For many people the question isn't why should they be allowed to live, but why should we go out of our way to make sure they die? Because with our current system, you *really* have to go out of your way to execute somebody.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote: For many people the question isn't why should they be allowed to live, but why should we go out of our way to make sure they die? Because with our current system, you *really* have to go out of your way to execute somebody.
Well if they aren't put to death, then they are allowed to live. Why should they be allowed to live, when they have taken the lives of at least ONE person.
And I agree. If it is NOT a heinous crime then it doesn't warrant the death penalty.
There are various forms of Murder and various levels.
No one is advocating Death for a Manslaughter conviction.
But does anyone really think the guy cutting off the heads of clothes truck drivers in Iraq should get "Life in Prison" and be afforded the civil rights the ACLU wants him to have?
Sorry, I want that ______er dead. He adds NOTHING to the world but absolute hatred. Letting him live is stating that his crimes are somehow "justified".
The death penalty is just in some cases.
Posts: 1533 | Registered: Sep 2004
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What does being liberal mean to me? It means that I try to stay open minded. I listen to what people have to say, and do my best to respond inteligently and civilly. I carefully consider their opinions, on whatever topic, state my own not as fact, but as opinion. When people make factual arguements I examine their facts, examine their assumptions, examine their conclusions and see if the arguement works to convince me of their point. If it doesn't I respectfully say so, and do my best to clearly point out why. Sometimes it comes down to a difference of opinion, and when it does I agree to disagree and do not hold it against the person. It means I try to be not only tolerant, but completely accepting of people of all backgrounds, ethnic, religious, sexual orientation, socioeconomic, or political. Above all it means the most important thing in the world to me is freedom.
The only difference between a liberal and a conservative is a slight difference of opinion of how to go about protecting that most highly valued freedom.
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
That said: I'm Pro-Choice. We are still trying to figure out just what a human being is, and what goes into its creation. A human being is a wonderful thing indeed, but when you think about it, its not very different from a dog, or a dolphin, or a chimpanzee. For the thing we uphold above all else in a human is thinking and feeling. Yet we know a dog can feel, the love of dogs to their owners is reknown in our society. We also know dogs can think, anyone who's ever owned a dog will tell you that dogs can be quite brilliant problem solvers when it comes to getting something they want. So if its thinking and feeling that make a human being so wonderful that killing one is such an awful thing, how come we kill hundreds of thousands of dogs a year? My local animal shelter alone goes through thousands every year. Dogs that are unwanted, but heaven forbid they go free to wander in the wild or in our streets. No they'd be a meanace to society so they must be put to sleep.
Now about those fetuses that are a month or two old. How many here have taken basic biology? I'd assume everyone since its a basic high school class (and I think its required outside the US as well). If everyones taken it, then you should have seen those pictures of human fetuses at various stages compared to pictures of lizard fetuses at similar stages, and fish fetuses at similar stages and pig fetuses at similar stages. I can't find a link, so you'll either have to dig up a bio book, or comb out the cobwebs, but the fetuses of these very different animals look almost EXACTLY alike up until very late in pregnancy. A human fetus at 6 weeks differes from a carp fetus only in the genes contained with in its cells. Those genes do give it the potential to become a human yes. But so do sperm and eggs... so should we make sex illegal, becuase millions of sperm, potential humans, die every time you have sex. And every time a woman has her period, a potential human dies. Every time a guy has a 'wet dream' millions of potential humans die.
So the line is usually drawn at the point where sperm enters egg to form diploid zygote. The argument I've heard for drawing the line there, is that you have the genetic code for a complete human. And that that is the only time that grouping of genes will come together. Doesn't that grouping of genes have a chance at life too? Well the argument fails at this: that grouping of genes is only completely unique by statistical chance. It is entirely possible that it will come together again, has come together before in teh past, or already exists together elsewhere on earth. After all there are only so many combinations of 4 different bases grouped into 20 billion pairs. Also: there are genetically identical twins that occur quite often. The sperm and egg meet, the zygote forms and begins to devide and somewhere along the line they split right in half. Same sperm, same egg, same BEING for a while... but not the same HUMAN in the end. Becuase, twins are completely different people. They have different conciousnesses, they often grow up with different tastes and sometimes even come to look different. So its NOT the individual genetic code that makes a human, its the combination of the genetic code with how the person is brought up and what happens in their lives that truely makes them the sacred individual human.
When you think about it. Nature has absolutely no respect for the sacredness of human life and especially for the sacredness of potential human life. As stated above millions of sperm die every time a male has so much as a wet dream. Females have a monthly cycle of murdering their potential offspring. Adult humans die with insane regularity, killed by disease, or starvation or the elements. Not to mention each other. So what makes humans sacred? Scientifically? Other humans. Socially? Religion, but we've already established in other threads that this country holds a separation of church and state, a need to be secular and a need to allow people ot practice religious freedom as one of its highest priorities. Its one of the first amendments to the consitution in the Bill of Rights.
So what it comes down to is this: I'm pro-choice, becuase what it comes down to is an individual moral battle of where to draw the line. Where a persons individual religious beliefs and moral feeling have a great effect. Being an american, I value freedom highly, and this includes the freedom to make ones own moral choices. Abortion is an individuals dicision of when that fetus becomes human enough. Personally I wouldn't draw the line at birth, becuase the rare person will have memories of being in the womb, even if vague. But I wouldn't draw it at conception either, becuase up until around 2 months, that fetus is no different from the fetus of a dog, which we have no problem wiping out by the millions when the reach adulthood, save in its genetics and the genes don't make the human. When its this vague, best let the individual decide.
Editted several times to make it more clear, its 1 am in the morning for crying out loud... give my poor brain a break
posted
I agree with everything that Chris Bridges has said so far.
(Not an uncommon occurance, actually ).
I am pro-choice but not pro-abortion. I happen to think that it is a decision that must be made by the indiviuals alone, not the state. I'm not sure what line I would put between fetus and baby - though one I would consider a possibility is viability outside the womb.
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Chad, from the tone of your posts it seems that you are more interested in proving you are right at all costs then listening to what other people have to say.
Regardless of whether that is your intention, it is how you come across to me, at least. And that certainly isn't conducive to amiable debate. I think sometimes we need to show more respect on online forums then we would in real world discussions - without facial expressions or tone to modify words, they can come across as very harsh and confrontational.
Posts: 4393 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
alcon, i agree with a lot of what you had to say, but just thought i'd point out this:
quote:After all there are only so many combinations of 4 different bases grouped into 20 billion pairs
that's 4 raised to the 20 billion. just for a quick demonstration of how big this number is, 4 raised to 20 is 1099 trillion (i don't know what the word past trillion is), and the value increases exponentially. in other words, 4 raised to 20 billion would be a number whose exponent in scientific notation would probably be well above 20 billion.
so yes, it is possible that two random combinations of genes would have an identical genetic makeup, but the chances of that happening are many orders of magnitute smaller than the number of human beings ever to have existed, and can basically be ruled out as functionally impossible.
posted
If you're going to flaunt your biological expertise you should at least get the number of base pairs in the human genome right. You're an order of magnitude too high (the actual number is in the 3 billion range).
The question isn't one of thinking and feeling but one of self reflection. The ability to feel hunger and the ability to reflect on that feeling are two very different kettles of fish.
Then you're arguing about the phenotype of these different species foetuses and suddenly leap from phenotype similarities to genotype differences and somehow this means sex is illegal? In that bout of mental acrobatics you've kinda face planted. Unless you're trying to argue that, in the end, what's important are our appearances? Do you understand the difference between genotypes and phenotypes? It's not a crime if you don't, although it is annoying when you're talking down to everyone about biology.
Now you're talking about unique gene sequences and not answering the question you asked. Again, the potential for humanity is different from a unique gene code. The breaking point of this argument (I believe) isn't that twins exist it's that the blastocyte has the potential to differentiate into any human being, not just the one it's coded for (a la undifferentiated fetal cell transplants). Then you start tossing around this difference between "being" and "human" without defining the two. And while your burning of the unique gene sequence straw man is laudable, it's also worthless. Nobody argues that a unique gene code is a necessity for humanity (as opposed to a copmlete one) (actually, I'm assuming nobody has. I browsed the thread and if someone did I'll quite happily berate them for it). Never mind nurturing, the environment you're exposed to has a huge impact on the proteins you express (which is why 1 twin may develop of disease state and their identical twin will not). It's not the letters that make you who you are, it's the proteins they express that make the difference (amusingly enough, this is saying that your phenotype is more important than your genotype. Clearly we need more terms for the levels above the actual gene sequence than phenotype, but that's a personal pet peeve).
Posts: 3243 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Eru almighty, stop with the exponents and scientific notation, and gene base pairs you're all making my head hurt.
As for me, well, I'm fairly consistent I think. I think all life is precious and sacred and I am both anti-abortion and anti-death penalty.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
just because i'm really bored, i worked it out. i don't have any software capable of doing the calculation accurately, but the exponent would end up being within 1% of 12,041,000,000 (12 billion).
so good call mike. still, thats a dern big number
Posts: 380 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
I didn't intend to flaunt biological expertise Bob, I'm very sorry if it came off that way. And yes, you are right its around 3 billion. I have no idea where I pulled the 20 billion from *ponder* And yes if you look at the details its a mess, but the general point still comes across. Though i suppose I didn't realy make it clear. The general point I was trying to make is that:
The line where a new human being truely becomes a new human being is extremely vague, and is very hard to define scientifically. Up until birth, when it is quite clear that the child is now its own human being no longer attached at all to the mother, it should be left up to the individual to decide rather than the government.
Despite the disorganization of my above post, I believe that point is still made.
But I think the point that is most clearly made by it is that I shouldn't try to post to political topics at 1:00 am Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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