version of pro-life: gun-loving, woman-hating, war-mongering redneck.

I don't think Ireland has many gun-loving rednecks. You spend a lot of time making emotional arguments against abortion, you'll get lumped in with people who spend a lot of time making emotional arguments against abortion.

My pro-life philosophy, in fact, compels me not only to oppose abortion on moral (but not necessarily legal) grounds

It's a distinction I find utterly bizarre in this case.

It's useless, isn't it? I can repeat until I'm blue in the face the following statement: "I do not support the illegalization of abortion," and it won't make a bit of difference. SR has put his fingers in his ears and just keeps humming his "pro-death" chant, oblivious to what I'm actually saying.

I'm finished with this. There's no point in trying to explain to SR that I don't believe what he thinks I believe.

He doesn't want to hear me when I say that I value all life. He doesn't want to listen. He doesn't want to care. I have neither agency nor autonomy in SR's world; I am what he deems me to be. I have no choice in the matter. If "pro-choice" SR decides that I am "pro-death", then there's nothing I can do. All must believe as SR believes; there is no alternative. There is no freedom. It is determined. It is finished.

Anyone who shows any concern whatsoever for an unborn child is simply inhuman, a beast, "pro-death". There is no alternative: choose death or death. There is only one moral certainty in SR's world: until a fetus is born to the world, it is nothing.

(One wonders if SR chimes in when friends post ultrasound pictures on Facebook to remind them that "it's not a baby yet!" When an expectant mother coos because her baby fetus is kicking inside, does he shush her? "It's just a bundle of cells -- stop getting all emotional!")

...

>125 prosfilaes:: "It's a distinction I find utterly bizarre in this case."

And I can understand that. Many of my pro-life friends find it not only bizarre but corrupted and reprehensible. If a fetus is a human life, then abortion is murder and should be illegal. Period.

But it isn't that simple, not in the least. I don't see that making abortion illegal tomorrow would make the moral situation better, because society has not established the framework to support alternatives to abortion for women who face unplanned pregnancies.

My moral goal is to see society move in a direction where abortion becomes unnecessary in all but the most problematic of cases (rape and to save the life of the mother). And in addition to the educational and social support changes that need to be made, that evolution also demands a change of moral perspective that values human life even in the womb. The greatest social support systems will not lessen the urge to terminate an unwanted pregnancy until there is a moral recognition that intentional termination is wrong.

I could go on about the civil rights aspects of abortion, to note for example the ways in which it disproportionately affects minority populations -- with 50% or more of African-American pregnancies ending in abortion, it almost rises to the level of genocide. I could argue (as some friends have done) that abortion holds a similar place in our society as slavery did two centuries ago, and that a century from now, our descendents (at least, those we haven't killed before their first breaths) will look back on it with the same moral disapprobation.

But the danger that I see in such rhetoric is precisely the danger that SR sees in the extremists on one side but fails to see in his own absolutism: that we lose sight of the moral complexities that bind mother and child in a web of causes and effects.

This moral dogmatism plagues both sides--a tendency to ignore one half or the other of that temporary unity. The extreme pro-lifers seem callously to ignore the mother; SR and his ilk callously ignore the child.

Can we care for both, please?

Can we care for both, please?

Don't pretend you care for "children". You don't give a damn about them once they are born.

Don't like abortion--don't have one. Fuck off from other people's choices.

>129 LolaWalser: Don't like abortion--don't have one. Fuck off from other people's choices.

But isn't that what Nathaniel is saying (albeit without the abusive and vulgar language which we have come to expect from certain posters)? He doesn't like abortion and presumably he and his wife will choose not to have one, unless her life is in danger. But he has said over and over again that he is not in favour of legislating about other people's choices.

Don't pretend you care for "children". You don't give a damn about them once they are born.

What evidence do you have that Nathaniel doesn't give a damn about children?

I am not a parent and therefore feel reluctant to come down on one side or other of this debate on practical experiential grounds. I can only make judgements (where appropriate) on purely ethical grounds.

My ethical considerations are that - unless she freely expresses otherwise (for example where a mother has terminal cancer) - the health of the mother is of paramount importance. The life of an unborn baby is also important, so I morally oppose abortion for flippant, 'lifestyle' reasons, and I'm sure there have been such cases.

I also have a moral dilemma about "when is an unborn child a child, and when is it simply a lump of brainless protoplasm"? This article sharpens that particular debate, and brings it into focus :

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/25/worlds-most-premature-baby_n_853389.htm...

It is uncanny how the description changes as soon as the 'fetus' is born, and suddenly becomes a 'child'. Yet the status of 'fetus' in that instance would have continued for many more weeks if "it" had been carried to full term. Instead, it's a "heroic little miracle who fought and beat the odds". This is where the entire debate gets lost, when it's expressed in such absolute, black and white terms as within this topic.

(Won't post - perhaps there's something that checks against previous posts and refuses identical ones to prevent spam? In which case, this addition should do it...)

It's also worth noting that the rush to judgment on the death of the woman in Ireland is premature and has ignored many of the medical details in the case.

According to The Irish Times, "Ms Halappanavar presented on October 21st with back pain at Galway University Hospital, where she was found to be miscarrying at 17 weeks. She died of septicaemia on October 28th. Her husband Praveen has said she asked several times over a three-day period that the pregnancy be terminated."

From what we know so far, the septicaemia was prompted by an infection of E Coli ESBL, which may or may not have also been the cause of the miscarriage. (Source: http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/david-quinn-media-rushes-to-judge-but... )

Furthermore, it is not entirely clear whether an abortion would have saved her from the E Coli infection. According to one doctor:

What really bothers me about the story is that it recklessly thrusts upon an uneducated public an unproven and questionable assertion that this woman would have lived if she had been allowed to have an abortion. The more detailed stories that I have read indicate that she died of septicemia AND and E.coli ESBL. This provides valid reason to question whether this woman would have survived, regardless of the treatment. This ESBL-producing E.coli strain is harder to treat than MRSA. The E.coli ESBL infection may not have even been related to the miscarriage initially, but she’s been cremated, so there is no way to do further investigation. The E.coli ESBL could have been the cause of the miscarriage in the first place. Again, my point is that there is no conclusive evidence that earlier termination of the pregnancy would have saved this woman. She had a terribly antibiotic resistant infection that caused septicemia. It is very possible that her death could have been hastened (and actually was) by the medical removal (D & C) of the baby, dead or alive. If there was infection in the uterus, once the blood vessels were ruptured the infection quickly became systemic, and antibiotics were of no help.

(Source: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/getreligion/2012/11/on-media-malpractice-and-savita... )

Finally, I would note that, under Irish law, a hospital is permitted both to induce labor and to perform an abortion when the mother's life is in danger. If it turns out that they should have done so in this case but did not, then I'm not sure what changing Ireland's laws would do to remedy the situation.

>129 LolaWalser:: "Don't pretend you care for "children". You don't give a damn about them once they are born."

I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to say to this. As a teacher, I had always understood "caring for the young people" to be central to my vocation. But I guess that Lola and SR know me better than I do. I guess I'm just kidding myself when I volunteer to help with the 2-year-old nursery class at church, or carry bags of food from the food pantry for those who need them, or donate new baby clothes to my parents' church back in Colorado when they took in a pregnant woman last month (similar to the case Arctic mentions below). I guess I'm just kidding myself when I work to instill an awareness of human dignity and social empathy in my students.

SR and Lola have declared that I am a pro-death misanthrope. They've never met me; they've never seen my life. But they know, apparently, that all my professions of love for neighbor are hollow and self-deceiving.

I thought this kind of reality-denying, divisive and extremist rhetoric had become the hallmark of the Tea Party -- but apparently, SR and Lola have a share in it, too. Tolerance and empathy? Why would we want to profess values such as those?

I was talking to someone about abortion and they were making the case that all pro-life did not care about kids. I mentioned a recent example in a African American church, where a young woman got pregnant, and the church pitched in to help her-to the point where she moved in with the pastor's family so she could have constant help.

the response? "I bet the pastor was the one who got her pregnant."

Post #129 reads like the response of someone who has not the critical ability to discern any moral distinctions.

Regardless of the ultimate rightness or wrongness of abortion in general or any particular abortion in particular, regardless of what god's opinion on abortion really is - that is an issue that can be and apparently will be debated by one and all for the foreseeable future.

I think the politics of abortion is now on the democrats side and will be from now on - thanks to the extremist view on the subject to which the republican party has been committed for several decades now - which gets more extreme as time goes on, both in terms of rhetoric and legislation.

So yes, everyone, please argue this out ninety millions ways to Sunday. Democrats can only win in the end and republicans can only lose.

Please continue. Keep the issue alive and kicking. In the end it's just another club to beat baggers and their ilk over the head - metaphorically speaking, of course.

I think there's a deeper problem here: not being able to distinguish between other people's motives in doing or believing X and what you think of X.

For example, people voting for Obama are not doing so because they love socialism, hate God and want to turn your children into homosexuals, and people who voted for Romney are not doing so because they hate poor people, want to send American jobs to China and are hoping to usher in a theocracy. Similarly, pro-life people are not pro-life because they hate women, nor are pro-life people motivated by a desire to kill babies.

Of course, one may attack these choices and beliefs for their result—good motives are no guarantee of anything—but it takes a deep blindness to humanity to confuse what you think about someone's views is a clear picture of how they themselves see their motives. This blindness is all too common today.

Another MORAL equivalency argument. Yawn.

Here's the real world factual non-equivalence real world facts:

1. Too many republicans are haters. Really. Not fake. Actual haters. And they base their votes on hate - of everything they've been convinced by fox and limbaugh et al. that Obama and democrats stand for.

2. democrats are human beings with the usual set of human foibles and short-comings. But by and large they don't hate people. They fear those who obviously hate them. Those they can plainly see hate them, by the haters actions and words. But to fear those who obviously lust after doing you harm in some way - that is a perfectly normal human reaction. One must do what one can do legally to keep those who hate you from doing you harm.

There's your big divide in the electorate. Deny it all you want. Deny it until you turn blue in the face and fall down dead with exhaustion from the effort. The facts and reality still remain the same.

For the god damn umpteen dozenth time: THERE IS NO MORAL EQUIVALENCY. There was before the last 30 - 50 years no doubt but NOT ANY MORE. It is a case of that was then, this in now. The barbarians (who call themselves republican christians) are not at the gate anymore. They are in the effing house.

Please, for the love of god - IF you love god - then quit boring us with the moral equivalency argument. No one is buying that shit.

>137 JGL53:

It's not a moral equivalency argument. What motivates someone is basically immaterial to the morality of their actions. But systematically failing to understand others' motivations is a social disability.

I certainly agree that hatred can enter into motivations. But those who think any significant number of pro-lifers are motivated by hating women, or pro-choicers motivated by hating babies, aren't understanding people as they actually are. They're projecting how they feel onto others illegitimately.

For example, I think your posts are shot through with disgusting, distorting hatred. But I recognize that your motivations have, ultimately, some positive relationship to a genuine and heartfelt conception of the good. Few people actually make evil their good, and failing to understand that is a social disorder not unlike failing to detect when someone is being friendly toward you, when someone is being sarcastic or when it might be appropriate to meet someone's eyes.

If a person's words and actions tell me "I hate you. You are my enemy. I will do anything, legal or illegal that I can get away with) to turn you into a second class citizen - then I think my accurate psychoanalyzing of the person is a secondary concern.

If decent human beings can somehow work together to send the republican party to the place where the Whig party now resides - then the books can be written by historians concerning what was wrong with the brains of the late, and not so great, republican party and we can buy those books and appreciate what their actual problems were. As a study in history. As a study in abnormal psychology. Gee, that will be fun.

BTW - maybe you have a problem with the word "hate".

Is it ok if I just say I intensely dislike the republican party based on their rhetoric and actions?

So - would YOU say you hate genocide or just intensely dislike it?

>138 timspalding:

It may well be a secondary concern! If, indeed, the other side wants either (1) oppressive laws on what is merely women's own bodies and business, or (2) facilitates and excuses the wholesale murder of babies, motivations may well be the least important issue at stake. But if you don't care what motivates people, you shouldn't go around pretending to know, let alone constructing elaborate, hateful fantasies about it.

Anyway, I'm unclear on why Republicans are involved here. We were discussing the Irish and Catholics. No Irish people are Republicans—well, in this sense anyway—and the majority of Catholics are Democrats.

The conversation had turned to abortion and I commented on that. Abortion seems to be a concern of many catholics.

I think a slight majority of white catholics voted republican this time. It was hispanics, who are predominately catholic, who voted overwhelmingly for Obama.

But all that is changing the subject again. Might you answer my question to you about the word "hate"?

When is it rational to use the word, if ever? E.g., do you hate genocide, or do you just dislike it intensely?

You miss my point. One may, for example, hate abortion—even think it amounts to genocide. But if you think pro-choicers are motivated by a desire to commit genocide, or indeed to do evil at all, you've misunderstood them severely. It may hurt the dogmatic to concede that the other side is merely wrong, not motivated by a desire to do wrong, but it is generally so.

Obviously there are limits. The Nazis were actually motivated to kill Jews. Although they had a concept of the good—something about the virtuous German race having a grand time of it, unconstrained and unpolluted by inferiors. But their notion of the good was evil in intent, not merely in result.

What evidence do you have that progressives/liberals/democrats have misjudged in some important way the motivations of republicans/teabaggers/conservatives?

And put aside the absolutism diversion for once.

Just give me a straight answer. Is this all just your baseless opinion - or can you provide some concrete facts that indicate some or many progressives etc. are just misjudging the motivations of republicans, etc.?

>143 JGL53:

The flash-point here is SR's assertion that Nathaniel is himself "pro-death," and Lola's assertion that Nathaniel doesn't care about children. At the level of actual motivation, both are perfectly absurd on their face. I would add that there's no evidence Nathaniel is a teabagger, and his attacks on teabaggers would seem to suggest otherwise. Here, I think, we have a second cognitive problem—seeing the world in black and white, with us and against.

I don't think a one dog experiment gets us anywhere.

Do you have any real world proof or evidence that even some sizable minority of progressives are like Lola in her attitude?

I think the majority of progressives see the actions and words of conservatives and they perceive an obvious threat to their constitutional rights. Again, what matters the motivation? Though, now that I think about it, many conservatives proudly tell us exactly what their motivations are all the time. That's one of the scarier things about them.

>140 timspalding: No Irish people are Republicans—well, in this sense anyway

Glad you added "in this sense" to that statement! Most Irish people are indeed Republicans in the other, more generic, sense of the word!

>145 JGL53:: "Do you have any real world proof or evidence that even some sizable minority of progressives are like Lola in her attitude?"

I think Tim's point is precisely that most normal people don't pathologically fail to discern basic human motives. His point is that the imputations against me of Lola and SR appear absurd to most normal human beings, whether conservative or liberal / progressive.

Unfortunately, you seem to fall into the same trap that Lola and SR do. In your world, if you're not a liberal / Democrat, you aren't human. That's ridiculous.

> 147

Well, let's say that such cases are not quite as human as they could be, i.e., if they weren't in the thrall of fox and limbaugh and the rest of the conservative entertainment complex they could act like something more than a bunch of tailless bipedal monkeys.

Paranoid schizophrenia is certainly human - but is it the best of being human? I think perhaps it is not. And such is the definition of teabaggerism.

And the naked assertion that liberals are somehow just as bad - morally equivalent - in bullshit.

I think anytime someone demonized a whole group of people (Pro-lifers, pro-choicers, Republicans, Democrats, Tea-partiers, etc) one runs the risk of being more biased than the people they are attacking.

I like where, when asked for an example, the response is, "well I meant a group, not a person."

I remember sitting in a Sunday School class in a liberal Episcopal church in the early '80s. The topic was nuclear disarmament, and talk was a lot of self-righteous crap about how "the Generals" were all trying to destroy the world. I pointed out that using terms like that lowered the debate, and instead of easy targets, they might want to do some real research and find out what the Pentagon's 50 year plan really was. (this was before the Web) I might have just stood up and said that I believed in nuking Moscow and New York from the response I got.

Some people have strong opinions, but stronger prejudices. And not all those people are conservative.

I recall working in a very mixed inner-city Catholic parish in west London in the early 1980s when the chairman of the parish council, an elderly Irishman, announced to the meeting that "the blacks" are stealing money out of the collection plate. The parish priest handled it very well. Looking shocked, he said, "You mean Dr Andrew is stealing from the collection plate?", indicating a very rich and respectable Indian doctor who was also on the parish council. "No, of course Dr Andrew would never do such a thing," was the response. "You mean Daphne is stealing money out of the collection plate?", indicating a stout and elderly Caribbean grandmother who was one of the stalwarts of the parish. "No, of course Daphne would never do such a thing". One by one the parish priest indicated all the "black" members of the parish council and named quite a few other "blacks" who were parish stalwarts, and each time the answer was the same: "No, he or she would never do such a thing". It illustrated the point that the group who are accused of doing bad things are often the anonymous "them" out there, whereas all the people one actually knows from that group are just ordinary people like thee and me.

Interesting sideline on how a foetus is counted in official reports on deaths. A South African Railways Safety Regulator report on a fatal train accident in 2010 states "there were four fatalities (including a foetus)". However on the other hand, I have searched reports of the 1998 Omagh bombing in Northern Ireland in which a pregnant woman and her foetus were killed but in this case, whilst often mentioning that she was pregnant, the foetus doesn't appear to be included as part of the 29 dead.

#144

Don't talk about ME. Ever. Want to discuss my opinions--then do so to my face.

I was referring to the lengthy previous conversation where it became perfectly clear Nathaniel doesn't give a fuck about what would happen to the children born from unwanted pregnancies. Because that's where Nathaniel's buck stops. Love the fetus, and to hell with everything and everyone from there.

#147

I think Tim's point is precisely that most normal people don't pathologically fail to discern basic human motives.

Your basic motive is to impose your immature view of morality on other people. Abortion is an issue that convulses REAL lives of REAL people, first of all women. You can treat it as an abstract question, but don't expect respect for that.

>152 LolaWalser: If a post in a thread where you are active which can be read by you is not to your face then I'm not sure what is. And now you have answered it and clarified your position; thank you. Did we really need the little temper tantrum? Ever?

perfectly clear Nathaniel doesn't give a fuck about what would happen to the children born from unwanted pregnancies

I would still doubt whether you know enough about Nathaniel to make such an assumption.

Cripes. Is this your day off or what? "Referring to the conversation."

I don't give a fig what you think I may think of Nathaniel blah blah blah blah.

>155 LolaWalser: How did you know? Sunday is my day off. You're very perceptive.

If you don't give a fig about what anybody thinks, I wonder why you engage in these conversations? Is it only so that you can post your own opinion but not listen to others?

> 149

Point taken.

EXCEPT - when the majority of some self-identified group demonstrate, over and over again, by what they say and advocate and do, that they are a horrible cancer on civilization, then someone must needs call them out on their obvious evil intentions. If one or two or more of them are actually not part of the evil plan, then they need to get out, quit identifying themselves with the evil doers, and problem solved.

E.g., are there republicans who are not a massive part of the problem, but are actually swell people any decent person could hold up as a moral exemplar to his or her children? Then those 'republicans" need to drop out and quit calling themselves 'republican' so there will be no confusion.

I.e., the labels “republican”, “conservative” and “tea party” have gotten to the point where they are now identified by a majority as synonymous with the words stupid, ignorant, crazy, and evil - like the words “commie“ and “communist symp” were in the ‘50s and the words “liberal” and “progressive” were, oh, up until the night of Nov. 6, when we finally determined that reality has a liberal bias. LOL.

Sunday is my day off.

In Muslim country? Tsk, tsk. I had you down for a sensitive multiculturalist.

> 157 Thanks, JGL. I have absolutely no sympathy with the Republican Party, but to set the issue more generally, I can think of a number of group identities which might have been either taken over by a particular sub-group (eg the Tea Party effectively taking control of your Republican Party) or identified in the public perception as being a particular evil thing (ie the opprobium heaped on words like liberal, communist, socialist, progressive, etc in the USA) but where the original or mainstream or moderate or whatever members do not want to drop out. Rather they want to reclaim what they consider to be their identity. Thus they will be working from the inside to do that. What do you think of that scenario?

>158 LolaWalser: Since when has the Republic of South Sudan been a Muslim country? Only in the eyes of the government of Sudan, an Islamist military dictatorship which governed South Sudan before last year's independence, and I certainly didn't have you down as an apologist for Islamic military dictatorships.

Ah, got rid of all the Muslims? Fallow circs for peacebrokers no doubt.

>161 LolaWalser: There were never many Muslims in South Sudan - a tiny minority. They are currently still here and enjoying religious freedom and democratic rights. None of them have been "got rid of".

What's a "circs"?

> 159

Anything is possible. I didn't just make that up. That's an old saying.

Thus, it is conceivable that some group of decent people - old line moderate republicans - can take back the word and make it at least acceptable to the point where the majority of people don't spit in contempt when they hear the word.

I'm still going to bet it will not happen. Republican = "old racist white people" is now an established meme - established not by liberals but by republicans themselves - and I don't see it going away.

Why? Because the crazy is still out there and it is not going away. Birthers? They will never give up. In the year 2030 old white people will still be sitting around the nursing home gripping about that "Kenyan socialist" who usurped the Presidency back in oh eight for eight years.

All the goofs over at Fox "news", Mitch Rmoney, Ayn Ryan, the repub leadership in both houses, limbaugh, at least four of the SCOTUS, and millions and millions of racist white republicans who deny they are racists but are only patriotic Americans who are against socialism - all those crazies are all still here, still queer, and not going away. And they will not be easily prevented from destroying America - we the sane must soldier on.

Maybe I am wrong though. Maybe republicans will turn things around and start fooling a majority of people some of the time. Maybe my thought that they are finally finished this time is just a wish.

We shall see.

>152 LolaWalser:: "I was referring to the lengthy previous conversation where it became perfectly clear Nathaniel doesn't give a fuck about what would happen to the children born from unwanted pregnancies. Because that's where Nathaniel's buck stops. Love the fetus, and to hell with everything and everyone from there."

The following was one of my statements in the lengthy conversation, from Post 123:

I'm pretty sure I've said time and again that I support all of these things. I think there are two key societal changes that will vastly help the situation: (1) better education (not just sex ed, but education across the board, which we know is the silver bullet to the many ills associated with poverty); and (2) better social support for women who want to have children, so that abortion isn't the default and only available choice. I'm "pro-choice" in the sense that, if a woman chooses to carry her child to term, we should do everything we can to help her, rather than encouraging an abortion as the "best" choice.

I openly and liberally advocate the improvement of social services to help women both during pregnancy and after they have given birth to raise their children, including adoption services. I openly and liberally advocate social policies like paid maternity (and paternity) leaves, subsidized childcare services, and improved pre-K-through-high-school education, especially for the low-income families that have the toughest time breaking out of the cycle of poverty and its many attendant ills. Finally, I believe that the Roman Catholic Church is wrong about contraception use within marriage for family planning purposes.

But I don't think Lola will accept anything that I've just written. So long as I believe that a fetus is a human life worth preserving, I will be in her eyes a misogynist who "doesn't {care} about what happens to the children born from unwanted pregnancies." Indeed, I could offer to adopt every unwanted child in my city and it wouldn't be enough for Lola.

Only by consigning every inconvenient child to death will I satisfy Lola that I care about them.

Was this thread about dehumanizing atheists or dehumanizing Republicans? I forget.

144: The flash-point here is SR's assertion that Nathaniel is himself "pro-death,"

He is, just like every other anti-abortion advocate. Not based upon their motivations, but based upon the known outcomes of their positions: women will die. Being an anti-abortion advocate is, by its very nature, being "pro-death".

165

Republicans are human? :-O

>166 StormRaven: just like every other anti-abortion advocate

No. Not every "anti-abortion" advocate fits the caricature, and neither does every "pro-abortionist". It has been pointed out again and again that some people are against abortion in their own lives but do not try to impose it on others. Other people are against abortion as a general principle but accept many exceptions, eg if the mother's life is in danger, if the foetus is likely to be born deformed, in cases of rape and incest, etc.

There is no such animal as "every other anti-abortion advocate".

>168 John5918:: But John, why would we want nuanced complexity and intelligent inquiry to replace prejudiced caricatures in our view of the world?

It has been pointed out again and again that some people are against abortion in their own lives but do not try to impose it on others.

Even they are pro-death.

>170 StormRaven: That's a catchy slogan but it is obviously not true.

I'll just jump in here to remind everyone about the biggest abortionist in the universe:

god. (assuming she exists.)

I.e., the world "miscarriage" is used to denote a "spontaneous" abortion - one not instigated by humans.

But there is no "spontaneous" anything in nature if there is a god.

So a "miscarriage" is just a euphemism for an abortion performed by god.

And the ratio of god-induced abortions to human-induced abortions? Last I heard it was something like four to one.

Ipso facto and ergo and therefore.

Many say god, being all powerful, is free to do as she pleases, plus who are we puny humans to question god's actions in terms of right vs. wrong, good vs. bad, and moral vs. immoral?

Well, there's your theodicy problem.

From my view if there's a god, and she is a person, and she is not mentally retarded or legally insane but who makes free will decisions, i.e., she is not just a determinate force or energy, then she is held to the same standards as humans, regardless of her omnipotence, regardless of her being the source of all other persons.

Fair is fair. Plus we are made in her image - according to the babble. Plus nothing happens but god wills it - according to the babble.

Those who argue against this are just worshippers of power, or who shake in superstitious fear at the thought of their own ultimate powerlessness.

That's a catchy slogan but it is obviously not true.

It is obviously true. Pregnancy is more dangerous and deadlier for women than abortions. People who advocate against abortion, even those who only make a moral case against it, will cause the death of some women who would have otherwise aborted their pregnancy. Anti-abortion advocates of all stripes are consequently, pro-death.

>173 StormRaven:: You're not seriously going to persist in making this stupid argument, are you? People who advocate for human reproduction (=pregnancy) "will cause the death of some women who would have otherwise" not gotten pregnant. Since being pregnant is "more dangerous and deadlier" than not being pregnant, anybody who supports the reproduction of the species is pro-death.

By supporting the extinction of the species, StormRaven is, apparently, "pro-life".

Edited to clarify: I don't think SR actually applies this kind of absurd reasoning in his own life or in his own dealings with the world. I think he's probably a good father and a good citizen in his community. But in this specific case (abortion), his blindnesses have led him to make assertions that, in any other arena, he himself would mock.

The last little bit is a perfect example of how arguments over abortion can get really silly really quickly. On both sides.

This is not an issue where knees should jerk quickly. Nor is it an issue where you can say anything that will apply to all people at all times. Some people have abortions, and their lives are better. Some people have serious issues after an abortion. Some men should be included in the decision making process, others should be kept miles away. Some parents could and should be told. Others have no business knowing what is going on with their daughter.

Sure, people can jump on one side of the fence or the other, but when it comes to this issue, the extremes are the most dangerous places to be...on both sides.

And calling someone a "baby hater" or the equivalent is about as intelligent and useful as calling someone a "baby killer." I don't care if they don't want to be quoted, it is an ignorant statement.

175

Well said.

>172 JGL53: But there is no "spontaneous" anything in nature if there is a god.

Depends on your understanding of God.

>173 StormRaven: People who advocate against abortion, even those who only make a moral case against it, will cause the death of some women who would have otherwise aborted their pregnancy

Doesn't necessarily follow. As I said, many people who are generally against abortion (eg for contraceptive purposes) are not against it when it comes to saving the mother's life. If pregnancy is as dangerous as you make out, then every woman who carries a baby to full term, whether she is pro- or anti-abortion, is "pro-death" in your strange definition of the term. I've just read >174 nathanielcampbell: and Nathaniel makes the same point.

#169: intelligent inquiry

Of all the arguments you make here, your abortion ones are the most likely to devolve into emotion, with appeals to what we don't know (with a lack of appreciation that the same appeals work on animals) and statements about how you feel about your wife's miscarriage.