Since these turn into quotefests otherwise:
1. jrrrrr:
Morality is objective (or are you willing to argue "morality is relative is the only moral absolute?"), and you have no problem with laws that enforce what you think is right, e.g. gay marriage no matter how many adoption agencies get shut down because of the inherent conflict between religious rights and homosexual normalization.
Thousands of children were denied loving homes because of gay marriage's passage via judicial fiat in Massachusetts (and also in Illinois. And also anywhere else gay marriage passes by law or fiat, because as soon as it is legalized the lawsuits and forced shutdowns cometh against longstanding Catholic agencies) - your preferred policies are not moral just because you believe them to be. They must be measured by their actual effects and intended consequences. You know a law is moral by how it comports with its net effects combined with its intention, implementation, and common sense.
2. Brain / Umbreon Dan:
None of those things you mentioned Brain are rights (though they may stem from the right to liberty - the difference is no one must be compelled to give you liberty, but they must be compelled to pull your teeth), and Dan: health care is not a right because health care is provided by the skilled labor of medical professionals. By definition to have health care be a right is to enslave the doctors who provide it. Never mind it's impossible to have a right to "good health" because genetics and old age tend to take care of that one without interference from tyrannical governments.
Rights have a very limited definition and are specific from privileges. Rights by necessity must not be products or services, but concepts. Property for example is tangible but the right protects the principle that a parcel of land can be owned and used exclusively by one person. You don't have a right to a specified plot of land or free-standing object, you have the right to own a parcel of property or object in the abstract.
The confusion on this subject of rights is purposeful because modernist progressives would have no leg to stand on if they didn't cloak each of their policy preferences as some "right." This is how the Soviet Constitution operated, and conveniently the Soviet Constitution allowed for every right except dissent (they also weren't keen on private property, life, or liberty)
Nastyjungle:
I explained it how it is, just like in the other thread I made a passing reference to partial-birth abortion as delivering a baby breach, then snapping an infant's spinal cord and collapsing their skull. If it sounds ugly and indefensible, it's because it is. No one holds an infant in their arms and imagines pulling it limb from limb, making sure each and every piece of their body is removed from the uterus. Yet that is what a late-term abortion (as opposed to PBA) is.
If we upscaled the standard second and third term abortion procedures and applied them to death row inmates, we would be accused of being barbarians of the highest order. We perform those on tiny innocents in the name of "choice."
I have no love for your position either, the difference is I understand your concerns and so do pro-lifers, which is exactly why we try to help women in crisis pregnancies understand that their life and the life of their child is precious. What has Planned Parenthood ever done for women? Take their money, toss them on tables, slaughter their children, and wait a couple months for the cycle to continue.
I urge you to check out organizations like
Birthright. They are, as can be expected, opposed by Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest (and most subsidized) abortion provider. CPC's are bad for their business - After all, it takes nine months to give birth for free with a CPC, whereas an abortion can be done over two days for $300 a pop, and since none of the circumstances that led to the problem pregnancy will be addressed, they could be seeing the same client again in only a few months.
Which brings me back to jrrrrr:
You are attempting to wrap multiple issues into "pro-life" in order to obfuscate the specific argument against abortion. I know of very few "pro-choicers" who support school vouchers, less draconian cigarette laws, or less restrictive government in general.
As a saying I developed goes:
A pro-choicer will let you choose to kill your child, but not where they can go to school or whether you can have a cigarette or a bag of chips while you think about it.
Remove the euphemisms and you just end up with pro-abortion and anti-abortion. As I said before, I don't consider abortion to be definable as a "right" by any consistent standard [abortion is a product or service, not a concept] so there's just the word itself. It should stand or fall alone on its merits and definitions.
Finally to Chou and as a general note:
The pro-abortion position is predatory. It proclaims that as long as the human life is small enough, weak enough, young enough, or insufficiently developed to the pro-choicer's arbitrarily selected standard, that the rights that humans ordinarily enjoy can be suspended for personal preferences. Any pro-choice line where they start to believe ending human life is wrong in regards to abortion can easily be stretched out to one or two years outside the womb, thus why the OP link mentioned infanticide. I understand it may be hard for you to realize "I'm gonna have sex DK," but no one is prohibiting that. To jump back to Dan, no one bans "being gay," they ban specific actions and endorsements via established public policies.
Back to Chou: The point is, when you do have sex and you do create a life, you should understand the gravity of that and work to protect that life. As a man, you cannot even create life! Your body is constructed to deliver a constituent part of it, but you cannot nurture and nurse a life from its tiniest structure to the baby you will hold in your arms. There is no other realm where you would allow someone's whims to curtail another human being's unalienable rights. There is no other time when "doing the right thing is too hard" is accepted as a valid excuse.
If you work in a school system you are a mandated reporter of sexual abuse. No matter how hard it is, you must report a friend who is abusing their position to harm the well-being of a minor. The concept that life is precious and deserves to be protected is absolutely foundational to a functioning society.
People are carping about broken homes and financial non-viability:
Ask yourself if you support or oppose these statements.
1. Marriage between a mother and father is optional - cohabitation is morally neutral.
2. There is no intrinsic value in the mother/father/children arrangement over and above alternative definitions of a family.
3. Single mothers should be lionized because they work so hard, and we should not question them as to why the father of their child is not in the picture.
4. No fault divorce should be the legal norm.
5. Sex can and should be considered separate from monogamous love.
6. Some combination of welfare checks, alimony, and child support is a suitable substitute for the presence of a (non-abusive) father in the home.
I would argue if you support the preponderance of these statements, the problem is you support positions that weaken and/or dismantle the bonds of family. The best insurance against poverty and youth criminality is a married mother and father living in the same home.
Is this an easy life? No. But when you view society through the lens that it exists for the benefit of children and not adults (loosely defined as anyone 18 and over), it becomes much easier to accept and live.
I'll end with an experience:
One of my coworkers recently had a baby, and she brought her in at two weeks. The baby barely fit across my folded arms. She was fast asleep and completely helpless, even as she was passed around from person to person. She can't speak, she can't articulate her life experiences or feelings, she is not self-aware, her eyes have not developed the proper focus to see anything but blurry images yet anyway. She is too weak to feed herself, she's still trying to develop the motor skills in her arms and hands. She can't control her bowel movements.
According to some of the standards used in this thread, she is not a human being yet. I can't abide by that kind of obvious, oblivious shortsightedness and selfishness. It's easy to talk about the abstract qualities of humanity when you have no children - as if all of life is an academic exercise with no stakes involved. The only difference between then and two weeks prior is real estate - location, location, location. I stand in awe and wonder that the things I believe and the decisions I make will impact this child's life, so I try my hardest to believe the right things, to elect the right people, to fight for the right ideas and hold the right ideals.
So I guess I'm a softie at heart. All the better then, that I can direct my intensity where it counts. I too will pass... but I want her to have the same chances I've had to live, to work, to dream, to be disappointed, to suffer hardship and adversity - and to overcome them, if slowly and ploddingly. Nothing crystallized my belief in life so much as holding a little one.
