@cystic:
The fact is that the father by impregnating his daughter has victimized two people - his daughter and her child. Your solution would be to compound the crime by killing the child? As though this would “undo” the crime? From a rational-genetics standpoint, this doesn’t look to bad as there are some nasty genetic consequences possible (not likely tho’).
One simple question: can you victimize a person that doesn’t exist yet, vitcimize in advance, so to say?
I understand your point, CC, and it makes some sense. I will come to that later, when i try to draw some conclusions.
The problem is that the laws are made by men. Sentence for rape: a few years, Sentence for being raped: probably lifelong…… .
true. And the sentance for being conceived in this instance - death? Or life in a family that cares for the child vis a vis adoption? For the woman this is 9 months, however i do not think that by killing the child you will end or even mitigate her suffering.
One quick thing here: why should a person that has committed no crime, but is a victim, suffer at all, be it 9 month, a life long, or whatever time?
CC, please not that i never talked of born childs or killing them because they are “annoying”.
so what is your threshold for the degree of inconvenience of a child and its consequences?
inconvenient before birth therefore it deserves to die?
You may have noticed that “inconvenience” is not part of my argument.
It more comes down to: if we have two victims, or two persons which equal rights, whose rights supercede?
(2) Why is there this small amount of time (about three hours after birth) that allows a woman to repudiate her child, before the mother-child attachment kicks in?…
(3) something more metaphysical: When does life start? With the merging of two cells? …
(4) something more religious: when does the soul get into the body? Do chimpanzees have a soul? …
…2) don’t even go there. Unless all of a sudden civilization is meaningless, for it is these instinctual urges and the ability to disregard another’s being for our own selfish reasons that got the woman pregnant in the first place
3) …Furthermore there is something different that happens with conception that does not happen anywhere else in human physiology, so i think that it is POSSIBLE that life may begin here. As it may never be proven, then why take that chance?
4)good question? There is, of course, a biblical response to this, however despite my flagrant Christianity, i am not going down this road on this topic as it might keep my views from being taken seriously by atheists on the board.
@2): Well, first, i think we have a massive decrease in civilization in the last few years, fortunately that has not reached into this topic yet (but soon someone will talk about money, worth, net gain and pregnancy). Second, yes, civilization is “unnatural”, and aims at a higher goals, like overcoming these urges. But do i have to expect that the victim of the urges must -with no other choice- overcome her “urges” and keep the child? This surely is not “eye for an eye”, but a very christian approach (which i can fully accept when done by you CC). Still, there are lots of people here who cried for vengence after the attack on the twin towers. If those put out the above argument, i could not accept that: they claim the right to follow their primal urges for themselves, but do not allow others to do it.
So, it comes down to “who throws the first stone”, and i do not claim for myself that i would be the one without any fault.
@ 3) (including some parts of 4): good argument, but we have clues when the sensory equipment is formed, when the first nerve cells appear. Before that, well, it is alive, but does it notice anything except via hormones?
@ 4): i am interested in what the bible says, and how you would interprete that. I promise i will not use it in the argument, it is pure interest.
A bunch of cells, without any sensory cells or even other nerves has more rights and can force a -possibly abused- human being of what it has to do?
well, this is a tricky question. do they have rights? To live? I hope so. To impose their will on another being? to one degree i hope as well.
This is the point where we differ: in the amount/degree that one life can impose its interest on others.
You give the unborn live more rights than i do, i give the woman more rights than you do.
We should try to find and mark the areas where we differ, and listen to each others reasoning for each position. I guess we will come to a point then where we both agree on both sides rights, and have to rely on our “gut feelings” then. … But even then, whatever we discuss here: We are men, we cannot get pregnant. Whatever we say has to be taken under the premise that we are ignorant to a degree (a loosely similar situation would be us two discuss about where racial discrimination starts, we both would be “unafflicted” by that also).
So, my point:
I start with equal rights for unborn baby and woman, in question the womans rights supercede. Plus: Before any nerve cells are created within the unborn life, i would “decrease” its amount of rights slightly, haven’t thought of how little though (your turn to question me about that :) )
