Solon once again you set up a straw man argument.
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On the above points I have two comments:
1). I have invited you over the course of several posts to provide evidence that would challenge any of my three points, and,
2). You have provided no such evidence.
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I was not challenging your points that's why I provide no evidence for the nonexistent challenge. The reason that I was not challengeing your three points was because I was not challenging your conclusion "that illegal abortions are less safe than legal abortions". You are defending a target I am not attacking, and then counterattacking where there is no target for your counterattack.
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Given the bizarre nature of your claim and given the fact that you made no attempt to prove it
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Lets retore some sense to this. You think I am claiming "I have no choice but to question your motivation and to wonder what is keeping you from getting to understand this conspicuous point--to wit, that legal abortions are safer than illegal abortions." But in fact I made no such claim. I did not even hint at or imply such a claim. What I was claiming is that laws against abortion probably do reduce the number of abortions. Actually I wasn't even making that strong of claim but rather the more easily defended statement that "you have not shown that laws against abortions do not decrease the level of abortions", and more specifically that "developing countries" is not an effective proxy in your arguments for "countries without legal abortion", because the biggest devloping countries have legal abortion, and because the highest abortion rates in the world are in developing countries where abortion is legal. More recently I stated "I do not accept your premise that it (the impact on maternal safety) is the sole question to be asked in terms of what ought to be the social policy." So far you seem to be making a very well thought out and supported attack on something that I did not actually say. Why would you do this? I don't know I can guess. Maybe you aren't reading my posts carefully because you are in a rush or just don't care much about what I have to say. Maybe you don't read them carefully because as soon as you see somthing that sets you off you get emotional. Maybe you are just confused. Maybe you are attacking an easier target then what I actually say. Maybe you just want to stay on message and consider the points that I am talking about to be an attempt to tie you down talking about points that you don't consider important. Maybe there is some other factor involved that I am unaware of. (Edit - I see you do adress my points later in your post , so you obviously are not shying away from attacking them. So it would seem the most likely reason for attacking an argument I did not make is either that you mistakenly believe I did make it, or you want to pound a specific message (the illegal abortions are dangerous to women) home before you address my actual statements)
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And the statements I am quoting (from reliable statistical research institutions) are not claiming to be "proxies" for anything. They are statements of FACT. It is YOU who are avoiding the facts by using the misdirection of "proxies." It is only you who introduced and repeatedly used this word (for reasons which I am far too dull to follow). The facts, however, remain as they are quoted above. I an mot claiming any proxies you may wish to invent. I am
claiming the quotes from the research institute as FACTS--until evidence suggests otherwise. PERIOD!!
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I am not challengeing the statistics from the research institutes as facts, I am challengeing the automatic acceptance of their conclusions as facts. I look at their arguments as you present them. Their statistics are about developing countries. Their conclusion (that abortion rates are not lower when abortion is illegal) would be supported if and only if developing countries as a set is equivilent to the set of countries where abortion is illegal. Instead of repeating this whole sentance again and again I make the statement that they are using "developing countries" as a proxy for "countries where abortion is illegal". I am not avoiding facts, the facts are that the biggest developing countries have legal abortion, and the countries with the highest rate of abortion are developing countries where abortion is illegal. This blows a hole in your sources use of "developing countries" as a proxy or stand in for "countries where abortion is illegal". Since they show no statistics about the set of countries where abortion is illegal they provide no statistical support for their argument. It then amounts to unsupported opinion surrounded by a cloud of irrelevant statistics. That doesn't mean they have to be wrong it merely means they have not shown that they are right.
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Sorry, if you think I have the time and inclination to discuss social policy with someone who has served notice that he considers fancy rather than fact to be appropriate as an argumentative device, then you are mistaken.By inventing the language anew, and by changing the definitions and meanings that are used (by supposedly rational institutions responsible for creating legal guidelines, such as the Supreme Court), you are not only begging the question, but you are begging as many questions as are required in order for you to compel an intended conclusion.
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If I am begging the question by considering an unborn human life to pocess rights and deserve protection, you are similarly begging the question by assuming the opposite. The Supreme Court did not and does not determine fact or fundimental truth in this issue. It interprests the law (or makes up new law from the bench so that the law will be more like what they think it should be.) I do not accept the supreme court as an authority on moral and philisophical truth. If we are arguing what law is in effect then the Supreme Court would be an excellent source for an arguement from authority, but we are instead arguing first statistics, then later ideas about human life and human rights. I doubt you consider the SC to be an authority in any of these areas. I'm sure there are a number of their decisions throughout history that you would not agree with, and even if you agree with every actual decision they have made I doubt you would change your views if they come out with a new decision that you disagree with.
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The fact is that I do have encyclopedias, dictionaries, and so forth. And I have read a sufficient number of court rulings to understand the meaning of the terms, definitions, etc. Unborn human growths, regardless of size, are not children, persons, kids, daughters, philosophers, or police officers.
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They are sons or daughters. If they are not children then they are another stage of human life that procedes their being a child, just as a child is not an adult. A late term fetus is as much of a person as a newborn. I agree they are not hobos, authors, philosophers or police officers, but most people are not any of these things.
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but I hope you can appreciate that I cannot conduct an argument with you in consideration of social policy without a common language and defining of terms. The rights of embryos are not a consideration of the social policy re: abortions. Embryos are not persons and have no rights. However the State has arrogated to itself--certain rights as regards the interest of the State in foetal life.
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You go beyond a common language and defined terms. You want me to accept your conclusion as part of a requirement to participate in the discussion. I will not do so.
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Two entities can vie for the same body, but they cannot BOTH have a RIGHT to the same body. If they BOTH have a right to the same body, then the body BELONGS to both of them, and they are thus NOT separate entities. When that entity thus speaks its will regarding ITSELF, no other mouthpiece in society has any business in challenging it. The concept is contradictory and IGNORANT.
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The two entities have two different bodies, and abortion destroys one of them (and in some cases both). The fetus depends on its mothers body for support, but a new born also depends on some one else for support. The difference being that the support for the unborn is both more constant and untransferable. Also in most cases of abortion the woman getting the abortion was not raped. So she willingly enganged in an activity where the 2nd entity/body could be created. Then having created this dependent entity you apparently think this dependence is a good justification for a right for her to destroy it.
1). What ARE the basic rights of members of the human species? WHY? And who says so?
Thats a BIG question. I'm not sure I want to branch this out to a discussion about what the sum total of human rights are. Relevant to this issue I think humans have a right to their life. If you attack others they have a right to respond to this threat and that response may destroy your life, but if you do not attack or abuse others it is wrong for them to kill you. As far as "who says so", well if we are talking about my own opinion of it I say so. You probably have a different opinion.
2). WHO are the members of the human species. What defines a member of the human species?
A living organism that is a memer of the species homo-sapiens at any stage of its development. This leaves the question as to what is living, for example is a brain dead who's heart and lungs continue to operate because of support from machines alive? I'm not sure how much time I want to spend branching out examine every possible example of that question, but as a rough and ready answer I would say that if the organism entirely rellies on outside support and has no chance of successfaully developing to the point that it can forgo this support, and has no brain function, and has no chance to ever develop brain function, then even if the organism is still a human life and a member of the species homo-sapiens its right to life may not be very meaningful.
3). Is losing "basic rights" synonymous with losing membership in the human species?
Interesting question. I think I answered part of it above but probably only part. Maybe a concrete specific example would help me understand exactly what you mean by "losing basic rights". If you have a good example, please respond with it. One might be when the government does not recognize protect and accept your rights but in my opinion that does not corespond with losing basic rights. Another possible example might be when someone kills you in self-defense (I don't and most other people do not consider such a killing to be a violation of the attacker's right to life), but your rights IMO cover aggressive action against you, they are not a shield to do whatever you want while saying "you can't kill me or take away my liberty because it would violate my rights".
4). When does something cease to be a member of the human species? When does something begin to be a member of the human species?
Isn't this covered in 3 and 4? If you can think of a specific example that isn't covered by those questions I will try to adress it.
5). On what basis do you limit these rights to "human species", or do you?? How about other mammals? How about hominids? What (in the human species), entitles members of the same to basic rights?
One basic difference between humans and other animals (or plants or whatever) is that humans are a sentient sapient species. A newborn may have less mental capacity then a genius ape but it has more potential, and also I would not fight extending a strong level of legal protection to the most inteligent of animals like apes and just possible a much lower level of protection to other animals. I would say that sapient sentient alien species would IMO have the same rights as humans.
6). What authority can you cite as support for such a method of defining membership??
Citeing authorities is not relevant to me in this context. What authority do you cite to show that you have any natural rights? If the government declared you to have no rights and made you in to a slave would you have to cite an authority to say that these rights were violated?
7). Do embryos of any other species have basic rights of any kind?
Not a subject that I have given too much thought to. I guess I would say that they have rights in proportion to the level of rights I would say their species has.
). Does potentiality have ANYTHING to do with the basic right of all members of the human species???
Yes, as I expressed above. Even an organism with zero potential can be said to have any rights it cannot exercise or enjoy them. But no in the sense that I don't see a fetus as a potential human but rather an actual human (one that has potential but already is a human).
An interesting fantasy type exmple poped in to my head just now. If you don't think it relevant thats fine. I'm using it to examine the idea not to attack your statements or even support mine. If we could easily bring dead humans back to life if their bodies where intact, would the dead humans have a right not to have their body mutilated, and would this right be based on the fact that they have potential. I'm not sure how much we should focus on this example as it is fantasy not reality. It also leads to some questions that might branch to far from this discussion although I am willing to examine them if you want. It brings to question the defintion of death and life. It also raises the question if the resurected life is the same person as before or a new person with that looks the same and has the same memories. If you where religous you could ask does it have the same soul. I find this random thought that poped up kindof interesting but its probably not very relevant and if you want to feel free to ignore it.
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BTW, as regards "Yes, just get your cheap shot in, and then we can move on"--I hardly consider expressing how I feel about having my words distorted and sullied, as being a "cheap shot". I am sorry you see it that way.
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What I was calling a cheap shot was your statement that I was weaseling and not arguing in good faith but instead "altering", "distorting", and "insulting". The only things that I can think of in this whole conversation that I posted and that might be considered and insult is my insuation that you where deliberatly distorting what I said (and I appologized for that later), and the comment about the cheap shot (which was after your comment about my insults so your comment could not be refering to it). As for distorting I'm not sure what it is you claim I am distorting. I thought some of my own comments where distorted by you but we have already been over that and there is probably no need to drag it up again. As for "weaseling" and the statement that I am not arguing in good faith, yes I do consider that a cheap shot. You obviously disagree. I am willing to discuss it if you want or move on if you want.
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agi-usa.org
These facts are supported here and in other afrticles I linked you to. They are quoted from the interpretation of a reliable statistics research institute as applied to world-wide data which they had gathered. Some of the data is given in the article (and also in many other articles I referred you to).
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I looked at the link. One of its statements supports my contention that "developing countries" are not equivilent to "countries where abortion is illegal
"Currently, six in 10 women--55% of those in the developing
world and 86% in the developed world--live in countries
where abortion is permitted on broad grounds"
So the majority (if only a small majority) of people that live in the developing world live in countries where abortion is legal. Also I am surprised that only 86% of the developed world lives in countries where abortion is legal. Since 14% of the developed world lives in countries where abortion is illegal (or atleast not "permitted on broad grounds") and 55% of the devloping countries have legal abortion it would seem that "developed countries" would also be a poor proxy for "countries where abortion is legal". You don't seem to like the word proxy so I will state it a different way. Any conclusions about the relative rates of abortion between countries where it is legal and where it is illegal, based on comparisons of the rates in developed countries and undeveloped countries is suspect because there is not a sufficently strong corelation between the legal status of abortion in a country and its level of developement. Developing countries are more likely to outlaw abortion then developed countries but a majority of people in developing countries live in countries where abortion is not against the law.
I see his data on the abortion rates in different countries is slightly different then mine but it is very similar. Since your sources data is newer (1999 instead of 1996 or in some cases even older) I don't have a problem accepting your data but it doesn't make much difference. In my data the countries with the six highest abortion rates where all communist or ex-communist countries where abortion is illegal, with your data only the top 4 and 5 of the top 6 fit that category, but I'm not sure if that is enough of a difference to be important.
Your source then goes on to say
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Yet, while it may seem paradoxical, a country's abortion rate is
not closely correlated with whether abortion is legal there. For
example, abortion levels are quite high in Latin American
countries, where abortion is highly restricted. (In fact, 20
million of the 46 million abortions performed annually
worldwide occur in countries with highly restrictive abortion
laws.) At the same time, abortion rates are quite low throughout
Western Europe, where the procedure is legal and widely
available. Also, Eastern and Western Europe have the world's
highest and lowest abortion rates, respectively, yet abortion is
generally legal throughout the Continent.
If legality is not the determining factor, what drives the rates at
which abortions occur in a given country? Clearly, a key factor
is the rate at which women experience unintended
pregnancies--itself a function of the interplay between a
couple's family-size (and timing) goals and their contraceptive
use.
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It compares Latin America to Western Europe, but it ignores countries like Vietnam and Romania. Also I agree with your sources idea that a key factor is the rate at which women experience unintended pregnancy. In my opinion people in Western Europe have better access to contraceptives and a wide spread social acceptance of using contraceptives and this accounts for the fact that abortion is less common in Western Europe then Latin America. Eastern Europe probably has a higher abortion rate because contraceptives may be somewhat less available or accepted then in Western Europe and because poorer less stable countries usually have a higher
level of unwanted pregnancies. People in richer more developed countries with better education systems tend to generally be more careful about avoiding unwanted pregnancy, they also may arguably be more capable of accepting a pregnancy that was unplanned because they are more likely to have the resources to handle having the child.
The main thing that your link seems to support effectively is easy access to contraception and that society should accept the use of contraception.
Tim
Edit - Sorry for the typos and spelling mistakes, but I have to get back to work and can't spend more time editing this post. It would be nice if SI's spell checker could actually fix mispellings rather then just make them show in red on a preview. |
