The War On Iraq has started.

[Silent_One]

EDIT: I would continue this in some other thread at this point it is safe to say that the thread is hi-jacked and way OT. Sorry for that. I think I read somewhere though something about rights and recall my mind going off on this tangent.

Done.

 

[Himself]

In your opinion only. In my opinion an unborn child has rights too.

Slaves in America were not citizens either, thank goodness that was corrected. I think one day people will look back at our generation with disgust and wonder how we let so many millions of children be killed.[/b]

You talking about sanctions in Iraq? Sorry.

P.S. Sorry for the OT but abortion is something I feel I must make a stand against (because the unborn do not have a voice of their own).

Whether or not a fetus has rights, the state doesn't have any business dictating anything that goes on inside someone's body. If you want women to not have abortions advocate alternatives directly to them, don't try to pass laws forcing things on them. That's like sterilizing metally retarded kids without their consent, the state has no business being involved.

Here's a thought, a women drops an egg every month, oh no, another potential human is dead. A woman's ovaries contains 10s of thousands of eggs, since it's impossible for a woman to have that many babies, that means there is a genocidal like event every time a woman dies. Maybe someday there will be a memorial for all the potential humans that never came to be. There is a point where you have to have some perspective, and put things in their proper scale. There is a limit to how much I am willing to accept a month old group of cells as a human being with full citizenship and rights. Potential one sure, but read above.

 

[Saem]

Here's a thought, a women drops an egg every month, oh no, another potential human is dead. A woman's ovaries contains 10s of thousands of eggs, since it's impossible for a woman to have that many babies, that means there is a genocidal like event every time a woman dies. Maybe someday there will be a memorial for all the potential humans that never came to be. There is a point where you have to have some perspective, and put things in their proper scale. There is a limit to how much I am willing to accept a month old group of cells as a human being with full citizenship and rights. Potential one sure, but read above.

You're premises are confused it seems. You're talking about eggs, that's only half the equation.

Fertilized eggs are what you should concern yourself with. I don't think it is possible for an egg to start growing into a human, seeing as it only has half the cromozones. So, no there is no mass loss of potential life. Since, you didn't have all the pieces in the first place.

 

[kyleb]

however you are also missing part of the equation as the baby cannot live without sacrifice from the woman, and until that point the fetus has not earned its sovereignty. i do not agree with the idea of abortion personally; but i disagree with the idea that we have the right to impose such ideology on others even less.

 

[Saem]

Kyleb,

I'm not missing the point at all. I'm addressing the points presented. I have yet to argue for or against the issue. I'm merely rendering my judgement on the argument presented.

 

[kyleb]

i am sorry Saem, it seems i mistakenly got the impression that yours was an argument for making lays to forbid abortion; but regardless, i still stand my arguments against such laws.

 

[Saem]

No need to apologise. I think it's my fault because I wasn't explicit in what my position was or what I was addressing.

 

[V3]

a fetus is not a citizen until it is born, until then it is living in the sovereign nation that is the woman.

It is living in the sovereign nation that is the woman body ? that's your analogy.

Yet, we go to war to save Iraqi because Sadam is killing them.

Isn't abortion the same thing ?

 

[Himself]

The US/UN had a valid reason to invade Iraq the first time, this time it's just some continuation of the first war which allows the US to get involved. The US is in Iraq because they were not toeing the line with regards to the demands of surrender imposed upon them after the first war. That's the quasi legal reason/excuse anyway, otherwise basically Iraq was just not doing what the US wanted. Without the first war, Iraq is a sovereign nation and it would be ludicrous for the US to be asking them to disarm or anything else. France didn't do what the US wanted, does the US have the right to invade France? No.

You can't treat women like criminals or conquered territories.

And I don't buy the save the Iraq people from Saddam excuse, since when has the US cared about anything other than it's own interests? The US is invading because they can.

 

[Roger Kohli]

Whether or not a fetus has rights, the state doesn't have any business dictating anything that goes on inside someone's body. If you want women to not have abortions advocate alternatives directly to them, don't try to pass laws forcing things on them. That's like sterilizing metally retarded kids without their consent, the state has no business being involved.

I agree that the choice of the individual is very important and the best way to see an end to abortion would be through education.

Having said that, why is it illegal to have an abortion beyond a certain date? Suddenly the child has rights? Someone suggested that it is because after this a child could possibly survive outside of its mother. All I have to say about that is that the child could not survive by itself until it was a few years old, so by that yardstick, its alright to kill a child at 3 years old too!

In my opinion a person becomes a person at conception. Bringing an end to that life is murder.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

Ah....what the heck. I'm already in the middle of enough controvery, might as well weigh in on abortion:

That's like sterilizing metally retarded kids without their consent, the state has no business being involved.

The state has the business of being involved with protecting LIVES.

Do you think it's OK for parents to sterilize their mentally retarded kids without their concent? Would it be wrong for the state have an overt law prohibiting that?

I approach the abortion debate in terms of recongizing the rights of a living being.

We can all agree that: At the point where we consider an innocent being is "alive", it is wrong to kill it.

Correct? Because being alive means, at least in the U.S. mentality, you have certain rights.

The question, therefore, is defining life. If we could define "life" at some precise moment, we should all be able to agree that prior to that moment, it's OK to have an abortion, and after that moment, it's not. And thus, we could create a reasonable law around it.

We have two extremes when it comes to pregnancy, and life.

1) Pre-conception - not alive . That is, just before sprem unites with egg. I don't think anyone would argue that either the egg or the sperm separately constitutes a "new life".

2) Post birth - alive. That is an fetus after having exited the vagina completely, after the typical 9 month gestation period. Everyone agrees that at this point, there is a "new life".

Everyone agree? (I hope!)

In other words, we'd all agree that removing an unfertilized egg is OK, and terminating a 1 minute old new-born is in fact "killing".

So, all we have to do now, is figure out at what point in between 1 and 2, that "new life" has "occurred", and we can all agree on an abortion policy.

Obviously, that's a problem, on many levels.

Believing when the fetus becomes "alive" is essentially a personal belief and can be considered almost a religious one. Science doesn't tell us. So it doesn't seem reasonable that the government should either.

On the other hand, the government makes lots of good laws that are not rooted in any scientific certainty, but rather based on judgements. Judgements of what is good and bad...fair or unfair. So why shouldn't the government make a judgement call?

As a Christian ("Pro-life") and a Conservative ("Pro-Constitution", limited government,), I have somewhat of an internal conflict on this.

Personally, I consider any abortion of a fertilized egg onward to be "wrong". However, that's precisely because my internal belief system tells me that a fertilized egg is "alive."

On the other hand I recognize that my belief system, though I believe it is right, is not the final say in the matter. And there are other belief systems, that even though I disagree with them, are still viable to me. And they may consider an embryo / fetus as not alive until some time after conception.

So, In terms of supporting or not supporting abortion laws....

For the most part, I do not support laws which prohibit abortion. Because I cherish everyone's right to choose his or her belief system without government influence. However, I do think there are some limits for which laws I would support. In other words, at some point, I think the case for "it's alive" vs. "it's not alive" is so overwhelming that it's not reasonable to have an abortion and belive you are not killing someone.

Much like I would support a law that says you can't kill your neighbor, even if it infringes on your right to practice your "religious beliefs" which call for killing red-heads.

Certainly, the idea of "partial birth abortions" is totally abhorrent to me. The thought that, given 30 additional seconds, we'd all agree that the being is a "new life" and it would be wrong to kill it, but it's OK to kill it "now", is not reasonable. I would support any partial-birth abortion law.

I would probably favor an abortion law that drew the "new life" line somewhere around 7 months. After that milestone, all organs are essentially developed and functioning, and at that point, the life is not experiencing many changes other than essentially just "getting bigger".

A "women's right to choose what to do with her body" is misguided and not a proper argument IMO and misses the point. The proper argument for abortion is "A person's right to believe when a 'new-life' exists." In other words, if a woman believes a new life exists, she has no right to "choose" to abort it.

 

[nelg]

Women doesn't have the right to an abortion.

Women have the right to choose what they want to do with their own bodies without the state interfering, a fetus is not a citizen until it is born, until then it is living in the sovereign nation that is the woman. Now, the US might arbitrarily decide to invade the woman on the grounds of a threat of human rights abuses, but that doesn't make it right.

The problem with this line of thought is when a pregnant women intenionally does something that will harm the child inutero. I recall a legal battle between the gonvernment and a pregnant women who was a drug addict. The government was trying to get a court order to prevent the mother from taking drugs while pregnant. The mother ,while fully intending to have the baby fought this action. The child would be the one to suffer through no fault of its own. Sorry I do not recall what happened in this case but to simply say that a womens body is her own when she is carrying a child is not right. Having said that i do think that a women has the right to have an abortion.

i belive that a fetus is not protected against under the right to life until it has developed to the point that it can survive independent of the womb. i do not support abortion, however i do belive that it falls under the concepts of liberty and the pursuit of happiness, so even while i would not invovle myself in such a thing myself i do belive that we have the right to do so.

well said . I would extend this protection to the piont of conception though if the intention to give birth is there from the onset.

 

[MrsSkywalker]

Well, since we're way off topic anyway...

Women have the right to choose what they want to do with their own bodies without the state interfering

Nope. Suicide is illegal. Completely uninforcable if successful, but nonetheless, illegal. If it is illegal to kill youself, then it is illegal to kill your waiting to be born baby.

 

[Silent_One]

Joe wrote:

End of Brutal Regime ---> Constitutional Semantics --> Abortion

Ah hell....I went and mentioned the "A" word and look what happened.....

 

[arjan de lumens]

Actually, according to the Encarta, suicide is no longer illegal anywhere in the USA. It also appears to have become legal in most other Western countries as well.

 

[kyleb]

Having said that, why is it illegal to have an abortion beyond a certain date? Suddenly the child has rights? Someone suggested that it is because after this a child could possibly survive outside of its mother. All I have to say about that is that the child could not survive by itself until it was a few years old, so by that yardstick, its alright to kill a child at 3 years old too!

ah, but the babies mother is not required at that point; merely someone to nurture the child. this is why we have orphanages and the process of adoption.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Actually, according to the Encarta, suicide is no longer illegal anywhere in the USA. It also appears to have become legal in most other Western countries as well.

I live in NH, and according to the 2002 NH RSAs, it is illegal to commit suicide, to cause someone to commit suicide, aid in a suicide, and to commit, cause or aid in a suicide attempt. Now, the 2003 NH RSA revisions are not available yet, or just not accessable at the moment, but as of 2002 it was illegal to commit suicide. I highly doubt anyone has ever been charged for committing suicide, even in a redneck state like mine . *sidenote to the sidenote* NH has a lot of stupid laws that have been on the books and have been ignored. Like, it is legal to walk ten paces behind your wife with a loaded gun pointed at her back around the town commons if she has disobeyed you. You can't shoot her, it's just for humiliation.

Did a quick search on Google and found that a lot of counties in the country have laws forbidding suicide attempts, not suicide itself.

Edit- Browsing and realized I didn't post this, my wife was logged on to my desktop and posted.

 

[V3]

Believing when the fetus becomes "alive" is essentially a personal belief

You don't need to abort a dead fetus. A Fetus is aborted because it is alive. Maybe what you mean when fetus becomes "aware" ?

 

[Nagorak]

That said, I do tend to somewhat agree that it's supremely naive of "peace protesters" to get out and cry for peace without offering methods or alternatives for achieving it. It's very easy to say you want peace. Doesn't mean the person or people standing on the other side of the fence do.

Why is this naive? The first step is to get the moron in office to stop attacking, before trying to suggest other means. Since he's just ignoring the fact that this war is unpopular (in the world, if debatable in the US), it's kind of a moot point trying to suggest there are other avenues of approach.

Actually, nothing really needed to be suggested. If we'd just continued the inspections, we'd probably have either found WMDs and got international support for the action, or realized that Iraq really has nothing (as the case may be). There was no reason to hurry into this war, except that Bush has all the tact of a charging rhinoceros.

Honestly, wtf was he thinking was going to happen? Did he really think that just barking orders and bullying would really get the international community behind him? I guess Saddam isn't the only bully, eh?

 

[Joe DeFuria]

The first step is to get the moron in office to stop attacking, before trying to suggest other means.

The first step is to get morons such as yourself to realize that "other means" have been going on for 12 years, and failed.

Since he's just ignoring the fact that this war is unpopular (in the world, if debatable in the US), it's kind of a moot point trying to suggest there are other avenues of approach.

He is ignoring nothing. He is doing what is right, and prefers not to have his morals dictated to by mob rule.

Actually, nothing really needed to be suggested. If we'd just continued the inspections, we'd probably have either found WMDs and got international support for the action, or realized that Iraq really has nothing (as the case may be).

Right, because the inspectors never found anything that Iraq claimed the didn't have, or that were othersie in violation of the treaty and 1441. Because the inspectors, including Blix, continue to tell us that Sadam is not being cooperative.

We have so many reasons to believe that, depsite the fact that it's NOT THEIR JOB TO FIND HIDDEN STUFF, that they will find stuff that someone is trying to hide.

There was no reason to hurry into this war, except that Bush has all the tact of a charging rhinoceros.

If 12 years is hurrying, what's your definition of "slow?"

Honestly, wtf was he thinking was going to happen? Did he really think that just barking orders and bullying would really get the international community behind him? I guess Saddam isn't the only bully, eh?

Apparently, his conviction was enough to get a coalition of more countries behind hm than were behind the "UN supported action" in 1991.

If Bush were "barking orders", he wouldn't have gone to the UN at all.