It's worse than you thought

[Sergeant Thorne]

I don't accept that it's really so difficult a subject. People want it to be an acceptable practice, or do not want to fall afoul of those who want it to be an acceptable practice. But why not err in favor of LIFE and weigh in for responsibility? Not responsibility for conception, but responsibility for life. And if "overpopulation" even *blips* on your radar then you should really question your motivations...

[Lothar]

We really don't have a set point to where we all can say 'yup, that's a human now'.

So how should we err? Should we choose to protect those who might not actually be human, or choose to allow the wholesale killing of those who might actually be human? If I'm going to make a mistake, I'd rather say "oops, a million women suffered through unnecessary pregnancy" than "oops, we killed a million babies".

we cannot agree on a common ethical/moral certainty, and thus cannot treat abortion, legally, as murder(or any other commonly agreed upon crime)

There are a lot of areas where we don't have agreed-upon common ethical/moral certainty, and yet you're quite willing to state your own rather strong positions on how the legal system should handle them -- we should allow gay marriage; we should restrict guns; we should allow assisted suicide for the old-and-terminally-ill but not the young-and-depressed. There are historical issues we didn't have common ground on, such as slavery, that we fought wars over. But because we don't have common ground on this issue, we have to give up? Those of us who view a million deaths per year as unacceptable, too damn bad, since we can't get everyone to agree, "case closed, or it ought to be"?

That's really quite an empty argument.

[callmeslick]

There are a lot of areas where we don't have agreed-upon common ethical/moral certainty, and yet you're quite willing to state your own rather strong positions on how the legal system should handle them -- we should allow gay marriage...

right, because to do otherwise would be to have laws forbidding that, even though 70% of the public feels they are acceptable. Same principle as abortion. No consensus, no law.

...; we should restrict guns; we should allow assisted suicide for the old-and-terminally-ill but not the young-and-depressed. There are historical issues we didn't have common ground on, such as slavery, that we fought wars over. But because we don't have common ground on this issue, we have to give up? Those of us who view a million deaths per year as unacceptable, too damn bad, since we can't get everyone to agree, "case closed, or it ought to be"?

That's really quite an empty argument.

no one is suggesting you 'give up' trying to change the public view(in fact, to do so would be exactly the approach that worked for gay marriage). All I'm saying is that there is no reason to think we can or should jump to a legal ban on abortions given the current(and consistent) viewpoint of the nation. Just as I don't intend to give up working to change the public view on weapons, but cannot advocate for anything past hoping the SCOTUS returns to the older interpretation of the 2nd. There isn't the consensus for drastic gun law changes. I just would like to see adequate resources for enforcing extant law. So no one is saying 'case closed', like forever. I am saying, quit trying to jury-rig a situation where a legal procedure is not available to poor people. Wealthy people will pay and get abortions, and do, all the time.

[Jeff250]

We really don't have a set point to where we all can say 'yup, that's a human now'.

So how should we err? Should we choose to protect those who might not actually be human, or choose to allow the wholesale killing of those who might actually be human? If I'm going to make a mistake, I'd rather say "oops, a million women suffered through unnecessary pregnancy" than "oops, we killed a million babies".

I would go one step further than Ferno and say that there is no magical point at which a fetus becomes a person and there never will be, and so I can't imagine a realistic scenario where we somehow discover that our law was off by a week and thus we had unknowingly been killing millions of people needlessly or what have you.

[Lothar]

I am saying, quit trying to jury-rig a situation where a legal procedure is not available to poor people

By removing federal funding from an organization that supposedly doesn't use federal funding for the procedure in question (sending that funding to other organizations that provide the same other services), or by suggesting they split off the part of the organization that performs that procedure from the part of the organization that does everything else and receives federal funding? If "we don't use federal funds for abortion" is true, then that shouldn't change the availability of the procedure for poor people.

You can't have it both ways. You can't say "it should be individual choice", but then require other peoples' tax dollars to go to funding an organization that couldn't actually viably split off its abortion business while keeping it available to poor people. If they could viably provide that "legal procedure" without my tax dollars, then they should stop receiving my tax dollars into an organization that provides the procedure.

But I don't think they can, because "we don't use federal funds for abortion" is a technicality -- my tax dollars may not pay the per-procedure costs, but they pay a lot of costs that are necessary for the procedure to happen. And that's a big part of why "we don't have moral common ground, so leave it to individuals" is such a worthless argument -- you're not willing to support a "wall of separation" between my tax dollars and abortion. Either federally defund PP, or split PP into two organizations and defund the abortion-providing side of it; anything short of that is an imposition on my individual choice.

[callmeslick]

so,because you are morally offended by what PP does as 2-5% of its overall mission, we should defund Federal dollars, which don't even get used for that part? And, give it to thus far unrevealed 'other providers', which haven't been located in most states? Sorry, if I was a poor woman, I'd be tempted to tee off on anyone so arrogant as to even suggest that.

[snoopy]

I would go one step further than Ferno and say that there is no magical point at which a fetus becomes a person and there never will be, and so I can't imagine a realistic scenario where we somehow discover that our law was off by a week and thus we had unknowingly been killing millions of people needlessly or what have you.

You do realize what that leaves you with, right? Of you deny an "instant" of legal status change (which, incidentally, I fully condone) people either never have the right to life or they always have the right to life.

A thought on the services provided: The many adoption agencies out there provide their services for to pregnant women for free, I'm not sure on the details, but I do know that adoption costs go to fund exactly those services, which are provided for free whether the mother elects adoption or not. Sure, there's an agenda there, but no more than can be said for PP. This is exactly the basis upon which I want PP defunded - I'm sure that almost anyone who wants to fight to keep PP tax funding would also fight long and hard to block adoption agency tax funding - which to me boils down to "my agenda is worth tax dollars but not yours," since both set out to provide pregnancy services with an obvious bias in the pro life/choice argument.

[woodchip]

so,because you are morally offended by what PP does as 2-5% of its overall mission, we should defund Federal dollars, which don't even get used for that part? And, give it to thus far unrevealed 'other providers', which haven't been located in most states? Sorry, if I was a poor woman, I'd be tempted to tee off on anyone so arrogant as to even suggest that.

Didn't Acorn get defunded for less?

[callmeslick]

that was idiotic as well, Woody. Completely idiotic, actually, and due to a similar smear campaign from the same folks as the PP smears.

[Jeff250]

You do realize what that leaves you with, right? Of you deny an "instant" of legal status change (which, incidentally, I fully condone) people either never have the right to life or they always have the right to life.

Of course you can pick legally where to draw the line, but there is no line in reality you have to worry about exactly aligning with in the same way there is no actual line in reality between larceny and grand larceny. There is no way that we will ever find out that grand larceny is "actually" theft of at least $1100, not $1000, and then lament all of the people who stole between $1000 and $1100 that we excessively sentenced.

[snoopy]

Of course you can pick legally where to draw the line, but there is no line in reality you have to worry about exactly aligning with in the same way there is no actual line in reality between larceny and grand larceny.

1. I don't like the analogy because "person hood" isn't a question of degree, it's a question of kind. A better analogy would be a legal line between "guilty" or "not guilty" of grand larceny... and we do have an appeals process to address and correct mistakes in the finding of kind.

2. Even with the degree of kind, your analogy has a point: our legal definitions can end up with some level of arbitrary-ness, mostly when we don't have good, objective ways to define the line (Stewart's "I know [hard-core pornography] when I see it" comes to mind.) I contend (and have before, as you know) that we do have good, objective ways to define person hood - we just don't use them because we don't like them.

[Lothar]

so,because you are morally offended by what PP does as 2-5% of its overall mission, we should defund Federal dollars, which don't even get used for that part? And, give it to thus far unrevealed 'other providers', which haven't been located in most states?

I notice you didn't address the question of whether PP could actually functionally split off that "2-5%" (as misleading as that number is). If they can only perform that "2-5%" by indirectly subsidizing it with federal dollars, then they're still using federal dollars for abortion. If those federal dollars "don't get used" for that part, then they don't need to be a part of the same organization. (Seriously, would you accept that argument from, say, a religious charity where "only 2-5%" of their activity is "religious proselytizing" but they used federal funds to build their facilities, pay their power bills, and everything else but claimed to cover the actual proselytizing with donations? Wouldn't you want their federally-funded charity to be a functionally separate organization from their preaching?)

Also, I don't know why you claim "other providers" haven't been located in most states. There are around 700 Planned Parenthood locations in the US, and 1800 total abortion clinics. There are 2500 crisis pregnancy centers. According to this site, there are 45 "health centers" in my city that provide birth control -- only 7 of which are planned parenthood centers. Where are all these places where PP is the only provider available? And why, if they're the only provider, can't they split into one organization that does stuff I'm OK with them using my tax dollars for, and a COMPLETELY SEPARATE organization that performs abortions? You've avoided this question enough times that I'm pretty sure you don't have a good answer, but I'll keep asking just in case.

Again, I've suggested two options:
1) PP keeps performing abortions, and loses federal funding (with that going to other types of organizations), because there's no "wall of separation" like there should ethically be by your own "individual choice / no common ground" reasoning, or
2) PP splits into an abortion-performing organization and an all-the-rest organization, and the all-the-rest organization continues to receive federal funding, because the "wall of separation" would exist and allow us ethical common ground

there is no magical point at which a fetus becomes a person and there never will be

It's not that sort of question, no. Just like we didn't discover a scientific point at which people with darker skin became worthy of human rights, or a scientific point at which gingers gain their souls there is no scientific point at which the fetus "magically" becomes human.

What changes, instead, is our philosophy and our understanding. We learn that blacks can be educated just as well as whites, that we're really not so different, and we change our minds as to whether they should be subjugated. We also learn things about the unborn that we didn't know before -- perhaps things that would make me say "maybe a 24-week fetus really isn't as human as I thought", or perhaps things that would make you say "maybe a 24-week fetus is much more human than I thought". Given that we don't know everything, but that we're trying to make a philosophical determination based on our best guesses, it seems to me like it would be better to err in the direction of being more protective rather than less protective -- extending human rights to those who there's an argument *might* be human, rather than denying human rights to those who there's an argument *might not* be human. Instead of saying that since there's a gray area, we should leave it to individual choice, we should say that there's a gray area so we should extend legal protection. We should put the burden of proof on those who want to allow life to end, not those who want to protect it. That's just a saner approach.

[woodchip]

that was idiotic as well, Woody. Completely idiotic, actually, and due to a similar smear campaign from the same folks as the PP smears.

Idiotic or not, it is still all about perceptions. If the optics go bad then the organization goes bad also...no matter how much good they may do. Like Hillary the optics for PP are going bad and they only have to blame leadership.

[callmeslick]

right, so you're comfortable with falsely creating 'optics' that cause poor women to lose health care. Nice.

[woodchip]

Nothing is false in what the leadership said in the videos. You want to salvage the organization, then fire all those who made the comments, apologize to the public and tell them sending baby body parts out for sale will be banned. Unfortunately I don't think PP has the balls to do that.

[Jeff250]

What changes, instead, is our philosophy and our understanding. We learn that blacks can be educated just as well as whites, that we're really not so different, and we change our minds as to whether they should be subjugated. We also learn things about the unborn that we didn't know before -- perhaps things that would make me say "maybe a 24-week fetus really isn't as human as I thought", or perhaps things that would make you say "maybe a 24-week fetus is much more human than I thought". Given that we don't know everything, but that we're trying to make a philosophical determination based on our best guesses, it seems to me like it would be better to err in the direction of being more protective rather than less protective -- extending human rights to those who there's an argument *might* be human, rather than denying human rights to those who there's an argument *might not* be human. Instead of saying that since there's a gray area, we should leave it to individual choice, we should say that there's a gray area so we should extend legal protection. We should put the burden of proof on those who want to allow life to end, not those who want to protect it. That's just a saner approach.

When there are error bars, I'm not against erring on the side of not terminating pregnancy, but are most pro-choice people actually against doing that?

What I am against is the notion where if in the future we make a surprising scientific discovery and revise Roe v. Wade to shorten a trimester by a week then that will mean "oops we killed a million babies." I think that such a conclusion confuses legal status with the reality that the legal status attempts to approximate and by doing so overstates the consequences of not sufficiently erring in one direction versus the other.

[Lothar]

What I am against is the notion where if in the future we make a surprising scientific discovery and revise Roe v. Wade to shorten a trimester by a week...

That's a straw-man.

What I'm suggesting isn't that we might make some discovery that adjusts the timeline by a small amount. Rather, what I'm suggesting is that we might make a philosophical leap -- for those who are presently in full support of abortions up until the moment of birth, perhaps having some insight into human rights that makes them decide that certain types of active brain function demonstrate humanity. And suddenly realizing that science has known, for decades, of that type of brain activity taking place for the entire last 20 weeks of pregnancy.

For the last half of pregnancy, it's not hard to make the case that you're dealing with a thinking, feeling, active human being. It's also not hard to make the case, as Ferno does, that it's still dependent on the mother. Given that philosophical disagreement, and the possibility that we might change our minds either individually or as a whole society, I think it's far better to err on the side of "protect the thinking, feeling, active human being" than on the side of "let the mother get rid of a dependent blob of tissue". And I don't think that's a matter of individual choice; we wouldn't dream of doing that with any other form of human rights. Even if we're not sure when gingers get their souls, we would never be like "it's your individual choice as to whether to kill possibly-soulless gingers"; we assume they all deserve equal protection under the law.

[Spidey]

While the left has you guys all twisted in knots dealing with the idea of human or person…the FACT that something’s right to live has little or nothing to do with being human or a person, gets conveniently overlooked.

The right to live derives from being alive…period.

[callmeslick]

umm, Spidey, you conveniently overlook the definition of 'life' in terms of absolute dependance on another's viability to allow for development. Nice try at making it morally black and white, but as has been patiently explained, it is NOT.

[Spidey]

No see, your problem is confusing morality with what happens to be a fact.

The right to live comes with being alive, no morality involved.

Viability is just more mental masturbation, along with all the rest.

[callmeslick]

No see, your problem is confusing morality with what happens to be a fact.


The right to live comes with being alive, no morality involved.

Viability is just more mental masturbation, along with all the rest.

sorry, but there is no inherent 'right to life'. That is the whole freaking issue. Did that ant in the backyard have a right to live before you stepped on it? Do deer have the right to life considered when we build highways? Of course not. You trying to extend some non-existant right to a non-viable extension of a woman's body is intellectually empty.

[Spidey]

“Did that ant in the backyard have a right to live before you stepped on it?”

Yes

“Do deer have the right to life considered when we build highways?”

Yes, and in fact many “bypasses” are now being constructed on old highways and are considered on many new ones.

“You trying to extend some non-existant right to a non-viable extension of a woman's body is intellectually empty.”

Yea, because I’m just too stupid.

(and the word you are groping for is…existent) See I can be petty too.

[callmeslick]

No see, your problem is confusing morality with what happens to be a fact.

The right to live comes with being alive, no morality involved.

no it doesn't. The fact of life comes with being alive, and ends rather abruptly at death. No 'rights' involved.

Viability is just more mental masturbation, along with all the rest.

you might wish to revisit your words from todays posts before you call anyone else's 'mental masturbation'

[Spidey]

Oh hell no…I’m not the one that needs 101 justifications to kill the innocent, so I can sleep at night.

[callmeslick]

Oh hell no…I’m not the one that needs 101 justifications to kill the innocent, so I can sleep at night.

as do I, and we come full circle to:

[Ferno]

Sorry for being truant in my response, but someone was mucking with my internet connection for a couple days. :/

So how should we err?

That's a very interesting question, and one that I didn't really put much thought into until now. Given that this is simply my opinion, and I don't expect anyone to agree, I'll say that we should err at about four months, and have a new definition for the stage that's between four and nine months. I'll probably come up with a better idea in about a few hours from now when I'm just about to settle in to sleep. I'm funny like that.

Should we choose to protect those who might not actually be human, or choose to allow the wholesale killing of those who might actually be human? If I'm going to make a mistake, I'd rather say "oops, a million women suffered through unnecessary pregnancy" than "oops, we killed a million babies".

I find it pretty inhumane to even think of forcing a million women to go through pregnancy they did not wish to be subject to. There's also a percentage of stillborns, the percentage of genetic disorders, the percentage of women who would drink heavily and the percentage of women who would break out the coat hanger in the back alley to consider it being okay.

Freedom of choice, until it runs counter to the morality of anti-abortion activists? Not my cup of tea.

You can't have it both ways.

Au contraire, mon ami. The system has been doing it both ways for a long time now. Tax dollars have been going to programs that some people find objectionable for a number of years now. Tax dollars have been going from anti-war advocates to the military, tax dollars have been going to atheists to churches, and tax dollars from environmental activists have gone to general motors and infrastructure.

--------------

The right to live derives from being alive…period.

That includes everything from trees, to grass, to fish, to insects, to all sorts of animals. Even the cow that was killed, cut and served to you as a steak.

[Tunnelcat]

While the left has you guys all twisted in knots dealing with the idea of human or person…the FACT that something’s right to live has little or nothing to do with being human or a person, gets conveniently overlooked.

The right to live derives from being alive…period.

How's that? We don't have a "right" to be alive. We are "alive" because our parents had sex, brought 2 genetic programs together in the process and we now exist and function as a living, autonomous being because of that act. No one gave us a right to exist. We were only someone's idea, or even an accident, technically. Once we're created, we simply exist amoung billions of others that exist. As for "rights", we also don't have the right to food, to have shelter provided, to have healthcare to keep us living, nor do we even have the right to die if we desired.

[Sergeant Thorne]

You're too much of a romantic for this discussion, TC.

I think you're getting away from what it means to have "right", a "right" or "rights". How are you different from me, TC, essentially? How were you inferior when you were born from me when I was born, or vise-versa? My own answers are no different, and you're not inferior. How then can I rightly take it upon myself to make your life less significant than my own? Rights are recognition of balanced, just truths with regard to our relationships or interactions with others who are in essence no different than we are.

Do we have the right to food? Who's food? Do we have the right to shelter? We have the right to procure shelter. ...

[Tunnelcat]

Perhaps. But unless one believes that life is a God given right, there is no "right to life" except that which is created through societal laws, and that definition varies from society to society. I don't believe a God gave me a "right" to live' nor should anyone else's life have a superior right to exist than does mine. Perhaps a God "created" me, but as to that life, once it exists, then everything after is probably determined by fate. In fact, my very existance is probably due to fate. I would be a totally different person today if my mother hadn't first had a miscarriage before that second attempt that created me.

[Spidey]

You guys are confusing “right” in this context with a legal status, or some kind of protected status, that’s not how I’m using the term here.

Look at it this way…do you have the right to kill…no, you don’t have the right to kill, you only have the need to kill.

Therefore if you don’t have the right to kill something, it has the right to exist. (again, not to be confused with some kind of legal status or moral stance)

[Sergeant Thorne]

... But unless one believes that life is a God given right, there is no "right to life" except that which is created through societal laws, and that definition varies from society to society.

Wrong. I would say that the primary influence that the concept of God--the creator--has on the topic is that it establishes equality of life/worth between you and I as His creations. If you say there is no God we remain equal (history is filled with instances of people who deny our equality). I tried to tell you where right comes from, and I see no indication that any of it got through. Right is not created by law--it is established. As I said rights exist because we are in essence equal, and because they pertain to treatment of equals, by equals--rights are derived from the truth of our essential equality. That is the only real source of a right.

[Ferno]

You guys are confusing “right”

Nah, i think we have it down pretty good.

in this context with a legal status, or some kind of protected status

I think you might be confused.

that’s not how I’m using the term here.

yes you are.

Look at it this way…do you have the right to kill…no, you don’t have the right to kill, you only have the need to kill.

Therefore if you don’t have the right to kill something, it has the right to exist. (again, not to be confused with some kind of legal status or moral stance)

I'd say you're definitely confused on this one.

[Lothar]

Tax dollars have been going to programs that some people find objectionable for a number of years now

Yes, but there are supposedly no tax dollars going to abortion, and slick's argument in particular was that people should be able to choose to participate or not. I contend that his specific position implies a "wall of separation" that should exist between tax dollars and abortion. Likewise, if religion is a personal choice, there should be a "wall of separation" between tax dollars and religious activities -- you can have a federally-funded charity with some association with a religious group, but you can't send tax dollars directly to the parent religion, only to the independent charity.

We don't have a "right" to be alive.... Once we're created, we simply exist amoung billions of others that exist

One of the foundational beliefs of our society is that, once a person is alive, they have the right to remain alive (along with the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness, which was a poetic way of saying property ownership.) At the time, there was an implicit restriction to white adult males, but we've changed our minds -- including women, people with different colored skin, and children.

What reasoning did our society use to move from "white men have the right to life" to include other groups?

Regarding blacks, William Lloyd Garrison simply asserted it was so: "Assenting to the "self-evident truth" maintained in the American Declaration of Independence, "that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights -- among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," I shall strenuously contend for the immediate enfranchisement of our slave population." The human worth of slaves came to be evident to those who read books like Uncle Tom's Cabin. After abolition, Harriet Beecher Stowe pursued the same line of reasoning regarding women: "[T]he position of a married woman ... is, in many respects, precisely similar to that of the negro slave. She can make no contract and hold no property; whatever she inherits or earns becomes at that moment the property of her husband.... Though he acquired a fortune through her, or though she earned a fortune through her talents, he is the sole master of it, and she cannot draw a penny." And Elizabeth Cady Stanton pointed the reasoning to children: “When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit.” As Charles Henry Langston said, "We have a common humanity."

What is it that gives us our "common humanity"? Is it mere genetics, the having of human DNA? Is it our ability to live independently? Is it our capacity to reason? Is it our capacity to feel emotion? Is it the degree to which we are developed? This is a question we're constantly probing and revisiting -- it hasn't been all that long since we decided the mentally retarded have the full rights of human beings. We don't strip those rights from an adult with a brain injury until their level of brain activity is extremely low, and even then it's controversial. We recognize those rights in prematurely-born but born-alive babies. I would argue that an early-term fetus has some of the attributes which we recognize as granting "common humanity", and a late-term fetus has all of them -- human DNA, complex brain activity pointing to reason and emotion, moderate development of most body functions, and the ability to live independently (that's where the "viability" argument comes in -- after that transition in the 22-24 week range, they become much more capable of living without the mother, albeit machine-assisted just like a lot of adults.)

So how should we err?

That's a very interesting question, and one that I didn't really put much thought into until now. Given that this is simply my opinion, and I don't expect anyone to agree, I'll say that we should err at about four months, and have a new definition for the stage that's between four and nine months.

You'd be surprised how common that position is. It's actually in some ways reflected in the original Roe v Wade case, which spoke about viability as a key factor, and which restricted late-term abortions to "health" reasons. (Unfortunately, "health" was not very well specified, and eventually allowed such reasons as "that would impact my financial health" or "I have the right to privacy so it's NYDB".)

I think one of the reasons drawing a line in the 4-month range is such a common position is what I just said -- there are some elements of "common humanity" even in the zygote phase, but more of those elements emerge and become very pronounced by about mid-pregnancy. It's not merely the very human look of a 16-week fetus (page 7); it's our knowledge of brain development that suggests at least the possibility of a rudimentary form of consciousness, including the ability to feel pain, somewhere around 20-22 weeks. We see the beginnings of the possibility of survival outside of the womb at that stage. Slick's claim about "an extension of the mother's body" doesn't really hold up by mid-pregnancy, when it's clearly its own body with some reliance on the mother but also with many of its own capabilities.

Yeah, that doesn't make it easy to say "let's force a million women to go through pregnancy", and that doesn't trivialize the sort of complications that can arise -- from stillborns to actual threats to the mother's life and health. I acknowledge that as a difficult pill to swallow -- but so was the south transitioning away from slave labor. It's something we do when we recognize that the "common humanity" of another means we can no longer treat them as property to be disposed of. And I think it's something we should do when it comes to pregnancy during that viability stage -- we should no longer act like "it's your choice to kill"; we should always try to save both lives. (I mentioned my friend Caleb earlier; the reason he was born so early is that his mother was suffering from a life-threatening illness, and the doctors and family figured the best chance to save them both was a c-section at ~27 weeks. They both made it through, and are thriving now.)

[Ferno]

too much to digest at the moment, on coffee break here; will get back to it. and lol at the "ferniiiiiiiiiiiiiii' bit.

[Tunnelcat]

We don't have a "right" to be alive.... Once we're created, we simply exist among billions of others that exist

One of the foundational beliefs of our society is that, once a person is alive, they have the right to remain alive (along with the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness, which was a poetic way of saying property ownership.) At the time, there was an implicit restriction to white adult males, but we've changed our minds -- including women, people with different colored skin, and children.

What reasoning did our society use to move from "white men have the right to life" to include other groups?

Regarding blacks, William Lloyd Garrison simply asserted it was so: "Assenting to the "self-evident truth" maintained in the American Declaration of Independence, "that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights -- among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," I shall strenuously contend for the immediate enfranchisement of our slave population." The human worth of slaves came to be evident to those who read books like Uncle Tom's Cabin. After abolition, Harriet Beecher Stowe pursued the same line of reasoning regarding women: "[T]he position of a married woman ... is, in many respects, precisely similar to that of the negro slave. She can make no contract and hold no property; whatever she inherits or earns becomes at that moment the property of her husband.... Though he acquired a fortune through her, or though she earned a fortune through her talents, he is the sole master of it, and she cannot draw a penny." And Elizabeth Cady Stanton pointed the reasoning to children: “When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit.” As Charles Henry Langston said, "We have a common humanity."

What is it that gives us our "common humanity"? Is it mere genetics, the having of human DNA? Is it our ability to live independently? Is it our capacity to reason? Is it our capacity to feel emotion? Is it the degree to which we are developed? This is a question we're constantly probing and revisiting -- it hasn't been all that long since we decided the mentally retarded have the full rights of human beings. We don't strip those rights from an adult with a brain injury until their level of brain activity is extremely low, and even then it's controversial. We recognize those rights in prematurely-born but born-alive babies. I would argue that an early-term fetus has some of the attributes which we recognize as granting "common humanity", and a late-term fetus has all of them -- human DNA, complex brain activity pointing to reason and emotion, moderate development of most body functions, and the ability to live independently (that's where the "viability" argument comes in -- after that transition in the 22-24 week range, they become much more capable of living without the mother, albeit machine-assisted just like a lot of adults.)

That's true, within our society. But our society defined that right. It's not something we are born with in nature and it's up to discussion whether a "Creator" gave us that right from birth as humans. Spidey said it best, that we have the "need" to live. It's there because that's programmed in our DNA as a part of the survival instinct. The "right" to live comes from the "need" to live, but they are not the same constructs. Everything else you mentioned above are ideas and thoughts created by humans AFTER we are already alive and are old enough to be able to think about such things and create established laws or codes to govern or conduct ourselves within that society. Once we're born and if there happened to be no established laws, codes or morals applicable to that person, that person only has the need and will to live. But that comes solely from genetic programming.

There is another "right" that came to my mind last night. The right to self-determination. That goes hand in hand with the right to live. Yet all these rights are still constructs of the human mind. We gave ourselves these rights. If God gave them to us as well, that's entering the realm of religion, which not all people agree on and is part of a whole different discussion. If you peel away all the social and religious constructs and laws we've ever created, all we do is exist once we're born, and then we die when the body ultimately fails from age, other damage or deliberate destruction. What happens to a "soul" after that is up to conjecture.

[EDIT] - Even one of Thorne's statements conflicts itself:

".....Right is not created by law--it is established."

Rights are established either by creating laws or codes of conduct in a society that everyone has to follow, or by creating religious morals laid out in codes of conduct in a society that everyone has to follow, as part of that society's rules. If you wipe all those societal constructs away, then we only exist along with all the other beings that exist, in the grand scheme of natural things. But like you said, we are smart, we can think, many believe in a Creator, and we as humans can rise above just being fight-to-survive animals.

Now as to your next point, does a baby, and yes that includes a fetus, have a right to live? It does ONLY if a society's established morals, codes or laws claim it has that right. Does it also have the right to self-determination, or is that something that is granted once it's born? At the present in our society, meaning the U.S., a fetus essentially has no special right to live or even be born at all. It is legal to terminate it's life at the behest of the mother and that was established when Roe v Wade was adjudicated in the 1960's. And I'll have to agree with you Lothar, it sounds absolutely inhumane. At the center of our current abortion conflict is whether an early term embryo or fetus is a human being, and at what point in it's development does it become human being with the rights granted everyone else in our society? From before conception, conception or from birth? I argue that the stance of even preventing conception at all, that some Conservatives rally behind, is far too strict and invades upon the rights of the female. It would stop all forms of birth control and take away all control over our bodies. I will concede that after conception, the all the coding is there to form a human being, so it is essentially for all purposes, a human being, in my opinion. It's that part of this issue that needs to be defined in our society at this moment in time. Once it's defined, established and coded into law, then an unborn fetus can have that right to live, and then we can outlaw abortions altogether as the murder of a human being. Since human beings have the right to live in our society, by extension, a fetus or embryo also has that right to live if we ever decide to call it a human being and that's where all the convincing will have to take place to settle the argument once and for all.

[Lothar]

Even one of your statements conflicts itself:

".....Right is not created by law--it is established."

That wasn't my statement.

I argue that the stance of even preventing conception at all... is far too strict and invades upon the rights of the female

I'm in complete agreement that contraceptives are a good thing, and we have no right to restrict them. You should absolutely have the right to decide whether or not you personally are going to conceive a child; it's after conception that we now have to consider the possibility that the now-existing new life should have rights.

We don't have a "right" to be alive.... Once we're created, we simply exist among billions of others that exist

One of the foundational beliefs of our society is that, once a person is alive, they have the right to remain alive...

That's true, within our society. But our society defined that right

Yes; that's an obvious implication of my statements -- but the other side of the coin is, our society defines rights according to commonly-held principles (which may reference religious concepts, like "endowed by our creator", or simple universal concepts like "common humanity".) And it was certain principles that led our society to decide that the right to life, liberty (or self-determination), and pursuit of happiness (property), belong to more than just adult white males.

does a baby, and yes that includes a fetus, have a right to live? It does ONLY if a society's established morals, codes or laws claim it has that right

A society should make that claim based on consistent principles. My contention (particularly to Ferno, above) is that our society's principles would obviously include at least late-term fetuses, were we not so good at cognitive dissonance and ignoring facts. As you say, that's where the convincing has to happen. Long after the question of funding PP is settled, I think the lingering effect of the videos will be the more important one -- it's gotten people to realize that lines like "an extension of the mother's body" and "a blob of tissue" are bull★■◆● euphemisms. Whether or not "PP sells baby body parts" is an accurate summary, the idea that "body parts" is even a relevant idea is a surprise to people who've been fed those lies, and they're beginning to ask questions about the "common humanity" of the fetus that they'd never thought to ask before.

[Tunnelcat]

Sorry about that Lothar. I fixed it. It's still a germane question though. Reply Thorne?

Also a question Lothar. How does the pursuit of happiness pertain to property? Surely that's not what the Founding Fathers meant by that statement. I'd think the pursuit of happiness would refer to the emotional happiness as the act improving one's positive state of being in life, not whether someone is free to to own as much property or possessions as they want, or can.

[callmeslick]

my take has always been the same, TC. Had the founders wished to emphasize pursuit of property, or even wished to make property ownership a goal of the larger society, they would have been able to write it that way. Frankly, most of them didn't wish to see the bulk of the citizenry become property owners, as that would dilute control in a system that only ceded voting privileges to white, male, property owners.

[Sergeant Thorne]

[EDIT] - Even one of Thorne's statements conflicts itself:

".....Right is not created by law--it is established."

Rights are established either by creating laws or codes of conduct in a society that everyone has to follow, or by creating religious morals laid out in codes of conduct in a society that everyone has to follow, as part of that society's rules. If you wipe all those societal constructs away, then we only exist along with all the other beings that exist, in the grand scheme of natural things. But like you said, we are smart, we can think, many believe in a Creator, and we as humans can rise above just being fight-to-survive animals.

Rights are not brought into existence by law as if from nowhere. Rights that are actually rights are first recognized and then protected by law. Rights exist before the law protects them, and in spite of laws which fail to protect them. Rights are derived from truths of our existence as they are perceived. These truths do not cease to be wherever someone or some people fail(s) to perceive them.

[Lothar]

How does the pursuit of happiness pertain to property? Surely that's not what the Founding Fathers meant by that statement.

The origins trace to John Locke, who spoke of "life, liberty, and property" and who also used the phrase "pursuit of happiness" a fair bit. Jefferson was an avid fan of Locke. He almost certainly had "property" in mind, probably not as the whole meaning, but as at least an implication (note that only "land ownership" granted voting rights; other types of property did not.) This shouldn't be taken to imply a massive consumption-driven belief, though; it's more connected to not having to rely on others to supply one's material needs, as a follow-on to liberty.

Even if you don't see property as the primary implication of Jefferson's statement, Stowe and Stanton used property as an explicit part of their arguments about the rights of women and children. Which ties us back to the actual point and closes out this tangent. That is, we see "basic human rights" -- from life to property and material means to various other types of freedom -- expanded from only adult white males to others, based on a set of principles recognizing our "common humanity". We don't need to refer to any sort of divinely-granted rights to follow the argument, only to think about what makes us human and to recognize how those qualities can be found (to greater or lesser degrees) in other people (see also: ST:TNG - The Measure of a Man).