Replies

I hope that my reply to Hajman in Posts #369 and 370 also constitute a reply to you.

If something is wrong with abortion killing, then EVERYTHING everything is wrong with it. If nothing is wrong with it, then it is no worse that clippings one's fingernails.

Here perhaps is one of our major points of difference. I believe it is, under many conditions, worse to bring a fetus into this world - results in more misery and death - than the opposite. So - as I said at the very beginning of my argument - we have a lesser of two evils situation. Let each couple decide for themselves, at least to some extent.

It's not a good situation. There will be abuses, but there are many such. People drive around in Rolls' while others starve, for example. Since I am not religious and am not bothered by the lack of absolutes and the shifting sands we seem to live on, I find my position quite reasonable. I can see why others wouldn't, but I still hope we can find some common ground where we can all live comfortably.

Here perhaps is one of our major points of difference. I believe it is, under many conditions, worse to bring a fetus into this world - results in more misery and death - than the opposite. So - as I said at the very beginning of my argument - we have a lesser of two evils situation. Let each couple decide for themselves, at least to some extent.

There's one big problem with that...you can't predict the quality of life of a person overall by using the physical conditions the person is born into. Very well-off people turn out to be totally depressed and commit suicide, and other people that arn't well off at all turn out to do great things. Also, the happiness of a person is fairly independent upon that person's living conditions, making your argument even weaker. It just isn't a very realistic solution, and just about kills any degree of objectivity in it, for without the ability to accurately predict the situation, the determination is made arbitrarily.

It's not a good situation. There will be abuses, but there are many such. People drive around in Rolls' while others starve, for example. Since I am not religious and am not bothered by the lack of absolutes and the shifting sands we seem to live on, I find my position quite reasonable. I can see why others wouldn't, but I still hope we can find some common ground where we can all live comfortably.

Any many of those in the Rolls' can be suicidal and depressive, while those that go hungry can be content with their family, apart from the lack of food. Life conditions don't necessarily determine life contentment. In fact, many times it's the opposite you would expect, if you consider a direct link between quality of life and happiness in life. As for your relative values, those don't work very well since they're not objective (and if you wonder why I think that, it's because the very definition of relative values is that they could be different for each person, and so they're pretty much arbitrary when applied).

-The Hajman-

Here perhaps is one of our major points of difference. I believe it is, under many conditions, worse to bring a fetus into this world - results in more misery and death - than the opposite. So - as I said at the very beginning of my argument - we have a lesser of two evils situation. Let each couple decide for themselves, at least to some extent.

Please permit me a tag-on here, even thought I think Hajman has taken your statements at face value and answered you in #373 and #374 with his customary grace, precision and inexorable, unassailable logic.

(Donning flame retardant attire here optional. This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you.) I'm venturing back through the cyber looking-glass, but your statement that it is worse to bring a fetus into this world - [because it] results in more misery and death - than the opposite is a statement that is not even connected with reality. Bless your heart, liberallary, but is it not self-evident to you that lives-in-being, by definition, are already IN the world? If they did not have existence in the world it would not be 'necessary' to hire an abortionist to kill them by poisoning them or by cutting them to pieces in utero, would it? Good God, man! Listen to yourself!

(sigh) I don't know. I am almost speechless (something for which, were you a religious man, you would no doubt be in fervent prayer) but how in the world is killing human beings in utero supposed to reduce 'misery and death' more than not killing them?(!) Such assertions are absurd and self-refuting on their face, and I cannot see how in them your subsequent use of the word 'evil' is not rendered utterly meaningless.

The fact is, dear FRiend (and I hope these words burn into your soul) each and every human being has the same intrinsic dignity and worth that you do, no matter what the accidents of their development or their functional abilities. That is the blazing light of that glorious self-evident truth proclaimed in Declaration of Independence. I hope your eyes will be opened to see it. < /rant >

Cordially,