And for about the first 100 years of the US history it was legal. Then illegal for the next 100 years. Now legal. Pendulum keeps on swinging.

So goes the flip-flop, flip-flop, flip-flop of religious-based secularism masquerading as morality. . .

What some people claim to be "morality" as a kind of high ground is transcendent of neither time nor location - it's based mostly on societal values that are taught and learned - and differ with the society in question.

Case in point: some cultures see nothing wrong with genital mutilation, "eye-for-an-eye" justice, revenge killings, ritualistic stonings, cannibalism, etc. Why not? If morality is so transcendent and has its origins in such a high power as an all-powerful God or creator, then how come it's so. . . variable?

All this abortion debate is really pretty silly. It's a "discussion" that results in little discussion and much pontification. It generates more heat than light. Seems very simple to me - don't like abortion? Fine. Don't have one. Give rational reasons and viable alternatives to those that would seek them instead of trying to look down your noses at them and bludgeon them with tired rhetoric about "God's plan" and similar statements of questionable validity.

People tend to respond better to compassion, kindness, logic and rational discussion than threats, holier-than-thou attitudes, name-calling and being bludgeoned with pseudo-religion. If the ardent pro-life types were REALLY serious about stopping abortion, they'd explore these avenues more often than they do, but I suspect they enjoy the ability to attack, put down, and beat up on another group of people all too much for that. As with most things, it's not really about the results, it's about the CONTROL. It isn't the ends, it's the means. It provides them a convenient excuse for rationalizing their bullyish attitudes.

If all people in the world collectively and unilaterally decided "We think abortion is REALLY wrong and we won't leave that open to ourselves as an option any more", would these Christo-fascist-zombie-brigade type people REALLY be happy? I suspect not. I'm pretty certain they'd have to get their fill of bullying and controlling elsewhere - or perhaps on the same group of people (women) for other reasons. How very courageous of them.

face reality and take off the liberal blinders
 

187. (a) Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being, or a
fetus, with malice aforethought.

"They slay the widow and the stranger, and murder the fatherless."
Murder is murder in all societies, in ours though, liberal thought,(oxymoron) has twisted the meaning and clouded men's eyes from the truth.:rolleyes:

I'm not sure on that SoCal, I read it to mean that they specifically included the fetus to avoid people claiming that a fetus was not a human and therefore not murder....

Either way, the law is pretty clear, but agreed that under current law abortion is not equivalent to the legal definition of murder.

See above about historical legality and illegality of abortion. Conservative thinking is like the old joke about the asians driving a car, they are blinded by the windshield.

The whole debate (as usual) is being framed by the fringes. There is 1% of the population who thinks no abortion should be performed at any time. There is another 1% who think that any abortion should be performed whenever the mother wants it (apparently including Tech and P-o-P who both said yes to killing the child as it is crowning).

The other 98% of us think there is a middle ground to be found, something like the plan I posted above.

Of course arguing the extreme examples is much more fun that actually finding a solution that works...

Re: Re: face reality and take off the liberal blinders
 

They necessarily redefined human being. They lied. Lawful killing requires a guilty party.

Ok if you want to read it that way feel free. I'm not sure you can make a sweeping conclusion that the legislature didn't consider a fetus a human due to that wording though since you weren't there when they drafted the bill.

Interestingly, the definition you provide also reflects a legislature that does not consider a fetus to be a human being ("unlawful killing of a human being, or fetus"). Oh yea, they( the legislature) are certainly a bunch that I trust as a moral compass!:rolleyes: So, having stong convictions either way makes you fringe? They used to call it character to not always go with the flow.Just because a large segment agrees with each other, doesn't make their view right. They are akin to lemmings.:cool:

No, having strong convictions does not make you fringe. What makes you fringe is when you think that no abortion should be peformed, even in cases of severe genetic malformation, incest, rape or for the medical well being of the mother.

On the other hand what makes you fringe is when you say that as long as a woman can find a doctor to do it, aborting a full term child during labor is ok.

I have strong convictions too, but I don't think my convictions should be foisted upon everyone in the country no matter what. If that makes me a lemming then so be it.

The part about killing a human being is the part that is universally accepted around the world. The section on abortions is from a twisted legislative body. Problem is, people are blind to the FACT that the fetus is a human being. Passage down the birth canal doesn't create a new species.

You should review what a "fact" is. Is it a human being at the diploid cell stage? What defines a human being? That has been debated for the ages because there is no "fact" to be had.

Correct. Another implication of this is in the HGMP (Human Genome Mapping Project). At a certain point in DNA mapping, subtle differences appear which are ultimately why we're all different. Thus there can never be a "standard" human genome to compare everyone to, as this implies a very Third-Reich type of "master race". In other words, everyone would have some level of genetic "impurity" relative to the standard. Point is, if one starts splitting hairs too finely, you end up with more questions than answers. Usually things are pared down/dissected to INCREASE understanding, not to decrease it. But this is exactly what happens the more one tries to analyze what a "human" is - genetically or otherwise.

You are not the same person you were 10 seconds ago. Your cells have changed. But we conveniently say you're the "same" person. Are you really? These are complicated questions. For convenience, we tend to think of things (and people) in static terms, although the reality is we're all completely dynamic and simply going through a continuous "morphing" of available constituent materials. We're just large, complicated reactions that take things in and pass other things out - whether at an atomic, molecular, cellular or biological level.

Attempting to define when a "human" comes into existence is like attempting to catch a rainbow or a cloud of smoke. You can't do it. Thus an arbitrary definition needs to be established, and this is what the law has done. It's a poor way to do things, but in lieu of a better solution, it's the only way we have.

I've said this already in my comparison to arbitrary speed limits, age requirements for certain things in our society, etc.

Point is the "it's a human" debate is completely subjective and there's no way to make it objective. People will continue to disagree about this ad nauseum and neither side is any more "right" than the other.

It's probably a waste of breath to ask this to be read in the dispationate fashion that I intend it to be read in, but here goes:

If we are honest with ourselves, we humans or at least our governments condone killing people for "convenience" on a regular basis.

The Middle East is full of dead children as the result of wars waged to protect oil reserves. I think those wars would have largely been unnecessary if we had used those resources on a better (but less convenient) energy policy.

How many people make the connection between driving that gas guzzler and soldiers dying to protect that oil? Personally I was a bit peeved at people driving around big SUV's while my brother was on duty in the M.E.

-Chris

+1

There are plenty of war for oil threads, can we keep our controversy's separate please?

Didn't I ask way back when, does a fertilized human egg ever become something other than a human?

A fertilized human egg, if allowed to grow to maturity, always becomes a human.

Now that's an *absolute fact*.


KT

Actually those wars are a result of Muslims wanting to kill all the Jews and Christians because they won't convert to the Muslim Religion.:(

I think it's a telling example of how we humans profess to abhor killing babies but we compartmentalize or rationalize killing babies/children under other circumstances.
It's a little like those who are against hunting but still eat meat - they either can't or won't be honest enough with themselves to admit that they are "killers" too.
-Chris