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[CortJstr]

Theft does have a secular argument in that outright theft runs contrary to the basics of capitalism. If it were legal it would also create a highly negative immigration rate which is undesireable for any state.

Abortion will never be settled. My religion says that just because something is alive doesn't mean it has a soul (i.e. housepets can't get into heaven). So even if the anti-choice and pro-choice factions could agree on when life began that would just lead to the neverending theological argument about when a soul begins.

[jough]

Yes, but pro-lifers seem to value their house pets more than human offspring.

It's not a religious issue as much as a human rights issue.  When I hear women talk about "controlling their own bodies" I have to wonder why they think it is NOT okay for someone else to dictate what happens to their bodies but that it is okay for them to dictate what happens to someone else's (i.e. their unborn or semi-born child's).

It's only recently that killing a child of the wrong gender or due to inconvenience has even been an issue.  But is the practise any less barbaric because it's how things "used to be"?

You can tell the people who kill their own babies know it's wrong simply by the terminology they use.  Phrases like "The Right to Choose" always leave off the ever-descriptive "... to kill one's own child" at the end of it.  This is the purpose of euphamisms - to make something taboo or unspeakable seem not as bad.   Since most folks can agree that murdering babies is "wrong" then if you want to do that why NOT put a positive spin on it?  "I'm not against babies - I'm for choice (the choice to kill my baby."

It all sounds so much nicer when put that way.

[Nabubrush]

You can tell the people who kill their own babies know it's wrong simply by the terminology they use.  Phrases like "The Right to Choose" always leave off the ever-descriptive "... to kill one's own child" at the end of it.  This is the purpose of euphamisms - to make something taboo or unspeakable seem not as bad.   Since most folks can agree that murdering babies is "wrong" then if you want to do that why NOT put a positive spin on it?  "I'm not against babies - I'm for choice (the choice to kill my baby."

It all sounds so much nicer when put that way.

I think that they don't feel that "to kill one's own child" naturally follows. It's not as if they are leaving it off. It's that you feel that it should be appended to it.

[jough]

Okay, so what is "pro choice" choosing if not to kill one's own child?

Hey, I'm all for choice!  I think places like Baskin-Robbins are great!

But the euphamism here "right to choose" doesn't state what it is choosing.  It conveniently leaves that part out, since it would be distasteful to mention things like this:

[Limmo]

Um, what's distasteful about Angelfire.com?

[Nabubrush]

Okay, so what is "pro choice" choosing if not to kill one's own child?

Hey, I'm all for choice!  I think places like Baskin-Robbins are great!

But the euphamism here "right to choose" doesn't state what it is choosing.  It conveniently leaves that part out, since it would be distasteful to mention things like this:

Nice try; I suspect if someone else tried that with some other subject you might have had a problem with it.

All I'm saying is that it seems like the rationale there. People who are pro-choice do not see it as the choice to kill a baby, just as people who are pro-life don't see it as the choice to force rape victims to bear their attacker's child.

I guess another way of putting it is, why don't defenders of the 2nd amendment say "I need the right to bear arms, so my 8 year old son can shoot his 6 year old sister in the mouth."

[Bozack]

Um, what's distasteful about Angelfire.com?

God, EVERYTHING.

It's not a religious issue as much as a human rights issue.

This is exactly how I try to frame it, and exactly why I hate huge billboards with a crying Jesus and a fetus on them. Abortion shouldn't be a Christian issue, it shouldn't be a left or right issue, it should be a human issue. If we took all of the money that is spent on pro-life and pro-choice propaganda, etc., each year, and actually used it to try to change the situations that obviously lead to abortions (shitty economic conditions, shitty birth-control availability, shitty sex-ed), we might actually get somewhere.
Personally, I don't think that anyone really LIKES abortion. Nobody has ever been like, ABORTION TOTALLY KICKS ASS! Ben & Jerrys has never had to consider naming a flavor after abortion, because it's the general consensus that abortion is not a Good Thing. At best, abortion is a really, really horribly tough and painful decision for any woman to make. I just wish both sides would work together on keeping women from making that choice, not by making the choice illegal, but by making it so they NEVER HAVE TO MAKE IT.
But both sides love the abortion cow, don't they? They just keep milking it! Christ.

[andalucia]

Smooth move, Jough.
I really, really don't see why you feel it's necessary to start this, though.
In fact, it rather pisses me off when any male decides that he's entitled to enter into this debate.  When male impregnation gets past the Arnold-movie stage, I'd be more than happy to hear from you.

Also, Bozack, you are awesome.

[slink]

In fact, it rather pisses me off when any male decides that he's entitled to enter into this debate.

It's funny, that's what I had been thinking. I wasn't getting involved, because it's nothing to do with me.
And yet, who is it that makes the decisions... I mean, guys, it's not like it's an issue we have to contend with.

It's like if men said 'sanitary products are morally wrong, they are now banned'.

Ugh.

(personally I hope that come the next election, when all the women who haven't had the choice, come back and kick ass)

[AlohaDawg]

So if that same kid beat his sister with a pool cue, you'd be arguing for pool cue control? Maybe you could sue CueTech or Predator or Tempest for marketing a lethal weapon? Not making it child-proof? Not containing sufficient warning?

Gun ownership is a responsibility. Just like driving or owning large growly dogs. People who FAIL in their responsibilities should be prosecuted and possibly lose some privileges, but don't focus on guns. Guns kill a lot less people in this country than driving or smoking. And both of those things, like guns, are still legal. As is abortion, and that probably should be legal and available because otherwise, illegal abortions will kill young women. Third trimester procedures are probably something else altogether, and should probably be a different discussion.

As for the abortion "argument", it is interesting to me that pro-choice people maintain a certain respectful vagueness around the issue of 'what to call it' and that's what Jough is pointing to. Sure, it would be basically impossible to build any polticial or social will around an argument that says "I want the right to choose to stop a biological process that will result in a human being" which is what it is regardless of when you decide to say there is a 'life' and to take away the charged word 'kill' which is an unfair term to use if you can't decide if there is 'life' in the first place. A big problem in this debate is an inability to agree on terms. Without that, it's political rhetoric on both sides and probably, as Cort points out with the theological argument, always will be.

Many abortions end pregnancies that are a result of irresponsible behavior. There is a need for both men and women and certainly boys and girls to comprehend the responsibility and potential consequences of unprotected sex (in terms of disease and conception) because the consequences become social as well as personal and, in the final analysis, the consequences affect all of us. Abortion is one consequence but not the first or most important one on my list - AIDS and other STDs, infertility, the number of unwanted or neglected children, drug-addicted children, children growing up in poverty, children who are supported by the government are bigger problems than abortion and clearly these problems are not being solved by abortion.

If we could somehow morally justify encouraging more responsible reproduction (separate from the issue of having sex), we could be better off. This could be an argument for long-term, stable relationships which some marriage proponents would use. I'm not going there, because it's a doomed argument, but I imagine the number of married women seeking abortion is pretty small compared to the unmarried, although I myself personally know at least one exception to this.

People interested in both a healthy society and money being spent on progressive programming like school improvements or health promotion should argue less about abortion (states don't pay for abortion, generally) and think about how to have less conceptions occur. It's a lot more financially sound in the long run, has less psychological cost than abortion and gives us something more positive to discuss instead of a polarizing issue to be 'for' or 'against'.

[Limmo]

People interested in both a healthy society and money being spent on progressive programming like school improvements or health promotion should argue less about abortion (states don't pay for abortion, generally) and think about how to have less conceptions occur. It's a lot more financially sound in the long run, has less psychological cost than abortion and gives us something more positive to discuss instead of a polarizing issue to be 'for' or 'against'.

At last, something AD and I agree upon completely!  

But, seriously, what's wrong with angelfire.com?

[slink]

If we could somehow morally justify encouraging more responsible reproduction (separate from the issue of having sex), we could be better off.

I certainly agree with that. But of course, most of the people in the position to decide on abortion, feel that 'encouraging' foreplay or safe-sex is bad. It does seem to be no-win.
Yes, most abortions seem to be due to careless sex, but I don't see this as a reason to cause children to be born into uncaring, or unsuitably financed homes, and to (as mentioned by Bozack) force rape-victims to give birth to their attackers child. That is something I feel I have a right to say as a man when it comes to the issue.

Like politics and nigh on everything else happening in America, you cannot write the rulebooks based on religion, and yet it happens more and more.

Damnit, I was staying well away from this as well...

[Nabubrush]

I think this:

So if that same kid beat his sister with a pool cue, you'd be arguing for pool cue control? Maybe you could sue CueTech or Predator or Tempest for marketing a lethal weapon? Not making it child-proof? Not containing sufficient warning?

refers to this:

I guess another way of putting it is, why don't defenders of the 2nd amendment say "I need the right to bear arms, so my 8 year old son can shoot his 6 year old sister in the mouth."

And if that's the case, I prefaced it with this:

All I'm saying is that it seems like the rationale there

for a reason. I'm note saying I feel one way or another, I'm saying when people discuss things like this, it does a disservice to put words into each others' mouths. I should have said that, in a similar sense to the earlier abortion discussion, people who are for gun control might say "why don't gun ownership advocates ever say the words that are missing in their argument . . . (guns are used for killing people).

It was sort of an over-the-top comparison, I guess.

My point is that people who support the right to choose to have an abortion might not think of it as killing a child (ya think?), they might think of it as disposing of a collection of cells, or something else. The phrase "the right to choose" leaves off "to kill one's own child" because the speaker of the first phrase does not necessarily think it makes logical sense to follow it with the second.

I'm going to try to avoid these in the future because I'm obviously disabled when it comes to getting my point across.

[AlohaDawg]

I'm hoping my other post finds it's way here.

I guess to me the difference is that gun control arguments, in general, can't be construed through rational logic to include a desire to kill a child (in the case of your purposely absurd argument) but Choice arguments, through relatively easy application of standard and commonly held definitions of words like 'life' and 'kill' actually do (if you belong to the other side).

Of course, people will argue about what those words mean in the context of a pro choice argument, but oddly the same words in other contexts have fairly easily grasped and concrete meanings. It's an interesting thing to debate.

The abortion issue will probably always come down to ideology. Humanism vs Theism. There will probably always be significant numbers of people on both sides in this country as well.

[wombat]

OK, now that I'm 50% in charge of this thread whose existence worries me a great deal, I would like to announce that I am going to try to resist the urge to wake up every couple of hours all night to see if it needs to be locked, and that I would very much appreciate it if you would all try not to make me sorry tomorrow that I didn't lock it before I went to bed.  Thanks.