Last Abortion Clinic in South Dakota Closes

[Alyrium Denryle]

As for the debate, I should have enough time once I get myself moved (universe willing, next weekend) that I should be able to post a few lengthy paragraphs at regular intervals

[CaptainZoidberg]

At that point, you cannot call it a baby. It is an external fetus kept alive by very extensive life support systems in a neonatal intensive care unit. It is properly called a thing.

Babies who are born naturally but require medical attention are still called babies. In fact ALL babies require a constant supply of food, parental attention, and protection from their parents - so by your logic a person remains a fetus until they can live without "life support systems". Heck, I'm 18, legally an adult, but I couldn't successfully function without life support from my parents.

If they kicked me out tomorrow, I would not be able to support myself without finding another person to support me.

Having some sort of higher brain function is the bare minimum at which the fetus has any moral worth at all. It can feel pain and thus counts in a utilitarian calculus. That still does not make it necessarily a person, which requires a personality and experience (even if primitive, partially formed memories of those experiences)

A brain is just a complex neural network. All the stimuli and actions shape

In other words, it has the moral worth of say, an individual lizard or salamander rather than having less, which means if we can reasonably save it, we should. If we cant, *dusts off the hands* it is unfortunate, but such is nature

It has more individual value than a lizard because one day it will become a human. Consider that a toddler is no more intelligent than a great ape, but we give it more rights because one day the toddler will become a full person. Infanticide is illegal while killing a more intelligent cow for meat is not.

Present value is a function of current state and future state. If that were not the case then killing a person who would otherwise die in 10 seconds is a full murder.

First off, rights dont exist in a utilitarian ethical system.

Now you're playing with semantics, in context rights was clearly interchangable with "value", or whatever you care to call it.

Second, if mentioning how an ethical system looks at something, what the system is based upon really is relevant. Preference Utilitarianism is a form of utilitarianism in which it is not pleasure or pain that are exchanged and weighed, but preferences. Preferences are measured on a sliding scale based upon the intensity of the preference, and the degree to which the entity in question consciously holds them.

This is a policy debate. US policy is not based off of a preference system. If it were, then a bunch of ant's desire to not get bulldozed

Now ho

And ant has no real brain, it does not hold a preference so much as act like an individual neuron in a group-brain. You can say that a colony has preferences in a way though, at least in the sense that its preference to live is intensely held (while an individual ant will throw its life away with wild abandon to defend said colony) but not consciously held.

Now you're being pedantic. How do we determine whether a view is consciously held or not? Organisms take actions that they get pleasure from, and in the long run increase their reproductive fitness or the reproductive fitness of a group they are a part of. Ants sincerely want to keep their colony because that is what will allow them to survive and reproduce. Their general system by which they make decisions and adapt and reproduce is conscious of the fact that it's in their best interests because they end up reacting to it.

As you can tell I am a behaviorist.

A lizards living preference is higher because it is more intelligent, etc.

So basically we're going back to consciousness = rights as a value system?

Now you can get into complex interactions (such as the effects of the death of an ant colony on the entire system and the references held within...) but that overcomplicates matters.

No jerkoff. For one, it is not a 2 party things. There are third parties. Like my family and friends, and coworkers, that would suffer as a result of my death.

So let's say they all couldn't care less if you died. Then would you lose the right to life?

That's not just an abstract concept. Did slaves on the slave ships lose their right to life because their family wouldn't know if they died?

And as opposed to pro-lifers, their angst is very specific, their opposition to my death is not an abstract thing. It is very personal, and it outweighs any pleasure you can gain from my demise.

Congratulations, you have just developed a value system that justifies:

-Slavery
-Genocide (if no one knows that they

Aborting a fetus with the mental functioning of a lizard is a bit different.

So is forcing her to care for a baby "slavery", or is child support slavery? (And don't use the BS "body" argument. If I make you pay child support, I am controlling your body by saying that you must use it to provide nourishment for your child).

There are ways to get out of it. Like signing your parental rights over to a third party, hell, you can drop the kid off at a firestation, or police precinct, and they will take it, no questions asked. Once the kid is born, and starts having actual thoughts (and under rights based ethics, rights) you start having the corollary to rights, which is responsibility.

Bear in mind, I am not a rights theorist. I am a consequentialist (a non-specific utilitarian) I just like using that argument to makes rights theorists squirm.

That argument makes no sense. They can support the fetal right to life without supporting socialism. In their minds the fetus will be better off with less socialism because it will be more independent and free thinking.

No. You really cant. The end result of the reduced social programs these trogolodytes advocate is less stability, more poverty, higher crime. The kid will have bigger chance of dying due to violence or disease than be free-thinking or independent. THose things only come when people have the tools and opportunity needed to take advantage of their minds and become independent, and you dont get that without early childhood education, necessary food assistance, and child care for working/schooling mothers

The rank and file can get away with not knowing this, but not the leadership. And it is the leadership that calls the shots, and they have no excuses. Their position is at odds with the empirical data.

They are economic minimalist's. In their minds less economic intervention will provide the fetus's the best future. To an extent they are right. I can care for someone's well being without arguing for a 1984-style nanny-state. (Note that I support a mixed command/market economy)

And again, your average protester can get away with not knowing the results of their actions. But it is the job of policy makers and those at the top of grassroots networks to know what it is they are advocating. In this case, they are deliberately eschewing reality for ideology.

[SirNitram]

When a debate has only one outcome due to both moral and objective input, there is no debate. It is certainly not interesting.

Nah, there's a good pro case. I once argued post-CNS activity abortion with my friend. The two prongs to his pro constructive were:

1. Two identical twins are considered different people, even though they have the same DNA. Therefore person hood comes from both DNA and experience with the outside world. Even a third trimester fetus, the moment before it leaves the womb, is not a person because it's development is entirely determined by its DNA.

2. Even if the fetus were a person, it would still be in the nation's best interest to allow the mother to terminate pregnancy because women who get abortions tend to have below average IQs. Over time the median IQ in the nation would increase if they aborted more of their children. (I personally find this argument to be disgusting).

Please describe the morality framework where eugenics based on unproven claims(That intelligence is entirely hereditary) is justifiable.

[DPDarkPrimus]

At that point, you cannot call it a baby. It is an external fetus kept alive by very extensive life support systems in a neonatal intensive care unit. It is properly called a thing.

Babies who are born naturally but require medical attention are still called babies. In fact ALL babies require a constant supply of food, parental attention, and protection from their parents - so by your logic a person remains a fetus until they can live without "life support systems". Heck, I'm 18, legally an adult, but I couldn't successfully function without life support from my parents.

If they kicked me out tomorrow, I would not be able to support myself without finding another person to support me.

You're making a strawman out of his argument so that you can extend it into absurdity.

I was born several months pre-mature and required all sorts of medical care in order to keep me alive until I was healthy enough to be taken home, but during that time I had, as Alyirium said and you so conveniently omitted from your quote "higher brain function".

[CaptainZoidberg]

Dang, I accidentally hit submit too early. My apologies.

And as opposed to pro-lifers, their angst is very specific, their opposition to my death is not an abstract thing. It is very personal, and it outweighs any pleasure you can gain from my demise.

Congratulations, you have just developed a value system that justifies:

-Slavery (who cares if the slave that's separated from family dies, and those abolitionists just have a "non-specific" angst, so they count less then the slave owners who actually knows them)

-Genocide (if they were already hated by society then who cares if you kill them)

-Drug rape (if the girl doesn't remember it, then it's like it never happened, right).

There are ways to get out of it. Like signing your parental rights over to a third party, hell, you can drop the kid off at a firestation, or police precinct, and they will take it, no questions asked. Once the kid is born, and starts having actual thoughts (and under rights based ethics, rights) you start having the corollary to rights, which is responsibility.

But let's say you couldn't adopt your child away fast enough. Could you just kill them in the mean time? Let's say you just wanted the child to die, if it really has no value then there should be no moral question about whether you can kill it or not.

And prove that a new born baby has thought but a baby one second before birth doesn't. Does the passage through the birth canal magically confer a soul or something (sarcasm)?

Bear in mind, I am not a rights theorist. I am a consequentialist (a non-specific utilitarian) I just like using that argument to makes rights theorists squirm.

So if you're a consequentialist then do you just adjust current and future values to account for time differences? I.e, you realize that $10 today is worth more than $10 tomorrow, and a lizard today is better than a lizard tomorrow?

No. You really cant. The end result of the reduced social programs these trogolodytes advocate is less stability, more poverty, higher crime.

Yes but they don't realize that.

And in some cases there can be TOO much government interference. Just look at China under Mao.

The kid will have bigger chance of dying due to violence or disease than be free-thinking or independent. THose things only come when people have the tools and opportunity needed to take advantage of their minds and become independent, and you dont get that without early childhood education, necessary food assistance, and child care for working/schooling mothers

Prove that these programs work and that outcome differences are not just the result of differences in how much g is inherited.

The rank and file can get away with not knowing this, but not the leadership. And it is the leadership that calls the shots, and they have no excuses. Their position is at odds with the empirical data.

I already conceded to Nitram that this is the case. It is a resolved issue.

And again, your average protester can get away with not knowing the results of their actions. But it is the job of policy makers and those at the top of grassroots networks to know what it is they are advocating. In this case, they are deliberately eschewing reality for ideology.

That topic has been resolved.

[CaptainZoidberg]

You're making a strawman out of his argument so that you can extend it into absurdity.

No, I'm not. I'm carrying his reasoning and morality system (that a person who needs support from others is a fetus) to its logical consequences (that children who need support from their parents to survive are also honorary fetuses).

I was born several months pre-mature and required all sorts of medical care in order to keep me alive until I was healthy enough to be taken home, but during that time I had, as Alyirium said and you so conveniently omitted from your quote "higher brain function".

Exactly, you were still a person even though you needed medical care. By Alyrium's logic you were a worthless "thing" because you needed life support.

[CaptainZoidberg]

Please describe the morality framework where eugenics based on unproven claims(That intelligence is entirely hereditary) is justifiable.

A morality system where raising the development of a society takes priority over sacrificing the weakest members of society (to a small extent all societies do this).

And that it's unproven is irrelevant. Outside of mathematics there are rarely full proofs. What matters here is evidence.

And I never said "entirely heritable", I said that there is a large correlation (which there is).

[General Zod]

A morality system where raising the development of a society takes priority over sacrificing the weakest members of society (to a small extent all societies do this).

Guess which societies practiced what you're advocating and took it to its logical conclusion? Oh yeah, the Spartans and the Nazis. Very few people would argue that their standards for doing things was very ethical or desirable.

[Darth Wong]

A morality system where raising the development of a society takes priority over sacrificing the weakest members of society (to a small extent all societies do this).

Guess which societies practiced what you're advocating and took it to its logical conclusion? Oh yeah, the Spartans and the Nazis. Very few people would argue that their standards for doing things was very ethical or desirable.

Actually, all societies do this if they are under sufficient threat. The reason we consider ourselves morally beyond such thinking is our obscene affluence, which allows us to do things like providing lifelong medical care and other forms of special assistance to Down's Syndrome children.

If we were forced to struggle just to survive, we'd dump all of our weakest members in a heartbeat.

[DPDarkPrimus]

You're making a strawman out of his argument so that you can extend it into absurdity.

No, I'm not. I'm carrying his reasoning and morality system (that a person who needs support from others is a fetus) to its logical consequences (that children who need support from their parents to survive are also honorary fetuses).

I was born several months pre-mature and required all sorts of medical care in order to keep me alive until I was healthy enough to be taken home, but during that time I had, as Alyirium said and you so conveniently omitted from your quote "higher brain function".

Exactly, you were still a person even though you needed medical care. By Alyrium's logic you were a worthless "thing" because you needed life support.

It's simply astounding how you manage to keep replying to posts without processing the words "higher brain function".

[General Zod]

Actually, all societies do this if they are under sufficient threat. The reason we consider ourselves morally beyond such thinking is our obscene affluence, which allows us to do things like providing lifelong medical care and other forms of special assistance to Down's Syndrome children.

If we were forced to struggle just to survive, we'd dump all of our weakest members in a heartbeat.

True, but there's a difference between doing it out of necessity and doing it to produce "rar supermen!" which is what zoidberg seems to be advocating.

[CaptainZoidberg]

It's simply astounding how you manage to keep replying to posts without processing the words "higher brain function".

Okay then, please tell me what higher brain function a new born baby has that it didn't have the second before it was born.

And no, that is not a strawman. The person hood of babies late in pregnancy is precisely the topic of this debate, and thus far Alyrium has not yet taken the position that infanticide should be legal.

Actually, all societies do this if they are under sufficient threat. The reason we consider ourselves morally beyond such thinking is our obscene affluence, which allows us to do things like providing lifelong medical care and other forms of special assistance to Down's Syndrome children.

If we were forced to struggle just to survive, we'd dump all of our weakest members in a heartbeat.

All societies do this more or less, even when there are few external threats. We spend billions of dollars giving gifted kids at MIT and Harvard top notch educations that aren't spent on poor, retarded children who are on the brink of poverty.

Today in America we sacrifice the lives of our young men and women in Iraq so that they can become a developed society (although I believe that the Iraq war is seriously unlikely to accomplish that goal).

We take the risk that some people will die in mines so that we have coal to keep society running.

We know that some innocent children will die in car accidents, but we don't give up cars because we need them to keep societies running.

ALL societies sacrifice people for the good of the whole. Is it unfortunate? Yes. Can we minimize it? Yes. Is it possible to avoid completely? No.

[SirNitram]

Please describe the morality framework where eugenics based on unproven claims(That intelligence is entirely hereditary) is justifiable.

A morality system where raising the development of a society takes priority over sacrificing the weakest members of society (to a small extent all societies do this).

And that it's unproven is irrelevant. Outside of mathematics there are rarely full proofs. What matters here is evidence.

And I never said "entirely heritable", I said that there is a large correlation (which there is).

Correlation != Causation.

Any link between abortion being allowed and intelligence as justification for forced abortions are rather farcical. And we're not talking about the weakest, really. Subpar intelligences can still be useful. You, however, are taking a correlation, extrapolating a farcical mechanism, and then putting up eugenics. This isn't a debate, it's a bad joke.

[DPDarkPrimus]

It's simply astounding how you manage to keep replying to posts without processing the words "higher brain function".

Okay then, please tell me what higher brain function a new born baby has that it didn't have the second before it was born.

Right because up until the second a baby has crowned we all think it's perfectly moral to abort it.

Oh wait, who here has said that. No one.

Quit fucking straw-manning.

[CaptainZoidberg]

True, but there's a difference between doing it out of necessity and doing it to produce "rar supermen!" which is what zoidberg seems to be advocating.

Because not living in a third world shithole (which is what a low HDI is equivalent to) = "rar supermen".

Look, I'm not even advocating those kinds of eugenics. I'm only saying that that is a viable argument in favor of third trimester abortions, not that I agree with it. Have you ever noticed how I'm arguing the con side in my argument with Alyrium?

[General Zod]

Because not living in a third world shithole (which is what a low HDI is equivalent to) = "rar supermen".

Look, I'm not even advocating those kinds of eugenics. I'm only saying that that is a viable argument in favor of third trimester abortions, not that I agree with it. Have you ever noticed how I'm arguing the con side in my argument with Alyrium?

If the only way to argue in favor of something is by playing devil's advocate for a completely unfeasible point, then frankly it's a retarded argument.

[CaptainZoidberg]

Right because up until the second a baby has crowned we all think it's perfectly moral to abort it.

Oh wait, who here has said that. No one.

Quit fucking straw-manning.

Read the thread before you accuse me of strawmanning. Clearly you don't even realize what we're discussing...

The debate began with:

I honestly doubt there'd be many who'd argue that, on the onset of CNS activity, to terminate an otherwise no-problems-beyond-the-norm pregnancy. But that is probably the point of shaping and wording it that way.

Hence an interesting debate. And yes I do remember that Alyrium argued precisely that position.

Why yes. Yes I have.

So in other words Alyrium explicitly says that he is fine with aborting a fetus after Central Nervous Activity. In an old thread he said this:

And... why should a second trimester, or even early third trimester fetus have some basic human rights? And do those override the right of a potential mother to control her own body?

So I am not distorting or strawmanning Alyrium. That a third trimester fetus can be aborted in a healthy pregnancy is precisely his position.

[Darth Wong]

Okay then, please tell me what higher brain function a new born baby has that it didn't have the second before it was born.

And no, that is not a strawman. The person hood of babies late in pregnancy is precisely the topic of this debate, and thus far Alyrium has not yet taken the position that infanticide should be legal.

That absolutely is a strawman, asshole. You find me one example of anyone here saying that personhood coincides with the moment of birth. The fact that they think the onset of personhood takes place sometime after the first trimester does not give you license to say "1 second before birth", you lying little shit. I'm calling you out right now: either find proof that anyone here subscribes to this strawman (yes, strawman) of yours or retract this bullshit.

[CaptainZoidberg]

That absolutely is a strawman, asshole. You find me one example of anyone here saying that personhood coincides with the moment of birth. The fact that they think the onset of personhood takes place sometime after the first trimester does not give you license to say "1 second before birth", you lying little shit. I'm calling you out right now: either find proof that anyone here subscribes to this strawman (yes, strawman) of yours or retract this bullshit.

Infanticide is already illegal in the US, no? So it's a default conclusion that a new born baby is a person, or at least has a basic right to life.

Thus far I have not seen anyone say that they want to change the current legal standing on infanticide. If I am wrong about that then I gladly retract the point.

[Darth Wong]

That absolutely is a strawman, asshole. You find me one example of anyone here saying that personhood coincides with the moment of birth. The fact that they think the onset of personhood takes place sometime after the first trimester does not give you license to say "1 second before birth", you lying little shit. I'm calling you out right now: either find proof that anyone here subscribes to this strawman (yes, strawman) of yours or retract this bullshit.

Infanticide is already illegal in the US, no? So it's a default conclusion that a new born baby is a person, or at least has a basic right to life.

Thus far I have not seen anyone say that they want to change the current legal standing on infanticide. If I am wrong about that then I gladly retract the point.

What the fuck are you talking about, you gibbering waste of flesh? Do you honestly think what what you just wrote is even vaguely relevant to my demand?

I didn't ask you for proof that people agree that infanticide should be illegal, you stupid shit. I asked for proof that people think abortion should be legal right up 1 second before birth. You are either a goddamned retard or an unapologetic liar.

[CaptainZoidberg]

What the fuck are you talking about, you gibbering waste of flesh? Do you honestly think what what you just wrote is even vaguely relevant to my demand?

I didn't ask you for proof that people agree that infanticide should be illegal, you stupid shit. You are either a goddamned retard or an unapologetic liar.

"You find me one example of anyone here saying that personhood coincides with the moment of birth."

If someone believes that infanticide should be illegal than how can they not believe that person hood coincides with the moment of birth?

If the new born baby were not a person then why wouldn't infanticide be legal?

[SirNitram]

Zoidberg, are you simply too stupid to grasp the idea some people would believe personhood begins at a moment prior to birth, and thus infanticide is accurate but your strawmen remain ridiculous fallacies?

[Darth Wong]

What the fuck are you talking about, you gibbering waste of flesh? Do you honestly think what what you just wrote is even vaguely relevant to my demand?

I didn't ask you for proof that people agree that infanticide should be illegal, you stupid shit. You are either a goddamned retard or an unapologetic liar.

"You find me one example of anyone here saying that personhood coincides with the moment of birth."

If someone believes that infanticide should be illegal than how can they not believe that person hood coincides with the moment of birth?

If the new born baby were not a person then why wouldn't infanticide be legal?

Are you honestly so goddamned stupid that you think the statement "you can't kill newborn babies" means "it's OK to kill babies 1 second before they're born"? Did you take a double-dose of stupid pills today?

[CaptainZoidberg]

Okay, I see what you're saying. I retract my statement until Alyrium establishes the point at which he believes that person hood develops. Given that he doesn't think that the onset of CNS activity or the third trimester is relevant, I assumed that he didn't think any development before birth would be relevant to him.

Apologies to Darth Wong and Primus for misreading you.

[DPDarkPrimus]

Don't apologize to me, apologize to your English teacher for sleeping through his lessons.