Kansas abortion doc killed in church

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As a society, we do not allow people to try to equivocate on moral theory to justify murder. We regard killing outside of war and self-defense as abhorrent in all circumstances. Anyways, you and I exist within Western society and are discussing laws and morality in Western countries, so appealing to non-Western ideas is just pointless. Even so, I doubt you will really find a whole lot of philosophies in favor of murder.


Why do I have to pick a group? My main opinion as regards the abortion debate is that people on both sides of the debate act like morons and utterly fail at comprehending the opposing view. Why would I want to align myself with either group, given that I perceive both as foolish?

Again that is still a simplification. There is still quite a strong feeling of vigilantism among some people or else this even wouldn't happened. What do think about countries that have the death penalty? What about 'honour killing' (this is not just in the east), what about burning the widow/widower to death on a pyre along side the deceased?

Yes there is a societial view, but that doesn't mean we have reached the end. Things will change in the future too.


We have already established you don't agree with them, but don't generalise about the different position that is what I’m saying. Yes it may be heavily polarised that is why to precisely don’t fall into the trap of being polarised yourself just because society says so. You can be on the bleeding edge (no pun intended) of ideas.

Yes there is, and frankly from the pro-life perspective such vigilantism makes a lot of sense, as does bombing abortion clinics and other terrorist acts. To the pro-lifer, this is not a mere political disagreement the way gay rights, tax policy, or gun laws are. It is a matter of the law literally sanctioning mass murder on the scale of the Holocaust.


None of that seems relevant.


I'm not polarized on the subject. I tend to take either side in the debate depending on who I'm speaking to in order to attempt to get them to at least comprehend the other side's arguments, and I personally would probably favor some sort of compromise position, even though compromise isn't really possible for many people on both sides.

How is the death penalty not relevant? How is killing/murdering someone compatible with this 'pro-life' position that you talk about.

The fact is none of these absolute positions stack up.

I've known religious people who were against both abortion and the death penalty, and people who had no problem with either.

The death penalty is not relevant because it's a different issue. Killing/murdering someone can be viewed as compatible with pro-life if you take the view that such murders prevent a greater number of murders, akin to the question of whether you would kill Hitler if you had the opportunity. Or it can be viewed as retribution/justice for previous murders committed, just as we execute serial killers.


How not? You haven't offered a decent rebuttal of any of them, much less actually refuted them. In any case, I'm not even attempting to convince you of the correctness of pro-life, only trying to explain their reasoning.

I suspect that later. Retribution justice, which isn't actually written into western law, because it is supposed to be law of the land (and citizens) not of the victim. back to vigilantism mentality. You can make a murder serve life, killing them is optional. If you are talking about the expense and practicability that is a separate argument form this absolute moral position. .


You were the one that was saying that if it is deemed alive then it is a murder according to 'pro-life'. Like I said you can only speak for your self. By that I don't mean that this is your view, but that only they can speak for themselves.

Absolute positions don't stack up purely as they are vast oversimplification of real life. It is not as if you can say all wars a morally on your side therefore, fighting in them is fine and you are not really murdering anyone.

Besides you are talking about think that can't in fact be characterised in absolute terms. You are saying that the decision to kill an abortion doctor is a obvious and absolute choice, when in reality it is an emotional choice. It is emotional values and feeling that are the motivation. That is what they are talking about when they say "it's not right". Because it does not feel right to them in their relative experience

The reasoning I have seen from pro-lifers who also uphold capital punishment is that abortion is murder of an innocent life, whereas those who are executed were lawfully convicted of some heinous crime. This eliminates the seeming contradiction. And pro-lifers in favor of capital punishment would regard the opposite position as ridiculous: allowing murderers and criminals to escape justice while permitting the massacre of innocents? But we are now going on a tangent. In any case, I oppose capital punishment and retribution justice (which includes our current prison system).


Right, and murder is wrong, I think everyone agrees on that. Well, the issue is that pro-lifers often can not see how any other view would be possible, and most of the time when I see pro-lifers debating this fact prevents them from articulating their view in a manner that non-pro-lifers would understand.


Well, fighting in war is usually not regarded as murder even if you are on the "wrong" side, so long as you don't commit war crimes. But I'm not really following your point on absolute positions, or where you're trying to go with this analogy.

Right and Wrong could be viewed as absolute positions. The statement 'murder is wrong' is sort of a benchmark and ideal.

Also how we behave is vastly different than how we apprise and think of ourselves. In reality we are capable of being more violent then chimps, and more egalitarian than bonobos, depending on the situation.

OK. Society doesn't care, and sure as hell is not going to make laws based on whatever relativistic crap you feel like spouting. We agree that raping children is wrong, and make it illegal. You can whine about law imposing someone else's moral ideas on you, but all law does that, so unless you're some type of anarchist you don't have much of an argument.


Irrelevant.

I never meant to imply such a thing. It is that you quoted an anti-semite who used the singular form so I raised the question to you whether you noticed that.

I have no reason whatsoever to believe that you are anti-semitic and I am sorry for even implying that you are one.

ruveyn

^Wait... who's the anti-Semite then? No one else used the singular form.

Touché. Your argument is not terribly strong either. These things are deliberated in the courts all the time. That is why we have different classifications of murder and killing. ‘Corporate manslaughter’ anyone? ‘Unlawful killing’, n-degree murder, crime of passion, etc.


Completely relevant. Essential to understanding conscious view is human behaviour. We make act as if something is wrong, but be self contradictory it happens all the time. We are animals after all.

Ok thanks for the clarification. It wasn't meant as a quote, but I can see how it might appear that way.

You can get unlawful killing (unlawful is different legal speaking to illegal), with a suspended sentence. That mean the Judge believes the killing was unlawful but you don't deserve a punishment for it.

it has been used with cases like assisted suicide/abortion.