Are Autistics whom are Pro-Abortion hypocrits?

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I consider a viable newborn human a person in the sense of medically humane intervention should it be distressed after the cord is cut, and thus it is separate from the mother. I believe it is only fair and right and just. It may seem sentimental, and I may be biased because I have had viable births that were wanted and desired. I am only human, after all, and I hope to maintain a centrist point of view in all of this. Personhood, to me, entails the right to receive a standard, resonable humane level of care and is in force after exiting the womb, after the cord is cut and continues through the lifetime of the human person, no matter how long this life may last.

There is controversy when there are persons (of any age) in comas, and/or when there is a lot of expensive intervention/machines needed to maintain a living, breathing human person that doctors have stated or determined will probably not get better or live without the intervention. It gets even more interesting when an articulate person wants to end his/her life when the chances of medical recovery from debilitating diseases is virtually nil, or when relatives do want to end a person's suffering by turning off the juice. These are just two examples, and there are many others, as you no doubt know.

Your approach, in my opinion is also reasonable, as all your posts are, and I look forward to reading them as they are full of ideas worth pondering.

I just read up on PZ Meyers, and this guy sure has his hands full with all this blogging.

Language can be awfully sticky when used medically as legally.

I hope people read my comments and learn from them. The reason why you are unlikely to gain anything is because of how far away you seem from what I would consider basic sense and reason. I would guess that you are a person who looks at the world in terms of "essence" while I am a person who is fundamentally more reductionist and don't mind trimming away the nonsense to get to the reality of a situation.

I am pro-choice, and I do agree with Awesomelyglorious' comments.

What is trying to be pointed out is that there is not one clear answer that will be acceptable to everyone. When does a fetus / newborn become a person? I don't know, and nor does anyone else.

As for being more willing to consider a newborn a non-person than considering a fetus a person, this is not a revolutionary thought. There are cultures around the world that do not consider a newborn to be fully a member of the human race. The Balinese, for example, do not allow a newborn's feet to touch the ground until they are three months old, at which point they are accepted into their community as a full member. Are we going to say that their entire culture is... well... wrong?

Also, there are theories that human newborns are, in fact, just fetuses, and require a total of 12 months of gestation. Human newborns are born after only 9 months of gestation, however, because otherwise they would not physically be capable of being born (ie - their heads would be too big). This is called the theory of the missing 4th trimester, and anyone who has had a baby knows that newborns really are nothing like people in the way that they behave. And yes, they do seem to "wake up" when they are about three months old. (http://www.pregnancy.org/article/curing ... x-amp-5-ss)

Am I saying it is okay to abort a newborn? No. So don't think about twisting my comments that way.

What I am saying is that there are different benchmarks that can be used to define when a fetus / newborn is considered to have become a "person".

And herein lies the problem with the pro-life argument that abortion is simply the killing of innocent people. Because, the fact of the matter is, we don't have any universally accepted point in gestation / development where a fetus / newborn is considered to be a person. And that is because there are no convincing arguments one way or the other. It comes down to a matter of opinion. (And before you start listing all of your "convincing arguments" that supposedly "prove" that a fetus becomes a person at X time, don't even bother. Firstly, I am not going to respond. Secondly, I could provide a list of equally "convincing arguments" to "prove" that you are wrong.)

Accepting that this is so, then the argument would have to be revised to state that abortion, depending on an individual's belief regarding the start of "person-ness", could be considered to be the elimination of a potential person. And, as such, it is not killing at all.

And that is the pro-choice argument. It should be up to each individual to determine whether or not aborting a fetus is morally acceptable, and access should be provided to safe abortions should they decide that is what they want.

Legally, they cannot decide to "abort" a newborn because, legally, a newborn is considered a person. Legally, that would be considered murder.

And before everyone gets too worked up about trying to control other people's reproductive rights (including the right to abort), just remember there is probably a subset of people out there who may want to control yours in another way (such as refusing the right of certain members of society to procreate). Don't think they should be able to control whether or not you can have kids? Then don't try to force someone to have a child they don't want.


(PS - Please note that, at no point in this post, have I told you what MY personal opinions are regarding when a fetus / newborn becomes a person, or whether or not I believe there is a cut-off point after which abortion should be banned (if any). So don't try to imply that I have.)

Me too.


good point.

Let's also remember that the OP was referring not to normal pregnancies, but to pregnancies where the zef is diagnosed with Down's syndrome or other abnormalities and will never have a 'normal' life - and may even be dependent on its parents until their deaths.

Things that have new DNA and are not considered people:
* sperm
* eggs
* bacteria

Things that have heart beats/"emit brain waves" and are not considered people:
* Rats

Least ambiguous way to differentiate a meat blob and a person:
* Birth.

It does not really bother me when women decide that an abortion is the best way out of a given situation. A fetus is not a person and it getting diagnosed down syndrome or autism does not make it more of a fetus. This theoretical fetus does not have any more rights than other fetuses in my opinion and it does not pain me for its life to be terminated. Wanted to highlight that my concern is more about humans thinking they can decide what DNA traits are better because ultimately, they may be wrong. It is a very tough issue. On one hand we'd like women to keep their rights, including their right to end an unwanted birth, but there is always a risk that she would use this right wrongly - eugenics.

Eugenics will threaten the course of humanity and may destroy our genetic diversity, that's a big issue. But however, fear of eugenics, shouldn't be used to justify the removal of the woman's rights. Just like fear of murder shouldn't be used to ban the use of weapons. So, I think the optimal solution would be to keep abortion legal but make the use of genetic screening to prevent births illegal. Just like guns are legal but murder isn't.

^ This. I am also pro-choice. My objection with the pro-life stance is not specifically that I believe abortion is the right course of action in all cases of unwanted pregnancy, but rather that it's not pro-lifer A's right to tell expectant mother B what to do with her body. My belief is that leaving the option of abortion on the table is prudent. Just look at it from a logical perspective. If we assume that personhood comes with the right to not be needlessly endangered, and the right to ownership of one's own body-- well, we already know the mother, as a mature adult (in most cases), is definitely a person, and therefore her rights are undeniable. As cave_canem pointed out, the one unknown variable is the personhood of the fetus. Logically, it's a question of weighing a mature adult's rights against the assumed rights of an entity which, subjectively, may or may not be considered a person at all.

When pro-lifers say "Personhood begins at conception", I say, "Prove it, if you're so certain."

They can't, and won't even try because it would probably prove them wrong. If the moment of conception is where person-hood begins, where exactly do the sperm and ovum stand? Are sperm also little people? Does every man commit genocide when he jacks off, or unintentionally has a wet dream? A sperm is alive in the same way that a zygote is alive

A point that I've often made is that identical twins and chimeras are instances where a fertilized egg does not match up to a particular person. We can't say "this fertilized egg was Larry", because the fertilized egg could actually require another one to create that final Larry, or it could split up into two offspring and create Larry and his twin.

Just some clarification:

My point isn't about how we should all have a moral choice, although I do agree on some level with moral freedom, but rather, my consistent stand is not about when life begins, but rather when it does not. I think we can be confident for all legal purposes that life does not begin in the first trimester and even the second trimester. For that reason, restrictions on abortions during the 1st trimester, and even the 2nd trimester are unjustified restrictions on human liberty. I do think, however, that such a decision is upon a person's conscience to do as they see fit. Moving past those 2 trimesters, I really don't take as much of a position, in part because I don't care as much. So few abortions happen past the first and second trimester that the topic of moving beyond that isn't worth much discussion, especially given that third trimester abortion tends to be a lot riskier. However, knowing that a few answers are very wrong is a lot more important than knowing what exact answer is right, and it is possible to do this, as I might not know how large a stadium is, but I know it isn't just a mere 30 feet wide.

Secondly, I don't think as many people are engaging my statements on the value of human life, but at the same time, I think anybody who has thought seriously on risk management, health-care, or just basic economics would be forced to accept that many elements of what I say have to be true. In practice, risk managers and health-care agencies(private or public) have to put a value on a person's life, there is no possible way around them doing that, and in practice the value to be assigned to some lives is greater than others.

Thirdly, although I know Vexcaliber and Orwell have disagreed with this position in the past on grounds of biodiversity, I am actually in favor of the idea of eugenics. This does not mean that I think a current practice of eugenics would be helpful. Really my position is that we should look into ways to reliably remove certain negative conditions and increase the number of positive qualities. After all, I think that even if we sacrifice genetic diversity, having a population of geniuses is probably worth most costs. Societal advancement will move a lot more rapidly if we can do this. I am actually a fan of transhumanism, the idea of moving past normal humanity and becoming "post-human" in some sense, and that is a matter of creating persons who are by nature beyond the capability of normal human beings.

Actually, pro-lifers don't have to prove the baby in the womb is a person, you actually have to prove they are not a person. Furthermore, there is not simply a husk of flesh floating there doing nothing, there is actual movement inside the womb.

While it may be more conveinent for you to claim pro-lifer's have to prove a child is alive quite frankly that isn't the case. You are arguing that it is okay to kill something that is alive out of conveinence because it is not in your mind a person. Well prove it, just because a newborn can't do things an adult can, doesn't mean they are not a person.

Unlike someone whom is in a coma, the child in the womb is gaining functional ability as time progresses they aren't sitting there in vegetative state. I know people whom are okay with abortion try to paint the picture that the child in the womb isn't anything more that a slab of lifeless tissue, however that quite frankly is not true. Ask your mothers sometime if they ever felt you kick while in the womb.

In my opinion, the real reason you're trying to claim they aren't a person and they aren't human is so you can square away the idea that killing them out of conveinence is morally acceptable. Got news for you, they are biologically human, they have brain function around day 40 and a heartbeat before that. You may be able to get away with arguing that conception up to day 40 it is just a collection of cells. But you can't legitimately make that claim from day 40 on (and brain activity may even start before day 40) that we aren't talking about a human life.

Heartbeat and brainwaves are a pretty good indication that we're talking about something that is alive, may not be conveinent for pro-abortion individuals but doctors routinely check for a heartbeat and they don't need to be breathing while in the womb because they get their oxygen intake from the umbilical cord.

Yes, you do. We have all been providing reasons and all you've been doing is maintaining the same whiny and uninformed moralistic viewpoint. Please, provide a definition of Human as I have requested, or GTFO



Repeatedly it has ineffectively been brought to your attention that brain waves are not a good indicator of anything at that stage.

You have evaded basically everything people have rebutted against you and maintained the same repetitive standpoint while accusing others of evasion. You are being dishonest and unworthy of debate

Actually, I don't have to provide a definition of what humans are, you and I both know that the child in the womb from the moment of conception is genetically and biologically human and that is also irrelevant. All I have to do is prove that the individual is alive and quite frankly brain activity and a heartbeat are pretty good indicators that something is alive.

Also, how I choose to make my case and what points of yours (assuming they are even relevant to the conversation) I choose to respond to is my own decision not yours. If you cannot handle the fact that I'm not going to play word games and jump through your hoops, I really could care less.



I only have to prove that life has begun, at that point we're talking about a human being that is alive. The functioning ability of the child is irrelevant because as you and I both know that functioning ability improves at a rapid rate.





Stop with the projection. Biologically it is human and the fact it has brain activity and a heartbeat shows that the child is alive. Just cause it is unable to read yet doesn't mean it is not a human being.

Ah, and the circle continues

I have enough respect for you that I try and address all your points (the first time you bring them up...). I would have hoped you would extend the courtesy to those you debate with, but then again, you have voiced your lack of belief in respect before

Actually, I think AceOfSpades called you out on this tactic before, I may have the wrong individuals, but I'm not going to sit here and argue what the definition of "is" is.

Brain Activity/Heartbeat we know the child is alive. What state of their development at that point is immaterial, all that matters is we're talking about a human life.

AceOfSpaces is my buddy as far as I'm concerned, and I do not recall anybody ever accusing me of this. I have no need to make circular arguments. I also have never debated Ace