I object to that rather strongly. Steve's poll had nothing to do with rape or incest or the sexual behavior of the mother.
It had to do with an exception to save her life.

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To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society. -Theodore Roosevelt

You see, this is what does not make sense. We are starting with the premise that a newly-conceived embryo is a person, a human being, and that consequently there is no moral difference between an early-term abortion and infanticide. (I don't personally agree with that in the least, as you know, but that's irrelevant -- we begin with the premise.)

If the pregnancy is a threat to the mother's life, not merely her mental health, then we have the weighing of one person's life against another's, we have equivalent harm, and one can then decide that the mother is not obligated to sacrifice her life to save the baby's. But if it's something much less than her life that is endangered, then it's rather a different story. To spare the poor girl emotional trauma, you are going to kill someone else? I'm sorry, but that makes no sense, and I don't believe for a second that you would kill an actual newborn baby for a reason like that. So if you believe, for moral purposes, that an embryo is the same as a newborn baby, why would you kill the embryo just to spare its mother emotional stress?

I'm not suggesting that it could be, or that there wouldn't be lasting harm. It's very unfortunate, but then, it's very unfortunate that she got raped in the first place. Often we are faced with a choice of evils where nothing we can do is ideal. In this case, we are faced on the one hand with a chance of increasing the emotional trauma of the rape victim, and on the other hand with committing a murder. Granted that neither of those is ideal or to be desired, which one would you say is the lesser evil?

If you say it's the murder, then you don't really believe it's murder.

Me? Certainly! But then, I don't think the abortion would be murder. What doesn't make sense is that you, who do believe it would be murder (or so I've understood you to say), would think that was better.

Oh, yes, I can imagine it! But the fact remains, you are setting against that admittedly very undesirable outcome, another outcome that surely is even worse: someone being murdered.

If you truly believe that abortion is murder, then there can be no exception made merely to protect the mother's mental health -- only to protect her life. If you don't agree, then I submit you don't truly believe that abortion is murder, because you reject the unavoidable logical consequences.

It demonstrated that (in this target audience) no one thinks that abortion is always unacceptable. If you were to ask people whether or not murder is ever acceptable, I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone to say yes. Ergo, rhetoric notwithstanding, few if anyone actually believe that abortion is murder.

I then extrapolated using the reasons cited by supporters of a ban to conclude that the circumstances of conception (rape versus consensual, incest versus non-icky sex) are paramount and not the fetus itself. No one, it seems, would support a unilateral ban on abortion - exceptions must be made and those exceptions have nothing to do with the fetus itself.

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"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

Ridiculous.

But sure

Maybe you missed what I've already said:

Only accidents. As for the rest lets call things what they are and argue about what forms of murder are tolerable and allowable in a civilized society.

As in the death penalty. It's murder. Though it can be argued very effectively that it's murder brought on by the actions of the one to be killed. It's certainly not the unprovoked murder of an innocent.

As are war time killings. That's murder. Though it can be argued very effectively that it's murder brought on by the actions of the ones being killed. It's certainly not the unprovoked murder of an innocent.

As abortion is. It's is ALSO murder. It is the unprovoked murder of an innocent by the intentional actions/decisions of another. The intentional actions/decisions of another that are aimed directly at an innocent. Malicious murder in other words.

There are differences. An accidental killing of someone (as in a car accident) could only be considered accidental or negligent homocide. Someone died but not by the intentional will of anothers actions.

The only exception. Unintentional killing of another is not murder. The intentional killing of another is.

One last abortion poll (Now with more options!)

* So, you missed it. Not paying attention ? Here it is again, The intentional killing of another is.

Abortion is the intentional killing of another. It is murder. *

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What IS you and goodtrips fascination with thanes ?

thane - Definition from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

1: a free retainer of an Anglo-Saxon lord; especially : one resembling a feudal baron by holding lands of and performing military service for the king
2: a Scottish feudal lord

Why must you always repost things from your previous posts? Wouldn't link suffice?

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"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

I agree wholeheartedly. But, if you get to make up and use nonsensical definitions, how can you expect me not to join in the fun?

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"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

I see where you're coming from, but I find your phrasing overly-simplistic:
Few, if anyone, actually believe that abortion is always murder.

And nor should they, since abortion is a physical process and murder implies both process and legality or (for those discussing what they think should be "murder") moral judgment.

Is blowing off someone's head with a shotgun murder? Well, that depends on the circumstances. I think just about everyone would agree that there are concievable circumstances in which it should be legal (and may even be moral) to blow off someone's head with a shotgun. But, having acknowledged that, it would be a trifle deceptive for me to then declare "few, if anyone, actually believe that blowing off someone's head is murder."

I haven't really evaluated the number who think the origins of the pregnancy are of paramount importance (somehow, in all this polling, that option never came up). But I'd caution one against broad generalities.

Personally, I'm inclined to think that the method of pregnancy (rape, incest, consensual, accidental, whatever) is of little relevance and that the decisive factor centers on the developmental state of the child/fetus.

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To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society. -Theodore Roosevelt

No matter how many times you repost it, you're making the exact same point. And that exact same point continues to be wrong. Maybe I can make it clearer:

* The intentional killing of another is not always murder. It has to be unlawful in order for it to be considered murder. *

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"Anyone that needs what they want, and doesn’t want what they need
I want nothing to do with
And to do what I want
And to do what I please
Is first on my to-do list"
-Gnarls Barkley, "Going On" lyrics

No, it's not.

Until you're able to wrap your head around the concepts of "lawful" and "unlawful", you're only going to look silly...

Only because we know there are certainly those who do not support abortion in those cases.

I could start another poll, if you'd like...

There can be a moral definition of murder as well as a legal one. It's possible to call something murder when the law doesn't, on the grounds that one believes the law should, or at least that that kind of killing is morally wrong.

It is of course not true that all intentional killings are murder, but if one insists on using the word only for killings that fit the current legal definition, one risks sidetracking the discussion. So I for one am willing to acknowledge, for purposes of the present discussion, that a killing that is intentional and morally wrong should be called murder, whether or not the law agrees. Obviously that does not apply to a killing in self-defense, in defense of another, or in combat, unless one is an absolute pacifist. But, except when the mother's life is in danger from the pregnancy, abortion isn't a killing in self-defense or in defense of another. It is a deliberate killing, and, IF the organism killed is properly called a "human being," then it can properly be called murder, with the understanding that we are speaking morally rather than legally.

The differences among us lie not in the definition of murder, but in what constitutes a human being. I don't believe it makes sense to call an embryo without a brain, without a mind, without a personality, a human being, except in potential. For that reason and ONLY for that reason, I am unwilling to call abortion murder. The other side of the argument disagrees, believing that this potential human being should be treated as an actual human being from the moment of conception.

This is not unlike the dispute between animal-rights vegetarians and meat-eaters. When a vegetarian uses the slogan "meat is murder," he is arguing that an organism should be considered morally equal to a human being that most people don't think should be. There is no question that slaughtering animals for food is a deliberate killing not for self-defense. If someone were to kill a human being for purposes of eating him, this would be considered murder by just about everyone (and also by the law). We don't extend the idea of murder to cover killing animals for food because we don't grant animals the same status and rights as we do human beings.

Similarly, just about everyone would agree that killing a newborn baby should be called murder (and so does the law). But a majority of Americans would not extend that definition to cover killing a recently-conceived embryo, because we do not consider a potential human being to be the same as an actual one.

This is the point of disagreement. A lot of the slogans and catchwords of both sides of the argument have no traction because they do not recognize that point of disagreement. Thus, it's pointless to defend "a woman's right to choose" when nobody believes a woman has a right to choose to kill a baby. On the other side, it makes no sense to go on tirade about "killing babies" when the whole disagreement is over whether or not it even IS a baby.

Of course there are some people who make such an exception (Ms. M clearly feels strongly on the matter). However, your poll was not on that subject and it would be a mistake to assume that the unanimous demand for an exception for the mother's life can be transferred to an exception for rape/incest.

I, for one, would have voted differently. I would certainly support a ban that made no exceptions for rape/incest PROVIDED that it made other exceptions (such as for the life/health of the mother) and didn't kick in until after some stage of fetal development.

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To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society. -Theodore Roosevelt

I see. So now we know that when some small group of anointed ones make a "law" it changes definitions of things. Now we know that these small groups of anointed ones are, in YOUR opinion, ALWAYS CORRECT.

So we now know that there are no laws that are wrong. That "the authorities" are ALWAYS right.

Since "the authorities" made the unprovoked killing of a completely innocent human life "legal", it's not wrong and it's not murder.

If "the authorities" make it legal to kill your neighbor when they're being too noisy it's not wrong and it's not murder.

How silly I've been to question anything said or done by "the authorities."

"The authorities" ARE ALWAYS RIGHT. God I've just been so silly