Recently I was challenged to argue against abortion without using the Bible to support my position. The following is that argument. The abortion debate is really about one question: What is the unborn? If the unborn is a person then killing that innocent person is wrong, if that unborn babe in the womb is not a person then it's destruction is not morally wrong. Scientifically: We know that from the earliest stages of development, the unborn are distinct, living, and whole human beings. Having DNA from both parents this unborn human is a whole person in that it is separate from the mother genetically, and requires no new information only time to mature. A matter of development: The fact that it is not as developed at one month compared to 6 months makes it no less a human being than the fact that an infant is less developed as a toddler. Should older children have more right to life than their younger siblings? A matter of Location: Does ones location have any bearing on who you are? Does going across the street change your fundamental value as a human being? If you are going to attempt to argue the unborn is not a person because they exist within the womb of the mother you are going to have to somehow argue that location can somehow increase or decrease your value as a human and strip you of your person hood. This one I would really like to see done. A matter of dependency: If viability bestows human value what then do we do with newborn infants? They are dependent on the care of adults, they cant even feed themselves or clean themselves. This goes also for the elderly and infirm, the comatose, the sleeping, those who require insulin, or conjoined twins. How does greater dependency equal less humanity? A matter of value: I will argue that human rights come from being what you are not traits you have. Traits we have like intelligence, skin color, strength, consciousness come in varying degrees. If Human rights are derivative of traits possessed then it stands to reason that since traits possessed come in varying degrees so to do human rights. Philosophically, it’s more reasonable to argue that although humans differ in regards to talents, levels of self awareness, and degrees of development, they are nonetheless equal simply because they are human, not because of some acquired property that they may gain or lose during their lifetimes. If you deny this, it’s difficult to say that objective human rights should apply to anyone at all. A matter of Natural rights Vs Positive rights: You have the natural right to not be harmed, or have your property stolen. These rights are rights the government does not grant but protects. Positive rights are rights you are given through meeting certain criteria such as age or accomplishments like the right to vote once you turn 18 or get a drivers license at 16 after taking a drivers training course. Abortion destroying the right to live takes away a natural right. Abortion destroys and tramples upon a persons natural right to live. A matter of Woman's Rights: If a woman has a right to an abortion it is either a natural right or a positive right. If it is a positive right then no one can complain about being denied an abortion because what the government grants the government can take away. If how ever it is a natural right then a women gets a right to an abortion to moment she comes into existence. This creates a bizarre paradox, advocates for abortion would then be arguing than an unborn little girl has the right to an abortion but not the right to live.

dead Babies

Hey you know tapeworms are living things too.

those are all excellent and true points!

I see you put a lot of thought into this. My pro-choice argument is extremely simple: Not my womanly bits? Not my business.

[quote]I see you put a lot of thought into this. My pro-choice argument is extremely simple: Not my womanly bits? Not my business.[/quote] And if it were you woman involved, then what?

[quote]I see you put a lot of thought into this. My pro-choice argument is extremely simple: Not my womanly bits? Not my business.[/quote] And a deeply flawed argument it is for it is at its core a human rights issue, namely the right to life the right from which all other rights are dependent. It is akin to arguing that when your neighbor beats his wife in the middle of the night , well not my house not my business.

[quote]And if it were you woman involved, then what?[/quote] That would depend on circumstance. I'm not going to place one blanket rule over that situation, because, well, I'm not in that situation.

[quote]And a deeply flawed argument it is for it is at its core a human rights issue, namely the right to life the right from which all other rights are dependent. It is akin to arguing that when your neighbor beats his wife in the middle of the night , well not my house not my business.[/quote] I've adopted the idea that one person's philosophical creed should have no bearing on how another lives their life. When someone makes a mistake, should there be consequences, there will be consequences. It's not my place to be the moral police. There is [i]no[/i] absolute black and white in this world. Now, if you want to pit one life against another, call me biased, but I'll always value the emotional state and physical well being of a living, breathing, born person over that of a little cluster of cells. I don't condone frivolous abortions; the practice should not become the next birth control. Sometimes it's [i]necessary[/i], though. Fyi, there is no need for such ludicrous comparisons. It is absolutely not the same thing and you know it.

Actually I wouldn't interfere with a man beating his wife either, unless I had talked to the woman and knew she honestly wanted help, or if she was in need of immediate medical attention. There [i]are[/i] people who need that kind of relationship, and giving unwanted help inevitably makes things worse, not better. Stepping into that situation without knowing the full extent of what's going on could get the woman killed if things are that bad. Sometimes people don't want you help, even if you think it is the wrong choice for them to make. Butt out unless you're invited. Works for every situation!

[quote]I've adopted the idea that one person's philosophical creed should have no bearing on how another lives their life. When someone makes a mistake, should there be consequences, there will be consequences. It's not my place to be the moral police. There is [i]no[/i] absolute black and white in this world. Now, if you want to pit one life against another, call me biased, but I'll always value the emotional state and physical well being of a living, breathing, born person over that of a little cluster of cells. I don't condone frivolous abortions; the practice should not become the next birth control. Sometimes it's [i]necessary[/i], though. Fyi, there is no need for such ludicrous comparisons. It is absolutely not the same thing and you know it.[/quote] You bring up another flawed argument. It goes along with level of development which I already covered as inadequate means to stripping someones right to life away and that is size of the individual. A newly developing baby may be very small but one must argue how size imbues worth. I myself am smaller than Shaq does that mean I hold less intrinsic value as a human being than he. A new born is much smaller than an adult does that mean they hold less value than adults. You see being a human being isn't a look like kinda thing. It is an intrinsic thing, part of the very essence of ones being by mater of nature. Not size, level of development, mental capacity, social status, education, location and so on. Secondly to argue one should not make laws because an act is inherently immoral is ridiculous, laws are based on morality. Theft is illegal because it is immoral to steal, murder is illegal because it is immoral to murder, rape is illegal because it is immoral.

[quote]You bring up another flawed argument. It goes along with level of development which I already covered as inadequate means to stripping someones right to life away and that is size of the individual. A newly developing baby may be very small but one must argue how size imbues worth. I myself am smaller than Shaq does that mean I hold less intrinsic value as a human being than he. A new born is much smaller than an adult does that mean they hold less value than adults. You see being a human being isn't a look like kinda thing. It is an intrinsic thing, part of the very essence of ones being by mater of nature. Not size, level of development, mental capacity, social status, education, location and so on. Secondly to argue one should not make laws because an act is inherently immoral is ridiculous, laws are based on morality. Theft is illegal because it is immoral to steal, murder is illegal because it is immoral to murder, rape is illegal because it is immoral.[/quote] Let's keep things objective, shall we? You can spin this any way you like, but a cluster of cells is still a cluster of cells, with not the capacity to think or feel that a more developed human being has. Frankly, [i]yes[/i], that bundle of cells has less value than a born human; or more relevantly, the mother, who may want or [i]NEED[/i] an abortion for any number of very legitimate reasons.* Your non-Biblical argument is comprised of the same Polly Anna nonsense that runs rampant in religious debates. Laws should never, never be made from a moral pedestal, lest we be subject to the individual philosophies of our governors. There is a reason that we're a democracy,** and the reason that those things you list are illegal is that the [i]majority[/i] basically agrees that they're not very nice things to do. Now, I understand that you supposedly care about people. That's nice. So do I. If you really want to make a difference, how about you do something [i]productive[/i] instead of playing arm chair philosopher? Donate for the needful children that are already born--those in foster homes and orphanages, those starving, those in need of good homes, health care, and education. Adopt a child. If your knee jerk reaction to the last suggestion is something along the lines of, "but I'm not fit to be a parent!," especially because you're physically or financially unable, stop to consider that women with unwanted pregnancies have those very same thoughts. If your situation is a viable excuse for not caring for a child, then that very same situation is a viable excuse for not bringing a new life into this world. Furthermore, sir, stop deigning yourself worthy of telling women what to do with their lives. Rest assured, lots of other people have got that role [i]very much covered.[/i] (*For further information, look up the results of the Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton court cases.) (**I speak rather frankly as an American here on account of this being an issue in the United States. I assume that this is what the topic is targeted toward.)

[quote]Let's keep things objective, shall we? You can spin this any way you like, but a cluster of cells is still a cluster of cells, with not the capacity to think or feel that a more developed human being has. Frankly, [i]yes[/i], that bundle of cells has less value than a born human; or more relevantly, the mother, who may want or [i]NEED[/i] an abortion for any number of very legitimate reasons.* Your non-Biblical argument is comprised of the same Polly Anna nonsense that runs rampant in religious debates. Laws should never, never be made from a moral pedestal, lest we be subject to the individual philosophies of our governors. There is a reason that we're a democracy,** and the reason that those things you list are illegal is that the [i]majority[/i] basically agrees that they're not very nice things to do. Now, I understand that you supposedly care about people. That's nice. So do I. If you really want to make a difference, how about you do something [i]productive[/i] instead of playing arm chair philosopher? Donate for the needful children that are already born--those in foster homes and orphanages, those starving, those in need of good homes, health care, and education. Adopt a child. If your knee jerk reaction to the last suggestion is something along the lines of, "but I'm not fit to be a parent!," especially because you're physically or financially unable, stop to consider that women with unwanted pregnancies have those very same thoughts. If your situation is a viable excuse for not caring for a child, then that very same situation is a viable excuse for not bringing a new life into this world. Furthermore, sir, stop deigning yourself worthy of telling women what to do with their lives. Rest assured, lots of other people have got that role [i]very much covered.[/i] [/quote] First off if you are going to declare one class of people less valuable than another it might be a good idea to philosophically explain how that could be the case. No make no attempt to prove that the unborn are less deserving of the right to life other than declaring it so. In regards to my charitable works I don't go into great detail about those things because many people would see it as a form of boasting ones self righteousness. Needless to say I actually do donate to needy children, a variety of charities in fact, personally work with a ministry that attends to the poor and elderly in my neighborhood. I can do all those things and act as a voice for those who do not have one. These is no need to do one and not the other. Secondly you use the phrase "If your situation is a viable excuse for not caring for a child, then that very same situation is a viable excuse for not bringing a new life into this world." I would argue the child is already in this world. Inside the mother yes, in this world yes to that too. Now the question becomes do we destroy this human being? Doing so makes this humans worth dependent not on itself, its intrinsic nature by being human but dependent on its relation to someone else. That meaning if one class of persons worth comes from the arbitrary matter of them being wanted. As for telling women how to live their lives, when the decisions they make involve the murder of innocent human life it becomes my concern. It becomes the concern of all people of conscience. As English philosopher Edmund Burke said, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

Well, it's rather simple, actually. Up until a certain point of development, this "human being" is really nothing more than a cluster of DNA and matter. It has no capacity to think or feel, and from a philosophical point of view, [i]that's[/i] what one's status of living should be based upon, not the mere fact of retaining matter. We may as well declare the dead just as alive as the living if that were the case, since they still retain all of their matter and genetic makeup (that is, until decomposition sets in). You may think that you're arguing for the rights of a living being, which is an honorable cause, but what you're doing is valuing the flesh over the life. The mother has life to me. The embryo does not. Now, does it mean that we shouldn't value the significance of this embryo at all? Of course not. I already stated earlier that I don't condone frivolous abortion. You'll never hear a pro-choice advocate shout, "YEAH, KILL THE BABIES!" No one's excited about the idea of an abortion, and I'd think that anyone is capable of realizing that it's a hard, emotionally trying decision to make. Additionally, according to the law books, pregnancies are not to be aborted past a certain stage of development save in extreme cases (wherein, for example, the mother's health or life are in jeopardy). And that, there, is the point of [i]choice.[/i] There are situations wherein bringing a child into the world is just physically or socioeconomically impossible. Also bear in mind that sometimes pregnancies are not just the result of decision, but the result of factors over which the woman had no control. Consensual coitus, nay, [i]coitus[/i] at all is not always necessary for fertilization. Who, really, has the right to tell a woman she can't nip a pregnancy in the bud under such circumstances? I certainly wouldn't want to be the one to make that kind of decision for someone. It's callous and [i]immoral.[/i] (Since you like to talk so much of morality...) There's a reason we call ourselves "pro-choice" and not "pro-abortion." If you're pro-life, great. You make all the pro-life decisions for yourself in your life as you like. No one's going go judge you for that. People simply don't want their decisions to be made for them. Now, I must say that I'm really glad to hear you actually set out to do productive good. You get my respect for that, and that was likely an unwarranted jab on my part. I attempted to make a point, but I'm seeing that it mostly just a spiteful thing to say.

ITT: A non biblical argument constructed by projecting biblical arguments onto nonexistent objective morality... All wraped in a nice bundle of poorly chosen "big words". How delicious. Also - if you care so much for human rights why deny the mother ANY rights to decide what is going on with her body? And as Victor already mentioned it's hard to compare a sub-sapient cluster of cells that quite frankly isn't even an animal much less a "thinking animal" (a.k.a. human) to a fully mature, feeling and thinking being? You do realise that scientifically a human zygote or even early fetus isn't much different from a chicken egg or turtle fetus, however I don't really see you waddling around protecting the rights of eggs to hatch, even despite they are likewise living distinct beings. How dare you accuse someone of making flawed arguments (incorectly) when your very initial arguments were against your own thesis of "A non biblical argument against abortion".

[quote]Now, I must say that I'm really glad to hear you actually set out to do productive good. You get my respect for that, and that was likely an unwarranted jab on my part. I attempted to make a point, but I'm seeing that it mostly just a spiteful thing to say.[/quote] I just hope we can all keep from ad hominem personal attacks and stick to the topic at hand. Back the the main issue. Completely ignoring the foundation of my argument which is that ones humanness is intrinsic and not achieved. No attempt has been made to prove otherwise. My arguments are dismissed but not refuted instead the pro choice arguments I refute are simply being rehashed and rephrased Skinnyvee you keep arguing that level of development makes the difference between a person and a non person. Gom Jabbar adds things like achieved attributes such as consciousness,think, feeling make the difference. Both issues I already address in my very first posting but I am the one accused of making flawed arguments. The rights of egg argument also ignores the core of my argument being that humanity is intrinsic. Clearly the kind of life form in the egg is a chicken kind of lifeform from its very conception and will always be a chicken kind of life form. One argument I shall make clearer is the woman has the right to decide whats going on with her body question Jabbar raises. I would say the woman like all people have limits on what they can and cannot do with their body. For instance it is illegal for a woman to sell her kidney to the highest bidder, she cannot inject her body with crack cocaine as that is illegal. The argument also puts the woman's personal interests and comfort above the value of life of the baby. It is not denying a woman's rights anymore than she does not have the right to murder, or steal. Rights come with responsibilities. Choosing to kill another is a great responsibility that needs to be taken seriously. This is why we have trials. However, in the womb, no trial is necessary, just the desire of the mother to take the life that is growing in her womb.

[quote]I just hope we can all keep from ad hominem personal attacks and stick to the topic at hand. Back the the main issue. Completely ignoring the foundation of my argument which is that ones humanness is intrinsic and not achieved. No attempt has been made to prove otherwise. My arguments are dismissed but not refuted instead the pro choice arguments I refute are simply being rehashed and rephrased Skinnyvee you keep arguing that level of development makes the difference between a person and a non person. Gom Jabbar adds things like achieved attributes such as consciousness,think, feeling make the difference. Both issues I already address in my very first posting but I am the one accused of making flawed arguments. The rights of egg argument also ignores the core of my argument being that humanity is intrinsic. Clearly the kind of life form in the egg is a chicken kind of lifeform from its very conception and will always be a chicken kind of life form. One argument I shall make clearer is the woman has the right to decide whats going on with her body question Jabbar raises. I would say the woman like all people have limits on what they can and cannot do with their body. For instance it is illegal for a woman to sell her kidney to the highest bidder, she cannot inject her body with crack cocaine as that is illegal. The argument also puts the woman's personal interests and comfort above the value of life of the baby. It is not denying a woman's rights anymore than she does not have the right to murder, or steal. Rights come with responsibilities. Choosing to kill another is a great responsibility that needs to be taken seriously. This is why we have trials. However, in the womb, no trial is necessary, just the desire of the mother to take the life that is growing in her womb.[/quote] Uh. Gom Jabbar was restating what I said. I can't really help you if you're not really reading what I'm saying. From where I'm standing, you're the one that's been rehashing the same argument. (I guess this is going to turn into a "NO U!" kind of argument.) I think you're also missing the giant, loud gist of what we're both saying: that humanity isn't intrinsic. We simply disagree. And we've stated why. I can also see that you're going to keep mashing your gavel over this. Your mind's made up, and so is mine. What can you doooo. \o/

[quote]Secondly to argue one should not make laws because an act is inherently immoral is ridiculous, laws are based on morality. Theft is illegal because it is immoral to steal, murder is illegal because it is immoral to murder, rape is illegal because it is immoral.[/quote] Actually... no. It's called a social agreement. It goes like this: Person A: Jeez B I sure do not like being murdered. Person B: What a conicidence A I feel quite similairy about this. Don't you think so mr C? Person C: Indeed I do. Person D: I have an idea, how about we agree that we won't murder each other and that if someone murders one of us the rest will try to avenge him. Person A: That is indeed a magnificent idea D. We can make up a lot of these agreements to highten the quality of our lives. Person B: By George I think we got something! HUMANITY LEVELS UP! HUMANITY LEARNS: LAW!

[quote]Actually... no. It's called a social agreement. It goes like this: Person A: Jeez B I sure do not like being murdered. Person B: What a conicidence A I feel quite similairy about this. Don't you think so mr C? Person C: Indeed I do. Person D: I have an idea, how about we agree that we won't murder each other and that if someone murders one of us the rest will try to avenge him. Person A: That is indeed a magnificent idea D. We can make up a lot of these agreements to highten the quality of our lives. Person B: By George I think we got something! HUMANITY LEVELS UP! HUMANITY LEARNS: LAW![/quote] But Humanity isn't quite ready for LAW yet, so it has to level up some more.

[quote]HUMANITY LEVELS UP! HUMANITY LEARNS: LAW![/quote] HUMANITY can only use LAW after creating FIRE, THE WHEEL and THE NUCLEAR BOMB.