abortion classic or dud?

xp to Philip Nunez
^^ yeah this is why I'm kind of baffled that it's lumped in with all other conservative beliefs, like you have to buy into a certain 'basket' of beliefs rather than picking them individually.

I wonder if Norm Macdonald would show up at an abortion rally with a Free Mumia sign.

pro-death penalty pro-lifers are a wonder to behold

oh man don't even get me started

and i'm sure that they think that their inverse, pro-choice anti-death penalty ppl (ie - me), are just as amazing, but they're wrong >:(

I'm kind of pro death penalty

Like, not in practice but in theory, by which I mean I feel that there are crimes heinous enough to call for execution, but I also believe our legal system, much like any/every legal system implemented on Earth, is too flawed to allow it.

this has been another installment in "HI DERE posts for the sake of posting"

"unicorn of american politics, the vegan hardline ecoxtian."

ha this makes me picture actual vegan xian unicorns!

speaking of unicorns -- any conservatives post to ilx?

in local news, about the nice new PP center opened up just a little south of my neighborhood.

I think the new Planned Parenthood center on NE MLK Ave has a pretty good sense of humor.

The website notes that since the grand opening, nearly 300 anti-Planned Parenthood protesters have shown up on about 75 percent of the days the reproductive health center is open.

Rather than getting its knickers in a twist, Planned Parenthood is asking its supports to Pledge a Picket: you can donate 25 cents for every anti-abortion rights protester who shows up, or you can donate $1 for every day the right-to-life crew turns out. It's like a jogathon. But for abortion rights.

The website says Planned Parenthood has raised over $1,000 from supporters pledging a picket since the protests began.

http://www.portlandmercury.com/images/blogimages/2010/04/01/1270166779-pledge-a-picket_01.jpg

pro-death penalty pro-lifers are a wonder to behold

― Kaleidoscope Funk Network (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, April 2, 2010 3:05 PM (2 hours ago)

i disagree with each position but it's not that hard to understand their synergy, imo - basically there are the desirables (innocent babbies) and undesirables (poor/minority felons). some people "deserve to die"

also gbx is seriously the best poster on ilx imo. agree on the awesomeness of "contraindicated" too - i see it every day and it's still a dope word to me

aw ty ^_^

so more on that rogue doctor. there's a poll on the website to determine whether the doc was in the right or wrong. there were three options, one was like "go get em doc", the other was like "he's wrong", and the third was "regardless of opinion this is unethical". first option got 84% of the vote. I really hope online ballot stuffing was going on :/.

^^ yeah this is why I'm kind of baffled that it's lumped in with all other conservative beliefs, like you have to buy into a certain 'basket' of beliefs rather than picking them individually.

― Not the real Village People, Friday, April 2, 2010 2:04 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

lots of studies illustrate that people's political or social "beliefs" are mostly formed by family/social milieu. the strongest indicator of whether you will be e.g. democrat or republican is whether your family and neighbors are democrats or republicans.

hardly surprising (and it prob. applies to most of us) that most people don't have time/energy/intellect/interest in getting to the basic ethical questions behind all of their beliefs and opinions, and instead assume what amounts to a kind of received wisdom on most of them.

of course these arguments have a hard time accounting for CHANGE, but i think they are more true than most would like to acknowledge.

also gbx's long post above gets to the heart of the issue (for me anyway), the fundamental uncertainty about what "life" is and when it begins. but of course even if we sorted this out (huge "if"), it would leave lots of basic ethical questions about why human life should be sacrosanct and that of other species' not at all (or less so).

i guess i just get exhausted by demagoguery on both sides of the issue.

i suppose i should distinguish "life" from "personhood." a fetus seems unquestionably alive, whether it is a "person" is a trickier matter. i'm tempted to say that any answer to this question is necessarily contingent.

imo it's not a person until it's born but am i callous for not really caring? if we had a scientific test for determining whether something is a person (to me that doesn't make any sense because personhood is not a scientific concept but eh) and it found a fetus became a person at 16 weeks, i would still be ok with abortion afterward just because it's in another person's body.

the thing i can't explain consistent with that is why i'm against the death penalty in 100% of cases. the unfairness of it is the main problem for me but even if it was fair i can't go along with killing a *person* even if it did something much much worse than occupying someone's body for 9 months. seems like i am pretty religious about it, and possibly do care about personhood, or i'm selfish about my body, maybe. or the fact that an execution doesn't remedy the condition of having murdered someone; it isn't doing anything useful except retribution.

hmm I have never viewed the purpose of punishment as being anything more than acting as a deterrent for other people (although you're right in that people often prefer to see it as retribution)

well people try to justify it as a deterrent because it seems more rational but i do not believe them, also the dp is not a great deterrent for a lot of reasons
that's a whole other thread though :(

not particularly useful as a deterrent tbh

xp

if u guys want i could get high and write what i remember about foucault from college

yeah I'm not saying that the dp is a good deterrent but it just seems as high as you can go without legalizing torture

anyway I can't hate on the death penalty because it has given us an awesome iron maiden song YEAAAAAAh YEAAAAH YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH HALLOWED BE THY NAME

*not gonna go all penology on the thread*

take it to iltmi

huh huh huh I hope that means what I think it means

are you a penologist, harbl

"Contradistinction" is almost as good as "contraindicated."

contradancing

CONTRA, iran

Laws to protect human beings are manmade. Likewise, definitions of "life" and what constitutes a "human being" are manmade. We'll never come to a point where there's a consensus on this, I don't think.

I had a friend who spouted off nonsense about science 'proving' the child was alive and could feel pain. And then when I asked if he'd even think abortions were allowable if the mother's life was threatened, he said no - his opinion was that the mother had already been alive for a decent period of time, and it was time to let the child have a chance. Ya know, ignoring the fact that well the child might die too.

I hate the smugness of some of the pro-lifers. Another friend used to smugly state to me "It's not a choice". Um...yes, actually, it is.

smugness is a bad attribute from anyone

agreed. there are those on our side that can be too....it's unfortunately a point that gets argued quite loudly and abrasively on both sides.

pro-death penalty pro-lifers are a wonder to behold

― Kaleidoscope Funk Network (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, April 2, 2010 3:05 PM (2 hours ago)

i disagree with each position but it's not that hard to understand their synergy, imo - basically there are the desirables (innocent babbies) and undesirables (poor/minority felons). some people "deserve to die"

― k3vin k., Friday, April 2, 2010 9:50 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

exactly, this is also why the torture debate doesn't really have any traction outside of liberal circles.

so outside of liberal circles, Americans are basically pro-torture then?

yes

I see I never weighed in on the original question in the thread title. Surely someone else must have said it already, but here goes anyway:

abortion == dud
abortion rights == classic

For all of the obvious reasons. No one likes abortions. No one says, "Yippee! Good times!" at the thought of going through with one. But in a bad situation, it can still be the best solution, and removing the possibility of abortion can certainly lead to a worse outcome - much worse for everyone involved.

x-post

most people are stupid, ignorant and pretty awful imo

(i live in one of the reddest of red states so that might be coloring my cynicism right now so feel free to ignore)

No one says, "Yippee! Good times!" at the thought of going through with one.

oh, c'mon, there's gotta be someone out there who does

probably the type of person who writes Dead Ringers fan fiction

http://www.theonion.com/articles/im-totally-psyched-about-this-abortion,10931/

lol

as always, the onion was there first

I see I never weighed in on the original question in the thread title. Surely someone else must have said it already, but here goes anyway:

abortion == dud
abortion rights == classic

For all of the obvious reasons. No one likes abortions. No one says, "Yippee! Good times!" at the thought of going through with one. But in a bad situation, it can still be the best solution, and removing the possibility of abortion can certainly lead to a worse outcome - much worse for everyone involved.

― Aimless, Saturday, April 3, 2010 2:45 PM (36 minutes ago)

i...understand what you're saying but this is kind of a touchy position to take. this basically describes my mom, who is pro-choice but doesn't think abortions should be publicly funded or at least doesn't have a problem with it not being tax-payer funded.

his opinion was that the mother had already been alive for a decent period of time, and it was time to let the child have a chance. Ya know, ignoring the fact that well the child might die too.

Yeah it strikes me that this is what underlies a lot of this pro-life mindset. Kind of why I'm trying to boil down to what the actual pro-life argument is as it seems clouded by all this sort of crap.

imo it's not a person until it's born but am i callous for not really caring? if we had a scientific test for determining whether something is a person (to me that doesn't make any sense because personhood is not a scientific concept but eh) and it found a fetus became a person at 16 weeks, i would still be ok with abortion afterward just because it's in another person's body.

tbh yeah I find this ... odd. Maybe because it's a 'hidden' kind of process due to it being in another body? If it was born way premature and you had to 'put it down' could you still do it? Bit of a non-starter I guess as it would depend what the "determination" of person-status actually was. Dunno, I'm just thinking of a friend of a friend who had a seriously premature baby (didn't know she was pregnant thru most of it) and the baby has serious problems but it seems to me that just by being out of the mother's body there was no question of euthanising her or whatever. The same questions about quality of life etc were potentially there and I get the impression they would have considered abortion had there been time.

^^ I mean hypothetically re the 'euthanising', the NHS hasn't stooped quite that low. My post seems stupid now, please ignore it.

i'm confused

this basically describes my mom, who is pro-choice but doesn't think abortions should be publicly funded

When I say "removing the possibility of abortion" is dud, that includes the fact that, for a poor person, not having the money for one removes the possibility of having one. So, the funding ought to be there, too, for those who require it. That shouldn't be a touchy problem for anyone who believes abortion is morally acceptable.

As for abortion itself being a dud experience, so is getting wisdom teeth pulled, or a colonoscopy. People do it anyway, for reasons far removed from the dudness of going through the experience.

Many socially conservative people believe abortions should be legal, but the woman should have to pay the bill. I often wonder why they don't just call it Slut Tax? It certainly seems like the manifestation of a particular mindset, and it's a prevalent attitude lurking under the surface of women who don't much like other women.

Suzy, the attitude is "that would never happen to ME". It's a self-esteem trip, it doesn't belong in real politics. I can see adopting that position if you are a strict fiscal conservative, but too many people inject their personal hang-ups into their political positions.

Yes but it's 'that would never happen to me, because I'm not a SLUT.' There is a punishment angle there, too, that men are not presented with for their participation in an unplanned pregnancy.

Also my spies tell me Mpls/St. Paul is crawling with anti-abortion creeps this weekend, hope the equivalents of 16-year-old me go to where they are and give them Hell.