Balance of Trade Improvement ??

Its kind of funny that this was not an issue for anyone until the religous rignt and the republicians starting with Regan.

The court allowed woman freedom to decide ( Roe v Wade), then Regan decided to court the religous vote that did not exist before.

Yes, I agree that "plenty who disagree", but do they disagree because their pastors told them to disagree, or because they do give a damn.

This is true for both sides of this discussion.

(we can add that god has no philosophical or scientific basis either. He, she, it has been made up in an arbitrary fashion too.)

Well, not exactly.

Without government, the Mafia loses most of their reason for existing: Without government, gambling, drugs, and prostitution wouldn't be crimes, so there would be nothing for "the Mafia" to "organize". ;-)

Cheers! Rich

By being born. Are you incapable of grasping that simple fact? As long as it is contained entirely within her body it is her property to do with as she wishes. That's the _REAL_ right to life - the life of the _born_.

999 times out of 1000, if the woman has let it get that far, it's probably because she wants to have the baby, so abortion isn't even a consideration.

But until it exits and exists on its own it is tissue. You can not endow it with personhood without stripping its mother of hers.

Of course, the pro-lifers never believed women to be equal to themselves in the first place - they've always considered women to be property.

Hope This Helps! Rich

Location, location, location. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

So, are you saying that pregnant women don't have the right to own their own bodies?

If not, then who does?

Thanks, Rich

This is simply not true.

There's one very sound, logical, scientific and legal principle at work.

If it's inside the woman, it's not a person. (Unless the woman herself says so. It is, after all, her right to do with it whatever she wishes - if she wants to declare it a "pre-person", that's entirely her prerogative, and not that of the church or the state.)

Once she poops it out, it is, in fact, a person, and she doesn't own it any more, even though she's going to be stuck with its upkeep for the rest of her life.

Cheers! Rich

What if she doesn't want you sticking biopsy needles into her?

_THAT's_ the right that's in question here - who granted you the power to invade this woman's body against her will, just so you can wrest control of it from her?

Are all prolifers closet rapists and torturers?

Thanks, Rich

I can always expect some pro-"life" fanatic to come up with some convoluted argument to justify their addiction to control - even to the extent of accusing me of doing exactly what you're doing. "People are animals, so we have to override their free will since we're so much wiser than the cattle."

You really don't grasp the concept of Freedom, do you?

I STILL hate pro-lifers. >:-[

Thanks. Rich

No, I am not! Why is it inhuman one second and something protected the next? Birth is an arbitrary event, and it doesn't change anything about the fetus. It's obviously an inconsistent point at which to decide when a fetus becomes a person. And it also follows logically from this, that the fetus at any earlier stage, up to conception, should also be protected.

Also, what is so different about a woman bearing a fetus versus parents caring for a child? Shelter is even included for free in the womb. The thing still needs to be fed and protected from injury. But for some reason, it doesn't count inside the womb? Just how inconsistent is that?

The logic is overwhelming. That you refuse to accept it makes me wonder about your phsyche. Perhaps you aborted a child some time ago and need to staunchy rationalize it as nothing in order to live with yourself? Maybe you just refuse to believe what you can't see: until the fetus is born, you don't accept that it's even there. Maybe your childhood was abusive. Hard to say, lots of things to guess.

Tim

-- Deep Fryer: A very philosophical monk. Website @

So raising children is freedom, though bound *by law*, laws *which you approve of*, to the responsibility of raising them? How is it that you see a pregnant woman as nothing more than a cow, yet a mother with child as something admirable?

What about the other laws that you obey, like traffic laws? Licensing? I know you work, I've seen you talk sideways about "the PHB". What kind of freedom do you have there? I bet you don't even have the freedom to come in to work at any hour of the day or night and work as many hours as you "feel like". If you felt like going in to work naked, cursing everyone, would you be back the next day? How ridiculously intolerant of your freedom!

Rich, you live in a fantasy world. There is no freedom, only the illusion. It is not freedom we have, but which freedoms to give up that matter.

Tim

-- Deep Fryer: A very philosophical monk. Website @

insulation

know

One place I worked bought industrial-strength tp, nearly indestructable. We used to steal a bunch of rolls before we went out flying in my tech's Cessna Aerobat. Fly over the lake at about 8000 feet and toss out a roll. It would unfurl into a long streamer, and we'd see how many times we could cut it in half before it hit the water. Four or five was pretty good.

I've only been close to motion sick once in my life, after an hour of stalls and spins and snap rolls in the Cessna. A ship or a sailboat out in a storm is mild by comparison.

John

Theft and extortion remain profitable activities even when they aren't formally illegal. The organisation required assemble a gang powerful enough to overcome the defences of an isolated farmhouse, or an isolated village, isn't all that demanding and "government" is what we call the counter-organisation that coordinates our defences against these kinds of free-loaders.

Unfortunately, a well-organised defence force can fall into the hands of people who go in for pre-emptive defence, so we end up with nation states and national armies.

People who don't understand history are condemned to repeat it.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

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Lots of inuendo, not much persuasion.

A question for you - what does the Bible say about abortion?

Not much, AFAIK. The mechanics of conception, birth and abortion weren't well understood until after middle ages, so there certainly wouldn't be much specifically. (And yes, there have been abortifacents since ancient times, though they may not have been understood exactly.) But it also says to follow one's own wisdom, which follows as I've shown.

And oddly, you seem to disregard my argument, as if there were some fault in it. Care to explain, or do you in fact accept the syllogism?

Tim

-- Deep Fryer: A very philosophical monk. Website @

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By "syllogism" do you mean that part where you jumped into unjustified ad hominem conclusions about Rich?

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I don't agree, in the sense that a new-born isn't much of a person, and labour it demands of the mother is substantial enough that she could well been seen as acting reasonably if she resorted to infanticide if over-loaded with other tasks.

Society may have an interest in having more kids growing up, but they don't contribute much in the early stages, and have correspondingly little right to tell the mother what to do.

I am in favour of making childbirth the - arbitrary - cut-off point, so that abortion (before birth) is the mother's absolute right and infanticide (after birth) is forbidden. The advantage of this particular arbitrary choice is that it is clear and unambiguous - until the umbical cord has been cut, it's a fetus, and thereafter it is an infant.

Anything less straightforward, and you give the lawyers a chance to tie everything up in court until it is too late.

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It isn't inconsistent - there's obviously a continuum running from the completely dependent newly fertilised and not yet implanted egg, to the completely independent fully grown adult.

It isn't difficult to see that different rules are appropriate at either end of the spectrum. Society choses to do a catagorical switch from one set of rules for the fetus to another set of rules for the child and adult, and the interesting question is when the switch-over happens.

I don't think so. In fact, I don't think you've set out your clear propositons to start with, so you can't even claim to be presenting a logical argument, let alone "overwhelming logic".

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Ad hominem flim-flam

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

That's part of what The Right To Keep And Bear Arms is for.

But you socialists don't have any rights except what the queen grants you, right?

Hope This Helps! Rich

I'm only using the same "logic" that you appear to be applying to me. ;-)

I didn't say that, you did.

So how do you see the mother with child? Just a cow with calf? That was the next thing I asked.

Tim

-- Deep Fryer: A very philosophical monk. Website @

Magna Carta.