Theocrat/neocon hybrids - is there such an animal?

[CAnnoneer]

If women are that stupid or feral, then maybe they shouldn't have rights.  After all, they can't help but hurt themselves. No one's going to buy that abortion is justified to spare women from a natural part of their life cycle, especially when they usually bring on those dangers by choosing to have sex. Childbirth is something the female body is made for. 

The above is just priceless. Be sure to read it on Sunday to your female parishioners. Don't forget to mention the 50% death-in-birth rate typical for the Middle Ages, the 80% vaginal tear rate even nowadays, and all other statistics you can dig out; after all, that's what they are "made for". Let us know how it went.

  And such people suffer the consequences of their actions - actions that don't contribute to the propagation of the species.  I thought you were one of those heartless libertarian types. 

I am a heartless libertarian, but I do not pull any roulette triggers. I am not the one smashing a bungee-jumper's legs or the one eviscerating a lion-tamer. I do not participate in or inflict the "punishment". If you ban abortion you are the one inflicting a preventable punishment. Why is it that you do not get this?

You're going to allow someone to be killed, because you're not sure if they have rights?  If it's possible those humans may have rights, why not protect them from being killed until we find out otherwise?  The downside isn't near what you make it out to be. 

You are essentially gambling in an environment of lack of information, because you feel that the risk is worth the reward, while the penalty for being wrong is acceptable to you. I refuse to gamble, especially with other people's rights and especially when it would not be me who pays the penalty of my being wrong.

[Ron]

I refuse to gamble, especially with other people's rights and especially when it would not be me who pays the penalty of my being wrong.

Your argument is weak.

You are gambling that the unborn child isn't a person.

You and your ilk provide moral cover to those who would destroy human life because it isn't convenient.

If you really cared about life and our rights you would choose to err on the side of caution.

The truth is you err on the side of convenience because you don't care. You are more concerned with the freedom of licentiousness than you are with the liberty that has corresponding responsibilities, like protecting the life of powerless innocents.

[CAnnoneer]

Care to describe/define what you think is a "person" vs what is a human, so we don't all jump to conclusions by relying on how just such human-replacement/substitute terms have been used in history? Also, why should "person-rights" replace "human-rights" as our standard for treatment of others? 

I do not believe that everything that is genetically human must automatically be afforded person rights. The simplest way to think about it is that since rights are not absolute but a social convention, it stands to reason that only members of the society are automatically accorded "membership" rights. Humans outside that society do not have them, but can acquire them. Conversely, humans inside a society can lose their membership rights under certain circumstances, e.g. gross misconduct.

Believe it or not, this is how human societies have functioned in practice since times immemorial. The entire system of jurisprudence is a study in how membership rights are reassigned based on level of misconduct. Criminals generally drop form "gold membership" to something else. Immigrants get naturalized and boosted to full "gold membership". If you follow human history you will see this happening innumerable times in all forms and guises.

Simultaneously, there is the general illusion that somehow "pan-human rights" are preserved and accorded based on religious ideas of equal creation etc, which was later modified to genetically based rights once people learnt a bit more biology. My approach is more sociological than genetic.

From this pragmatic perspective, the issue of abortion is really an issue as to when the genetically human material is ready to enter the society as a full member, very much like an immigrant is naturalized under certain circumstances. Thus my desire to understand when that would be appropriate is naturally emanating from this very pragmatic/mechanistic sociological view.

Now, I understand that there are no "natural" inhibitives for all sorts of violence to be perpetrated by abuse of the above society-based view. It is not my job to provide such because I believe in personal choice and freedom of association. If a bunch of fascists/zealots want to come kill me because I am no member of their clique/cult, then it is their choice to do so, as it is mine to blow them away.

[CAnnoneer]

You are gambling that the unborn child isn't a person. You and your ilk provide moral cover to those who would destroy human life because it isn't convenient.

Maybe a better way to say it is "I prefer to gamble with the potential rights of an entity that might be entitled to them, rather than violate the unquestionable rights of a person who is certainly entitled to them."

I do not provide moral cover for anybody. If others would choose to twist my ideas to their purposes, it is their choice and responsibility to do so.