Balance of Trade Improvement ??

Yes, and the Government is expressly forbidden to impose religious dogma on the people.

If you don't like abortion, don't get one! Sheesh!

But you have no right to override any other human being's Free Will.

Thanks, Rich

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Since the core of this argument is whether a fetus is a "human being" and thus in a position to claim the same sort of protection from society that we offer to free-living organisms that look as if they can grow up into creatures that are generally regarded as human beings (as opposed to - say - pro-lifer neocons) you've just assumed what you need to prove, and thus disqualified yourself from taking part in any kind of rational argument.

By advancing a morally bankrupt argument about an ethical or moral problem, you've neatly demonstrated that you don't understand what the discussion is about, which reduces your "contribution" to meaningless jeering from the peanut gallery.

Go away and evolve for a few hundred generations.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

It doesn't matter if a 'test' is done. That the fetus's DNA is unique and distinct from the mother is an established scientific fact.

It isn't; irrelevant because the DNA establishes that the fetus as a separate entity.

DNA establishes that the fetus is not 'her body'.

Your argument is specious feigned ignorance. You can't argue the earth is flat by not looking at pictures of it's shape and you can't claim gravity doesn't exist by refusing to watch an apple fall. Established scientific fact is fact and the fetus' DNA is unique and distinct from the mother whether you run a 'test' or not.

Same thing could be said about a man and his castle but you're not allowed to kill people there either, not even those of your own 'creation'.

Besides that not being the arbitrary definition that was being discussed, DNA establishes that the fetus is not 'her body'.

Same thing could be said about a man and his castle but you're not allowed to kill people there either, not even those of your own 'creation'.

Are you aware that some people are chimeric? The have cells with two different sets of DNA in them.

Also: Is my twin brother a different person from me?

Obviously "different DNA = different person" is wrong.

Only the fact of the different DNA. Elsewhere I explained about chimerics and twins. Even without those cases, science won't get you there because the definition of one person can be "all that is contained within a continuous skin".

No it doesn't see above. You have to come up with something better than the DNA argument. Try the brain argument, it is likely to work better.

No it doesn't see above. There are many people who have parts of there body that are man made and thuse have no DNA or transplanted. Would you define a tranplanted organ as not part of the body? I sure wouldn't.

Flipper,

Just trying to convserve bandwidth.

No, it's kinda weasely. Try using it (the entire definition) in wikipedia somewhere (other than a quote, obviously), and see how fast it takes before it's labeled as weasely.

Yes, exactly, that was my point! "Organic cell mass" is just as bad as "living fetus." In a proper definition, one might reasonably say "living fetus" one of twice, but the definition you quoted clearly belabors the point in an attempt to bias the reader's reaction.

Again, exactly my point: You can't decide whether or not (or when) it's OK to abort babies/fetuses/call masses/whatever-they-are based strictly on biological consideration.

Agreed, they do... although I'm not sure you want to persue that line of reasoning with respect to deciding when or if abortions are OK because you then rapidly get into the rather sticky area of trying to decide whether or not, e.g., deformed or severaly retarded fetuses or even born babies deserve any protection under the law. Or maybe you do... I would admit that there are not really any easy answers in this area.

I see a distinction, my point was just that the singular fact that aborting (some) fetuses stops a beating heart doesn't persuade me that abortion is good or bad... plus I then get annoyed at the manipulation attempted, especially after realizing it's not even a true statement. It's almost as ridiculous a bumper sticker as, e.g, "Not aborting a severely retarded baby will cost tax payers an average of a million dollars over the life of the child, which will cause 10 other already-born children to die from being unable to afford health care." -- It *might* be true (although of course here I'm just making up the numbers), but it shouldn't really influence the discussion of whether or not abortion is OK.

---Joel

You seem to be a big believer that saying 'something', regardless of how absurd, suffices.

If you really cared about 'bandwidth' it would be better to eschew the B.S.

No, it isn't and anyone skilled in the art knows what it means.

No, everything else around it is described as 'weasely'.

Try looking up wikipedia's meaning of :"weasel words."

"Weasel words is a term used in Wikipedia to refer to unspecific disclaimers attached to what otherwise would be plain statements of opinion, rather than fact. Usually, weasel words are small phrases attached to the beginning of a statement, such as "some argue that..." or "critics say...", etc.. "

There is noting "weasel word" about "living fetus." . Your claim, however, fits perfectly. "Try using it ..... 'somewhere'." "see how fast it takes before it's labeled as weasely:" by who? why? said how? Is it valid? No other words used and how do you know?

No, that was not your point, Your point was an attempt to make the demonstrably false argument that "organic cell mass" was just as appropriate as living fetus.

But you make the same mistake most people do in trying to 'invent' an argument based solely on whether it leads to the preordained conclusion: the abandonment of logic because the preordained conclusion is all that 'matters'.

This is an example of what I call "polarity reversal" and "backwards comparison" faux logic. One example is the familiar sales advert claming "never before sold at a lower price" in order to leave the impression a price is currently 'lower' or 'special' when, in fact, the price could be the same now as when the product was first introduced and still be 'never before lower'.. The 'trick' is in trying to imply A by saying 'not B' (or variation) when the two are not exclusive.

And you're trying the same 'trick', as you originally did by trying to make the demonstrably false claim that "organic cell mass" was 'just as appropriate' as living fetus.

There the goal is preordained, your claim that living fetus are 'weasel words' so you pick something obviously 'weasel words', and falsely declare them equivalent, 'hence' your false conclusion that living fetus are weasel words too. Except, as I've pointed out twice now, living fetus is precise, unambiguous, and to the point while "organic cell mass" has no useful meaning whatsoever in this context..

So now we come to your 'polarity reversal' where something demonstrably inferior, by several orders of magnitude, is said to be "just as bad as...." Well, infinitely bad surely is 'just as bad as' something good so it's 'technically true', as President Clinton used to say, but the intended (reverse polarity) 'impression' is blatantly false.

Here's the plain and simple, no 'weasel words', fact of the matter. Living fetus is appropriate and well understood while "organic cell mass" is meaningless B.S.

And you accurately explained why you object to living fetus when you mentioned "a certain reaction." You're afraid people might 'figure out the meaning' and, boy, you don't want to deal with that so your 'solution' is obfuscation and deception.

Here, again, we see your over riding concern that someone might "figure out' what's being discussed and have 'a certain reaction'.

That definition is a legalistic writing inside the text of a law , not a bumper sticker nor a T.V. sound bite, and the repetition is to avoid any "what the meaning of is is" 'it' ambiguities.

Not that boring repetition of perfectly good terminology would, in any way, detract from the perfectly good terminology to begin with.

What makes you think declaring everything 'your point', when it was blatantly not you point, has any merit?

That may be your opinion but you've not made a single valid point that even remotely supports it. All you've done is make absurd claims, like "organic cell mass" being just as good a definition as living fetus when it's obvious to even the most casual observer that claim is blatantly false (regardless of you continuing the absurdity in that sentence) and your concern that someone might figure out what's being discussed and have 'a certain reaction'.

On the other hand, the 'Pro life' crowd have a prima facie case with DNA being a reliable test for 'human being' in other matters so it's at least a reasonable argument for them to claim it's valid here as well, including for a, so called, "organic cell mass,"

Whether it's flawless or compelling is another matter. All I did was point out it isn't arbitrary and doesn't presume anyone is 'cattle'.

Then "organic cell mass" is clearly meaningless.

You mean you don't want to. After all, avoiding the matter entirely has been your whole point and motivation behind trying to obscure everything with meaningless terms like "organic cell mass." Except, of course, that doesn't really 'avoid' it but merely reduces everything to meaninglessness, including the things, oh my are they people?, you're about to profess 'concern' for... because they're all just "organic cell mass."

Are you suggesting the mentally retarded are not human and have no rights?

You have your 'argument' backwards. It isn't the 'Pro life' people who are trying to define 'which humans' it's ok to kill and your question would be more appropriately aimed at the abortionist who argues it's ok to kill a 'deformed fetus'. Why not a 'deformed' X year old if the 'deformity' is what makes it 'ok'? After all, the X year old is just an "organic cell mass" too.

Of course I do because "what is human?" *is* the point. It's the whole basis of 'rights' and if you can't even begin to discuss it then you can't speak of the woman's, er, excuse me, big "organic cell mass," 'rights' either.

That's progress.

I never said it was 'easy'.

Whether you approve of the literary nature of bumper stickers is irrelevant.

You just don't like dealing with the issue at all and prefer the three monkeys approach hoping that makes it go away but the issue remains whether you 'look' or not.

I don't know whether it is or not because, frankly, I don't trust your recounting to begin with but bumper stickers aren't the issue anyway.

Interesting you think so because that's precisely one of the arguments made 'for' abortion.

You might not like the term -- "weasel word" -- and I'd grant you that it's not the ideal example based on how Wikipedia defines it, but regardless of which term you want to use, the repetitive use of the term "living fetus" in the law's phrasing is -- IMO -- clearly meant to evoke a specific emotional response from the reader rather than simply trying to define what a partial-birth abortion is. For a comparison, I'm willing to bet that medical texts describing and defining the procedure don't read at all like the law you cited does. Hopefully you'd accept that -- while nothing written is ever 100% objective -- textbooks on engineering/science/medicine/etc. at least *attempt* to be so. Those writing laws may or may not be required to even make that attempt (it's well-known that how you word a proposal has a significant influence on peoples' reaction to it).

My point really was that "organic cell mass" is "just as weasely" as "living fetus." I may have communicated this so poorly that it wasn't obvious, but I'm telling you the truth here.

IMO both are inappropriate.

In a debate where the goal is to create a law, I'm a strong advocate of trying to remove as much *emotional* reaction as possible. I don't think there's anything to be "figured out" -- surely it's clear to everyone that performing an abortion kills a living entity (a "living fetus" if you like), and the question is whether or not (or when) that entity deserves legal protection such that killing it would be illegal. It's a difficult issue since it's hard to get away from attempting to define what is human and what isn't (many people get a little uncomfortable when it's pointed out that at a biological level "being human" is not all that horribly special in the grand scheme of things) as well as the recognition that what happens to the fetus has a huge impact on many people (obviously the mother and father, and these days even grandparents often figure they have a say).

But surely no one argues that just because some cell mass contains human DNA in it it deserves legal protection, do they? Cancerous tumors still contain plenty of human DNA, after all...

They're certainly human and by definition they have all the rights that any other human does. (...one salient point being that, AFAIK, no country claims humans have the right not be killed or left to die 100% of the time... there are always "strings" attached, such as not being a mass murderer, not requiring huge amounts of other peoples' resources to keep you alive and, yes, in some places, having actually been born or at least gotten

You're again demonstrating my original thesis, that biology alone isn't enough to decide whether or not abortion is OK.

I rather think we're in violent agreement about many things here...

Trust me, it takes a number of weeks after conception until a beating heart has developed; women who use "day after" pills (...on the day after...) don't stop any beating hearts.

---Joel

Nonsense.

Sorry about the liong delay... been away for the holidays. I don't see much need to move the discussion elsewhere since this group often has political and non-techie discussions... just let me know which newsgroup you move to if you should so decide...

I more realist I think than either optimist/pessimist categories--ie somethings pessimistic, something optimistic. :)

Bo