NYC Leftists Ready to Legalize FULL MURDER!!!!!!!!

Part 2 of 2.

This logic is self-contradictory. There is no good way that something would be “reasonably abusable”, so there is no way I would see that “not abusable within reason” as a positive thing. As abuse is a purely negative occurrence. You’ll have to extrapolate a bit here.

You will need to provide examples on why you think a well written, more specific law would be more abusable than a vague, rushed one. Because, as far I see, more thought and more conversation in making a law would be just as good for expectant mothers as it would be to the unborn as it would also mean they could be provided more protections.

Let me get this straight: I’m not a doctor, nor a lawyer/lawmaker (tho I did do paralegal work so I am a bit more familiar at law than I am at medicine). Yet, you want me to precisely compose an actual law so you can critique it? Knowing full well that any law I write down would be imperfect as I am not an expert in mental health and/or risk factors to the mother or the writing of laws in general? While it would be perfectly easy for you to simply look for flaws in the laws I write via simple google searches? Even though we do not agree on multiple more basic and more fundamental ethical considerations? Seems like a one-sided messy debate that has no benefits other than to get nitpicked all day long. It doesn’t take an expert to see that drinking and driving is wrong but I cannot, of course, determine what blood alcohol levels are illegal for driving. Again, only experts can determine that.

The best I can do is give a general idea of what the law lacks and where its pitfalls are. Perhaps if our discussion was more of a brainstorm session than a debate, we could come up with ideas together, but that would mean that we had already agreed upon what we wanted to achieve, at this point we don’t even agree on basic ethical premises such as child=mother in terms of value of life. As it is, what I posted and what I was requesting was a conversation to occur between lawmakers and experts that clearly define the lines within “health” that would be better suited for the expansion of legal abortions past the more “debatable grace period” up the birth as a child at pre-22 weeks vs a child just before birth are 2 completely different things (ppl can debate the existence of “self” at 22 weeks, w/c is what they did before but there is no argument that a child has a sense of self close to birth). I feel they are better experts at this than you or I.

You say you cannot critique something that is not defined. I say of course you can. For example, the idea is that we want more specific wordings that include the more accurate nuances of what constitutes “health”, separating the more abusable interpretations from “health” and separating life from health (as health needs more defining) is the idea and you need to provide why you feel that it is a bad idea to do so. Ideas need not be overly specific and written in a law format for you to provide insight on it. Hell, a general idea critiqued, expounded and developed is how good ideas are created.

Again, you asked a person who is not an expert in medicine and medical practices if he feels that a nurse practitioner is qualified to determine what constitutes threat to life. So don’t expect my answers to cover 100% of the bases and all possible hypothetical scenarios, w/c is why I specifically pointed out more than once that this is a conversation experts and lawmakers needed to have (but was stifled by one political side and skipped by the other). As you never mentioned “what if a doctor is not there and it’s life or death?”. It was never worded in in a way for me to see it that way, and instead I saw the question as more “can a nurse practitioner independent of a doctor (even in hospitals where doctors are available) decide” or “can abortion clinics just staff nurse practitioners rather than doctors to determine this threat to life and perform abortions” rather than “life or death, no doctor and only a nurse practitioner is available” w/c would of course default to the most qualified person that is available at that one desperate moment (given that the moment is indeed desperate). I answered your questions to see if you were the sort to lay logical traps to get try and get “gotchas”. I’m not gonna assume you did (maybe this is unintentional or a misunderstanding of the intentions of your reply/question?) I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt for now but I feel I am getting a preview of what would happen once I started needlessly writing down specific laws I am not an expert in.

It is reasonable to ask us to expound sure. But that is in a format where we are discussing specific ideas, not debating basic principles. As it is now, we are so far away from agreeing on the “what” needs to be done that the “how’s” shouldn’t even be a consideration. Heck, we’re not even agreeing about whether or not there exists a problem in the first place.

Like I said, we need to condense our points in order to avoid long 2-3 part replies (which can evolve to 4-5 to 6-10 if we’re not careful). I’ll ask my questions when the time comes.

So why not define a viable human life as any human life that:

1. Has a unique nucleotide sequence.
2. Is currently gestating in a uterus.

This would mean a viable human life starts at zygote.

I am about making the decision that maximizes the most human life. This is why I cannot support anti-abortion or making abortion illegal. This is also why I support free contraceptives. Also, we need to funnel billions into male-contraceptives.

The fewer the abortions are had, the better. The fewer reasons to have abortions, the better. The better the social safety nets that are in place to keep babies from being born into terrible situations, the better.

Agreed to attempt to condense, though I'm finding difficulty in trying to reply to something without seeing what that was in response to, while also trying to condense my points.

I did not intend to ignore any of the points you've made. It can be overwhelming and exhausting to discuss this at length, especially given the time constraints of personal and professional lives. I'm glad we can discuss this without personally attacking each other.

Women should not be forced to carry their nonviable/unwanted unborn children any longer than they want to, just as expectant women who are eagerly awaiting motherhood and willingly accept the risks involved should not be deprived of their soon to be born children (referencing the earlier arguments from others over fetal homicide and such).

The pregnancy itself places great physical stress on a woman's body, and there is a risk of death even for healthy women. The pregnancy, together with the resulting hormone changes, create great emotional and mental stress, and that's not even taking into account outside stressors, such as the woman's financial situation, her relationship with the father, the acceptance and support of her own family, the impact to her career, and so on.

I believe forcing a woman to carry a non-viable and/or unwanted child to term, or to have the child removed from her body via caesarean section (both of which you are suggesting in lieu of post-22 week abortion, except in life or death, rape, and incest scenarios) would cause undesired and legitimate harm to the woman's physical, mental, and emotional health.

I find that much more unpalatable than the termination of an unborn life which lacks the capacity for complex thoughts, memories, emotions, and self-awareness. The mother could at least cognitively assess her situation and, as a result, feel complex emotions such as guilt, dread, anxiety, and malaise which could ultimately lead to much worse emotional states, such as becoming depressed, self-harming, and/or suicidal. Therefore, it is not fair to guilt-trip the mother with choosing between death and labor/caesarian section, when the fetus has no such understanding of them or much else for that matter.

This is why I can humanize and empathize much more with the mother, even while feeling sympathy for the aborted fetus. I would apply the same logic in cases of assisted suicide for those with terminal illnesses and injuries, as well as in situations in which families chose to take a loved one in an irreversible vegetative state off life support.

An unwanted fetus may as well be a parasite to an unwilling mother, whereas a hopeful mother would see it as a part of her. This is in line with my belief that the value of the life of the unborn child should be whatever value the expectant mother assigns to it.

Most fetuses are not ready for life outside the uterus until at least 36 weeks into the pregnancy, which is exactly why premature babies often face serious health risks and may not survive after birth. An extracted 23-week old fetus would require around-the-clock medical support to survive without its mother, as its lungs and bones haven't even fully formed yet. This would be expensive, and I have my doubts that society would willingly pay for the increased costs of such care. Most abortions are performed well before the 24th week, and now in New York, a relatively small number will be performed after the 24th week.

Connection is an acceptable enough middle-ground between being a part of the mother and a completely distinct being. That said, the fetus could not come to be and survive without the mother, from its development in her egg, to its nourishment and growth made possible by the placenta created from the lining in her uterus.

They are definitely not the same human being, but the fetus is completely reliant on the mother's body to provide everything thing it needs to grow and develop, often at her own expense, as the nutrients required for the fetus' development are leached from the mother. This is why women, and I'd suspect poor women especially, are at greater risk for osteoporosis during and immediately after pregnancy.

I would argue that society itself can be, and is, incredibly subjective itself, as the expectations vary depending on where and when you are. The norms and what is considered acceptable and unacceptable fluctuates all the time. American society, for example, clearly does not value all life equally. In fact, the value of one's life in the U.S. seems to depend quite a lot on one's socio-economic status, and for much of its history, the color of one's skin, the country of one's origin, one's religious or political beliefs, and so on.

If we're talking ideals and optimal circumstances, I would agree that every life has equal value. Real life situations are hardly ideal and optimal though, which is why society has been able to justify the killing of other persons depending on the circumstances, such as self-defense, the protection of others, and sometimes even the protection of property. It's not punishment enough for convicted felons to serve prison time, as some states still believe in capital punishment, execute prisoners, and sometimes they execute innocent people. The act is the same, yet is both practical and acceptable to society given the right circumstances; hence, my dismissal of the notion of the idea that life is sacred.

In the case of abortion, I think the circumstances of the partially-developed fetus are given entirely too much consideration, and the circumstances of the fully-developed mother not given nearly enough consideration. Both the mother and fetus are alive and human, yet the mother is a much more whole a person than the developing fetus, as would be the 70-year-old who'd lost his vision via injury, or a perfectly healthy infant. I'll remind you that a fetus is not ready for life outside the uterus until 36-40 weeks.

I don't think society should be as involved as it is in matters as personal as motherhood, abortion, assisted suicide for the terminally ill and injured, and the ending of life support for those in hopelessly vegetative states. I think society's role in such things should be limited to ensuring that they are carried out safely, humanely, and legally.

This is why I brought up ethics in the first place, as I feel justice-based ethics fall short in these matter, while the ethics of care seem much more suited to them, as objective moral decisions are made with consideration to relationships, rather than much more impartial and universal moral objectives.

****ing hell. That was still a much longer post than I intended it to be. Pardon any typos and other mistakes. Got tired of reviewing it.

Originally posted by dadudemon
So why not define a viable human life as any human life that:

1. Has a unique nucleotide sequence.
2. Is currently gestating in a uterus.

This would mean a viable human life starts at zygote.

I am about making the decision that maximizes the most human life. This is why I cannot support anti-abortion or making abortion illegal. This is also why I support free contraceptives. Also, we need to funnel billions into male-contraceptives.

The fewer the abortions are had, the better. The fewer reasons to have abortions, the better. The better the social safety nets that are in place to keep babies from being born into terrible situations, the better.

Unfortunately, this is where the ugliness of politics, religion, and values comes into play. The U.S. is incredibly hung up on sex and the pointless virtues of virginity (for women, anyhow) and abstinence (again, mainly directed at women). I wonder how many women give birth to unwanted babies and marry the fathers, or have abortions in secrete, to avoid being stigmatized by their own families and by their communities?

Originally posted by Eternal Idol
I think the focus on prevention is often lost in these debates, but I agree. If we were more focused as a country on trying to properly educate people young and old about sex and making condoms and contraceptives readily available to them, instead of focusing our efforts to keep them from knowing about and having sex, we'd likely see a significant drop in unwanted pregnancies.

Unfortunately, this is where the ugliness of politics, religion, and values comes into play. The U.S. is incredibly hung up on sex and the pointless virtues of virginity (for women, anyhow) and abstinence (again, mainly directed at women). I wonder how many women give birth to unwanted babies and marry the fathers, or have abortions in secrete, to avoid being stigmatized by their own families and by their communities?

Probably less then sleep around, take no precautions at all, leech off the system having kids, and wonder why they have an std.

As long as we're generalizing sexual habits along partisan lines. 😈

Originally posted by cdtm
Probably less then sleep around, take no precautions at all, leech off the system, and wonder why they have an std.

As long as we're generalizing sexual habits along partisan lines. 😈

Responsibility also plays a big part, but even those who tried being responsible wind up impregnating/getting pregnant, sometimes unbeknownst to them until it's too late for something like Plan B to work, which is why abortions are necessary.

I just read through my post again, and it looks like I accidentally cut this part out before submitting:

I do agree, however, that the law's definition of health and the factors involved could and should be specified, provided that politicians defer to the community of medical professionals to outline everything that constitutes a health risk for a woman seeking a post-24th week abortion.

(1) Yeah, I agree. The problem is that if we start quoting our replies to specify the exact paragraph/point being replied to, we’d end up filling an entire page just with the other person’s reply. I figured out a solution. I am going to pre-number my own replies based on the paragraph of yours I am replied to, you can then reply in a similar format using the numbered paragraphs I posted. It makes things a bit more complicated but I feel that it will allow us to better understand each other.

(2) I get where you’re coming from. I think my frustration was seeing the same logic crop up again rather than my paragraphs and points being skipped on the reply. I feel this new format will help us do both.

(3) Sorry, I do not find women as the absolute authority of children. And the whole “your body, your choice” is not a catch-all justification for everything. In fact, you’ll need to explain to me why it’s ok to kill one person based on the simple choice of another.

(4) Again, this statement here tells me that you have practically zero regard for the unborn child’s life. How you can equate mental stress/strain to health (possibility of death is just that, until a doctor can determine that there IS a risk to life, then this is just a fear of death not a risk to life) to an agonizing death that the child will suffer? Even taking the side of the health/mental strain when there is no comparison here. You can only feel this way if you do not care for the child at all.

(5) Well, imagine what’ll happen to the child that gets torn to pieces or injected with lethal amounts of saliene (w/o the benefit of an anesthetic at that) and compare that to the “unwanted

You keep conveniently forgetting that the child isn’t exactly Thanos snapped to nonexistence.

(6) Even when the difference between born and unborn is that one was just born and the other is days/hours from it? Why? Why does the child suddenly have value once it’s exited the mother’s womb and have zero value while still within?

Again, deeply flawed. You are using one’s capacity to suffer as a basis on why one life is more valuable than the other. This doesn’t make sense. Value of life is an inherent trait, while suffering is a resultant effect (w/c in this case is mostly temporary).

You seem to be forgetting that death is an absolute. Either the mother or the child dying would have the same net “suffering” as a result on the overall individual suffering result. If anything, a child being aborted stands to suffer far more than a mother as we don’t even offer anesthetics or any way to dull the pain of death that unborn child will go thru (in the states that allow late term abortions, there are some states that have fetal pain laws).

Seriously, you are literally comparing hormonal changes/postpartum depression/injury/pain/remote risk of death (w/c can be detected early and if a doctor deems it necessary would be an acceptable reason for aborting) vs. a brutal agonizing death. A child might not have complex emotions like an adult, but the more basic ones: pain and suffering leading up to an agonizing death are felt by the child quite well after the nervous system comes online in the third trimester. How could you say this and still claim you can sympathize with the child? I feel that the only way you could even have this kind of logic is if you have completely dehumanized the child.

For your logic to even be consistent, you must also accept that a mother who is suffering greatly from postpartum depression and mental illness (as defined by the law, mental health is actually an acceptable reason) be allowed to simply smother her newborn if she feels that the child is the reason for her mental illness/depression/fears (I hope we do not go back to “this is an unlikely scenario” argument. The fact that is unlikely means it is also possible and the law needs to protect the unborn from this). Because, as you say, the suffering felt by the mother has far more weight than that of a child who is yet unable to process complex thoughts. Personally, I find this kind of mentality abhorrent. You MUST know society does not judge our value to life based on our ability to have complex thoughts.

And another logical inconsistency on your part: A lot of abortions happen not because the mother is afraid of the birth itself, they are afraid that they will be incapable of raising the child or that the child’s birth limits their options or changes their life drastically. The feared “suffering” is post-birth, not pre-birth. Or that they are afraid of the life-changes caused pregnancy itself. Yet you would use pre-birth physical reasons for them to “justify” their abortion even though the real reason they are terminating the pregnancy is not about the pre-birth or the “physical suffering” caused by it.

And yeah, assisted suicide is the person opting to end his own life. I don’t think there is such a thing as a legal “assisted homicide” against an unwilling victim. That would just be one person getting help to kill another. Again, needless clutter that doesn’t really prove anything.

I find a lot of splintered and random reasoning on your part. Where one reasoning does not support the other. Hate to sound accusatory, but I feel that this is just you attempting to justify your biases by any means necessary. Otherwise, you’d be more consistent. It could unintentional, but it just seems that way to me.

(8) So we’re back to one human being being able to assign value to another? I want to point out that slavery and genocide followed the same logic and justification. Funny thing is, you are using 2 completely contradictory logical positions and simply picking and choosing w/c part of it you want to assign to your position when convenient for your argument. This is very telling.

(9) Irrelevant. We are discussing the law within a hypotheticals and the fact that the law actually allows for late term abortions under more or less the same reasoning as pre-24 week ones. I feel that if society is forced to pay to house, feed and keep alive criminals who have murdered, raped and inflicted great suffering to others and society, I feel that society should pay for the temporary life-support for the very rare (according to your “abortion so close to birth is rare” logic) instance when a helpless human being who is innocent of all wrongdoing and has the potential to be a boon and not a burden to society is born.

(10) The reason I pointed out connection/separation of mother and child is the fact that you used “part” to justify the child’s death. Like a disposable, own-able portion of one’s being that one has full discretion over. The child is not a part of the mother and my logic proves it from a scientific standpoint. You are inserting an emotional “connection” as some sort of logical middle ground, just because. It is not. And you have not provided a solid reason why it should be.

(11) “They are not the same human being” because one is reliant on the other?? This is terrible logic. Of course children are reliant on their parents, what does this have to do with anything and how does this diminish the child’s value of life? Are you saying that you are ok with a breastfeeding mother deciding to smother her child because her postpartum depression is hurting her mental health? If not, you may want to give your logic some more thought.

(12) This has nothing to do with anything and I feel that you are inserting a pointless psuedo-philosophical tangent to justify a subjective societal valuation of life. It’s silly. We are talking about what a just society should do and you are handwaving it by saying: “well, life’s not fair anyway”. You are saying you are ok with things being wrong because things are wrong anyway. Sorry, I don’t subscribe to that way of thinking.

(13) Yet there is a consistency in society’s justification for taking lives. One’s freedoms end when another’s begin. Meaning when you use your freedom to take away another’s then society or the person whose freedoms you aim to take away is allowed to protect or be protected. A helpless innocent baby is not trying to take a woman’s freedom away on purpose. In fact, it is the aborting mother who is using her freedom to take away the child’s life. This runs completely opposite to how society applies its protections of freedoms/life and this only the case because we refuse to give unborn children who are every bit as human as a newborn baby equal rights.

(14) “Much more whole” is not an objective logical reasoning. There is almost nothing that separating a newborn from a baby 2 hours from delivery other than the birth itself. Yet we would treat killing a new born heinous murder while abortion is simply seen by many as “getting rid of an inconvenience”. This logic is inconsistent.

(15) Again, you continue to see the fetus as non-human if you see this as a simple “personal” experience. For that to be true, there should be no other human being involved other than oneself. Which is not the case here. This is, in fact one human deciding the fate of another. The child is not without hope like a vegetable nor is this assisted “suicide”, more like assisted legalized homicide. And you might wanna read up on some literature on how abortions are done if you think there is anything humane about it.

(16) Again, relationships are important to the individual. Society (being the whole) should judge individuals equally in order to be just and fair. As each person will find their own subjective personal relationships important to themselves, society must find an objective metric in order to treat each relationship equally important (or equally unimportant). Society shouldn’t prioritize the interests of one individual above another because that would unjust. Before you determine that an objective system would “fall short” you must first reconcile your own logic’s failures and establish a consistency in your logical framework.

Originally posted by Eternal Idol
I do agree, however, that the law's definition of health and the factors involved could and should be specified, provided that politicians defer to the community of medical professionals to outline everything that constitutes a health risk for a woman seeking a post-24th week abortion.

I’m glad we can at least agree to this. The life of a human being is not something we should take lightly and vague laws where lives could be lost by slipping thru cracks is not something we should find acceptable.

Well the democrats failed to vote in favor of not murdering babies after they're born in failed abortions. ****ing disgrace