Texas House OK's abortion bill; Senate up next

Started by Solitary, July 10, 2013, 03:00:24 PM

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Solitary

There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.

Seabear

My wife and I are actually OK with half of this Bill; specifically the moratorium on abortion after the 20th week; in fact, we would support it at 16 weeks.

What I don't like is the "surgical center" provision that de facto closes all but 5 clinics in the whole state.
"There is a saying in the scientific community, that every great scientific truth goes through three phases. First, people deny it. Second, they say it conflicts with the Bible. Third, they say they knew it all along."

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Solitary

There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.

OtterPop

16 is way too early to draw the line, I think 22 - a pretty common 'line in the sand' is plenty fair. I think most pro-choice people feel that something right around the age of viability is a reasonable place to put the limit. The chances of a 22 week old delivery surviving is incredibly slim, impossible without life support really. That's kind of beside the point, though. This garbage is only being pushed through to shut down all but one or two clinics in the state. There's a great video out of the girl, I forget her name, being pulled out of the room by law enforcement because she was "disrespectful" and I overheard today on Fox news where they kept trying to pretend her time was up. Fucking gross.

Titania

They did WHAT?! Where the hell was Wendy Davis this time?!?! Wait, you said the House. She's a Senator. What happens now? This is a gross failure for our supposed system of "liberty".

Quote from: "OtterPop"I think most pro-choice people feel that something right around the age of viability is a reasonable place to put the limit. The chances of a 22 week old delivery surviving is incredibly slim, impossible without life support really.
Look, as far as I'm concerned, if the thing can't exist without being physically attached to its mother, it should be treated the same way that a tumor or a parasitic twin would be.

This whole "personhood" argument has gotten ridiculous. None of the people slinging the term "personhood" around seem to actually know what it means. The philosophical idea of a "person" requires self-awareness, sentience, sapience, agency, metaconsciousness, and a bunch of other traits that technically exclude even human infants and the profoundly retarded. I.E., in philosophical theory, an unthinking lump of flesh that happens to have human genes does not get the same "rights" (even the right to life) that a full person does, but an alien that does fulfill the criteria for personhood would get the same rights.

The only reason we give human infants the legal fiction of personhood is because we have an emotional attachment to them as a concept - and of course it makes sense that we do, because without that caregiver instinct toward them, the species would have died out long ago. I mean, they're pretty burdensome and annoying, so we had to have some neurochemical bonding us to them if we were to stand a chance.  :lol: But this does not make the legal fiction rational or objectively correct.
"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows." - Winston Smith, 1984

Jason78

Quote from: "Titania"This whole "personhood" argument has gotten ridiculous. None of the people slinging the term "personhood" around seem to actually know what it means. The philosophical idea of a "person" requires self-awareness, sentience, sapience, agency, metaconsciousness, and a bunch of other traits that technically exclude even human infants and the profoundly retarded. I.E., in philosophical theory, an unthinking lump of flesh that happens to have human genes does not get the same "rights" (even the right to life) that a full person does, but an alien that does fulfill the criteria for personhood would get the same rights.

So ridiculous that we're going to need to give the HeLa cell line the vote.

Edit:  Formatting
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Titania

Quote from: "Jason78"So ridiculous that we're going to need to give the HeLa cell line the vote.
Seriously. I mean, as I see it, the whole point of honoring "personhood" was to give extra rights to things that can think, feel, synthesize, and understand that they're thinking and alive - in other words, to keep from harming complex creatures that suffer on higher levels.

How does this apply to aborting a blastocyst?... any more than it applies to removing a lump of parasitic twin tissue from a surviving child? Human tissue is sacred now, on its own merit? Well, then, we should protect lab-made skin grafts as persons! Or livers removed from brain-dead patients.

This is all a bunch of ass and I'm sick of American politics because the people running this country have the rationality of a hyena.
"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows." - Winston Smith, 1984

Brian37

Quote from: "Seabear"My wife and I are actually OK with half of this Bill; specifically the moratorium on abortion after the 20th week; in fact, we would support it at 16 weeks.

What I don't like is the "surgical center" provision that de facto closes all but 5 clinics in the whole state.

So you are a medical doctor? So you know for sure every fetus after that time is going to be healthy, cause no risk to the mother, and never be a result of rape or incest?

Sorry, there is no way to make a utopia law on this issue. Not to mention it is not your body and you wont be raising the kid if born.

It is as simple as if you don't want an abortion don't have one. But do not tell other girls/women, what to do with their own body.
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Plu

Brian, are you advocating 36th week abortions?

Brian37

Quote from: "Plu"Brian, are you advocating 36th week abortions?

No, I am advocating suspending judgment of the girl/woman and doctor, because WE are not them. Unless you understand a specific case and are in it and are going to have to live with that very life impacting decision, don't judge. These laws are too broad for something that can only be taken case by case.

All this bullshit is going to do is put girls/women back into unsafe conditions with potential quacks.

If you are not the girl/women or the doctor, keep your nose out of it. It is ultimately none of your business.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers." Obama
Poetry By Brian37 Like my poetry on Facebook Under BrianJames Rational Poet and also at twitter under Brianrrs37

Plu

So if the doctor and the girl consider it okay, they should be able to do a 36th week abortion?

Titania

Quote from: "Plu"So if the doctor and the girl consider it okay, they should be able to do a 36th week abortion?
Look, even as an atheist left-libertarian I don't think there's a good reason for aborting a 36-week fetus unless birthing it would endanger the woman's life. I think most reasonable people will agree that this probably viable fetus could be given in adoption to another entity and it would cause no more harm to the mother. But the reality is that this is not what the abortion debate ends up being.
"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows." - Winston Smith, 1984

surly74

Quote from: "Brian37"
Quote from: "Plu"Brian, are you advocating 36th week abortions?

No, I am advocating suspending judgment of the girl/woman and doctor, because WE are not them. Unless you understand a specific case and are in it and are going to have to live with that very life impacting decision, don't judge. These laws are too broad for something that can only be taken case by case.

All this bullshit is going to do is put girls/women back into unsafe conditions with potential quacks.

If you are not the girl/women or the doctor, keep your nose out of it. It is ultimately none of your business.

with no term limits?
God bless those Pagans
--
Homer Simpson

Titania

Quote from: "surly74"with no term limits?
Viability is my arbitrary limit, according to my own morality.
"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows." - Winston Smith, 1984

Plu

I know, but it was Brian who said "don't tell people what to do with their bodies", and that would suggest to me that he'd allow a 36-weeks abortion if the girl and the doctor wanted one.

It sounds ridiculous to me and I hope that's not what he meant, but that is what it sounds like.