Because lynching is for amateurs

[Perd Hapley]

It already does.  In neither of those cases do we give individuals unquestioned authority to kill someone based only no their own ideas about when life begins (as if that was some great mystery.)

[CAnnoneer]

Let's divide the two distinct issues here:
1) abortion per se
2) abortion as a tool of genocide on blacks

The first is open to debate among reasonable people. The second is beyond ridiculous. Otherwise, explain the parallel between a woman going for abortion by her own free will, in a medical safe environment, and often at the expense of the taxpayer, versus some unlucky guy being dragged out, tortured, and hanged until dead by an angry mob.

If you believe in the sanctity of life and that fetuses are people, use a condom. They are cheap nowadays and will not give you lead poisoning as they did in the middle ages. Or a bunch of other methods and devices, even in combination.

If you won't take precautions yet are unable to provide for potential offspring, then abortion saves my life because a kid would not grow up in a dysfunctional environment that will turn him into a druggie, robber, burglar, or murderer. That is unless you believe that the life of an unborn fetus is more valuable than the life of a grownup.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

...versus some unlucky guy being dragged out, tortured, and hanged until dead by an angry mob...

Sounds rather like abortion, dunnit?  Except for the part about the angry mob and the rope, the rest lines up pretty well.

Cruel and barbaric in either case.  Same cause (dehumanizing humans) and same end result (murder).

[Sindawe]

Just because I am too lazy to look this up, when is that?

I've been finding conflicting information on the web, but some reports indicate that its as early as 22-28 days, http://www.deathroe.com/Baby_Development/  And though it displeases some of my family and friends, I cannot condone abortion past that point.

Why should it matter?

It matters not under current law as I understand it, but it matters to me since in my view the essence of what we are is our minds, not our form.  If a person is whole in the body, but there is no brain activity then there ain't nobody home.  The body may continue the biological functions of life, but the person is gone.

Unadorned science tells us that the zygote is a new human individual.

A zygote (Greek: ζυγωτόν) is a cell that is the result of fertilization. That is, two haploid cells—usually (but not always) an ovum from a female and a sperm cell from a male—merge into a single diploid cell called the zygote (or zygocyte).

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zygote

Then what of stem cells?  While we do not yet have the ability to take a stem cell and cause it to grow and differentiate into a whole person, it is foreseeable that one day we WILL have that technical capacity.  Is an stem cell a person?  Some abstracts I've seen in recent years indicate that differentiated cells can be converted back to that undifferentiated stem cell state.  Is a cluster of viable cells from my body 'me'?

f someone like Sindawe wants to propose religious or philosophical conjectures about when someone becomes a full person, that is his business.

That is the crux of the issue at hand, is it not?  The more and more I've looked into and thought about this issue, the further and further back I've had to push back that line of demarcation between "just tissue" and "its a person now" in order to live with myself and my beliefs.  As a youth I marked that point at birth. Then I starting thinking of premature babies vs. partial birth abortions (aka pithing the baby) and found that practice to be abhorrent.  Then the point was viability outside the womb, until I started thinking about just what makes us different from the other animals.  The child may not be viable, but the brain and mind are still developing and will continue to do so for YEARS after birth and based on my criterion, abortion at that point became abhorrent.  For myself in matters physical and corporeal, reason rules.  And I'm am not one to judge others in matters spiritual.

[MechAg94]

Y'all ever heard of anyone having a funeral after a miscarriage?  Just curious. 

[Cosmoline]

What makes a human?  The best argument against abortion I've heard is that we simply don't know the point when a potential human life becomes human life.  But I don't hear the fetus waivers use that reasoning very often. 

I think it would have been better if Roe had never been decided.  This should have remained a policy issue.  As it is, we're afraid to even debate it. 

[Bogie]

IMHO, it's not human until it can have an intelligent conversation, and choose it's own name. Until then, it's either a liability or a beer fetcher.
 

[Cosmoline]

That would rule out the severely mentally ill. 

There's a further question.  If the fetus at some point is human, does the state have the right to invade the womb in an effort to protect that person from the mother?  A state that can govern women like cattle is in some ways more disturbing than the women killing their fetuses. 

[CAnnoneer]

Sounds rather like abortion, dunnit?  Except for the part about the angry mob and the rope, the rest lines up pretty well. Cruel and barbaric in either case.  Same cause (dehumanizing humans) and same end result (murder).

You consider abortion murder, so you establish a parallel between it and lynching (murder). But, that is side-stepping what the site was about, which is abortion as a tool of black oppression/extermination being worse than lynching, ergo the "amateur" classification. Let's not mix the issues.

[MechAg94]

As far religious teachings go, I was always taught that human life = biological life + human spirit.  I was always taught that God provides the human spirit at birth.  A lot of Christians don't seem to agree with that it seems.  For me personally, a potential human life is nothing to throw away frivolously, but I don't equate abortion with murder.

Whether the abortion issue can be used to bring down blacks in the US?  Causes do not always have the intended effect.  Also, if someone is free to make a decision and that decision always ends up the bad one, can we really blame that on someone else? 

[Cosmoline]

No, it can't be blamed on someone else.  No more than the crack smoking can be blamed on the CIA.

[Matthew Carberry]

Y'all ever heard of anyone having a funeral after a miscarriage?  Just curious. 

Yep, there's entire memorial websites dedicated to such things.  Can't think of the term but, not to belittle that kind of loss, there's some freaky people out there.

[Perd Hapley]

If you won't take precautions yet are unable to provide for potential offspring, then abortion saves my life because a kid would not grow up in a dysfunctional environment that will turn him into a druggie, robber, burglar, or murderer.  That is unless you believe that the life of an unborn fetus is more valuable than the life of a grownup.

It's funny how such thinking would never be acceptable outside of the abortion debate.  Where else would it be suggested you kill an infant in case it grows up to be a criminal?  Or even put the life of an adult ahead of a child?  Yet the sensitive and tolerant left would have no problem with such a suggestion in this context, and would actually be cheering for CAnnoneer if they were reading this. 

[Perd Hapley]

Why should it matter?

It matters not under current law as I understand it, but it matters to me since in my view the essence of what we are is our minds, not our form.  If a person is whole in the body, but there is no brain activity then there ain't nobody home.  The body may continue the biological functions of life, but the person is gone.

Or we could say the "person" is floating in Mama's innards like it's supposed to be at that stage in its life.  You're defining a person as something more than just a living human.  Feel free to do so, but recognize that's not different from the religious person who claims that the soul enters the body at birth, therefore the unborn are not persons and may be killed up until that point.  Another person could claim that only adherents of religion X are true persons, living up to their full potential.  You can't really argue with that kind of thinking, because each one is defining "person" for themselves.  How about if the law disregards philosophical and religious claims about "persons" and simply protects living humans?  This may get fuzzier at the other end of life, but at the beginning it's quite simple.  

Unadorned science tells us that the zygote is a new human individual.

Was your quotation from Wiki supposed to disprove this or just add to it?  What was the point of it?

Then what of stem cells?  While we do not yet have the ability to take a stem cell and cause it to grow and differentiate into a whole person, it is foreseeable that one day we WILL have that technical capacity.  Is an stem cell a person?  Some abstracts I've seen in recent years indicate that differentiated cells can be converted back to that undifferentiated stem cell state.  Is a cluster of viable cells from my body 'me'?

What of them?  A stem cell is merely one part of a whole organism.  If, someday, it can be turned into an embryo, then it would be a new human organism unto itself, and would be an individual worthy of the protection of law.  The same for the cluster of viable cells from your body.  Of course they are not you - they are just a part of your body.  They are not an entire organism unto themselves.  

Then the point was viability outside the womb, until I started thinking about just what makes us different from the other animals.  The child may not be viable, but the brain and mind are still developing and will continue to do so for YEARS after birth and based on my criterion, abortion at that point became abhorrent.  For myself in matters physical and corporeal, reason rules.  And I'm am not one to judge others in matters spiritual.

So, you'd say the embryo is not human until you can detect brain waves and until then it is no different from an animal.  This is like saying that a bovine embryo does not have discernible teats, therefore it is not a mammal.  The bird embryo has no feathers, therefore it is not avian.  As I understand it, science classifies embryos in the same taxonomic category as the mature form.  Therefore, a dog is a dog, a chicken is a chicken, and a human is a human, simply in different stages of development.  

[Perd Hapley]

What makes a human?  The best argument against abortion I've heard is that we simply don't know the point when a potential human life becomes human life.  But I don't hear the fetus waivers use that reasoning very often. 

That's because they're too busy quoting Bible verses, thus marginalizing themselves.  I think the stronger argument is to simply ask that laws against murder be applied equally to humans in all stages of development. 

One person I've heard using your argument is Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason.  http://www.str.org/site/PageServer

Suppose your child came up to you while you were busy watching a football game and said, "Daddy, can I kill this?"  Would you just say yes, or would you want to know what it was he wanted to kill first?  Obviously, it's not acceptable to kill an embryo just because we don't know whether it's alive or not.  Until we have better information, we must let the embryos live. 

[Perd Hapley]

That would rule out the severely mentally ill. 

There's a further question.  If the fetus at some point is human, does the state have the right to invade the womb in an effort to protect that person from the mother?  A state that can govern women like cattle is in some ways more disturbing than the women killing their fetuses. 

States don't have rights, they have duties, but what do you mean by invading the womb?  How would the state govern women like cattle?  What are you getting at?

[Perd Hapley]

Sounds rather like abortion, dunnit?  Except for the part about the angry mob and the rope, the rest lines up pretty well. Cruel and barbaric in either case.  Same cause (dehumanizing humans) and same end result (murder).

You consider abortion murder, so you establish a parallel between it and lynching (murder). But, that is side-stepping what the site was about, which is abortion as a tool of black oppression/extermination being worse than lynching, ergo the "amateur" classification. Let's not mix the issues.

I'm not sure exactly what that site's creators are saying.  To me, the message is that abortion clinics are murdering far more Black people than the Klan ever did.  I don't think they're doing it out of racism. 

[Tallpine]

Y'all ever heard of anyone having a funeral after a miscarriage?  Just curious. 

Yes indeed, but it was a private family and friends affair.  And there was nothing wierd about it, because it was a traumatic loss to the family involved.

My personal view is that abortion (except in extreme cases to save the mother's life, which hardly ever happens) is wrong.  That was my view in the past as a "christian" and now it is my view as one who has rejected biblical religionism.  It has nothing to do with how the mother got pregnant, and everything to do with the protection of innocent human life.

You are welcome to disagree with the above, but Roe vs Wade was just flat wrong on constitutional grounds.  The states should have the right to legislate on this issue as they see fit.  The same goes for drugs - get the feds out and let the states decide.

[Perd Hapley]

My personal view is that abortion (except in extreme cases to save the mother's life, which hardly ever happens) is wrong.  That was my view in the past as a "christian" and now it is my view as one who has rejected biblical religionism.  It has nothing to do with how the mother got pregnant, and everything to do with the protection of innocent human life.

Bravo.  It's not a Christian-only position.

[CAnnoneer]

It's funny how such thinking would never be acceptable outside of the abortion debate.  Where else would it be suggested you kill an infant in case it grows up to be a criminal?  Or even put the life of an adult ahead of a child? 

Acceptability is yet again something of a subjective choice. What might be unacceptable to you has been human practice since times immemorial. Abortion, infanticide, preferring the life of an adult are by no means modern inventions. And there is a wide range of situations in which they have been practiced. Besides, the human species is by no means unique in those respects, so if you argue on the basis of what is "natural", you will find yourself in a predicament. Hehehehe.

[Matthew Carberry]

It may be subjective when looked at over the long march of history, or in certain other cultures today.  But that's irrelevant and a real reach.

Acceptability is yet again something of a subjective choice. What might be unacceptable to you has been human practice since times immemorial. Abortion, infanticide, preferring the life of an adult are by no means modern inventions. And there is a wide range of situations in which they have been practiced. Besides, the human species is by no means unique in those respects, so if you argue on the basis of what is "natural", you will find yourself in a predicament. Hehehehe.

The point being made is that the argument is inconsistant within the society making the laws itself (demonstrated by the fact that you can't legally preemptively kill an infant to prevent possible crime) and that in almost every case an adult that would save himself and leave a child to die would be roundly despised by most of his cohort. 

It matters not what that same society said 2 centuries ago or what they believe in Outer Turdistan.

Heck, the idea of preemptively killing infants (especially poor or minority infants) to prevent possible future crime is absolutely contradictory to the philosophy of those propounding abortion as, in the end, acceptable.  Can you imagine the outcry from the straight-ticket Democrats if anyone made that proposition?  Heck, they mentioned it in Freakonomics and the crowd of pro-abortion types started foaming at the mouth.

[CAnnoneer]

People can certainly come up with all sorts of justifications why they do what they do. It is their right and privilege. I am not concerned with it. What I carebout is the result. If abortion in the 1990s decreased criminality rates, that is telling me something objective. Fewer criminals means less of a chance for me to end up a statistic or end up in jail while preventing myself from becoming a statistic. Is it regrettable that birth-prevention does the trick? In very general terms, yes. But, I was not the one to make the world. If I were, believe me, things would be VERY different. Hehehe.

[Matthew Carberry]

People can certainly come up with all sorts of justifications why they do what they do. It is their right and privilege. I am not concerned with it. What I carebout is the result. If abortion in the 1990s decreased criminality rates, that is telling me something objective. Fewer criminals means less of a chance for me to end up a statistic or end up in jail while preventing myself from becoming a statistic. Is it regrettable that birth-prevention does the trick? In very general terms, yes. But, I was not the one to make the world. If I were, believe me, things would be VERY different. Hehehe.

The laugh you were looking for is "mwa-ha, mwa-ha-ha-ha". 

[Cosmoline]

States don't have rights, they have duties, but what do you mean by invading the womb?  How would the state govern women like cattle?  What are you getting at?

States do have rights, but I was referring to "the state" in general.  Currently the state is not permitted to ban abortion before a certain rather arbitrary point.  If the state is allowed to ban abortions, then the state has the power to prevent a woman from ending a pregnancy.  In the bad old days a woman could be held secure until the pregnancy came to term. 

While I agree that a fetus or embryo may be considered human life, I value freedom from state power over the sanctity of human life.  If given a choice between sacrificing what freedom we have left and seeing every single American die, I would gladly accept death.  So even if it is murder, I don't care.  It's a form of murder that's simply impossible to outlaw without giving the state excessive power over the individual and her most personal choices. 

But I agree that Roe stretched its penumbras and emenations way too far, and ended up making the issue far more divisive than it would have been.