suggs wrote:PLAYER57832 wrote:suggs wrote:So are you are for or against abortion Tonk?
There is no middle ground here.
Yes, there is.
It is called having one standard for one's self ... and accepting that not everyone else believes in the same morals. One can be seriously opposed to an activity, but still not think laws are the answer.
No, there isn't. You are either for abortion, or against it.
You're raising a meta-ehtical problem, about moral relativism.
And you are wrong.
I believe genocide to be wrong. I accept, and indeed know, that not everyone else thinks that. But they are, nontheless, WRONG.
Genocide is an extreme and is pretty unequivocably wrong. BUT, few other issues are so. In fact, pretending there
are such clear boundaries is the route to fanaticism.
I won't argue the Christian point, because I know you reject my religion. I will say:
1.It is virtually impossible to reason out each and every circumstance possible, so therefore it is virtually impossible to set very
specific boundaries to morality. There is ALWAYS a "grey area". That means, in practical terms, "moral relativism". (that is, for each person, there is a set path of logical argument, but as a society, we have to group those thoughts ... which results in "murk" when we try to lay out definitions and laws.)
Most people would not call a removal of a dead fetus an "abortion" (though the US law does, in some cases). Most people would distinguish between abortions to save a woman's life and others. Yet, some would call even those to be "moral relativism". (I won't call those thoughts fully reasoned, but they exist)
As soon as you move into the territory of the severely injured child ... you begin to get folks with legitimate questions. There IS no set "point" at which you can say "this child will have a "happy", "reasonable", life (note, I will use "happy" here to mean all positive outcomes, just for simplicities' sake ... fill in whatever you believe to be a "positive outcome"). Some children born with severe disabilities grow up to be "happy" adults. Some absolutely healthy children, by contrast, grow up wishing they were never born.
2. The REAL question is not whether the idea of abortion is distasteful. Those who actually LIKE abortion are basically equivalent to the ultra conservatives who think it is wrong to abort to save a woman's life .. or that it is OK to bomb abortion clinics and so forth. They are not truly part of the reasoned debate. The REAL question is whether it is worse for a child to die, in the womb, or to be born.
I was going to avoid the Christian argument, but I find I cannot, with ease. Anyway. Here is where I disagree with many other Christians. You see, I do NOT believe that death is the worst thing that can happen to a child... or anyone. The WORST thing that can happen is to have a torturous life. Do we fear a quite death? or, do we fear most dying in pain? The latter, I would argue.
In the old testament laws, it states that a man who strikes another man shall suffer "eye for eye" the same as he gives. It says also that if a man strikes a pregnant woman, then he shall pay for any injury to her AND for any injury the child, once born, "eye for eye". BUT ... and here is the interesting part. If that child is born still,
no penalty shall result. Why?
Because no one could know if that child would live or die.
What changed? Not morals. What changed is that now, we DO
often, NOT always by a LONG shot, know if a child that a child will die. Note, this is more true in the negative ... that is we can say for sure this child will NOT live much more readily than we can say for sure that this child WILL live. There are just too many variables, even today, to be SURE any child will survive its birth.
BUT, to really put this in context, you have to look at the whole of medical science. At the time the Bible was written, medicine was quite primative. Other passages of the Bible tell folks "not to trust physicians". It can be argued that this refers to witchcraft. Traditionally, that is the view. However, we now know that Ancient Egypt did do surgary and used other fairly advanced medical techniques. So, the question is whether that interpretation is really 100% correct. Understand, I absolutely take my children to the doctor. I would no more turn down medicine to help them than cut off my right arm.
BUT, here is the thing. We take this issue away from "God" or "nature" and intervene. We intervene to save the lives of many, many, many children and adults. For the most part, we agree this is good. YET, the question is whether we, in our arrogance, have the right to ONLY intervene in the cases of the positive. We now really and truly are in the realm where we can keep some children alive so far past the point of "natural" viability, it at least bears
asking whether we have the right to do so. When the result is not a child who can function, albiet with assistance, but one who does almost nothing, who is subject to surgary after surgary, pain and suffering ... at some point, one must ask "is this the MORAL thing?".
I am suggesting that at some point, the answer is, MUST BE, "no".
Look out our horror fiction. One of the most terrifying stories is The Monkey's Claw. If you have not read it, do. But basically, it reinforces that it is not death, but continued suffering that terrifies us most.
You can throw out the label "relativism". But, the heart of it is that virtually everything we decide and do IS "relative" to our experience and education. Circumstances DO matter.
In the case of abortion, the bottom line is not whether abortion is terrible or sane. The question is not even
at what point it moves from being a sane, intelligent, CARING and LOVING decision (
I would put those labels if you are aborting a child who would live a life of pain). The question is that these are INDIVIDUAL decisions.
3.Simply forcing a woman to have a child in NO WAY ensures that that child will have anything close to a happy life. When you look in the eyes of a child who has been severely abused, you see that. Will some of those children grow up to
still be happy as adults? Probably the book "A Child Called It" explains it best. And yet, as horrific as his story was, he was one of the very lucky ones. Our juvenile institutions are filled with abused children. I saw statistics, admittedly from about 15 years ago, saying that almost 100% of girls in juvenile detention had been sexually abused.
So, to sum, am I beling "relatavistic". Yes, because to do otherwise is not sense! BUT, the two bottom line points are this:
A.This is an INDIVIDUAL choice, except at the extreme boundaries
B.In some cases, living IS actually worse than dying.
Finally, EVEN IF you disagree with the above points, the question still remains whether a LAW is the correct, best way to control abortions. Or, if other methods (education, primarily) are not better.
suggs wrote:[Christ, did you ever really leave 6th form college Player?
Since the US doesn't have a "6th form" the answer is "no"... : )
The second answer is that the US educational system, particularly in the West, is no where near as divided and hierarchical as in Europe. As an Undergraduate, I have shared classes with Master's and PhD candidates. I have even lectured PhD's in a technique because I was the more proficient (in fact helped adapt it). That does not denegrate their relative abilities (in
most cases .. there are certainly exceptions
) So, whether I did or did not "graduate 6th form" is much more irrelevant here.
