Leaked/breaking:Roe v. Wade expected to be overturned

[Ingomike]

What if the definition that society decides is correct, is not at conception? Does it have to be YOUR definition or everyone else is wrong?

They are not basing it on science, just emotion…

 

[Ingomike]

I think this illustrates part of the problem, that most of my involvement in this discussion is around the idea that it's a religious belief that drives "at conception". The question was in service to that point.

Just cannot wrap your head around the science…

 

[Ingomike]

The political parties abuse it shamelessly. They can count count on it with precision to illicit predictable responses.

One party uses it as a money laundering front, so there is that…

 

[DragonGunner]

I believe twice the U.S. Supreme Court stated that enslaved people were not citizens of the United States and, therefore, could not expect any protection from the federal government or the courts. They were not citizens because they were Black, and being Black were not human, but rather sub human and not entitled to protection.

Roe vs Wade was about the same thing, and contend the same "spirit". That the unborn were not human therefore not entitled to protection, being not human......different times....same "spirit". The wrong spirit. SCOTUS gets it wrong sometimes...all depends how close to God they are willing to get imho in their decisions. About like all of us.

 

[Twangbanger]

Lol, was that the point of the conversation, that must have gotten lost somewhere in the 30 something pages. How is any of this a new political situation Republicans and democrats have always had different views on this, it's something every political candidate is asked about. I doubt abortion is suddenly going to make red states blue states, in reality most people are probably about as ambivalent about it as I am.

Cameramonkey said it better than I can. It's _not_ something every political candidate got asked about. But now, it will be, because the situation changed. All legislative candidates are Richard Mourdock, now. Everybody has the chance to make an ass of themselves in front of voters, now.

I'm somewhat ambivalent about this, too. I like seeing the Libs get owned, and I like seeing judicial activism get whacked. But I don't see the abortion issue as important enough to sacrifice all other policy issues on the altar of it.

The danger here, on The Right, is that the geeky "moment of conception" crowd thinks they have somehow been validated by this SC decision. Because they haven't. The SC is simply recognizing that RvW was a gargantuan judicial over-reach. And they're putting this issue back where it belongs. In the peanut gallery of democracy.

The Pro-Life side now gets to present their case to the people. That can be done "well"...or it can be done badly. A geeky adherence to "moment of conception" is doing it "badly." Because it plays right into the "Handmaid's Tale" vision of conservatives The Left so badly wants to portray.

Does "our side" have the character and maturity to take their 98% and leave the field? Or do they go for the two-point conversion, and turn suburbs from purple to blue as far as the eye can see?

This has the potential to boat-anchor conservatism for a generation, if done badly.

 

[chipbennett]

I think some are still not grasping the boundaries and magnitude of the "persuasion project" The Right is potentially unwrapping here.

The Right has done a pretty good job of running the table at the state level since Obama was President, and built a decent margin because Democrats seemed like the more scary option.

A simple, pat answer to Abortion appeals to a geeky subset of people who believe Truth is something revealed by God. But there's a large (and increasing) number of Americans who believe Truth is something which is reasoned and figured out by humans (and more importantly, who do not necessarily find nuanced arguments to be "unallowable" the way religious people do, especially where one person's bodily autonomy is being balanced with another's).

If the simple, "pat" answer causes a large number of Americans to be terrified of Republicans, it could undo a lot of that progress at the state level.

By example, there's 100 statehouse districts in Indiana, covering about 6.5 million people. That's about 65,000 constituents per Rep, less than 10% the population of Indianapolis.

For the last 50 years, even US Senators didn't handle the abortion issue. It was locked away.

Now, you've suddenly got a situation where local-yokel statehouse candidates, representing areas only the size of 2 or 3 good Indianapolis neighborhoods, have been thrust into situations where they now have to answer the "Rape Question." (The media are NOT going to play fair).

Do you think these guys and gals are ready for this?

Do you think Corporations will just stay neutral on this?

...are you sure?

If we're going to keep these people in office - and convert on the "Power Play" the SC has just handed us - the "Truth is Revealed by God" folks are going to have to give the politicians some room to operate.

There is such a thing as winning a battle, but losing the war. Personally, I would prefer that "Abortion" not be the "last" issue Republicans ever win on.

The same fear and navel-gazing is why it took so long to eradicate chattel slavery.

 

[chipbennett]

Did the founders think of a fertilized human egg as a person?

Again, that a fertilized egg is alive and has the human dna is not at issue. It's the claim that it is equal in every way to an "person" at a state where everyone on any side of the argument agrees is a human with rights. You're the one thinking that this is all science, when a decision of when rights should be conferred is definitely not science.

What reason do you have for conferring the same rights to a zygote? The only people insisting that rights must confer at conception is religious people. Scientists don't make that argument. Atheists don't make that argument. It's an arbitrary requirement that you've put on it.

Does not follow.

Well at least we both agree with that.

I think you really need to figure out what I'm actually arguing because you keep arguing against points I'm not making. I have not claimed that our laws should be based on sentience. I brought that up in service of the point that insisting "life" (a right to life) at conception is ideologically or religiously based. I've never said laws should be based on "Sentience".

It properly fits within the realm of philosophy because the discussion of when rights confer to a "person" IS a philosophy, whether or not you choose to admit it.

Also, I'm not rationalizing the taking of a human life. I could accuse you of rationalizing why it must be conception.

Yours is not a scientific argument. As I said, you're using a definition of a fertilized egg, backed by scientific discovery, to claim rights. I could easily point out the scientific literature that says when a fetus can generally feel pain, and use that as a basis for conferring rights. And you'd claim that's not "scientific". And that would be as true for that as it is for conception. It's an arbitrary placement of rights based on some point in a pregnancy. It's the point that is scientifically based, but not the assigning of human rights. And that's really the only point I intend to argue with this line of reasoning. That it's subjective, and that to get at conception, requries some other belief, religious or ideological.

What did the founders mean? I suspect not. But the Declaration of Independence doesn't confirm or deny that unborn children are included, or that especially, from conception. As well, the 14th amendment neither confirms or denies that unborn children are included. It's my contention that it is a subjective matter, and thus is of a more local importance one way or the other. It's an issue for the different states to determine for their own constituents.

It's an arbitrary decision to make the point where rights confer on the unborn to be at conception, without a soul or some other such concept. You could argue that it's as good a place as any, since it's certain that no mistakes could be made. But there are other testable milestones as well.

Is the decision of what point in development that natural (and constitutionally protected) rights attach to a human being an arbitrary one? If that decision is made based on anything other than "such rights attach to living humans", then, yes, that decision is arbitrary. Those who make such a decision are using extra-scientific criteria, and my position merely makes such people own that decision and their rationale.

I stand secure in my position, knowing that it is the position most protective of living human beings and their rights. Since we cannot know, scientifically, a definitive point at which such rights should attach, any decision to deny those rights based on developmental stage, by definition, takes the risk of wrongfully denying those rights to a living human.

I am merely forcing those who make such decisions to own the risk they are taking with the inherent rights of other humans.

 

[chipbennett]

It has to have a "moral" definition. Again, no one is arguing that a zygote is alive and has human dna. But there is plenty of arguments about when rights confer to unborn children. That's why this is a controversial issue. You keep making the reductive argument that zygote, for all practical purposes is the right place, scientifically, when science has made no such indication. It's an argument unique to certain religious groups.

Science cannot make such an indication/determination.

"When life begins" = settled science
"When inherent rights attach to living humans" = philosophy (note: it doesn't necessarily have to be religious, or moral)

Again: I am taking the position that I do because it provides the maximum protection of rights to living humans, particularly since, scientifically, we cannot answer the second question. And I am absolute in that position, intentionally to force those who decide that inherent rights attach at some scientifically arbitrary point in human development do so at the risk of wrongfully denying those rights to living humans for whom those inherent rights already attach.

You got your panties twisted over it because of the importance you place on it, most likely based on your religious and moral beliefs. So I guess I can forgive you for saying I'm being insincere.

This you?

You can call it “science” to say that the embryo is living. It delves into unknown territory to call it a life in the way that religious people define it in service of their beliefs. Is it a sin to kill any human living cell? Or just the ones involved in becoming human beings? You’d probably have a hard time convincing the average atheist to agree with you that it’s a non-religious argument.

 

[chipbennett]

Hey, it's as good a place as any. Right?

It is a place to start. Whether it is a good place to start is up for debate.

 

[chipbennett]

Again, Science doesn’t and hasn’t determined when rights should apply. Prople, according to their worldviews, determine that. And this is why it’s such a divided issue.

We agree. Any decision to withhold inherent rights based on developmental stage of a living human being is extra-scientific. Science can only say, "this is a living human." Every boundary added to that assessment is philosophical, not scientific.

 

[SheepDog4Life]

I mostly want to stay out of this thread, but here's a (civil) debate on this that I just started in the background:


Edit:
The one against overturning Roe says:

I listened to this over lunch... awesome debate.

So much so I'm subscribing to the channel in the hope of more of what used to be the norm for debate (Firing Line is my benchmark), have the best argument for each side and let the listener decide which is more persuasive.

 

[JEBland]

I listened to this over lunch... awesome debate.

So much so I'm subscribing to the channel in the hope of more of what used to be the norm for debate (Firing Line is my benchmark), have the best argument for each side and let the listener decide which is more persuasive.

Firing line was before my time (I'm under 30), but I did find some old videos on a channel on YT. I've subscribed to it to listen later. Thanks

 

[jamil]

I'm running out of enough words to do a point-by-point breakdown

Uh. LOL. I think you found them.

but let me hit what I think are some of the important things:

1 - I know it can be hard to keep our responses straight with so many of us dog-piling on in this thread, but I don't think I ever claimed that rights at conception was based on science. If I did, it was by mistake, and I take it back. Science can help us determine facts about a human organism, but can't, by itself, make moral determinations.

Well the dog piling is understandable. I'm the heretic (and a few others) that challenged the orthodox and people have to stomp that out.

I think I should have made it more clear. No, you've really been understanding of the distinction I've made between the science and when rights should apply. But I'm including Chip in the conversation, who did not or does not seem to make that distinction. It looks to me like he believes that science backs his opinion of where rights should apply. And when he reads this I have little doubt that he'll rebut it again. Gotta stamp out the heresy.

So I've been clear on what I think your position is in that regard, the mistake was mine for not establishing the scope. I don't think there's a disagreement between us in the paragraph I quoted.

2 - Yes, my belief that "life" (ie, human rights) begins at conception is rooted in my religious belief. I'm not afraid to say it. On my part, the anxiousness to prove that "life" begins at conception from a purely secular standpoint is not rooted in insecurity about my religious beliefs, but rather in the notion that our government should not impose laws based on religious belief, but rather on rational criteria that can be agreed upon by reasonable people, regardless of their religious views, or lack thereof.

I have said I think you've been very confident in your belief, so there's no worry that I have thought you were insecure. But I was commenting on the reluctance I see for people to admit that it is based on a religious belief. I don't think it's an issue that religion forms the basis of your belief. You have a right to your beliefs for whatever reason and you get to vote accordingly. If that means a total ban on Abortion, then that's what you want. But other people do get to push back on that.

Anyway, what that last part sounds like to me is, "my views are based on my religion, but I have to find a secular reason for them too, so that the law I want doesn't sound like it's just based just on my views."

3 - I think I may have oversimplified, and therefore misstated, my argument for why I think conception is the only objective point at which human rights begin. What I really meant is that it's the only objective and consistent point. Everything else you listed is completely arbitrary.

I think "at conception" is arbitrary. In fact, I think most of those points along a pregnancy are arbitrary. Some of them, are down right immoral. And some of them aren't as morally compelling to the wider public. I have been of the mind that as far as a law based on morals is concerned, you're right, it should be something that is measurable and consistent. But also it should reflect the will of the people. "At conception" is not the will of the people. It's only the will of a subset.

Conception is the only point at which a fundamental change occurs, that will never be reversed until the person dies. Before conception you have two cells that are unarguably NOT human beings; they are a PART of another human being, and each one has DNA 100% identical to the person it came from. At the moment of conception, you now have a separate, individual being, with its own DNA, and it will continue being a separate, individual being, with its own DNA, until it dies. With all the other objective points you mentioned, they're either things that may come and go at different points in a person's life, or are simply completely arbitrary time periods based on how long the human organism has been alive.

Some of those points have justifications. Some not. Certainly just before the cord is cut has no justification. But at the point where an egg is fertilized, I don't see a more compelling moral story outside of belief in a soul.

Why should a heartbeat confer human rights?

It's as good a place as any? Why at conception?

We still believe that the man lying on the floor suffering from a heart attack, who needs to have his heart restarted with a defibrillator, has human rights.

He has a right to live in the sense that he has a right not to be killed. I certainly would not advocate for killing people unjustly. But, he doesn't have a right to be saved. It's that in our society, well most societies, we think it's immoral not to save him. Probably most people feel that it's a duty. In the case of an embryo, people just don't. Maybe because they don't identify with that.

The man has hopes and dreams that he's been living for, and we all empathize with that because that's us too, and we don't like the thought that it could be us. And we would want someone to save us. So we attach a moral duty to save him. It's not the same moral dynamic with an embryo. And that's what I was getting at when I was presenting it as rights equal to a "person" on the other side of birth. Because we feel for a newborn baby, our reflexive parenting mojo kicks in, and we become protective, even of others' kids. Because it could be ours.

And first heartbeat isn't even as objective as one might think; before the heart is fully formed with four chambers, there's a period where it's a small tube pumping blood. There's been a push in recent years by some medical associations to redefine heartbeat to only mean once the full four chambers are formed and beating.

Brain waves? How far do you have to go to try to detect them before determining they're not there? There's been more than one case of a person in a coma being declared brain dead, and then waking up later.

First kicks? There's been people born without legs. I guess they would never get human rights then.

And things like first or second trimester, while they may be objective, are purely arbitrary. Why on earth would a rational person pick a random number of days that a human organism has to be alive before they are considered a human life?

Cutting the umbilical cord at birth? I guess you could maybe make a somewhat reasonable case that we could consistently use the criteria that a human must not be physically attached to and reliant on another human in order to be considered a life. But then I guess Siamese twins are out of luck...

Okay, I think maybe you misunderstood. I'm not advocating any particular policy out of those. I'm just saying that there are indeed objective points we could choose and that all of them have a moral implication, but less so as you get more towards conception. A consensus builds as everyone starts to agree with abortion bans along the more mature parts of pregnancy. Maybe a fertilized egg doesn't do it for you. So maybe heartbeat or brain waves does. Or maybe the point where the unborn can feel pain does. And so on. Where the greatest consensus for where the moral point is seems like the best place to make a law. That seems to be somewhere around the 1st trimester.

4 - And I think this is the most important point. Do you believe that there is such a thing as objective morality?

Yes. I've stated that more than a few times. But its probably been buried in a sea of words. So I don't blame you for missing it.

Morality can have two senses: first the morals of a given human society at a certain time/place. Of course this can change, and is constantly changing throughout history; that's simply a point of fact.

But when I'm talking about objective morality, I'm talking about a set of morals that are, and always will be, true, regardless of the degree to which they are acknowledged by humanity at any given point.

An example of this would be murder. Pretty much all societies since civilization have developed a sense that the unjust intentional killing of a another person is morally wrong, even societies that eat people. It's all in how they define "unjust" and "person".

For instance, you mentioned regarding truth, that certain truths change with time (it's true that I'm awake right now; tonight that won't be true, then tomorrow morning it will be true again) and certain truths are subjective (it's true for me that pineapple on pizza is good, it's not true for some people.) But these are really just slightly improper ways we have of speaking about truth. The fact that I was awake at 10:11 AM on May 11, 2022, will ALWAYS be true, even if there comes a point in time when everyone on earth believes it to be false. And the fact that I, at said date and time, found pineapple on pizza to be appetizing,

Okay. We're done. Yer one of those.

will always remain true, regardless of if my tastes change in the future.

Then there a truths that do not change at all, like the fundamental properties of matter. We may eventually find that our understanding of those properties was flawed, and has to be revised, but the truth didn't change; our understanding of it did.

My question to you is, can we agree that there are fundamental morals that transcend time periods and societies, that have always been and will always be true? Do you believe that your and my right to life is something that exists as a matter of truth, that doesn't change based on subjective perceptions? Or do you believe something more like: one day humanity may evolve to the point where they realize that you and I were just peons in the grand scheme of things, whose rights didn't really matter, and if that point were ever reached, that would become truth?

Well. What if we're in a simulation? Rights may not exist outside of the simulation, but do inside the simulation.

That's a joke.

You don't have to convince me about objective morality. I think what is objectively moral is very narrow. Most of it is subjective. But there are some core morals that are objective across cultures and time.

 

[BugI02]

You forgot about the Koolaid.

The atheists keep drinking it all

 

[jamil]

Nobody's going to change their beliefs, but that's not the point of the conversation. The conversation is happening because Republicans / The Right now find themselves in a new political situation, and handling it correctly will be of importance.

What if Abortion gets banned in a relative handful of southern states...but outside of there, it remains legal everywhere else? And, as part of the bargain, Republicans in other states lose their control of state legislatures and other offices? Because The Left now possesses/manufactures/wields a vibrant new tool for making people really believe all conservatives are scary, extremist religious zealots who only care about their own belief system to the exclusion of all else?

I think most of us would consider that a "fail." Because it could affect gun rights, the justice system, social policy, and on down the list.

A geeky fascination with driving the "moment of conception" narrative down other people's throats, because it aligns with some religiously-reinforced concept of what they consider a "fixed, objectively simple" place to draw the line, could cause exactly that. Because it could drive a tank over the life of a woman who just got raped, or who just found out her child will have massive life-altering complications, or anyone else in a position to empathize with such people, either actual persons or just hypothetical ones.

This isn't to get people to change their beliefs. It's to get them to not be too "in-love" with the fact they draw the line in a different place than someone else.

I've thought about making that point, but I'm not sure people actually care about that because their moral beliefs require them to have another priority. But it would be good to get people to see that their confidence is not evidence of objective rightness. That it's not as clear cut for everyone else as it is for them. That moral laws need to be built on consensus or there will be great disagreement and conflict.

Personally, I wish SCOTUS had not taken this case now. We're already in the middle of a fierce culture war. If the "normal" people win, and the bat **** crazy stuff is tossed out of existence, maybe that's the time to have this conversation. But that's not why those 3 justices were appointed. They were put on the bench for this purpose. And it's unlikely to have been helpful.

 

[jamil]

Lol, was that the point of the conversation, that must have gotten lost somewhere in the 30 something pages. How is any of this a new political situation Republicans and democrats have always had different views on this, it's something every political candidate is asked about. I doubt abortion is suddenly going to make red states blue states, in reality most people are probably about as ambivalent about it as I am.

Well that long part of the discussion was because I answered a question daring to suggest that there isn't a good secular argument for "at conception". You need the concept of a soul or something like that. Then people feel they must stamp out the heretics. And then long posts ensue.

 

[BugI02]

I'd say that's a cocky SOB who has the confidence in his fabrication skills to jump off a cliff and then build the means to escape death on the way down. I'd be very impressed unless there was an anti-climactic splat. Then I'd just chalk it up to folly.

So, you've never met a 4?

 

[jamil]

So when do inalienable rights begin? That question is where you bring in the emotional, not scientific.

Emotional?

Inalienable rights apply to people. Where's the emotion?

 

[Tombs]

One thing that keeps annoying me about the whole abortion debate is the gymnastics to attempt to keep from calling it a life.

Don't we take lives in certain instances, legally, anyway? Why, in this specific case, is it such a problem to consider it a human life?

 

[jamil]

They are not basing it on science, just emotion…

Does not follow.