2:04 AM
4) If you would support the median US voter for US laws (based on whatever ethic you choose), the same reasoning would apply to supporting the median state voter in a given state for state laws. I recognize you take issue with Federalism in at least some respects--I'll comment on that in a bit.
I don't see a good reason why we'd deem those existing measures to be insufficient for a late-stage abortion - unless of course the unborn child is a human person with human rights.
But this doesn't really answer the objection I raised--in a 3rd-trimester emergency, where the woman will die if the pregnancy does not end, a C-Section will pretty much always be faster than an abortion. From neonatologist Dr. Kendra Kolb:
"There are also serious safety concerns related to late-term abortions. If a women’s life is imminently in danger, a preterm delivery is a much safer option. An emergency C-section can be completed in less than an hour, while an abortion after 24 weeks, when the most common life-threatening complications occur, takes 2-3 days to complete due to the necessary dilation process, in essence delaying treatment and significantly increasing the risk of death and serious disability to the mother."
Laws generally exist because of ethical reasons, so those things are intricately linked. - I respect your acknowledgement of this link. I commented on legal vs. ethical arguments because you appeared to be critiquing my reference to Federalism.
I don't have to argue that Federalism itself is ethical or unethical to claim that overthrowing the government of the United States (e.g. because of dislike for Federalism) is a bad idea. So whether we like Federalism or not, the Constitution does reserve quite a bit of legislative power to the states
5) liberal politicians have proven to be much more open to discussion and compromise - this is sampling bias and you did not respond to the specific examples I cited to the contrary.
re Gun control, I really don't care to turn this into a debate on gun control, nor would you be likely to correctly predict my views on the matter if I choose not to share them.
re conservative politicians vehemently opposing anything that involves weakening their position - this is not a feature of conservative politicians; this is a feature of politicians in general.
5a) people may have acted out in violence in response to having their basic rights taken away, when they see people in their community being brutalised and murdered by those meant to protect them - this is ironic because it makes great pro-life argument too. Consider my annotated version:
people may have acted out in violence in response to [seeing the] basic rights [of babies] taken away, when they see people in their community being brutalised and murdered by those [doctors] meant to protect them
Yet you've already argued that violence against abortion clinics is not the answer to these vehement disagreements (I agree)
The irony is not lost on me that in the same paragraph you've dismissed violence by the left as a feature of a very, very small minority, and then argued against the right on the basis of the actions of a very, very small minority. Are those very, very small minorities representative of the population or not?
Mobs on both the right & the left have charged government buildings in the last few years. I oppose mobocracy regardless of who's doing it. But my prior point remains, the left uses this tactic much more often than the right.
Or, let's consider the numbers by comparing mobs instigated by the left vs. mobs instigated by the right:
b) covered by my comments & links in a. I oppose doxxing on the left or the right as well. Again, the mob mentality is (currently) running stronger on the left than the right.
c) But I'll concede that the right may be more likely to just spew hate online rather than peacefully saying "I'm not going to support them any more [and you shouldn't either]" you need to read more examples of the left cancelling people--there are many on the left who are not remotely polite nor peaceful, and are quite happy to spew hate online.
I hypothesize (I'm not asserting this is true, just offering a hypothesis) that you've seen a lot of the most intolerant & unscientific attitudes on the right and I've seen a lot of the most intolerant & unscientific attitudes on the left and neither is flattering.
how accepted liberal values are in the media and online - yes, some of the articles I've shared discuss why that is, and how that power is abused.
7) I think we're more or less understanding each other's positions now. I believe saving more lives is better than saving fewer lives, but I do not believe that a 15 week ban is morally appropriate.
8) I do recommend reading the article. Re Nobody wants to have any operation, but we generally understand that the alternative is worse - perhaps this is why nobody gets an elective heart surgery--people get heart surgery because if they don't they'll die. I've already argued that abortion should be legal to save the mother's life.
Re things that are harrowing, this is why I shared several links earlier describing the (potentially inconvenient) harrowing, deceptive, and non-altruistic things that the abortion industry does to women.
Re I'm still not too inclined to prevent women from making a bad decision that they have the right to make - I suspect you would be inclined to prevent women from killing their toddlers, so this just boils down to the same matter we covered earlier--do the unborn have human rights? I maintain that you have not provided any consistent basis for your position on who does/doesn't get human rights and why.
While I appreciate your commitment to a belief in free will (I believe in free will too), and letting people experience the consequences of their bad decisions...this is the argument I presented earlier. If people make a bad decision and now a baby is on the way...there are consequences to their decision.
We did discuss the abortion industry preying on women earlier, and you did not respond to the examples I shared
I see an interesting difference among your arguments--some of them are paternalistic (not uncommon on the left) & some of them are anti-paternalistic. Do we step in because people have problems or let them experience the consequences if they resulted from the people's own decisions. Those are hard questions but I noticed you were on both sides of the issue.
Re silencing people's pain -- see my earlier discussion of Reist's work. It takes this issue on directly.
Re victims -- as discussed previously, I believe the present abortion culture results in mother & baby frequently both being victims of abortion.
Re ambulances, I'm fine with using ambulances to save people's lives. I don't think we should be rushing ambulances around for elective procedures.
We could probably tear the analogy apart quite a bit more (maybe there's little value add to doing so), but I see a small point of agreement between us that guardrails are compassionate and important.
we're mostly talking about women who are already pregnant - but this is a long-term issue. The people who will be getting abortions in 2024 are not currently pregnant with the children who will be aborted in 2024.
Re Federalism, see a good discussion of the benefits here. In any event, the US couldn't get rid of Federalism without overthrowing the government...I don't know if you want to fight me on this one, but I oppose overthrowing the US government.
Re gerrymandering & filibuster, yeah, both parties have abused them extensively--those aren't one-party issues.
Re voting as a bloc, actually the Democrats in Congress have been doing that moreso recently than the Republicans--see here. The unity among a party varies from Congress to Congress.
I appreciate your concluding thoughts. As it pertains to erring on the side of something, if we don't have all information, we may err. I'd rather err on the side of life.
Re there doesn't seem to be too much uncertainty about fetuses given our current understanding of biology - if this were so, there wouldn't be so much heated debate about when a fetus can feel pain.
15 hours later…
6:14 PM
@HoldToTheRod 4) "I don't have to argue that Federalism itself is ethical or unethical to claim that overthrowing the government of the United States (e.g. because of dislike for Federalism) is a bad idea" - now try replacing "the United States" and "Federalism" with North Korea and whatever North Korea is doing, and you'd hopefully see the issue. Your argument seems like little more than "we shouldn't question, critique or try to change how things are, because they are the way they are".
Did I mention overthrowing the government anywhere? I might've, but that sounds like a bit of a strawman. You don't have to overthrow the government to change how the government works (unless that would be included in your definition of "overthrow", which would be quite a loaded term for a neutral action). You just need to be able to elect enough people motivated enough to change it, even if begrudgingly so. If I were to suggest overthrowing the government, it firstly would be as a plan B to the above, and secondly wouldn't just be about abortion, but rather about the wide range of problems…
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