Texas Senate Filibuster Regarding Abortion

[Calcium Deposit]

Babies aren't sentient (yet), but you don't see many people willing to kill those (...yet).
I would support this by saying they (usually) aren't self aware or capable of not shitting themselves for a few years.

Abortion is clearly a topic of where to draw the line. The problem is that line would be pretty much arbitrary unless scientists discover souls really do exist and can pinpoint exactly when they enter the fetus. But until that happens abortions really shouldn't be used as a matter of convenience and only in emergency situations.

[Reincarnate]

Originally Posted by Cavernio

We don't know when sentience happens.

We know which pieces of the brain correspond to things like, say, conscious pain -- and a lot of these components form in the third trimester. Consciousness/sentience in general is an emergent property. First two trimesters don't even really warrant a spectrum argument, even.

Originally Posted by Cavernio

But using the sentience argument also means we shouldn't eat or kill animals. Ultimately it's not just that a fetus may have some basic form of sentience at some point (it kinda has to, if we believe a newborn is sentient), is that it's human sentience. Which implies that there's something special about humanity itself, sentient or not.

This is nonsense. We eat and kill animals just fine. We still try to do it humanely to minimize suffering.

Originally Posted by Cavernio

If you don't know if someone is alive or not, the most moral stance is to assume that they are, rather than take a chance and say they're not. Same goes for sentience.

Except we do have ways to dictate the "consciousness and utility interpretation profile" of a growing fetus. You're invoking argument-from-ignorance, here.



EDIT: Here we go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neonatal_perception

In other words, if you abort before the third trimester (especially a few weeks before at latest -- and keep in mind that a vast majority of abortions take place in the first trimester), you're probably pretty safe in avoiding any conflicts with sentience or pain concerns.

Some 1% of abortions take place after 22 weeks, and most of those are due to extreme/last-minute medical concerns/problems that arise.

[Aldentron]

Originally Posted by Reincarnate

This is nonsense. We eat and kill animals just fine. We still try to do it humanely to minimize suffering.

there's nothing humane about eating an animal that you never saw alive IMHO

[Syhto]

if you're ok with having an abortion then don't have the fucking kid

most teen "moms" miscarriage from alcohol and drug abuse anyways, you have to realize that either way you're fucked. sex health clinics are good for distributing contraceptives, but abortion shouldn't be considered a contraceptive. abortion should always be a last, last resort. I don't think willy nilly abortions are ok. But I do believe you should have the right to have one. But dont' give out free abortions on the corner, cuz that's just asking for people not to THINK about their actions. god knows so many kids have been born and neglected and grew up, or didn't, having a rather unfulfilling childhood and a difficult life. it's not fair to the damn fetus to let them go to a mom that thinks its ok to vacuum baby guts out of their uterus just because they didn't feel like going on birth control. idk something like that I'm a little drunk but I think my message is clear

abortion is bad, babies are good, fetuses are unborn children, and deserve a chance at life, but sometimes people just aren't ready. that's when abortions are good. because who the fuck is going to take care of that child if you won't put the time in to really love it. you don't love your baby if you really consider killing it. so don't make it super easy to get abortions left and right but at least give people the option if it does exist and circumstances permit

[Reincarnate]

Unfortunately, shit happens

[Syhto]

it has been found that love is the primary factor in the healthy development of a baby/child, and communication is key. most people that would have an abortion have low self esteem or problems with themselves that cause them to want to have no kid. I could easily argue and say yeah, having a kid teaches you lessons and brings these problems to the surface. it can make you realize how wrong you were if you stick with pregnancy. really I'm against abortion altogether. But i'm tired of hearing about x person having their nth abortion. Would you stop mocking yourself and life and just get it together already

if you don't have it together don't have a baby because you are still too much of a child if your resolve rests on !death!

[Choofers]

Originally Posted by Aldentron

there's nothing humane about eating an animal that you never saw alive IMHO

who cares, steak is good

[Reincarnate]

Originally Posted by Syhto

sex health clinics are good for distributing contraceptives, but abortion shouldn't be considered a contraceptive. abortion should always be a last, last resort. I don't think willy nilly abortions are ok. But I do believe you should have the right to have one. But dont' give out free abortions on the corner, cuz that's just asking for people not to THINK about their actions. god knows so many kids have been born and neglected and grew up, or didn't, having a rather unfulfilling childhood and a difficult life. it's not fair to the damn fetus to let them go to a mom that thinks its ok to vacuum baby guts out of their uterus just because they didn't feel like going on birth control. idk something like that I'm a little drunk but I think my message is clear

People aren't out getting abortions willy-nilly or using it as a form of birth control (that's a widely-propagated myth). Abortion, for a vast majority of people, IS a last resort. Half of all women who get abortions actually used contraception. The problem is that sometimes shit breaks/doesn't work, or women mis-time their pills, or the contraception is used incorrectly in the general sense. Sometimes people just never learned proper sex ed. Others avoid any sort of emergency contraception because they don't understand that it's a preventative measure that's totally different from something like RU 486, or they let ridiculous religious crap get in the way of making responsible choices.

Anyways I feel like the whole abortion debate is missing the forest for the trees. It wouldn't be such a huge problem if we stopped trying to place ideology over pragmatism.

[Syhto]

ok, well that's fine, I realize what I said was mostly a slew of broken emotion. but most abortions are an emotional process brought on by the "can I have a kid" episode, or at least from my experience, for example if you go to jail

you should hear how the people talk about abortions and miscarriages. everything has its flip side. you said no one is using it willy nilly, well they are, lol. How can you say that's a myth that people use it as birth control. I know several people that do. It's sad but it isn't something you can just ignore in the presence of more logical reasoning

[Reincarnate]

Originally Posted by Syhto

ok, well that's fine, I realize what I said was mostly a slew of broken emotion. but most abortions are an emotional process brought on by the "can I have a kid" episode, or at least from my experience, for example if you go to jail

you should hear how the people talk about abortions and miscarriages. everything has its flip side. you said no one is using it willy nilly, well they are, lol. How can you say that's a myth that people use it as birth control. I know several people that do. It's sad but it isn't something you can just ignore in the presence of more logical reasoning

obviously I don't mean NO ONE is -- it's just by no means the norm at all whatsoever. anecdotal evidence is also dangerous to go by as a general rule because you don't necessarily know how it fits into macro-level trends ("the plural of anecdote is not data").

[Syhto]

and where do you get that the half the women on contraceptives were actually using them correctly? Most likely they weren't unless they were actually (just) using condoms, and that's the scenario where "circumstances permit." But my opinion remains that if you don't think you can take care of a baby then don't. yeesh

[Reincarnate]

Originally Posted by Syhto

and where do you get that the half the women on contraceptives were actually using them correctly? Most likely they weren't unless they were actually (just) using condoms, and that's the scenario where "circumstances permit." But my opinion remains that if you don't think you can take care of a baby then don't. yeesh

Please re-read -- I said that a big part of the problem was that many people use contraception incorrectly (in addition to things like breakage or not taking pills on-time).

[Syhto]

oh. LOL, sorry. you're true. I skipped those two sentences. but yeah. I'm not a firm believer in one way or another. I just see many confused people and a lot of them at that, aka this world is growing rapidly. I would go into religion but I feel that's a bad idea. I see fetuses as the same thing as anyone else, and killing them is murder, but it's alright if you're saving them or yourself from something, because it's not as though they'll be missing much. back to oblivion you go. (not to mention what I believe, just saying) it goes back to where it came from like anything. So I don't think abortions are necessarily bad, I frown upon them tho, but do what you will, either way you will do what you have to do and learn from it. life goes on

[igotrhythm]

Originally Posted by Syhto

and where do you get that half the women on contraceptives weren't actually using them correctly?

ftfy

I want to see sources on this as well.

[popsicle_3000]

Originally Posted by A2P

Stfu ohn

finally, this explains so much. I'd forgotten

Originally Posted by Arkuski

By the most recent DragonIIDX Census, around 85% of you are virgins, so some of you must agree.

tell me now where I can find these threads.

Originally Posted by Reincarnate

1. It's crazy expensive and costs way more than just putting the bastard in jail for life.

death penalty expensive? K+ solution is dirt cheap...

[Reincarnate]

http://www.deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=42

[Choofers]

all that money when you can just put a bullet in the head of a convicted serial killer

[Cavernio]

Daily birth control pills (the standard) are a fucking joke, you miss 1 dose you're fucked for a month. Also you get to fuck around with your hormones. That feels good.

"This is nonsense. We eat and kill animals just fine. We still try to do it humanely to minimize suffering"
I WISH! We kill them humanely, but the rest of their lives most animals people eat are treated like a vegetable. Farm animals, especially chickens and pigs' existence is basically pure suffering.

Anyways, you completely missed the point that since most people STILL eat animals despite knowing their sentient, we discredit the idea that sentience is where we draw the line to not kill something. It's that a fetus is going to be HUMAN that makes aborting a sentient fetus wrong. Which implies that human life, irregardless of sentience, holds some sort of value to people. It's not stupid to consider conception as the moment at which a fetus has it's own life and therefore it's own rights. I think it's more stupid to consider birth as the moment a person gets rights, seeing as a baby definitely has developed senses long before then.

http://birthpsychology.com/free-arti...classical-view

Sense of touch, 8 weeks. Via response to touch.

Requirement of ANY sort of functional cortex for sentience is wrong. Cortex helps understand senses, which obviously is tied into experiencing them, but is hardly necessary for feeling them. Experience of pain isn't what I would deem the important criteria for when to not kill a fetus anyways.

Also, this incongruity in points of brain development and versus a response is simply furthering my point that we don't know when sentience develops.

[popsicle_3000]

not true about the birth control btw...

[Cavernio]

Originally Posted by popsicle_3000

not true about the birth control btw...

...and that's how women on birth control who think they're following it fine get pregnant.