God is an Iraqi
POSTED BY: dreamtrove
UPDATED: Tuesday, July 29, 2025 20:41
VIEWED: 12402
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Spent a lot of time thinking about this issue. First of all- SOUL. We ain't got one as far as I can tell. Arguing about when we "get" one if pretty much like arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin IMHO. But just because we don't have a "soul" doesn't mean human life isn't- or shouldn't be- precious.
Still, that begs a lot of questions. What is "human"? There are a lot of variations on that sperm+ egg stuff. Blobs that look like placentas- no human features at all. Babies with no brains. People with no brain activity. People with brains, unable to move a muscle. Healthy, neurologically intact people who seem to be moral patholgies- multiple murderers, pedophile sadists, drive-by gang-bangers. People who have the misfortune of being born very very poor in far-away countries.
Really, when you think about it, the quality of being "human" is like any other quality: it has fuzzy edges. Examples that are three, four, or more standard deviations way from the norm. Not trying to practice sophistry here, but when we talk about "human life" we seem to be more in love with an idea than with the reality. I think that's why we're so in love with the fetus: we can load it with all of our hopes and dreams, no messy reality gets in the way. I'm not sure we even see the reality.
And then we come to the whole point of life being "precious". "First do no harm", the Hippocratic oath, also includes a part about not performing abortions. So, what do we find in lavatory pits just outside Greek and Roman whorehouses? The skeletons of lots and lots of babies. So- who is life precious to? What will it be traded for? You know, governments and coporations trade life for all KINDS of reasons: The ability to pollute, to wage war, to make unsafe products in unsafe factories, to subsidize some farmers, to enforce law and obliterate internal dissent, to select child's sex. The ONE person who has the most responsibility for that life- the mom- generally has no say whatsoever. That's a typical imbalance of "responsibility" and "authority".
One more comment- Where are the dads in all this? Does their role end when they zip up their pants?
So- how do we make "human" life "precious" to everyone- that includes corporations, governments, and fathers? Seems to me that as long as people and institutions think it's okay to trade life for something else (profit, convenience, power, ideology) then we have no claim to being RTL.
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Please don't think they give a shit.
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Wow. So nice to have have started a successful thread.
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True conservatives (IMO) would like to 'conserve' human life, as well as the Earth itself.
Chrisisall,
You know I agree completely. I of course, am poor and uninsure, and have myself nearly died waiting for 18 hours with appendicitis. They said when they took it out the doctor said something about a few more hours and I would have been gone. I think that he, personally, was unaware when he said that that his hospital had kept me waiting for 18 hours because it was delivered with this "you really left it to the very last minute guy" sort of attitude. At the time, I was in no shape physicially to talk, much less argue, I was just trying not to die.
I agree, RTL is guaranteed today by money, but thinking ideologicially, what it 'should' be or could bbe extended to.
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Originally posted by Citizen
RTL, taken to it's absolute logical extreme would be complete disarment and putting us all in boxes so we can't hurt ourselves...
Citizen, try to stay in the bounds of reality. This is like saying the ultimate right to bear arms is to give everyone a nuke. Radiohead aside, we want to live in this world.
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If it's a question of what goes around comes around, when will the state/executioners be put to death for all they've killed?
Yes, this is a good point, but it's not the main point. The main argument of why death penalty is not a position which is consistant with RTL is this:
Death penalty gives a power over life to the state. RTL is a right, rights are guaranteed to the people, it's a guaranteed right of the people, of power of life. If you take that power of self determination away and give it to the state, you have removed the right to life even if you kill no one, guilty or innocent.
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surely people have a right to build and maintain nuclear weapons, or at least 'rogue' states such as Iran have that right?
There is no right to bear arms here. We do not guarantee the rights of the islamic state of Iran.
The second amendment is meant to guarantee the right to the american citizenry to bear arms to protect themselves from unjust rule.
It is actually a RTL issue, stange as it may seem. In Nazi Germany, the German right to bear arms which had existed was removed, and the people, once disarmed, were slaughtered like sheep by an unjust rule of a govt. that still had guns.
This is where the argument against gun control comes from. Democrats sell the idea on "fewer deaths" but democrats also seek a world where society is unthreatened by its citizenry. I believe that if a leadership is not threatened by its citizenry, tyranny will ensue.
But as a right to life issue, gun control would once more take the right to life out of the hands of the citizenry and put it back into the hands of govt.
Still and all, we can't have people walking around with nukes. The best way, IMHO, to deal with the problem is via a bilateral disarmement, whereby US forces and citizens agree to scale back from machines guns hopefully towards some non-lethal but equally combat effective weapons.
And no, BTW for anyone who thinks otherwise, this law was never intended to protect the rights of hunters to hunt. Hunters have no right to hunt, under the consitution.
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I'm pro-choice, simply because personally at an early stage of pregnancy a baby isn’t a baby, and to ban abortion not only opens up questions like your own (Re. the transfusion thing) but, well just doesn't stop abortion.
It'll just make it happen down the backstreets with some dodgy guy with a vacuum cleaner and a blood soaked screwdriver.
Maybe this is what the 'moral' extremists want; having a young woman’s life ruined/cut short, a suitable punishment for her sin, perhaps?
I don't hold to that.
That's not to say I support abortion per-se. I just find a ban would be a much, much worse thing than legalised abortion.
"consider adoption -- times look desperate but we can help"
Never a truer word, err, printed, on a bumper.
When life begins is obviously subjective, and clearly a lot of us would disagree. I hold it is an irrelevant argument. A human will come to pass if no intervention is made, so just as the failure to intervene to stop a murder is accessory to the crime...
But I agree, messy abortions is not the goal. Banning abortion and doing nothing about adoption would be a disaster. But just because people are RTL doesn't mean that they want that solution, or even that what they want is a ban. I would like to see the number of abortions reduced, and those babies to be adopted, and the birth mother to be compensated for her time. I think that even in the absense of a ban, that would lower the total number of abortions more than a ban by itself.
But abortion is a hot button issue I'm acutally trying to avoid.
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Mugtwaine,
I think I posted here two arguments which sidestep that whole question.
1. Death Penalty is inconsitant with RTL because it takes the power over life and hands it back to the state. I agree about the innocents, but this fact of transfer back to the state alone makes something not a right, and so invalidates the position. Thus logically, they cannot be reconciled. IMHO.
2. Regardless of whether the feotus is a human, it will be, and thus if you consider the year and day consequences of action, it would still be murder under extant law. But really, I'd prefer to not argue abortion.
I agree that the arguments you quoted are the arguments that are commonly used by both sides. I don't think that they are really thoroughly thought out arguments, but more or less what the parties want people to say so that people will continue to support positions which may be inconsistant, but are all on the party platform.
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Fletch,
I don't think this is an access to healthcare issue. If you come into the office with someone who is unconscious, that person still has a right to healthcare.
Ergo, if a pregnant woman comes in, both her and the baby have a right to healthcare. If you take the baby out and kill it, it's right to that healthcare has been violated.
If it comes down to "we can save one or the other," I'd accept "lost the baby" as an acceptable solution, because if nothing else, the babies healthy life can never be guaranteed.
But I'm going to break the rules now in my next post.
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Okay, break it up.
We get that there are pro-choice democrats and pro-life republicans here. That wasn't the issue.
If a debate continues on the validity of RTL as a position, there will be some unpleasant things said by the end of the day, possibly even by me. That isn't what I intended here.
I want to hear thoughts on how far RTL can be extended.
If you oppose RTL, you have two options here.
You can say "I would support RTL if it extended as far as"
or you can say "I would never support RTL."
If you support RTL I'm curious as to what you might think it might extend towards.
I'm also interested in everyone's opinions on RTL's potential impact on other issues such as death penalty or 2nd amendment.
Finally,
I'm aware that thread-jack happens, even to me. I'm not trying to just avert a threadjack here. I am trying to avert a disaster. This is such a sensitive issue that it is hard even for me to talk about things close to it without touching on my personal feelings on the core matter. But really my person feelings on the core matter are really quite minor, I'm much more concerned with the periphery of the subject, and I also know that no teeth will be knocked out in the discussion if we can stay away from the abortion issue itself.
So let's assume this:
No one will outlaw abortion without a supreme court ruling over which we have no power. If that ruling comes down we will have no power to block it. It is a matter completely and utterly out of our hands. In addition, none of us is going to change the mind of someone else on the issue, and changing their mind also has no possible influence on the decision. Even if you could conceivably argue someone to change parties on this topic which is unheard of, and then to do it about ten million times, party presidents have a bad track record of appointing viewpoint consistant justices on thing issue, and no one will be appointing new justices for a long time. So there is nothing even conceivable for us to gain by arguing abortion per se. Interpretations of the extent of RTL might impact other laws which actually can be legislated, so it ought to be an inherently more interesting topic. This is basically where I'm coming from on this one.
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Dreamtrove, I'll agree with you that nobody will ever change anybody's mind on the matter of abortion. In fact, nobody can ever forcibly change anybody's mind about anything. That is of course why I didn't try to change anybody's mind - just point out some of the basic reasons why people can't seem to effectively communicate on the issue.
Amazingly enough, we've had a conversation of several posts that did not degenerate into a flame war, for which I say "Go us!" Such is a very rare thing.
HOWEVER, that being said you are of course right that this topic was never intended to be about abortion. I'm probably the one most at fault for steering it there, so I apologize.
Back to the original topic, and especially the death penalty, I think I made a point earlier that addresses your concern about the state removing a right and therefore making it not a true right in the first place.
I'm honestly of the belief that every human has a right to life that should not be infringed upon by any individual or organization. I do, however, believe that this right can be forfeited.
There are already examples of this in the U.S. Every American has the right to own and operate a motor vehicle, given that they can pass certain certification requirements and can afford said vehicle and insurance. That is a right that cannot be denied based on race, religion, sex, or anything intrinsic to a person. However, if you speed or drink and drive habitually, there have been cases (I'm fairly certain) where it was ruled that a person could never again drive a car. Due to the person's actions, it was decided that the person could not be trusted to drive, indeed that the person was not worthy of the right to drive. Effectively, through the choices that person made, he chose to waive his right. It was not - repeat, NOT - taken away from him by the state. He gave it up.
At least, that's how a conservative who supports the death penalty while simultaneously touting right to life would see it.
Death penalty is the same thing. It's not some kind of secret - executions happen in this country. Crimes have consequences. Depending on the crime, death may be one of them. Foreknowledge of the consequences turns the decision to commit a crime into a decision to accept the possible punishment.
Way I see it, legal punishment is not something the state does to the individual, it's something the individual coaxes from the state. I think of our laws basically as a contract with the citizens. For such and such crime there is such and such penalty. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. And if society finds that too many people are willing to do the allotted time for a particular crime, then apparently the penalty needs to be adjusted.
And speaking of doing time, what is your position on incarceration? If your reason for disagreeing with the death penalty is that it takes the inalienable right to life away from the individual and gives it to the state, then you must not agree with putting criminals in jail. After all, doing that takes away their inalienable right to liberty.
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DT:
No it is an access to healthcare issue. Let me explain. My youngest sister has a congenital condition that means that if she chooses to have children her life is potentially at risk. We know that no contraception method is 100% so she has some possibility of accidentally becoming pregnant. She is a fully adult and functional human being with rights and a soul if you believe in such things. A baby is not viable independent of the mother for 9 months, even then we still have child mortality.
So here's the situation, imagine my sister gets pregnant, either intentionally or by accident and it becomes clear that pregnancy endangers her life, what rabid pro lifers say is that that none viable fetus's rights transcend the rights of an adult woman. In this case the government would be denying her life saving medical help just on the basis of other people's moral viewpoint.
We call Muslims barbaric for activities like honour killings and female curcumcision, but in their societies under their moral laws these things are legal. We can't say "these people abuse women by enforcing their stupid religious beliefs on them" and then turn around and do the same thing.
I don't believe that forcing a woman to have a child she doesn't want is a justified method of punishing her "sin" of having sex. I don't believe that forcing a woman to have a child to make an example of her to "discourage" those activities is justified. In Muslim countries if a woman is forcibly raped her family will often honour kill her in the belief that she was to blame. If abortion is never allowed under any circumstances we are saying the same thing --- that a rape victim is responsable for the crime and must be made to suffer the consequences.
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Well, at the risk of being dragged back into the abortion thing (which I'd rather avoid) there are a few things I'd like to clarify.
First, I definitely don't think victims of rape should be required to bring a resulting fetus to term. I do acknowledge that, being of the mind that a baby is a life, this is in fact the killing of a human. However - and here's the tricky part - the reason I believe rape victims are in a different position is because I support the right of a woman to do with her body what she chooses.
But wait, that sounds like a pro-choice argument! Here's what the difference is for me: A woman should be able to do with her body what she chooses, but only when her body is the only body in play (i.e., in general I believe an abortion involves two bodies). The last choice involved in whether or not to have a baby that involves the woman and the woman alone is whether to have sex. If that choice was made for her by an aggressive and unwanted attacker, then she should not have to deal with the consequences. Her right to live her life in the way she wants trumps all.
Likewise, in the case of life-threatening danger to the mother, I would agree that the decision must be completely up to her. If one or the other is going to die, then someone needs to make that decision and it should be the one whose life is in the balance.
I'd also like to address something Fletch wrote, about a child not being able to survive independent of the mother for 9 months. Of course, this is true. But I'd take it further. A baby one day before birth is essentially identical to a baby one day after birth. It certainly can't care for itself in either case. In fact, humans have the longest postnatal development process of any animal on the planet. We're essentially helpless for years. So if it's simply a matter of viability that determines someone's personhood, why not extend the period of time where an "abortion" is allowed to the first few years of life?
I'm being facetious of course. There was one South Park episode like this, where Cartman's mom wanted to abort him. Somebody asked her how far along she was, and she said, "Oh, he's about 10." The other person responded, "But that would put him somewhere around the... 40th trimester." So she responds "You keep your laws off my body!"
But honestly, this is the reason why the viability argument has never meant anything to me. In my humble opinion we don't have an adequate understanding of the simple notion of personhood for the viability argument to work.
Anyway, this is all just food for thought. Sorry again Dreamtrove for the hijack. In order to keep it from continuing, I think I'll just excuse myself from the discussion now. Probably should be working anyway.
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Mugtwaine,
It wasn't my intent to be a topic nazi, but to avert a flame war. It was impressive I admit how the conflict had not spread to a world war, so I decided to try to sign the armistice before it got to that point. Several recent threads have reached the fever pitch, something I would like to avoid in the future.
So on to death penalty.
Now, that said, I must nitpick.
My brother is a senior law professor, and he likes to use the car thing as an example for many cases of rights, from the other side.
Here's why:
The 'right' to drive a car is legally speaking a priviledge, and not a right. The difference is that a priviledge can be revoked, a right cannot.
A right, for example, would be like you're right to a fair trial by a jury of your peers. Unlike what Bush would like to believe, that right cannot be revoked.
Technically, the right to bear arms is just a theoretical interpretation of an article in the bill of rights which actually only allows those arms to be used in the office of the national guard. Outside of that, we actually have no 'right' to bear arms. The interpretations of the 2nd amendment grant us the priviledge of carrying weapons outside of that venue, which attempt to carry on the spirit of the 2nd amendment, but are not strictly speaking, a right, and so can be revoked at any time.
The right to vote would be a sticky one where people would argue that the right to vote, which is licensed through voted registration, because of that fact is a priviledge and therefore can be revoked, some states argue. Others argue it is right and cannot be.
The right to free speech is a right, it cannot be revoked. The right to remain silent is a right, as is the right to be free of unjust search and seizure or inhumane cruel and unusual punishment.
You see the legal distinction.
So the right to life must be a right to life, not a priviledge to life, since you cannot license life. Since life is not license, the fundemental right cannot be revoked.
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Way I see it, legal punishment is not something the state does to the individual, it's something the individual coaxes from the state.
Again, though not a lawyer, I know enough about law to know this isn't legally sound. The power belongs to the state, not the criminal.
The execution is actually an order to die, given by the govt., and not a request made by the convict., legally speaking. As such, the govt. can only order within its rights, which does not allow it to give an order that would conflict with the rights of the citizens. A govt. cannot legally order torture of a citizen, even if Bush were to pass a statute allowing it, because the 8th amendment of the constitution forbids it.
Right to life is born here:
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We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable rights; that among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
Everyone recognizes the preamble to the declaration of independence. If this were the preamble to the constitution, it would be law. As it is, it is not, and so it is a political philosophy that believes that because the founding fathers crafted this domcument, it is an indication of their intentions, recorded here by Jefferson.
I think it's a pretty sound philosophical idea. Some may disagree. But as a philosophy, it must be internally consistant. And as a right, the right to life cannot be revoked.
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And speaking of doing time, what is your position on incarceration? If your reason for disagreeing with the death penalty is that it takes the inalienable right to life away from the individual and gives it to the state, then you must not agree with putting criminals in jail. After all, doing that takes away their inalienable right to liberty.
No. Generally speaking I would make a case for something in this direction. I would say that since this nation endured the inconsistancy of slavery for a long time, there is a lot to be worked out here.
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