Redux: Rape, Abortion, and "Personhood"

[Trippy]

But is that not the case of abortion verses extraction? Is it not either kill it or have it fight for life in the incubator?

Right, but I wasn't missing that point at all.

I'm not sure that is equivalent to abortion verse extraction. First off I can find studies with effects that are not as bad as your wiki citation...

Wiki citation? I was going off the numbers in this article: Neurologic and Developmental Disability at Six Years of Age after Extremely Preterm Birth.

...for example this article states an average IQ of only 8.4 points less then average with similiar grades and school completion rates to normal people.

Which under the article I was citing would be mild disability (34%), or would be in the range of normal function - deviated less than 1SD from the mean IQ (20%). The criteria and probability I cited (22%) were for severe disability.

The article your blog appears to be based on is this one: Neurocognitive abilities in young adults with very low birth weight.

Mind you all premature date counts as a women could request an abortion at any stage of pregnancy.

Except the study I cited only examines children delivered up to 25 weeks and 6 days. One of the reasons I selected it, it's an accurate snapshot (within the realms of sample accuracy) of the lightly outcomes of a baby delivered around the limit of viability.

Now sure it is going to be hard to find a doctor willing to do an abortion for a 35 week fetus, but instead of letting a doctor strip a women of her rights, let her have an early delivery or c-section instead, should we let her abort a 35 week fetus because it only 5 weeks shy of a full term?, of course not, but removing it via C-section or induce labor is just the same to her and much better for hte fetus.

Agreed.

I'm just moving that logic down to a set 24 weeks, or 50% chance of survival...

And I'm just pointing out the demonstrable, observable, consequences of that decision, and questioning whether or not that was as ethically or morally clear as you seemed to think it was.

...without implying that disable people should be killed before they are born...

So now you're jumping on that bandwagon and trolling as well?

I implied no such thing, Wynn and Light Gigantic predictably infered it (really, it was obvious what their response would be even before I had finished composing the post). That doesn't make them right.

We're not talking about eugenics, that's the wrong horse to mount. We're not talking about defects that are present before delivery, but rather, defects that are inflicted on what would have been an otherwise healthy fetus had it been allowed to proceed to full gestation. Defects that are imposed by the decision to remove the fetus from the womb and 'preserve' its life. My point was, among other things that the most likely outcome of our decision to 'preserve' the fetus's life, is first death, and second varying degrees of disability. I am simply asking if that tradeoff is worth it to sooth our conscience?

I'm just asking if not killing is actually any more ethical than killing, given the probable outcomes of the decision not to kill.

Where else could we make the cut off then? at what chance of disability would you make the cut off?

To some extent, that was part of the broader picture I was trying to illuminate. It doesn't matter where you draw the line, there's an element of arbitrariness to it. It doesn't matter which course of action you choose, there's a moral grey area involved.

It's not fair to remove the mothers right to choose.
It's not fair to deny the fetus a chance at a full and healthy life, and yet that's the most likely outcome of preterm delivery at 24 weeks, the very thing that anti abortionists seek to prevent happening, but that's okay, because they saved a life, right?

The viability argument doesn't do away with the core question, it merely shifts it. The only way (with current technology at least) to improve the outlook of the fetus is for further gestation and development to occur. This of course leads us right back to the original question. If, for example, the risk of disability as a result of deliberately falls to some arbitrarily small number by 30 weeks, we're faced with the original question reframed when considering the fate of a fetus between 24 and 30 weeks.

Do we force the mother to incubate the unwanted child for those six weeks so we can then remove it and give it its best chance at a normal life?
Or do we abort a fetus that had an at least 50% chance of surviving to adulthood, albeit with varying degrees of disability?

In short, I have yet to find a rational answer to your question that negates the question it purports to solve.

Second off this is not a treatment for a disease this is an alternative to being aborted.

No, really? Gosh, I must be in the wrong thread... >_>

Look... I raised the point of selecting a random number, and the potential outcomes of it (10% normal life, 90% some degree of debilitation) to illustrate the meaning behind the statistics. You objected to that on the grounds that there was no choice between that and certain death, so I re-phrased it in terms of a terminal illness to address that. I then took the analogy further to illustrate the questionable outcomes. From where I sit, what right have we to force an outcome on a fetus that we would not choose for ourselves.

So, again:
So, you're facing certain death from a terminal illness, and you've chosen treatment over death?
Here's a coin. Heads the treatment kills you, tales it doesn't.
If you survive the coin toss, here's a ten sided dice.
Roll it:
On a result of 1 or 2, we'll leave you in a wheel-chair, or highly dependent on your caregivers, and with an IQ 3 or more SD below the mean.
On a result of 3,4, or 5, we'll leave you with reasonable independence, but not completely independent, and an IQ 2-3 SD below the mean.
6,7,8 we'll leave you with some mild disability, and an IQ 1-2 SD below the mean.
9,10 You'll have your current quality of life.

Ah but how do you ask a fetus if it wants to live that life or agree to be aborted instead?

I don't propose that we should, or that it would ever be practical. This suggestion is beside the point being made.

If we are going with negative utilitarianism, that is trying to reduce suffering is our goal, then yes we should not try to save viable fetuses up for abortion, we should also not save premature babies either, we should also considering kill hoobos in their sleep, euthanize incurably insane people, and in fact why not just kill any crippled person or any person with an arbitary high probability of being crippled as humanily as possible, without their consent or knowledge that we going to kill them?

None of this is even remotely implied by anything I have said, so I will not be entertaining any further questions along this line. Remember, what I'm questioning is whether forcing a disability upon someone is actually morally superior to killing them.

If someone king hits an otherwise healthy 12 year old and leaves the 12 year old fully depenedent on their parents for the rest of their life, should we go easy on them because they didn't kill the 12 year old?

Hence the problem with deciding as a matter of law that it is ok to kill a fetus simply because it is or is likely to be crippled: we open the doors to eugenics and "saving" people from a level of suffering that we arbitarily choose for them as too high to live with.

This is your strawman and has nothing to do with what I have actually said, as such, I will not be addressing it further, other than to restate that I was simply questioning the moral superiority of not killing over killing based on the consequences of not killing.

I'm find with that. Remember that late term abortions at 24 weeks and beyond are extremely small: According to a dead-linked study on wikipedia it is only 0.08% of all abortions in 1997 or approximately 1,032 per year in the USA that just a drop in the bucket of the nearly 500,000 permature births in the USA per year.

As am I, in fact, I happen to think that NICU units especially deserve more funding.

I still find Mrs. Fraggle's advice on the subject to be the wisest: "I'll give a flying fuck what men think about abortion, the first time one of you assholes gets pregnant."

So, those with the ability to institute change for the benefit of those who do not have that same ability should instead remain silent? I shouldn't voice my opinion to protect the rights of my daughter?

 

[ElectricFetus]

Right, but I wasn't missing that point at all.

Well it seemed like your were... what ever.

Wiki citation? I was going off the numbers in this article: Neurologic and Developmental Disability at Six Years of Age after Extremely Preterm Birth.

Which is cited on Wikipedia word for word.

Which under the article I was citing would be mild disability (34%), or would be in the range of normal function - deviated less than 1SD from the mean IQ (20%). The criteria and probability I cited (22%) were for severe disability.

The article your blog appears to be based on is this one: Neurocognitive abilities in young adults with very low birth weight.

Except the study I cited only examines children delivered up to 25 weeks and 6 days. One of the reasons I selected it, it's an accurate snapshot (within the realms of sample accuracy) of the lightly outcomes of a baby delivered around the limit of viability.

And... so? The question would be does it matter? For if we want advocate aborting the crippled it might, but if we don't then it superfluous.

And I'm just pointing out the demonstrable, observable, consequences of that decision, and questioning whether or not that was as ethically or morally clear as you seemed to think it was.

That extremely premature babies will have a very high chance of being crippled, so be it, as I've stated for pages now advocating the abortion of the crippled is not something I'm comfortable with ethically.

So now you're jumping on that bandwagon and trolling as well?

And you were doing so well stay polite and calm, and suddenly out with the ad hominems.

I implied no such thing, Wynn and Light Gigantic predictably infered it (really, it was obvious what their response would be even before I had finished composing the post). That doesn't make them right.

We're not talking about eugenics, that's the wrong horse to mount. We're not talking about defects that are present before delivery, but rather, defects that are inflicted on what would have been an otherwise healthy fetus had it been allowed to proceed to full gestation. Defects that are imposed by the decision to remove the fetus from the womb and 'preserve' its life. My point was, among other things that the most likely outcome of our decision to 'preserve' the fetus's life, is first death, and second varying degrees of disability. I am simply asking if that tradeoff is worth it to sooth our conscience?

Yes the trade off are completely worth it to my ethics, again it would either be guaranteed death by abortion or the above. For the advantages of abortion to be worthwild for premature birth would require negative utilitarianism and eugenic philosophies that I can't accept as moral or even safe for society to embrace openly.

I'm just asking if not killing is actually any more ethical than killing, given the probable outcomes of the decision not to kill.

well then ask that question of living people that are crippled: is not killing them actually any more ethical then killing them, they could continue their lives crippled or we could silently kill them in there sleep, free them from their pain and they never need see or fear it coming, sound nice? Sure a fetus is not a living person, is not conscious, it has not social value, then again some extremely crippled people don't have either of those as well, the only difference really is they don't happen to be inside someone, which is no longer a consideration when it is removed.

To some extent, that was part of the broader picture I was trying to illuminate. It doesn't matter where you draw the line, there's an element of arbitrariness to it. It doesn't matter which course of action you choose, there's a moral grey area involved.

Yes I agree. I've been talking about gradients of personhood for maybe 20 pages now, and about all the different metrics we can use to grant people parts of personhood, which the ethical outcomes that would occur by use of those metrics.

It's not fair to remove the mothers right to choose.
It's not fair to deny the fetus a chance at a full and healthy life, and yet that's the most likely outcome of preterm delivery at 24 weeks, the very thing that anti abortionists seek to prevent happening, but that's okay, because they saved a life, right?

Well it is either strip the mother of her right to choose and force her to continue the pregnancy, or remove the fetus alive, or kill it. The first is out of the question, the second though is better then the first because dooming it to a high chance of being disable is better then dooming it to guaranteed death. Perhaps your willing to question if a crippled person's life is worth saving, but I'm not, for I have already answered that question: human's synthesize happiness in the...s are surprisingly happy people statistically because I value happiness more then suffering, and because I believe the crippled are not suffering as much as stereotypes makes us think they are, I can't condone killing them en utero.

The viability argument doesn't do away with the core question, it merely shifts it. The only way (with current technology at least) to improve the outlook of the fetus is for further gestation and development to occur. This of course leads us right back to the original question. If, for example, the risk of disability as a result of deliberately falls to some arbitrarily small number by 30 weeks, we're faced with the original question reframed when considering the fate of a fetus between 24 and 30 weeks.

That being a women's choice? Well we can't really void that choice, Some women are going to have it removed, one way or another, since it is viable might as well grow it in an incubator over aborting it.

Do we force the mother to incubate the unwanted child for those six weeks so we can then remove it and give it its best chance at a normal life?
Or do we abort a fetus that had an at least 50% chance of surviving to adulthood, albeit with varying degrees of disability?

Neither, we extract it and give it what chances it has. Forcing a women to gestate a baby against their will is immoral and legally impractical in developed nations, while saving ~1000 viable fetuses from a later term abortion is a much easier feat and technically within the scope of present laws which have outlawed most late term abortions in the USA.

From where I sit, what right have we to force an outcome on a fetus that we would not choose for ourselves.

I would choose it, I think most people would, if I was given the choice of certain death or certain life time paralyses, I would choose paralyses. Shit your even giving me slight odds of not even coming out disabled at all, totally taking that option!

Think of it this way: a mother throws her baby off a cliff, we can either leave it there or try to save it (if it is alive), despite the chances it died or is **** up for life, the former option would possibly make you an accomplice to murder, the latter is considered good samaritan behavior.

I don't propose that we should, or that it would ever be practical. This suggestion is beside the point being made.

No, when a person chooses of their own free will and sound mind to die, that should be a choice they have a right to make, but no one can choose for them.

None of this is even remotely implied by anything I have said, so I will not be entertaining any further questions along this line. Remember, what I'm questioning is whether forcing a disability upon someone is actually morally superior to killing them.

Yes it is morally superior to killing them, for if not then we need to go about killing the crippled. That would be an ethical consequence of making that judgement whether you want to acknowledge it or not.

If someone king hits an otherwise healthy 12 year old and leaves the 12 year old fully depenedent on their parents for the rest of their life, should we go easy on them because they didn't kill the 12 year old?

Well we are not charging them with murder, maybe attempted murder, or vehicular assault, etc, so yes as a matter of legal precedent we do in fact "go easy on them".

This is your strawman and has nothing to do with what I have actually said, as such, I will not be addressing it further, other than to restate that I was simply questioning the moral superiority of not killing over killing based on the consequences of not killing.

If you want to be so general: the consequences of not killing them are not as bad as the consequences of killing them... There is the answer to your question.

 

[James R]

Bells,

When someone comes out and makes a frankly bizarre statement, such as it is acceptable to simply let a woman die or to perform surgery that will kill her faster, because apparently, it's a "so be it" issue or when another asks you, despite repeatedly and politely explaining one's views, 'what if you stuff a newborn baby back into the uterus after reattaching the umbilical cord, can she abort it then?', do you take such questions and comments as "their views"?

Yes. Why take it personally? People have all kinds of bizarre opinions. Sometimes they are even offensive to normal moral standards. If somebody thinks it's somehow acceptable to deliberately kill a mother for the sake of an unborn child, that's a view with serious ethical problems, but it's still just another opinion. That kind of stuff can be refuted by reasoned argument. There's no need to get personal.

Clearly, the idea of stuffing a newborn baby back into the uterus is absurd and bears no relation to anything that happens in real life. But I believe you already pointed that out.

EF hounded me for pages and pages, because I deliberately did not engage in his ridiculous arguments that for all intents and purposes, served solely to troll this thread, with LG egging him on. He kept asking me the same question over and over again, even though I had answered it too many times to count and each time he would ask it, he would twist what I said around, all while claiming to be playing the devil's advocate. It went on for days. Is this him expressing his views? Or is it trolling?

There's no requirement that you respond to trolls. And if you need to respond, why not link back to your initial response.

I must say that in topics such as this it is very easy to accuse each other of trolling. It's harder to establish that the supposed troll is only out to get an angry reaction and does not truly believe what he is posting. Nevertheless, you could always ask another moderator to review the discussion if you think a ban for trolling is warranted.

What about when what you have repeatedly stated and clearly stated is lied about and misrepresented?

This is poor behaviour and possibly trolling. Deliberate lying is actually against the rules. Nevertheless, misrepresentations and straw men are very common on sciforums, as I'm sure you're aware. In a heated discussion about abortion, you can almost guarantee that some of that will go on. Is it really such a surprise?

How about when you are accused of wanting to murder babies? And then when you respond with disgust at such accusations, you are told that you may as well offer the trolls trolling this thread a blowjob?

One option might be simply to deny patently silly misrepresentations of your position, without getting all flustered about it.

The original blowjob comment, I believe, was this:

This is an internet forum, take what you get in stride, what ever they say don't show the incredible amounts of anger and disgust that you have shown, for that is what trolls love to see. Consider how readily you call someone a troll you should know that many of the things you said turn trolls on, for example you say that being asked to eat the baby's placenta was less disgusting than them, you might as well be giving them a blowjob.

While the blowjob reference was fairly crude, the general advice is probably right. Trolls post to provoke an emotional reaction - anger, disgust, whatever. If you give them that reaction, you're feeding the trolls. It's what they want. To put it crudely, they get off on it. Hence the blowjob reference.

To read this comment as suggesting that you, personally, should give somebody a blowjob, rather than as general advice about feeding trolls, is stretching things, I think.

How about when another man tells you that you should remain silent and not respond to the sexual harassment and when you do respond, tells you that well, you opted to give a blowjob, "yet again" (because I apparently fellate men on this site regularly?). Is this expressing an opinion?

That might well be harrassment. It might have gone too far there. At best, it was ill-judged. I'm not sure it deserves an immediate and permanent ban.

This kind of ridiculous crap has been going on for over 300 posts. Are you suggesting that I should not react with emotion when I am sexually harassed?

I'm suggesting that everybody in this thread could be a bit less emotional about the matter of abortion. If things are getting inappropriately personal, maybe backing off for a while might be a good move.

My impression is that it is easy to gather together posts after the fact and claim that they amount to a concerted campaign of personal harassment. But that might not always be the intent. It could be that originally the poster just wanted to make his or her point in a forceful way, or to present an argument many times in the hopes of convincing somebody or converting somebody.

If you trawl through posts on a heated topic looking for dirt, you'll most likely be able to find some. There will be breaches of the site rules, inappropriate comments etc. We're not an academic conference. Discussions tend to get heated here, particularly on topics such as abortion. People lose control of themselves. But that doesn't always mean they're out to get you personally.

How about when I am accused of wanting to murder babies?

Meh.

Every pro-lifer accuses pro-choicers of wanting to murder babies. What do you expect? Really.

If a man tells you that responding to him, after he has complained and whined about you ignoring him for too many posts to count, is akin to offering him a blowjob, is that expressing an opinion?

I don't think that's exactly what happened here, but I could, as ever, be wrong.

Where do you stand on being told that you might as well suck someone's cock than respond to being lied about and misrepresented and slandered as someone who wants to kill babies? If my calling them misogynistic trolls for such arguments made in this thread is offensive? Well, too bad. I was just "expressing my views".

I will say this now and in public, since this is being dealt with in public. If being sexually harassed is now part of the job description, then yeah, I won't accept that.

Nobody is asking you to accept being sexually harrassed. I'm just not convinced that that is what has happened here.

I do recognise, however, that the perception of the victim is of paramount important in cases of sexual harrassment.

What punishment do you think would be appropriate for the trangressions in this thread? Who should be punished, and in what way?

 

[Trippy]

Which is cited on Wikipedia word for word.

And?

And... so? The question would be does it matter?

And so if the degree and likelyhood of disability are dependent on the gestation period then of course a study which uses birthweight as its criteria is going to come to differing conclusions than a study that uses gestational age as entry criteria, which in turn negates your suggestion that things might not be that bad.

For if we want advocate aborting the crippled it might, but if we don't then it superfluous.

And, once again, I find myself pointing out for the fourth or fifth time, I'm not suggesting aborting the crippled. We're not talking about pre-existing afflictions here, we're talking about afflictions that only come about as a result of our decision to 'save' a li

That extremely premature babies will have a very high chance of being crippled, so be it, as I've stated for pages now advocating the abortion of the crippled is not something I'm comfortable with ethically.

Good for you.

And you were doing so well stay polite and calm, and suddenly out with the ad hominems.

Ad-hominems? I was merely restating something to you that I had stated already twice before you posted - as far as I'm concerned dragging eugenics into the argument is a strawman hypothesis, repeating the claim after it has been addressed as such is trolling, or bordering on it.

Yes the trade off are completely worth it to my ethics, again it would either be guaranteed death by abortion or the above. For the advantages of abortion to be worthwild for premature birth would require negative utilitarianism and eugenic philosophies that I can't accept as moral or even safe for society to embrace openly.

In your opinion at any rate - the only thing I have done is consider quality of life.

well then ask that question of living people that are crippled: is not killing them actually any more ethical then killing them, they could continue their lives crippled or we could silently kill them in there sleep, free them from their pain and they never need see or fear it coming, sound nice?

I'm not talking about killing the crippled though, you are.

Sure a fetus is not a living person, is not conscious, it has not social value, then again some extremely crippled people don't have either of those as well, the only difference really is they don't happen to be inside someone, which is no longer a consideration when it is removed.

This bears little, if any, relation to anything I have actually had to say. I'm not talking about killing cripples, you are.

Well it is either strip the mother of her right to choose and force her to continue the pregnancy, or remove the fetus alive, or kill it. The first is out of the question, the second though is better then the first because dooming it to a high chance of being disable is better then dooming it to guaranteed death.

And yet it is precisely this kind of scenario that leads to things like DNRs.

Perhaps your willing to question if a crippled person's life is worth saving, but I'm not, for I have already answered that question: human's synthesize happiness in their head, even paraplegics are surprisingly happy people statistically because I value happiness more then suffering, and because I believe the crippled are not suffering as much as stereotypes makes us think they are, I can't condone killing them en utero.

Once again. I'm not talking about killing disabled people, you are. Nor am I talking about killing them en utero, that is entirely your synthesis. Everything I have discussed has been post partum.

That being a women's choice? Well we can't really void that choices, Some women are going to have it removed, one way or another, since it is viable might as well grow it in an incubator over aborting it.

Once again, I find myself restating context.

You asked "Where else could we make the cut off then? At what chance of disability would you make the cut off?"
I replied by pointing out that any such consideration simply shifts the debate, it does not resolve it. The point I wa smaking that should the chance of disability fall to some acceptable level at 30 weeks, what do we do about abortions between 24 and 30 weeks? Do we kill the fetus, or do we force the mother to carry it to 30 weeks? Or are you saying that you would see the law phrased in terms of 24-30 weeks?

Neither, we extract it and give it what chances it has. Forcing a women to gestate a baby against their will is immoral and legally impractical in developed nations, while saving ~1000 viable fetuses from a later term abortion is a much easier feat and technically within the scope of present laws which have outlawed most late term abortions in the USA.

You're missing the point I'm making. If the law only allows extraction after 30 weeks based on considerations of viability and quality of life, extraction at 24 weeks isn't an option either.

I would choose it, I think most people would, if I was given the choice of certain death or certain life time paralyses, I would choose paralyses. Shit your even giving me slight odds of not even coming out disabled at all, totally taking that option!

I think you might be surprised at how many people wouldn't. Personally, I'd be surprised if it made it past trials.

Think of it this way: a mother throws her baby off a cliff, we can either leave it there or try to save it (if it is alive), despite the chances it died or is **** up for life, the former option would possibly make you an accomplice to murder, the latter is consider good samaritan behavior.

That's the current approach, yes, do everything you can to save a life regardless of the quality of life as a result of it being saved. Again, I redirect you to the groundswell towards the right to be left to die.

No, when a person chooses of their own free will and sound mind to die, that should be a choice they have a right to make, but no one can choose for them.

You asked me how I intend to ask a fetus, and I replied that I don't.

People can, and do choose for others all the time. They choose every time they choose to respect a DNR. They choose every time they choose to unplug a relative.

Yes it is morally superior to killing them, for if not then we need to go about killing the crippled.

This is a non-sequiter. The only person talking about killing crippled people is you.

That would be and ethical consequence of making that judgement whether you want to acknowledge it or not.

No, but it might be an ethical consequence of a position I'm not actually taking.

Well we are not charging them with murder, maybe attempted murder, or vehicular assault, etc, so yes as a matter of legal precedent we do in fact "go easy on them".

You've gotten the wrong end of the stick from what I meant, but that may be partially my fault.

In my jurisidction we have criminal assault, and aggravated assault. The difference is in the outcome. If I punch someone and they get a black eye, I will be charged with criminal assault. If I King-hit someone and leave them permanently disabled to that extent, becaus eof the severity of the injury, and the severity of the impact of the injury, I would likely be looking at a minimum of aggravated assault. The point I was (somewhat poorly) trying to make, was should we do away the charge of criminal assault and treat that scenario the same as a black-eye just because the assailant didn't kill the victim? Of course not.

 

[Tiassa]

Welcome to the Show; Let Us Know When You've Caught Up On What's Going On

Yes. Why take it personally? People have all kinds of bizarre opinions. Sometimes they are even offensive to normal moral standards. If somebody thinks it's somehow acceptable to deliberately kill a mother for the sake of an unborn child, that's a view with serious ethical problems, but it's still just another opinion. That kind of stuff can be refuted by reasoned argument. There's no need to get personal.

Clearly, the idea of stuffing a newborn baby back into the uterus is absurd and bears no relation to anything that happens in real life. But I believe you already pointed that out.

Perhaps you might answer a question; it would be helpful.

Fifteen months. Sixteen hundred posts. Two threads. A simple question. No answers. Do you see no disrespect in such conduct?​

I mean, it's like a mantra I have to keep repeating:

"Conceding personhood at fertilization, what happens to a woman's human rights under LACP?"

―We must reiterate the conceded argument, that a fertilized ovum is a person.

―We must discuss the rights of men.

―We must discuss the rights of corpses.

―What is this LACP straw man?

―What if the umbilical cord was reattached and the baby stuffed back into the womb, would it cease to be a person?​

Seriously. It's fifteen months later, and the one thing that is apparently unacceptable to discuss is the actual thread topic?

My impression is that it is easy to gather together posts after the fact and claim that they amount to a concerted campaign of personal harassment. But that might not always be the intent. It could be that originally the poster just wanted to make his or her point in a forceful way, or to present an argument many times in the hopes of convincing somebody or converting somebody.

If you trawl through posts on a heated topic looking for dirt, you'll most likely be able to find some. There will be breaches of the site rules, inappropriate comments etc. We're not an academic conference. Discussions tend to get heated here, particularly on topics such as abortion. People lose control of themselves. But that doesn't always mean they're out to get you personally.

My impression is that you haven't done enough trawling reading through the discussions. You don't need to trawl; it's pretty damn obvious unless you're actively looking for a reason to not see.

Every pro-lifer accuses pro-choicers of wanting to murder babies. What do you expect? Really.

See, actually, this fits in very well.

Note how upset people get at being accused of misogyny.

Now let us compare the two:

• Baby murderer: Because of an ontological argument I insist is right but cannot support.

• Misogyny: I'm not a misogynist. I just believe that we need to do this thing that will result in women being hurt because there is something more important. Sure, I can't support my assertion, but it's necessary to do this. How can that be misogyny?​

And then take that latter and compare it to:

• I'm not a racist. I just believe it's unkind to free the Negroes. They're not capable of taking care of themselves. I don't hate the Darkies. I'm trying to show love. How can I be racist if I love them?​

My point being that people can claim what they want, but that doesn't make those claims true.

As I have argued in this thread:

If one is willing to visit documentable harm on a class of people in order to fulfill mere sentiment, that pretty much makes that person antithetical to the class.​

Do you disagree?

My point being that while misrepresentations and straw men might be common, you are making an extraordinary effort to isolate the components of this situation in order to avoid considering the cumulative weight.

And I do find it interesting that this is one of the issues in which we are for some reason obliged to condone bad behavior.

Don't respond to them? Noted. Tell it to Burke.

Meanwhile, fifteen months of discussing everything from the conceded personhood argument to the rights of men, and even corpses? The question was what happens to a woman's human rights under this standard. Of complaining about accurate descriptions of bad behavior? Of trolling and trying to distract the topic? Of refusing to affirmatively support a thesis, instead demanding negative proof of an amorphous idea? Of arguing ferociously while ignorant of the facts pertaining to the issue? Of asking absurd questions? They're finally resorting to sexual harassment, and you're suggesting we ought to ignore them?

The last remaining value of this thread is its demonstration of the depravity of the argument.

To the other, I suppose we could have avoided this by canning concerns about the appearance of vested interest, putting on our mod hats, and start flagging these people left and right. Remember that this started in November ... 2012.

None of them would be left.

Of course, that wouldn't be problematic at all, would it?

In the end, would you agree or disagree with the following statement:

There is a difference definitions according to common lexicon and specialized political need.​

Yes, of course anti-abortion advocates are always on with the baby-murdering talk. And that's all well and fine, maybe, for you. But I would remind you that they're killing people in the States because this "baby murder" talk is having its effect.

So, yes, at some point people are allowed to be offended at the useless, insistent, morbid fantasies of people who want what they want regardless of who it hurts, and are offended by the idea that they should explain anything about what it is they actually want.

And then people are arguing that terrorism isn't terrorism if people have a sincere belief in what they're doing? Holy shit, dude, even the worst parts of the intifada can be justified that way. (But, hey, it's the abortion debate, so ... I don't know, what? The rules change? You tell me.)

I suppose, however, it's true that it's not offensive conduct in any way if we isolate all the components in order to duck consideration of the cumulative weight, and thus just say, "Meh," to each isolated component. You do have a point there.

What punishment do you think would be appropriate for the trangressions in this thread? Who should be punished, and in what way?

I would put on my green hat and flag you if I could.

No, really, what part of, "we really ought to have that conversation in another thread", is unclear? Or is this the least you can do to further forestall discussion of a woman's human rights?

 

[Capracus]

Clearly, the idea of stuffing a newborn baby back into the uterus is absurd and bears no relation to anything that happens in real life. But I believe you already pointed that out.

And I repeatedly made that point myself.

Like I mentioned earlier, it was meant to illustrate the absurdity of declaring a full term fetus in the womb as somehow less deserving of life than if it were on the outside. The needless surgical implantation of a full term fetus back into a womb is as nonsensical as the needless killing of it before surgical removal.

Why are you ignoring the absurdity of a qualitative distinction between a full term fetus inside the womb and that same fetus seconds later outside of it? Why instead are you obsessed with the irrelevant absurdity of the mechanics used to demonstrate it?

If I proposed that on the surface of the sun your weight on a scale would read 28 times greater, would you take it as a lesson in mass and gravity, or express astonishment over the absurdity of a person standing on a scale in a 5000 C plasma environment?

Since Tiassa made severance of the umbilical cord conditional to personhood, maybe I should’ve made it easier on your sensibilities and left out the dramatic embellishment of surgical replacement.

Yet from a forum member I assumed had the intellectual elevation to understand the intention of the example, we get this:

The cervix is not designed to have something large shoved into it from the outside, so while technically you may be able to take a baby, re-attach its umbilical cord and shove it back into the mother's vagina and push it up into the uterus, you would kill both the mother and the baby. So perhaps you understand why your proposition, or question, is ridiculous in the first place?

I expected better of both Bells and Tiassa.

How about when I am accused of wanting to murder babies?

Meh.

Every pro-lifer accuses pro-choicers of wanting to murder babies. What do you expect? Really.

I made the point that if she advocated that a woman should have the right to terminate up to full term, and for emphasis the point of umbilical severance, then such a stance could reasonably be considered advocating the killing of a baby.

The irony of my own opinion on personhood, is that my mid pregnancy threshold based on fetal consciousness would be seen equally as callous by the personhood at conception crowd. Since I advocate the right of abortion in 99% of the cases, brand me an accessory to murder as well.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

It seems to me it would be a bit hypocritical for moderators to start enforcing rules against insults in a discussion in which they themselves are engaging in similar behaviour.

Indeed.

In the case of this thread, I'm not advocating handing out official warnings or bans to anybody. I'm simply suggesting that all participants could show a bit more decorum.

This is a noble goal but it seems unattainable. We have to have a backup plan.

I think the larger point is that these people we've been arguing with should have simply been thrown out a long time ago. The only question I would have on that count is why they weren't. Our colleague very well knows the answer to why they weren't.

I have no idea what you're talking about. Could someone please enlighten me?

The only point I would make on name-calling is that the alternative would have seen a good number of our regularly-contributing members expelled over the years.

If these people are so dense and immature that they can't restrain themselves after being banned for a month--and we can make that "banned for a month twice" if we want, since we make the rules--then do we really need them? It's like having a dog you love--except that after two years of trying you can't get him to stop peeing on the carpet. Sometimes you have two less-than-ideal choices. You have to pick one. That's what it means to be in charge!

You know, fifteen months, sixteen hundred posts, two threads, and we're still not discussing the topic.

If this happened in Linguistics, I would allow the thread to continue only if it contributed in some other way to the enlightenment of the members. And this does happen frequently. I even allow "entertain" to substitute for "enlighten."

How has this thread enlightened anyone? Or does everyone who's participating find it entertaining? If so, you must be the same people who keep TV shows like "Survivor" and "Say Yes to the Dress" on the air.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

So, those with the ability to institute change for the benefit of those who do not have that same ability should instead remain silent? I shouldn't voice my opinion to protect the rights of my daughter?

Statistically, the vast majority of "problem pregnancies" which are allowed to result in live birth end up being entirely the responsibility of the mother. Therefore it's the mother whose voice should be heard.

Men always talk big during the first trimester. Then they start to vanish.

At some point we also have to take into account the impact of our decisions on civilization. It's clear from our nation's Petri dish for the study of single-parent homes (i.e., the Afro-American ghettos in our larger cities, in which a large portion of the men are in prison due to drug laws used as a tool of racism, making it 7 times more likely for a black user to be imprisoned than a white one) that children who grow up without a father-figure have an almost insurmountable handicap and are very unlikely to grow up to be responsible citizens. The boys join gangs (finding a substitute father-figure) and the girls have babies when they're 15 because, as one was quoted saying, "This way I know there's at least one person in the world who loves me."

So unfortunately, yes: your voice must be edited out of the sound track. You're welcome to influence the dyamics of your own family, but please don't make American society even worse by increasing the number of fatherless children whose most likely future resembles a bad Dickens novel.

Problem pregnancies are overwhelmingly a women's issue, so as a matter of public policy women should make the decisions.

At the very least, their voices should be heard. Since the USA is a phallocracy like most of the world, their voices are muted.

If we elect Green Party candidate Jill Stein to be our next president, then we can talk about this some more. Are you going to vote for her, as the next step in women's long, slow march to equality?

EDIT: Oh sorry, I forgot whom I was talking to. You live in a country that is probably way ahead of us in women's rights. Your larger neighbor even had a female PM, causing Australian English to be gifted with the wonderful term "First Bloke" for the spouse of a female national leader.

If you've never been to the USA you probably can't imagine how bad women have it here. "Nikita" and "NCIS" are just TV shows.

 

[James R]

Tiassa:

Perhaps you might answer a question; it would be helpful.

Fifteen months. Sixteen hundred posts. Two threads. A simple question. No answers. Do you see no disrespect in such conduct?​

If that's true, why do you persist in flogging the dead horse? If there really are no answers on offer, point out that the other side has no answers (which I think you've now done several times), then call it quits.

Obviously, failing to answer the main question you've put ("Conceding personhood at fertilization, what happens to a woman's human rights under LACP?") does show disrespect, or perhaps that your respondents have no reasonable answer available.

We have no rules about posters having to answer questions or show appropriate respect though (except as regards personal insults etc.). Intellectual dishonesty is not on our list of bannable behaviour. Maybe you'd argue that it should be. I'm not sure how we could hope to police any such rule.

My impression is that you haven't done enough trawling reading through the discussions. You don't need to trawl; it's pretty damn obvious unless you're actively looking for a reason to not see.

I've read most of this thread. I've seen the back and forth.

I'm not sure why you imagine I don't want to see something. I'm pro-choice. I disagree with the pro-life positions being argued here. I agree with your position, as far as I can make it out. (We may have some minor disagreements at the boundaries, but compared to the gulf between us and the pro-lifers any such disagreements are likely to be trivial.)

If one is willing to visit documentable harm on a class of people in order to fulfill mere sentiment, that pretty much makes that person antithetical to the class.​

Do you disagree?

No, I don't disagree, although I do note that you're somewhat partial to dismissing moral arguments that you disagree with by labelling them as irrelevant "aesthetic" considerations rather than as valid moral positions.

My point being that while misrepresentations and straw men might be common, you are making an extraordinary effort to isolate the components of this situation in order to avoid considering the cumulative weight.

And I do find it interesting that this is one of the issues in which we are for some reason obliged to condone bad behavior.

What you seem to be saying is that I'm somehow biased when it comes to this topic. But how? Am I secretly pro-life but in the closet? A wolf in sheep's clothing pretending to be pro-choice? Or what?

I just don't think that a discussion like this should be shut down because you as a moderator happen to disagree with and be frustrated by some of the other posters taking part.

Meanwhile, fifteen months of discussing everything from the conceded personhood argument to the rights of men, and even corpses? The question was what happens to a woman's human rights under this standard. Of complaining about accurate descriptions of bad behavior? Of trolling and trying to distract the topic? Of refusing to affirmatively support a thesis, instead demanding negative proof of an amorphous idea? Of arguing ferociously while ignorant of the facts pertaining to the issue? Of asking absurd questions? They're finally resorting to sexual harassment, and you're suggesting we ought to ignore them?

What are you suggesting?

Isn't sunlight the best disinfectant (to quote one of our colleagues)?

Yes, of course anti-abortion advocates are always on with the baby-murdering talk. And that's all well and fine, maybe, for you. But I would remind you that they're killing people in the States because this "baby murder" talk is having its effect.

I'm aware of that. Even where I live there is constant pressure from some quarters to wind back the availability of abortion. And we have our share of protesters, too. Luckily, here they do not generally have easy access to guns and bombs.

I suppose, however, it's true that it's not offensive conduct in any way if we isolate all the components in order to duck consideration of the cumulative weight, and thus just say, "Meh," to each isolated component. You do have a point there.

The question is whether this particular debate should be fought out freely in the open forums, or whether one side should be censured for daring to disagree and to express views you'd rather not listen to.

No, really, what part of, "we really ought to have that conversation in another thread", is unclear? Or is this the least you can do to further forestall discussion of a woman's human rights?

If you'd like my opinions on any matter of women's rights, please ask me and I'll tell you straight up. I'm fairly sure we'll agree on most of them.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

There's no requirement that you respond to trolls.

On the contrary, it's important not to respond to them. They live for attention. If they don't get it they will suffocate and die.

It's harder to establish that the supposed troll is only out to get an angry reaction and does not truly believe what he is posting.

The more-or-less standard internet definition of "trolling" does not care whether the alleged troll believes that his statement is true. What matters is whether it is:

• off topic
• repeated without responding to responses from others after the initial posting
• stated in an insulting or otherwise inflammatory way
• or in violation of the particular website's rules.

Trolls post to provoke an emotional reaction - anger, disgust, whatever. If you give them that reaction, you're feeding the trolls. It's what they want. To put it crudely, they get off on it. Hence the blowjob reference.

I would hope that all the moderators understand this. Otherwise, how can we do our jobs?

I'm suggesting that everybody in this thread could be a bit less emotional about the matter of abortion.

That's a tall order. I'd say that 75% of the population of the USA is emotional about this issue. We're happy if they just don't get into fistfights in public.

I do recognise, however, that the perception of the victim is of paramount important in cases of sexual harrassment.

Uh, "paramount"? Whatever happened to the "reasonable person" test? There actually are women who claim they're being harrassed if all you do is take a second look at an attractive dress and then say, "nice dress."

What punishment do you think would be appropriate for the trangressions in this thread? Who should be punished, and in what way?

It would serve them right to simply lock the thread.

If it comes up again, THEN start applying the rules more consistently from the start. To moderators as well as all other participants!

That's the current approach, yes, do everything you can to save a life regardless of the quality of life as a result of it being saved. Again, I redirect you to the groundswell towards the right to be left to die.

Thank you! As I'm now at an age at which I have a 3% probability of dying in any given year, I have to face end-of-life issues. DNR orders are routinely ignored in the USA. My mother had a no-tube-feeding order and the so-called "nursing home" tube-fed her anyway, because that way they were able to charge her estate for two more weeks of "caring" for the vegetable that was once her body.

As heroic measures continue to be invented that make it possible to keep the most vapid corpses breathing, we have to develop attitudes toward "saving lives" that are appropriate for the post-industrial era. That includes people in their last six months of life (during which they pay 50% of their total lifetime medical bills) as well as the nine months before they become "persons" in the more rational (i.e. less religious) societies.

 

[Bells]

Bells,

Yes. Why take it personally?

Ah geez, I don't know, James. Why would a woman who nearly died of cancer take being told that if a woman is sick, she's just not worth that much, personally? Can you think of a reason why that may be offensive to some? Just off the top of your head? Go on, have a think about it.

People have all kinds of bizarre opinions. Sometimes they are even offensive to normal moral standards. If somebody thinks it's somehow acceptable to deliberately kill a mother for the sake of an unborn child, that's a view with serious ethical problems, but it's still just another opinion. That kind of stuff can be refuted by reasoned argument. There's no need to get personal.

We once banned 2 people for their opinion that raping children should be legal. You think saying that it should be acceptable to kill a woman to get her child out of her is an opinion that is just that, "meh" an opinion?

How about when you refute it with reason and the comments become even more extreme and offensive? How about when you express disgust for this "opinion" that murdering sick women may be acceptable (because when you kill someone, it's usually deemed murder), you are told that you may as well offer blowjobs to the men participating in this thread? You don't think that's personal? Is it acceptable?

Clearly, the idea of stuffing a newborn baby back into the uterus is absurd and bears no relation to anything that happens in real life. But I believe you already pointed that out.

And did you see what the response to that was?

There's no requirement that you respond to trolls. And if you need to respond, why not link back to your initial response.

Well of course, I was asking for it by actually providing a response with studies and real life cases. How absolutely abhorrent of me. Lesson learned.

I must say that in topics such as this it is very easy to accuse each other of trolling. It's harder to establish that the supposed troll is only out to get an angry reaction and does not truly believe what he is posting. Nevertheless, you could always ask another moderator to review the discussion if you think a ban for trolling is warranted.

Righttt....

I take it you have not yet read the ongoing discussion in the back room about what exactly was happening in this thread?

This is poor behaviour and possibly trolling. Deliberate lying is actually against the rules. Nevertheless, misrepresentations and straw men are very common on sciforums, as I'm sure you're aware. In a heated discussion about abortion, you can almost guarantee that some of that will go on. Is it really such a surprise?

Well if trolling and lying are expected and shrugged off, why bother with any rules of this site at all? What's the point?

One option might be simply to deny patently silly misrepresentations of your position, without getting all flustered about it.

I have done that for over dozens of posts. At what point is it acceptable to get "flustered" when the lying and misrepresentation continues?

The original blowjob comment, I believe, was this:



While the blowjob reference was fairly crude, the general advice is probably right. Trolls post to provoke an emotional reaction - anger, disgust, whatever. If you give them that reaction, you're feeding the trolls. It's what they want. To put it crudely, they get off on it. Hence the blowjob reference.

Let me see if I have this straight. "Advice" that equates to telling me that I may as well suck the cocks of the men in this thread instead of responding and denying the misrepresentation and the lies, was generally correct?

Way to take a stand against sexual harassment, James. No, really. Telling me that my being sexually harassed was correct and there was nothing wrong with it because the message behind it was correct. Amazing.

To read this comment as suggesting that you, personally, should give somebody a blowjob, rather than as general advice about feeding trolls, is stretching things, I think.

Unbelievable.

Telling me to give someone a blowjob would be better than responding is now advice. Yep. Just wow..

That might well be harrassment. It might have gone too far there. At best, it was ill-judged. I'm not sure it deserves an immediate and permanent ban.

Well of course you don't. You think the underlying message behind telling me to give the men in this thread a blowjob was correct.

It's because of attitudes like this that this site has such a big issue with sexual harassment. Read other forums and the women who have left here for this exact same reason. This is just another notch on this site's bedpost for failing to once again, address the issue. I shouldn't be surprised. It's an ongoing thing here.

A word of advice, for future reference, both here and outside of this forum. When a person complains about sexual harassment, you don't tell them that the underlying message behind that sexually charged comment that constituted the harassment was correct.

I'm suggesting that everybody in this thread could be a bit less emotional about the matter of abortion. If things are getting inappropriately personal, maybe backing off for a while might be a good move.

My impression is that it is easy to gather together posts after the fact and claim that they amount to a concerted campaign of personal harassment. But that might not always be the intent. It could be that originally the poster just wanted to make his or her point in a forceful way, or to present an argument many times in the hopes of convincing somebody or converting somebody.

If you trawl through posts on a heated topic looking for dirt, you'll most likely be able to find some. There will be breaches of the site rules, inappropriate comments etc. We're not an academic conference. Discussions tend to get heated here, particularly on topics such as abortion. People lose control of themselves. But that doesn't always mean they're out to get you personally.

You have made your opinion very clear. You can stop making excuses for them now.

Meh.

Every pro-lifer accuses pro-choicers of wanting to murder babies. What do you expect? Really.

Oh no, I now realise that I was wrong to expect better.

I don't think that's exactly what happened here, but I could, as ever, be wrong.

Ya think?

Nobody is asking you to accept being sexually harrassed. I'm just not convinced that that is what has happened here.

I do recognise, however, that the perception of the victim is of paramount important in cases of sexual harrassment.

What punishment do you think would be appropriate for the trangressions in this thread? Who should be punished, and in what way?

When you tell me that the underlying message behind being told that I may as well offer blowjobs is correct, you don't think you are asking me to accept being sexually harassed? I mean, you can't even tell that being told something like that is sexual harassment. You can't even tell this is not acceptable.

You lay out the groundwork for excusing it and then you ask me what I think the punishment should be? Wow..

Just wow..

You want my honest opinion? This is pathetic and inexcusable. But hey, I should just be a good little girl and shut up and mind my place.

We're done.

 

[ElectricFetus]

How has this thread enlightened anyone? Or does everyone who's participating find it entertaining? If so, you must be the same people who keep TV shows like "Survivor" and "Say Yes to the Dress" on the air.

I do! I been using this thread to test, revise and enhance my ethics, my understanding of personhood, I've learned a lot from this thread! I've learned the ethical advantages and disadvantages of different models for personhood and have firmly establish one of those models into my own ethics. I've learned what is and is not acceptable to me. Despite all the name calling, gross exaggerations of my stance and threats, I have found this thread highly enlightening, I simply need to ignore Bells and Tiassa at this point though as they have been unwilling to help me test, revise and enhance my ethics, but have found other members here who have been willing to behave neutral, unemotional and have a causal discussion on the ethics of abortion and on the very issue of personhoood, the issue this thread is supposedly about. I can thus attest that this thread has enlightened at least me, but I can understand if it has not help anyone else that this thread would still be considered a failure.

 

[Kittamaru]

ElectricFetus... may I ask, genuinely, what it is you learned in terms of your own ethical standing? What "enlightenment" have you found, exactly?

You are, of course, free to tell me to bug off... but I a most curious.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

It's fifteen months later, and the one thing that is apparently unacceptable to discuss is the actual thread topic?

If I had just joined SciForums and read that, I might make the observation that the moderator of that particular subforum might, therefore, not be doing a good job.

My point being that people can claim what they want, but that doesn't make those claims true.

This sounds like a discussion better suited to the Linguistics subforum. Send them my way.

And I do find it interesting that this is one of the issues in which we are for some reason obliged to condone bad behavior.

I don't feel that obligation. It's just not my territory so I'm only stomping into it in my Miss Piggy slippers instead of my motorcycle boots.

Meanwhile, fifteen months of discussing everything from the conceded personhood argument to the rights of men, and even corpses? The question was what happens to a woman's human rights under this standard. Of complaining about accurate descriptions of bad behavior? Of trolling and trying to distract the topic? Of refusing to affirmatively support a thesis, instead demanding negative proof of an amorphous idea? Of arguing ferociously while ignorant of the facts pertaining to the issue? Of asking absurd questions? They're finally resorting to sexual harassment, and you're suggesting we ought to ignore them?

Dude, you're the U.S. Marshall in this territory. Clean it up according to your own standards. Surely you of all people at one point must have reminded us all that "It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permisson."

Yes, of course anti-abortion advocates are always on with the baby-murdering talk.

And this is where the Linguistics moderator changes into his motorcycle boots. The deliberate killing of a viable fetus is not legally defined as murder in many states. Abortion of a fetus is not legally defined as murder in any of them, including, as far as I know, the few that have done their best to outlaw abortion.

So, yes, at some point people are allowed to be offended at the useless, insistent, morbid fantasies of people who want what they want regardless of who it hurts, and are offended by the idea that they should explain anything about what it is they actually want.

But that's not a scientific discussion so hosting it on SciForums is hardly part of our charter. If it's more trouble than it's worth, AND it has virtually nothing to do with science, then dump the damn thing! How much of our time are we going to waste on this crap?

There must be just as many websites devoted to this topic, which welcome non-scientific comments, as there are websites devoted to evolution denialism. Why do we feel that we are obliged to host it here???

And then people are arguing that terrorism isn't terrorism if people have a sincere belief in what they're doing?

Again, please send those trolls to the Linguistics subforum. There's no universal Merriam-Webster/OED standard definition of "terrorism," but the various definitions that exist, from the FBI's to mine, are close enough to not start fistfights. And none of them agree with that one!

Words really are important.

Intellectual dishonesty is not on our list of bannable behaviour.

And when are we going to fix that? As I've pointed out before, it's no stretch to identify it as the most insidious type of trolling: "to halt or divert the forward motion of a discussion by injecting material that is off-topic, distracting, inflammatory, known to the contributor to be untrue, or already challenged by another member without the challenge being acknowledged and/or rebutted."

Maybe you'd argue that it should be. I'm not sure how we could hope to police any such rule.

The same way we police all the other rules. If a moderator notices it, or it is brought to their attention, they can take the appropriate action. But indeed we need to update the rules to note that since this type of trolling is both deliberate and insidious, we'll start the perpetrator at a much higher level on the ban cycle: doing it twice, no matter how long the interval, results in a permaban. That would have solved our problem with S.A.M. and her "I'll just wait 3 months and nobody will remember that I was shot down for saying this before" tactic more efficiently.

And if the moderator misses it, the intellectually dishonest member gets a free pass. Duh?

. . . . [Tiassa,] you're somewhat partial to dismissing moral arguments that you disagree with by labelling them as irrelevant "aesthetic" considerations rather than as valid moral positions.

This is an easy trap to fall into. I find it very difficult to respect arguments based on the Bronze Age "wisdom" of religion.

I just don't think that a discussion like this should be shut down because you as a moderator happen to disagree with and be frustrated by some of the other posters taking part.

There's been more than enough trolling (repetition of statements without moving the argument forward) to simply delete 95% of the posts. That alone would improve the quality of the discourse. Disagreement is not grounds for locking a thread, but frustration with the lack of forward motion is. However, rather than locking it Tiassa might take my suggestion and clean it up. I wouldn't be surprised if almost every post is eventually followed by at least ten others that are exact duplicates except for wording.

Isn't sunlight the best disinfectant (to quote one of our colleagues)?

Benjamin Cardozo (1870-1938), the first Jewish justice on the U.S. Supreme Court (1932-1938). He is considered a major influence on the evolution of U.S. law. And it's "sunshine."

A friend of mine changed careers and got a law degree. Being Jewish and named Benjamin, he legally changed his name to Benjamin Cardozo in honor of his spiritual ancestor. He did not see the internet coming. Nobody can find him!

[EDIT: I quoted the wrong justice, it was Louis Brandeis who made the statement about sunshine. He was on the court 1916-1939. His parents were of Jewish ancestry but after emigrating from Bohemia to the USA they became rather secular, so Brandeis is not generally identified as the first Jewish Supreme Court justice.]

Even where I live there is constant pressure from some quarters to wind back the availability of abortion. And we have our share of protesters, too. Luckily, here they do not generally have easy access to guns and bombs.

Until recently it was commonly asserted that Australia was taking the same historical path as the USA, merely fifty years behind us. Today it seems like you've sprung out ahead.

 

[wynn]

How has this thread enlightened anyone? Or does everyone who's participating find it entertaining?

How have we become enlightened, about what?

That Maya rwles. Big time.

I keep telling LG about this, but he just doesn't take my words seriously.

If so, you must be the same people who keep TV shows like "Survivor" and "Say Yes to the Dress" on the air.

You don't say!

 

[Grumpy]

Thoughts on the OP...

No, a newly fertilized egg is not a person. A three month old fetus is also not a person. When the fetus becomes viable ON IT'S OWN OUTSIDE OF THE WOMB(not inside an artificial womb built by technology, a really bad idea IMO), it becomes a person, even the Bible recognizes personhood at birth and not one day sooner. We do not celebrate our day of conception, we celebrate our birth day.

The reason this whole topic came up is because some people think they have a right to impose their moral or religious views on all of society. Authoritarianism. Combine that with religion and you have our current problem. This is as unAmerican as it gets, our nation was founded by those fleeing that very thing. And most of these authoritarians say they are justified by the Bible.

"Funny how that works.

Was the Christian God cool with slavery? Slave owners sure thought so -- and had plenty of Biblical canon to support it. Abolitionists disagreed. Did God want women to vote? Not according to anti-suffragists. Suffragists were convinced otherwise. If society continues this descent into level-headed compassion, fifty years from now people will be claiming that God is pro-fur and factory farming. When one cannot defend a belief in the current context, moving the framework back a few thousand years and putting the blame on God is a pretty good fallback strategy.
I know, I know. There's only one God and he is not at all ambiguous: he agrees with you. It's all right there in the Bible or whatever holy book you believe in, as you have decided to interpret it. It's perfectly clear, right?
Except to all the people it isn't. Assume that you are a member of (depending on your definition) the largest religious denomination in the world, the Latin Catholic Church. Around 1.15 of the world's 7 billion people share your belief system, if we assume (very wrongly) that local churches are uniform throughout the system. The rest of the world thinks that you're crazy -- or at least misguided on some pretty key points.
And even among that portion of the population that does think that you and God are on the same verse, individual political beliefs are still divided. George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton are both Methodists, and both will tell you with complete sincerity that their religious beliefs reaffirm their political ones. Bush was raised in his more-liberal father's more-conservative Episcopalian church, but converted when he married Laura.
Our personal cosmologies change to suit to our needs all the time. That is, if we're lucky enough to live somewhere that's legal. Our religious views, both as cultures and individuals, are sought and chosen to reinforce, justify and lend meaning to our pre-existing beliefs, not to alter them.
So why do people think that they will accomplish anything in the political sphere by blaming often abhorrent beliefs, actions and statements on the Almighty?
Because, in a small but important way, they do. Oh, they won't win any adult political converts (religious maybe,) but when the scales are balanced just right, religion can provide a certain degree of cover, absolving people from or mitigating the reaction to their behavior. The shield of religion is excellent for rationalizing prejudices that we logically and empathically know are wrong.
The good people at the Creation Museum call the observable universe "man's word," and a book written, compiled, edited and translated many times by humans "God's word" without any sense of irony. And people walk by that display every day without falling down laughing. It sure as Hell-for-heathens isn't that it has convinced anyone. It's because the average visitor is already so predisposed to accepting its conclusion that any statement in support is seen as inherently legitimate. It isn't convincing; it is comforting. Religion, as a larger phenomenon, works much the same way.
Right to discriminate bills are all the rage lately. If the concept of discrimination appeals but also seems inherently un-democratic to you, let religion "make up your mind" for you. When Jesus tells you not to serve cripples, it's freedom!"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-womack/religion-and-politics_b_4764865.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

Grumpy

 

[ElectricFetus]

ElectricFetus... may I ask, genuinely, what it is you learned in terms of your own ethical standing? What "enlightenment" have you found, exactly?

You are, of course, free to tell me to bug off... but I a most curious.

Well you could read over the last several dozens pages but here is a very breif outline of what I have learned

- I have decided that viability is a point that we start applying rights to a fetus.
- We don't start apply personhood full until after birth, and even then full personhood does not occur until 21 years of age (in my country), the right not to be killed, abused or endangers could be applied after viability, still working on the details though.
- viability is when a fetus as a 50% chance of survival outside the womb, about 24 weeks.
- That after viability we can provide the option of c-section/induce labor instead of abortion, thus retaining a women's right to choose and control over her body, as she can have the fetus removed if she wants, she just can't have it killed after 24 weeks.
- that a corpse with a viable fetus would be valid as an "incubator", as Bell puts it, both medically and morally via my ethics, but one with an inviable fetus would not. That since it is a corpse it is not a women or a person anymore and thus it rights are highly limited and in the same range of limited rights as a viable fetus, and thus a viable fetus could usurp the rights of a corpse or it claimants.
- that the 'dry foot' model allows for situations that I can't find ethically palatable, specifically that a fetus has no rights what so ever until the moment it leave the women, thus killing the fetus at any point before is acceptable
- That my personal debate to complement the flaws of positive and negative utilitarianism, have me side with positive utilitarianism, as a fetus's has no "right to die", so to speak, if a fetus could openly choose to die like an adult human can, I would be fine with it agreeing to be aborted, but a fetus does not have that choice, therefor a fetus has no "right to die" other then if it can't physically survive.

And that is just the tip of the journey in ethics this thread has provided me, bar some of its ugly transients.

 

[Trippy]

So unfortunately, yes: your voice must be edited out of the sound track. You're welcome to influence the dyamics of your own family, but please don't make American society even worse by increasing the number of fatherless children whose most likely future resembles a bad Dickens novel.

But that's not my position, abortion/viability/adoption is a compromise that, superficially at least seems to address the concerns of both parties, it's one I am willing to accept if it can be made to work properly. Being made to work properly neccessarily includes dealing with the dynamics you're describing.

I personally believe that women should be free to make their own reproductive choices as a matter of conscience and education, even if I personally should happen to disagree with it.

Problem pregnancies are overwhelmingly a women's issue, so as a matter of public policy women should make the decisions.

In an ideal world yes, and in this same ideal world, contraception would be freely available to women to take up as desired, and all women should be sufficiently educated to fully and completely understand the potential consequences of that decision. Sadly, we do not live in that ideal world.

At the very least, their voices should be heard. Since the USA is a phallocracy like most of the world, their voices are muted.

Agreed, however, my daughter, at age 6 is not in a position to speak out to protect her rights, and so I, as an (essentially) white male living in the American pallocratic hegemony am forced to speak out so that her right to make the decision for herself, regardless of my personal opinion of that decision, is protected.

The alternative, leaving the decision to 50+ year old, mostly white males who still think that you can't get pregnant from genuine rape, global warming is a lie, and that the earth was created in 6 days 6,000 years ago is untenable.

Consider: If white males like me had remained silent on women's rights to vote, or blacks rights to use the same bathroom as whites, how different would the world be?

If we elect Green Party candidate Jill Stein to be our next president, then we can talk about this some more. Are you going to vote for her, as the next step in women's long, slow march to equality?

If I was a US citizen, I would at least seriously consider it. Whether or not I actually voted for her would depend on your Green parties policies and whether or not I agreed with them - remember, I spend 37.5 hours a week being paid to protect the environment.

Oh sorry, I forgot whom I was talking to. You live in a country that is probably way ahead of us in women's rights. Your larger neighbor even had a female PM, causing Australian English to be gifted with the wonderful term "First Bloke" for the spouse of a female national leader.

Helen Clark, current administrator of the United Nations Development Programme was the 37th PM of New Zealand and was in office from 1999 - 2008, and as I understand it, is being considered for Secretary General. She was the second female PM NZ had had at that point, the previous being Jenny Shipley. Our current Parliment has 39 female MPs out of a total of 120, at least one transgender MP, and a number of openly gay MP's (both male and female). I voted for Helen Clark, but not Jenny Shipley because I dislike National party policies.

New Zealand Abortion Law requires that abortions after 12 weeks be performed in a hospital, and must be approved by two doctors, one of which must be a gynaecologist or obstetrician. Counselling is available but not compulsory and the law is silent on the personhood of the unborn. Abortions can be obtained between 12 and 20 weeks to save the life of the woman, preserve the physical or mental health of the woman, and in case of foetal impairment. There are other factors which can be considered as well (eg, rape, I think Incest), however, they're not neccessarily automatically grounds for an abortion - but, for example, the damage to the mental health of a woman carrying a rape-baby full term would probably be grounds for an abortion if requested. Some of these are grounds for abortion even after 20 weeks. There are no parental notification restrictions on access under the age of 16.

In addition to that I, or my wife, can get 120 condoms on perscription (costs us $5) through our GP.

Kiwis were the first to give women the right to vote, compared to the situation in the US I feel positively privileged, I still, however, feel compelled to lend my voice to those calling for the right for women to determine their own reproductive destinies. And that's kind of the point I'm making. Tiassa, and myself, for example are essentially arguing "Hey, knuckleheads, listen to the women and let them make their own choices" in an environement where their voices are muted, and you're suggesting we should remain silent?

If you've never been to the USA you probably can't imagine how bad women have it here. "Nikita" and "NCIS" are just TV shows.

I think I have a fairly good idea based on what I have observed, there and elsewhere in the American Pallocratic Hegemony.

 

[Trippy]

- That after viability we can provide the option of c-section/induce labor instead of abortion, thus retaining a women's right to choose and control over her body, as she can have the fetus removed if she wants, she just can't have it killed after 24 weeks.

I don't know if you realize it or not, however, even this has consequences that limit a womans future reproductive choices - the general medical advice is that you shouldn't have more than three C-sections (based on the weakening effects it has on the uterine wall, risk of uterine rupturing, so on and so forth) and that you shouldn't have a natural deliver after having a c-section. I'd question the ability of a fetus to survive induction at 24 weeks, given that it's used as a method of abortion in the second trimester, but I don't have any statistics at my fingertips and lack the time for google.

 

[James R]

Bells,

I was worried that you'd react this way.

It is a pity that this thread was allowed to continue as long as it did. It probably should have been closed once it became clear that the participants were incapable of or unwilling to discuss the topic without resort to personal insults and other forms of harassment. Alternatively/additionally, the offending posters should have been officially warned and/or banned.

I was not around while all this was developing. I am unfortunately left to pick up the pieces.

I have been careful not to excuse or try to justify unacceptable behaviour directed towards you. My concern is that lightgigantic's punishment is too severe under the circumstances.

At the risk of further putting you off side, I need to respond to a few of the points you've made.

Ah geez, I don't know, James. Why would a woman who nearly died of cancer take being told that if a woman is sick, she's just not worth that much, personally?

I'm not sure what particular comment you're referring to here. I am aware of the "blowjob" comments. I am aware of the "hysterical" label. But this 'sick woman isn't worth much' is a new one that I don't recall seeing in the thread. Could you link me to it, please? Clearly, that is incredibly insensitive and offensive.

We once banned 2 people for their opinion that raping children should be legal. You think saying that it should be acceptable to kill a woman to get her child out of her is an opinion that is just that, "meh" an opinion?

You're dropping all the context from the discussion now. You know that the discussion was about a controversial issue.

And I don't think you're really interested at this point in what I think is or is not acceptable in terms of the thread topic.

How about when you refute it with reason and the comments become even more extreme and offensive? How about when you express disgust for this "opinion" that murdering sick women may be acceptable (because when you kill someone, it's usually deemed murder), you are told that you may as well offer blowjobs to the men participating in this thread? You don't think that's personal? Is it acceptable?

I've already said what I think about the blowjob thing. EF clearly didn't think about who he was addressing when he made that comment. LG was extremely stupid in following up on it after you replied to the initial comment. I don't think LG's permanent ban as a result of that and his use of the term "hysterical" is justified.

There's no requirement that you respond to trolls. And if you need to respond, why not link back to your initial response.

Well of course, I was asking for it by actually providing a response with studies and real life cases. How absolutely abhorrent of me. Lesson learned.

I said nothing about you "asking for it".

I take it you have not yet read the ongoing discussion in the back room about what exactly was happening in this thread?

I've read all the relevant threads, in the public and moderators forums.

Well if trolling and lying are expected and shrugged off, why bother with any rules of this site at all? What's the point?

Trolling is to be expected in threads like this. Some people are immature and/or have no personal experience of the issues involved. Both lying and trolling are breaches of the site rules. Such breaches could have been dealt with early on by moderators who were present at the time. Instead, the thread was allowed to remain open and nobody was censured.

While the blowjob reference was fairly crude, the general advice is probably right. Trolls post to provoke an emotional reaction - anger, disgust, whatever. If you give them that reaction, you're feeding the trolls. It's what they want. To put it crudely, they get off on it. Hence the blowjob reference.

Let me see if I have this straight. "Advice" that equates to telling me that I may as well suck the cocks of the men in this thread instead of responding and denying the misrepresentation and the lies, was generally correct?

Read what I've said. Don't put words in my mouth. I've explained my point clearly, both in this and in at least two other threads.

What you "equated" the advice to is not quite the same as the advice that was actually given. I understand why you took it the way you did, though.

Way to take a stand against sexual harassment, James. No, really. Telling me that my being sexually harassed was correct and there was nothing wrong with it because the message behind it was correct. Amazing.

The original comment, in my opinion, was borderline harassment. The follow-up from LG was certainly harassment because it referenced you personally. The initial comment was inappropriate given its addressee (you). The follow-up was ban-worthy.

Let me be clear: I have not at any time said this behaviour was "correct" or that there was "nothing wrong with it".

To read this comment as suggesting that you, personally, should give somebody a blowjob, rather than as general advice about feeding trolls, is stretching things, I think.

Unbelievable.

Unbelievable that I might view things differently from you? Obviously, you're close to this and I'm viewing from a distance. Is it so surprising that my perception is different from yours?

Are you going to start accusing me of supporting or encouraging sexual harassment? (Or have you already started?)

Telling me to give someone a blowjob would be better than responding is now advice. Yep. Just wow..

I can't explain myself any better than I have the previous four or five times.

That might well be harrassment. It might have gone too far there. At best, it was ill-judged. I'm not sure it deserves an immediate and permanent ban.

Well of course you don't. You think the underlying message behind telling me to give the men in this thread a blowjob was correct.

There's the problem right there. You're looking for an "underlying message". I'm looking at what was actually written. You have presumed certain intentions and motives on the parts of the posters. They may or may not have been present at the time. Since I can't know that, I can only go on what was actually written. It would be unfair to impute an "underlying message" to the relevant posts without more evidence.

It's because of attitudes like this that this site has such a big issue with sexual harassment. Read other forums and the women who have left here for this exact same reason. This is just another notch on this site's bedpost for failing to once again, address the issue. I shouldn't be surprised. It's an ongoing thing here.

I don't think we have a big problem with sexual harassment here. It's something that comes up from time to time, just like racism or homophobia.

A word of advice, for future reference, both here and outside of this forum. When a person complains about sexual harassment, you don't tell them that the underlying message behind that sexually charged comment that constituted the harassment was correct.

The original message was "Don't feed the trolls". I think that's generally good advice.

Unfortunately, that "blowjob" reference was tacked on at the end, and that was the part that was inappropriate.

You're failing to separate the advice I mentioned (don't feed the trolls) from the inappropriate sexual reference.

You have made your opinion very clear. You can stop making excuses for them now.

I don't think I've made excuses for anybody.

What would be my motivation in condoning any form of sexual harassment on this forum? Am I an evil misogynist myself? Do I secretly enjoy watching women being harassed? Is that what you think?

At one stage in my life I was a contact person for giving out advice to students about sexual harassment issues. You presume I am new to the principles of sexual harassment. I assure you that I am not, and that I have some experience in dealing with such matters.

Every pro-lifer accuses pro-choicers of wanting to murder babies. What do you expect? Really.

Oh no, I now realise that I was wrong to expect better.

Come on. Let's not pretend. You know and I know that it's standard in any discussion about abortion for pro-lifers to label pro-choicers as baby killers. For the rabid pro-lifer, the pro-choicer condones the murder of innocent unborn babies whose lives should be sacrosanct from the instant of conception.

If you enter this kind of discussion taking a pro-choice position, it's almost guaranteed that if things get heated you'll at some point be accused of wanting to murder babies.

If you think differently, then you're naive about internet discussion forums. I think you know better than that. Sure, it's fine to be outraged when somebody accuses you of wanting to kill babies. But don't claim that you didn't see it coming.

You lay out the groundwork for excusing it and then you ask me what I think the punishment should be? Wow..

Just wow..

In the mediation of sexual harassment issues, it is commonplace to ask what kind of outcome the victim hopes to gain from the process. For example, you might like an apology from the perpetrators. Given the context here, you might like a lengthy ban.

As a matter of fact, it seems that you already have part of the outcome you want: the permanent banning of one of the perpetrators. But I'm only assuming that this is satisfactory to you. I also don't want to assume that this is sufficient. Hence I ask the question.

You want my honest opinion? This is pathetic and inexcusable. But hey, I should just be a good little girl and shut up and mind my place.

We're done.

Obviously I have never told you to shut up or to mind your place.

I'm sorry that you seem to want to impute to me "underlying" motives that I do not have. I do not think it is fair that you are trying to paint things as though I somehow approve or condone what happened here.

I hope that a few days away from the forum will give you a chance to think things over and get a bit of distance between yourself and recent events.