The point at which an abortionist realized he was wrong

“I mean it all depends on when you believe it becomes a living human being.”

The fact you don’t consider a living human being which a fetus is by definition points to your thought process of dehumanization. This is the same idea used many times for killing millions. If Hitler believed Jews were every bit of a valuable human as Germans there would have not been a Haulocost.

“I do believe in modern medical experts who claim ”consciousness cannot emerge before 24 gestational weeks when the thalamocortical connections from the sense organs are established.”. If it was proven that fetuses gain consciousness immeiately I would be against abortion, sure.”

Modern medical experts.  Known to never be wrong, bought or biased such that they can never be questioned. Modern medical experts in Germany in the 30’s were practicing eugenics sterilizing certain groups.  I am not sure anyone (unborn) or otherwise wants to be in a position where you are a medical opinion away from not being human.

The thing is conciseness I believe is just a misdirection.  If you have a unique set of human DNA that is alive it is a human being period regardless at what point you decide to assign it personhood. If you don’t interfere with he or she, regardless of what goal post you set for personhood, it will be a baby that is born.  So whether you murder a baby in the womb or shoot someone in the face on the street you are removing a human from this Earth.

Plus let’s not kid ourselves.  Abortion was a thing long before current day medical knowledge. All these hairs people try to split scientifically attempting to prove a baby is not a person until X number of weeks has nothing to do with why it started or why it’s done.  All that was an afterthought in attempts to make it OK but none of that had to do with the initial motivations.  I could write a book on why bombing Japan was morally acceptable  because eventually those people would have died anyway.  It’s very much the same misfocus.

“The development of a fetus brain can be monitored with magnetoencephalography,”

Again, modern medical science is often wrong and or paid for such that it confirms what it’s told to. You can argue all day to try to rationalize why stopping a human from developing once it’s already a living human is not the same as killing someone but it’s the same.

==The very idea that it’s not a person until a certain point is simply ridiculous.  It is a human being, period.
“according to you, sure. But many base it off what they believe life to be, which is consciousness.”

No, by definition it’s a human.  Killing a baby is still killing a human, the stage of development is meaningless.  You can play all the word games you wish and try to get so close to the minutia of the argument that context is lost but it’s just rationalization.

“For me this strongly indicates that functioning brain and consciousness is what defines if something is a living human being. So if a fetus does not have a consciousness and is unable to react to anything, it is not yet a living human but rather an organism.”

It is a living human.  If you want to argue consciousness or not go ahead.  But it is a living human with human DNA that is alive.

Everything alive is an organism that includes you and me.  So trying to use a more nebulous term does not make it less of a human. Same goes for the “clump of cells” argument.  We are all clumps of cells.

But I’m curious, when do you think life starts?

Conception.  Does that mean I find IVF also wrong?  Yes, yes I do.

Even if you yourself think there is only a 1% chance you are wrong and killing half a million or more people a year (just in the US)  might be murder, would you weigh that at all against your own convenience?  If you had a young child, and I offer you the chance to win 5 million dollars if you put your baby in a machine called “Rich or Dead” and the baby only had as 1% chance of being ripped to shreds would you do that?  Would you do that 500,000 times a year?

I bet if I asked you whether you believe it is better for several guilty criminals to go free than for 1 innocent person to be jailed you would agree with that.  So you are happy to play the odds so that their is justice based on a morality.  Would you calculate that differently if that innocent person was inconvenient to you?

At the end of the day, if we control ourselves and make simple positive decisions this is very rarely even a conversation.  Abortion is killing a person inside of you hoping that you are right because it would be really inconvenient if you had to bear the consequences of our own actions.

@SuperSoynic_Speed

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—-Before you read this huge post of mine.  I wish you to understand, while I disagree with you on this topic very strongly, none of this is based on anger or any sort of ill will towards you.  This is a hot topic, as it should be, but it’s just a conversation.

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“Hitler didn’t have that convincing arguments though about killing jews.”

That has nothing at all to do with what I stated.  How convincing Hitler’s points were or were not is somewhat superfluous to what happened.  But let’s say it’s true.  So you are saying Hitler was responsible for millions of deaths based on little?  Maybe just propaganda and lies?  I claim the same for being pro-abortion. Most of the pro  arguments are simply founded on fallacies and propaganda.

“Surely they can be wrong or biased, but not to the extent of the whole world”

COVID.

“But with the knowledge we have, it absolutely is true.”

COVID

“Chimpanzees have 99% of the same DNA as humans and even sperm has human DNA and are technically ”alive”. Would you wanna throw every person who has ever jerked off into prison for murder?”

I see this tactic get played a lot, the whole misdirection thing and false equivalency.   If I say a rose is not a dandelion and you disagree you would say well don’t they both have green leaves?  Which is beside the point and attempts to breed the idea one is equal to the other.  You know exactly what I meant.  That is to say I was referring to a unique set of human DNA.  I said that in my statement so I am repeating myself.  Chimp DNA is not human.  The DNA in sperm is not unique such that it is a subset of the fathers DNA.  Unique human DNA would be a human being comprised of a subset of the mother and father’s DNA.

” Burning wood or destroying concrete is not the same as destroying someone’s house, because it still is not a house even if it is 100% the same material a house has.”

Again, repeating myself here to clarify against your false equivalency.  I stated if you don’t interfere with an unborn child it will be born.  This is not the case with wood or concrete.  You can let it sit there a million years and it won’t form a house by itself.  It’s the opposite as it requires intervention to be anything more than it is initially.

“Unknowingly doing something doesn’t make it wrong though.”

You’ve heard of manslaughter right?  And now for the 3rd time false equivalency as everyone knows what abortion is at this point.

“that’s not an argument though, that’s just a statement.”

Correct.  It is a statement of fact.

“We are all clumps of cells but we have consciousness. A brain dead person is also considered dead, even if their other organs are functioning. Consciousness is what makes us living human beings, otherwise it would be murder to ejaculate since sperm has human DNA.”

You use terms very loosely.  I am not sure if that’s intentional as it clouds the argument.  “a brain dead person”, is still a person.  And you just said it was.  That is also an entirely different argument vs. abortion.  That refers to life support where without human intervention the person dies. Abortion is the opposite where without human intervention a person lives.

Consciousness is very difficult to quantify or prove scientifically. So using something like that to say a baby is not a person is no different than me claiming the same to you but on the premise of a soul.

The DNA in sperm is not a human being.

“No I wouldn’t, since it is established that there is a reasonable chance for the child to die and the child is a living human being. But are people immoral for driving their baby to the kindergarten every day, since they are every day putting themselves at risk for a car crash?”

You overuse the false equivalency thing.  Driving your child to school is not the same as putting them in a machine with a small chance of death based solely on monetary gain.  My point is that you a betting the lives of MILLIONS of people (babies) that current science is 100% correct.  There is no time in history where science was anywhere near 100% correct.  So over 500,000 people are possibly being murdered every year based on assumptive certainty of something that has a very high chance of being incorrect.  The hypocrisy of “black lives matter” unless they are unborn is so stark as to be almost comical.  The left will absolutely rage against  a single black man being killed.  Riots, looting, protests.   But killing more black babies in New York city than what is allowed to be born is just fine.

“Would you agree to use any method possible, even massively raising taxes to make health care free for everyone because 45 000 people on average die every year from not affording health care?”

There is zero chance you don’t realize how silly that premise is.  You are clearly intelligent and put thought into things.  So you stating that has to be an intentional attempt at propaganda.  But I digress.

What you propose there is entirely not possible and nonsensical.  If taxes are raised to pay for this supposed health care then it by definition is not free. Whether I pay a $25 co-pay (plus my premium) or get 25% of weekly wages taken, I am paying for it. Government does not have any funding it does not take from someone else.  Government is not a business,  it produces no product and therefore does not generate profit or revenue.

Also, this assumption you put forth that socialized healthcare ensures healthcare for all sounds great in theory but in practice does not happen. I am very suspect of numbers about dying due to lack of healthcare.  Certainly that happens but that is very difficult to prove and estimate accurately.  But lets run with it and say the numbers are true.  So 45,000 people die annually because of no healthcare.  Where?  The US?  That is terrible and my answer is to get government out of the business of regulating that industry and allow the free market to solve much of that.  Now, let’s take your case.  Nationalized healthcare.  How about the NHS in the UK, good example?  They estimate over 120,000 people died in 2022 while being on a waiting list for care.  That is England alone. They have a population of about 56 million.  The US is at least 320 million.  So that being 5x more you are saying 45k is abhorrent but you are theoretically advocating for increasing it to 600k if we play devil’s advocate with those numbers.  Yes that is playing fast and loose with numbers but you get my point I am sure.

You appear as a very staunch advocate of abortion.  I hope you are supporting that horrific practice based on a far more complete and more informed thought process than you just used for national healthcare.

“how is it fallacies and propaganda? I think it is rather consistent with how we define life.”

You keep moving the goal posts.  First is was being human, than a person and now “life”.  Clearly a living thing inside a woman comprised of the mother and father even if you choose not to call it a baby is life. I very much tire of the mental gymnastics played to attempt to explain how a human is not a human and how a baby is not a person.  The only reason all that energy is wasted is so you can defend how not keeping it in your pants is OK and your choices have no consequences because you can murder the results of your actions.   You cannot devalue some life without devaluing all of it.  The future you demand could come and the equality you hope for will exist but only in the equal suffering of all.

“But having human DNA doesn’t make something a living human being. Chopping off an arm and placing it on a table doesn’t make it a human being.”

I have accused  you of being a propagandist several times.  A charge you have never answered.  I accuse you of it again.  Clearly a baby inside it’s mother is not an arm lopped off.  A living human with a unique set of DNA is a reference to the entire body of that person in any stage and not just a portion of it.   At this stage your definition of a person is when it becomes “conscience” and that is mailable enough to be whatever you wish it to.

“The point is that something potentially becoming a thing does not make it the same as the thing. In no ontological category, does a potential thing count as the same as the thing itself.”

It is when that thing is a developmental stage of the same thing.   A tadpole is a toad/frog in the larval stage.  We don’t consider it not a toad or a frog because it is not fully formed.  If I offered you a free Lamborghini without wheels or a windshield I am sure you would accept it in a heartbeat and not think well since it’s not a fully formed Lamborghini it is not a Lamborghini and as no value.

“What I seek for is a consistent moral and philosophical framework, where all that matters is defining when a life starts and ends. To which, my answer is when the brain can react and a consciousness is found. I am not sure about when you consider a person to be dead, but it sure can not be heartbeat or existence of DNA because humans with heart failures and a pacemakers are not seen as dead, the DNA exists long after death. ”

What you seek is a river of reasons to do what you please without any moral ratifications. There is no such thing regardless of how many scientists you quote whom are seeking the same as you.

Life starts at conception.  The only reason anyone would consider it different is so that you can end a person before they are born because their existence is inconvenient to yours.   You cannot find consciousness.  Meaning that thing itself is difficult to define and impossible to assign a point at which it initially exists.  But that’s the point of your nebulous argument so that you can take an indefinable thing and place it wherever you wish and when someone challenges that you ask them to prove an indefinable thing wrong.

Death is the end of a cycle not the beginning of it and comparing one to the other is another attempt to devalue life. For someone who claims to be so caring of others and so tolerant you appear very willing to deport as many as you can from the ranks of “alive”, “human” and “person”.

“A brain dead person is a dead person. The question in abortion is, ”when does it become something worth protecting?”  The same applies to ”when does something cease to be worth protecting?”

You should have your own business moving goalposts for the NFL.  You would do well because you seem to be able to move them effortlessly.

Abortion is not at all about when is something worth protecting.  What nonsense.  Abortion is murdering a baby.  Period.  Only folks like you attempt to dehumanize an unborn child so you can murder it to ease your own life.

“I wanted to demonstrate that we bet a lot on things which may have a slight chance of going horribly wrong. The appeal to emotion through repeating killing babies is not gonna rattle me.”

I think you have already firmly established that you are happy to kill babies repeatedly.  I am fairly certain that won’t rattle you.

“The point was not to argue about healthcare, it’s irrelevant in this discussion”

Then why did you bring it up?  And I see you do so again.

“I am trying to test your moral framework to see if this is a discussion worth having. I have been talking with too many who claim they are pro life, but are in reality just anti abortion due to social grouping.”

I have never encountered such a person who was pro-life.  But for me, I DO NOT speak of any topic that I have myself not researched and or put much thought into.  I am not defending regurgitated talking points, I am demonstrating the courage of my convictions.

“My question is basically, if 45 000 people die yearly because they can not afford healthcare, do you think anything should be done to make them afford it, via taxation for example or any means necessary?”

Can they be helped?  Certainly.  Through taxation?  No.  That is a known failure as I demonstrated to you in regards to the NHS and their 120k people who suffered a similar fate in a country 5x smaller. Through any means necessary?  No.  Like what robbing people?  Taking things from them forcefully?  No.  Are you a communist?

No system is perfect but a free market with minimal guiderails is best. In such a place the economy thrives and as such charity abounds.  And you can have social safety nets (not lifestyles) but in the end charities do the best work.  I rather donate my money to causes (which I do) then than have the government put a gun to my head take my wallet and then tell me who they will give the money to which is mostly themselves.

If you want such things through taxes make them optional.  Given everyone a form each year that takes some small percentage for government needs and have a list of do you wish to donate to this cause or this cause.

What is freely given to one is forcefully taken from another.

“I may have been unclear with my definitions, what I think matters is when does it become a living human being. I know fetuses and even sperms are technically alive, but I do not consider them to be living human beings before consciousness.”

It’s not that you are unclear, it’s that you are incorrect.  A fetus is a human being.  Sperm is not a human being. But yes both are alive. Consciousness does not add to or detract from being a human being.  If you dig up a corpse from 1,000 years ago and asked someone what it was they answer a human being.  Yet there is no life nor consciousness at that time.  You could dig up a pile of broken bones and maybe you cannot tell exactly what it is but you can DNS test it somehow.  You would find it was a human being.  Now we do call that a corpse but that relates to a state and not lack of humanity, just like fetus.

Did you ever see any of the secret recordings from an abortion clinic years ago as it related to selling the human parts?  The journalist or whomever it was, was shown a picture of a “disassembled human” or the actual thing.  He/she did not know what it was. He/she asked this person from the clinic what that was.  The answer?  “a baby”.  That’s right.  Not a fetus nor a clump of cells.

Let’s not kid ourselves.  Instinctively we all know what is what here. It’s very black and white.  Grey in this situation is sought so people can rationalize selfish choices.

If you want to dehumanize people so you can guiltlessly murder them as they are inconvenient to you or someone else go right ahead.  But that “not a human” magic wand will get used more and more as we have already seen with abortion up to birth and even mention of it afterwards.  Thoughts/ideas can be bad on their own standing, they can also be bad because of where they lead.  And saying well I supported everything up to the step before but not this final step, does not grant you absolution from the point we ultimately arrive at.

“a car without wheels or windshields is a car in the same way a fetus without hair is a fetus”

No, not at all.  A car without wheels or a windshield  (and you called it a car not a clump of car parts) is a car in a stage of development as a fetus is a human at a stage of development.

“But why does it start at conception? And I think it is important to discuss death also, because life starts and ends in the same way. The function which is required for something to be a living human being needs to be defined, when it has this function it is worth protecting and when it ends, it ceases to be worth protecting. So when do you consider life to end?”

At conception you have a unique human being that is alive. At an early stage yes, but that does not mean it is not human nor that it is not alive. Your obsession with defining the absolute moment of life is a fools errand.  You never going to be able to 100% define or agree on well it’s not a person here but as of 1/1/24 12:32:45 it is. The only reason to try to define this is to attempt to dehumanize a person so they can be done away with.  This is functionally no different than Hitler conjuring reasons that Jewish people were not human so they could be killed en masse.

You are also conflating your words.  And this is why I accuse you of being a propagandist because this is what a propagandist will do to confuse the issue and bend it to their agenda. Maybe you are not intentionally doing it but I am pointing it out anyway.

A human being is a physical being.  Life in this context is a state.  A human that was alive 5mins ago is still a human being, he/she is now just no longer alive.  This is because life has ceased, all processes have stopped and decay has begun.  A fetus when left alone will grow into a fully formed person and is alive.

“My reasoning (without any propaganda involved, I’m telling you) is that in conception you have the DNA sure, but if you go by DNA then you also have to believe that it is alive as long as there is DNA.”

DNA equates to being human in this case.  DNA does not mean alive.  But a unique human set of DNA that is in a living breathing growing thing fully intended to be a born child is a live human being.

” It is purely a question of philosophy. Interacting with a fetus without consciousness is the same as interacting with a braindead person.”

If it was purely a question of philosophy why do you keep trying to prove your point scientifically?  A fetus and a braindead person can be similar if you only compare some things but overall they are not at all the same thing.  A fetus if left alone will grow and be born.  A brain dead person is typically only still technically alive generally because of life support and once removed would indeed be dead.  If you want to split hairs and say its someone born braindead this is still different as without human help that person would die naturally whereas the fetus would not.  Again, I find trying to define a majority in the same way as you see a tiny minority is a propagandist mechanism.

“I truly am open to reconsider things but the issue for me is that I haven’t heard a convincing argument to why it starts at conception. But maybe it’s just a propaganda stance to make women into babymachines.”

If you were open you would not be looking for all the things to affirm your stance but could invalidate it. This does not relate to what you are posting but how I believe you are thinking about it based on your posting.

You are very good at dehumanizing.  You just called women baby machines. Again, it is a propagandist mechanism to speak of a silly extreme to invalidate an argument.  No one says women should be baby machines.  The only goal is to stop murdering children.  Does that mean women have no choice?  No, that’s propaganda.  Keep it in your pants at typically well known times and most of the time you are fine.  Cases outside of that might be inconvenient or very difficult but that does mean it’s no longer a human you are killing.  If life or your status as a human being is a calculation based on convenience than anyone can be made inhuman.

“I have had my fair share of people who are anti abortion unless it’s a case of rape or incest.”

Well that is better than not being that way but that is still inconsistent and is hypocrisy.   It’s good you find that an incorrect stance.  Now you need to apply that recoil from hypocrisy to your other modern leftist stances that are equally hypocritical.

“I mean of course not by forcefully stealing from people but let’s say high taxation on the wealthiest people in the country and hand it to people who can not afford healthcare.”

Man you bite hard into whatever propaganda they throw at you.  Taxation (not voted on)  is stealing. It’s not a choice and they take everything from you if don’t pay it. No different than some dude on the street saying give me your wallet or I will beat you into the ground.

Wealthy people are not a bad thing solely based on being wealthy.  Being bad or good is based on your actions as a person and not how many zeros are in your bank account.  Why should wealthy people pay a higher rate of taxes than anyone else?  That is unfair.  What’s also unfair is lower income people paying no taxes.  Why go after the wealthy constantly?  That is propaganda again.  And it actually does not happen.  Politicians will talk that talk but never walk it.  Why?  Because they are wealthy as are all their donors.

Now again you are conflating.  This time  tax rate, welfare and the cost of healthcare.  These are all problems and one can make the other worse but they need to be solved separately and not in some silly combined method. So who is at fault then?  Who needs to do more?

Taxes are too high for normal folks right?  Who’s fault is that generally?  Government.  The wealthy are technically taxed at a higher rate who’s fault?  Government.  The wealthy even with their rate have tons of loopholes so often they don’t pay what they should.  Who’s fault?  Government. Welfare seems to never be enough, the system appears broken, money is just being set on fire.  Who’s fault? Government.

My point? Stop expecting the body that causes your problems to solve them.  Now, we must be fair. Much of the government is elected and that is the fault of the people when that does not work well.  But much of the government is now not elected.

“it’s a shame everyone is not as noble. But if it was guaranteed that an added taxation to the wealthiest people in the country would be used to pay for people in desperate need of medical help, wouldn’t that be great?”

Again with the wealthy.  This is a guarantee you cannot make and historically fails.  So offering something that has already failed many times is nonsense. That’s not a solution that’s propaganda.  This actually already exists in the US.  It’s called the VA.  And it’s typically horrible and historically so.  Do you really want a trip to your doctor to be like going to the DMV.

“there’s a huge risk people are too selfish to not do it”

But at least they can choose to be selfish. This assumption that the government’s job is to care for people is why so many people today are in need.  And they keep expecting the people that did not help them to help them.  This is why we spiral out of control.

Taking money from people for altruistic purposes overall is not a risk.  Why?  It’s almost always fails.

Freedom is a risk.  Always was, always will be.  But it’s a risk with choice that affirms our God given right to self determination.

• This reply was modified 4 months, 3 weeks ago by Vknid.