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Swift
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Post by Swift »

Zelknolf wrote:Image
Image
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Mulu
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Post by Mulu »

Vaelahr wrote:But I'm sure you'll dismiss him and all other human embryologists as "scientifically illiterate".
No, not all other human embryologists, but this one absolutely. Good job BTW finding the nutjob from the American Bioethics Advisory Commission. He mostly publishes in bioethics, which is a fancy term for religion in science. Another of ABAC's articles: Ensoulment.
The question raised regarding ensoulment of the human zygote is indeed a critical question of the day.
Oh yes, especially given the prior Christian dogma that it happens at first breath. :roll:

And let's not forget their extended mission statement:
IVF is unethical, because it violates the moral right of a child to be conceived directly as a result of his parents conjugal actions in the context of marriage.
IVF? Really?

Oh that's right, it's a Catholic thing. As is Bioethics for that matter.
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Post by Veilan »

The question where life begins isn't religious, it's necessary to make any ethical decision concerning the issue of abortion. It just turns out to be that religion seemingly has more interest in such ethical considerations than the mainstream (and a disposition to claim they know THE TRUTH without evidence).
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Post by Magile »

Swift wrote:Image
Image
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Post by Swift »

Dude, i loved that comic but for the life of me cannot remember the author or the website, hit me up!
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sinfest
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Mulu
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Post by Mulu »

Veilan wrote:The question where life begins isn't religious, it's necessary to make any ethical decision concerning the issue of abortion. It just turns out to be that religion seemingly has more interest in such ethical considerations than the mainstream (and a disposition to claim they know THE TRUTH without evidence).
And the Catholic Church runs a lot of hospitals in the US and elsewhere, so they are in a position to take their dogma, wrap it up in scientific terminology, call it "Bioethics" and enforce it on doctors, many of whom are themselves religious and who accept the dogma without question.

If the opposing side in this debate was in any way rational, we would be discussing analogues, like when is life considered to end? (Clinical brain death). Terri Schiavo was a living, breathing, human, but since she was 90% brain dead she wasn't considered really alive anymore. Conversely, the only logical way to approach human life at the other end of the spectrum would be cognitive capacity, which at the absolute earliest would start at 26 weeks but probably start later depending on just how much cognitive capacity would be required to attain personhood.

This approach has the obvious advantage of being related to how we treat people in another situation (death), where we consider them no longer persons, yet that has a bit less religious doctrine involved. With some work you could probably come up with a good neuropsychological definition for personhood that would apply at both ends of the spectrum and would be useful in ethical considerations, but unfortunately the field is dominated by the Catholic Church, and they have a predetermined outcome which prevents further discussion. Dogma is resistant to logic and reason.

One thing that usually goes unmentioned in the abortion debate is who banning it affects most. It's the poor and the oppressed. Anyone of means can simply cross a border and get a legal abortion outside of the country. Only the poor who lack the resources to pursue a foreign abortion and the incest victim/religious family member who isn't allowed to leave town are truly banned from getting abortions by criminalizing them.

Bush Sr. became my hero back in the day when he responded that of course he would allow his daughters to get an abortion if they wanted one. The apple sure fell far from the tree.

A rare article on the abortion issue in the campaign
The NARAL survey found that when pro-choice women are told that McCain believes the Roe v. Wade decision should be overturned, their support for him drops substantially. Among pro-choice independent women, who are already more inclined to back Obama, information about the two candidates' abortion positions improves Obama's edge from 53-35 to 66-26, for a net gain of 22 percentage points. Even pro-choice Republican women shift their support after hearing about McCain's opposition to Roe: 76% initially say they will vote for McCain in November, but that number drops to 63%.
The problem for Democrats is that most voters don't sit through phone calls with pollsters walking them through the respective positions of the two nominees.
Interesting how an uninformed electorate benefits the Republicans. People who pay attention vote Democrat. 8)
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Post by Zelknolf »

Mulu wrote:One thing that usually goes unmentioned in the abortion debate is who banning it affects most. It's the poor and the oppressed. Anyone of means can simply cross a border and get a legal abortion outside of the country. Only the poor who lack the resources to pursue a foreign abortion and the incest victim/religious family member who isn't allowed to leave town are truly banned from getting abortions by criminalizing them.
Pffft. Have you seen clinics that're trying to dodge the law?

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^-- preferable. Horrifying to see someone overdo that one, but I'd put that sternly in the "better than chop shops" category.
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Post by zicada »

I think this basically boils down to wanted/unwanted children.

Do the rightwingers here have any issues with say a gay male or female couple adopting an unwanted child ? As opposed to abortion, but also in general.
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Post by White Warlock »

zicada wrote:I think this basically boils down to wanted/unwanted children.

Do the rightwingers here have any issues with say a gay male or female couple adopting an unwanted child ? As opposed to abortion, but also in general.
Valid question Zic. From what i gather, the argument posed is that they should put their child up for adoption, rather than abort, but then they have this very finite list of acceptable parental figures. And those acceptable parental figures don't use contraception, nor do they maintain their preaching of abstinence, so they have no room to adopt.

Love the full circle of hypocrisy myself, entertaining to see just how destructive the puritanical right is to a society they claim is founded upon such beliefs.
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Post by Lusipher »

Although I dont approve of those lifestyles I would gladly let a child goto a stable gay couple. At least those children have a chance at a future where the ones who were aborted do not. They will have challenges just like a normal child. One only hopes they enjoy a wonderful childhood and grow into a fine adult, regardless of who is caring for them.
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Post by Vaelahr »

Mulu wrote:
Vaelahr wrote:But I'm sure you'll dismiss him and all other human embryologists as "scientifically illiterate".
No, not all other human embryologists, but this one absolutely. Good job BTW finding the nutjob from the American Bioethics Advisory Commission.
Oh right, as far as you're concerned, anyone with a theistic belief system is crazier than a shithouse rat:

Albert Magnus, Nicholas Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Francis Bacon, Galileo Galilei, Johann Kepler, William Harvey, Blaise Pascal, Robert Boyle, Nicolaus Steno, Christiaan Huygens, Robert Hooke, Nehemiah Grew, Isaac Newton, Rene Descartes, Michael Faraday, Gregor Mendel, William Thomson Kelvin, Max Planck, Andre Marie Ampere, Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss, the list goes on and on and on and on and on.....

All religious nutjobs meddling with science! :mad: Interlopers!!!

That whackjob Einstein too! :D
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Post by Mulu »

Vaelahr wrote:Oh right, as far as you're concerned, anyone with a theistic belief system is crazier than a shithouse rat:
No, just those scientists who allow their theistic belief system to subjugate their scientific opinions. At that point, they are no longer functioning as scientists.

And you missed one. Charles Darwin was a minister. 8)

In fact he delayed publishing his findings for 10 years because he was afraid it would cause people to stop believing in God, ultimately only publishing because another scientist had independently come to the same conclusions.

Though Christiaan Huygens was actually an atheist, "Science is my religion," and Einstein frequently made popular references to god as essentially a propaganda tool to keep the masses placated in regards to scientific research. He vacillated between atheism and deism, becoming more deistic as he got older. Ultimately it was his increasing belief in god that caused him to pursue the impossible goal of disproving quantum mechanics for the last couple of decades of his life, as he couldn't believe that god would "play dice" with the Universe, a reference to the randomness of the subatomic. Time wasted.
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Post by Cassiel »

God, the irony of Vaelahr trying to claim as a Believer Einstein, who believed in Spinoza's God, was openly agnostic, and wrote of claims that he worshipped a Judeo-Christian god that "I do not believe in a personal god and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly".

Science 101, lesson 1: first, do your homework.[/url]
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Post by Mayhem »

The thoughtful Christian should be anti-abortion personally but pro-abortion nationally.

If Abortion is easily available, but only ever sought out by non-christians, then Christianity will win by default in a few generations, as more babies will be born and brought up christian than non-christian.
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