[POLL] 2020 U.S. Presidential Election

[Seliph]

So GBAtemp is the only forum with nerds and virgins.

Yes, that is EXACTLY the original point I was making.

 

[Lacius]

A fetus shows first signs of brain development is the 3rd-4th week, by the 5th week it has distinguishable sections and by the 6th you can measure first electrical activity - they grow pretty fast.

Signs of brain development isnt' sentience.

Considering physical birth as the moment a fetus becomes a person with their own distinct right to bodily autonomy, i.e. the magical vagina theory, is wholly inconsistent with science.

A fetus develops bodily autonomy before birth. Until a fetus can survive without being attached to another body, it doesn't have bodily autonomy, and it has no rights with regard to bodily autonomy.

I fully understand that you can reason yourself into a position like this based on personal principles or beliefs. That's perfectly acceptable, but if your view on the matter is fundamentalist, don't present it as anything else. I hope you're aware that your position is just as unscientific as magic holy book hocus pocus. In fact, in this scenario, magical hocus pocus appears to be closer to the truth, if only by accident.

It's disingenuous to compare my consistent reasoning to a faith-based position. The thing that's valuable is sentience. That's what I value, and that's likely what you value too. If we have a brain-dead human, that person has as much personhood as a dead person, even if the rest of the body is alive. If we have a sufficiently advanced AI that has sentience/sapience, that AI has personhood, even without a human body or human DNA. A fetus doesn't have sentience. An embryo or fetus often doesn't even have a brain. They are not people by any secular measure.

I was enjoying our conversation, but do not compare my beliefs to faith-based religious beliefs again.

If you want to be this nihilistic, I can just as easily say that you and I are in fact mere clumps of cells with meat-calculators inside our skulls that create the illusion of personhood to make us feel good and grant us imaginary rights when in reality we're only reacting to stimuli - that's perfectly plausible and makes the entire discussion of who is or is not a person completely moot.

We have concepts of personhood and legal rights out of necessity, since we are people living in and sharing a world. Nihilistic points of view about whether or not sentience, personhood, etc. matter are irrelevant to the conversation.

 

[FAST6191]

"Not having sex is impractical."

It is for many people.

It is a bonding and stress relieving activity for many people, one that they have an incredibly high drive to perform and achieve, denying people the opportunity for it is well documented to lead to all sorts of odd and unpleasant outcomes (prisons, catholic priests, military deployments, oil rigs, ships at sea and more besides all yielding good data stretching back hundreds of years).

To that end it is then unreasonable to expect a population of people not to have sex, both in practical terms (if in your ideal fantasy world people only had sex to have a baby and were otherwise asexual or whatever then OK, the real world, which we do have to make rules and systems to work in, is a rather different affair) and from an ethical sense in something you might request.

Also on
"If you don't want babies, don't have sex."
But if you do have sex and end up pregnant we can seemingly quite easily sort that out. If you don't want cavities on your teeth then don't eat too many sweeties and brush your teeth. Someone fails in that and if I am playing dentist and tell them to do one and live with the consequences then that would be a horrible breach of ethics -- we have all the tools to happily fix the problem, and abilities to pretty easily do so, why not sort the problem for someone?
Equally sex can occur between those of the same sex (basically 0 risk in that one) and in infertile people (maybe not 0 as there are some oddities but super low -- basically no chance a 60 year old will get pregnant, and if I had a vasectomy then also on the low side).

 

[Lacius]

You seem to have completely missed the point of the mental exercise, @notimp. The point, in case it wasn't obvious, was to get a reading on the moral compass of a randomly selected liberal-minded individual, in this case @Lacius.

Throughout the exchange we've established that packing the court would be immoral, *unless* it is done in revenge (and I am going to call it revenge because that's what it is - means for the injured party to receive compensation which it, in consultation with nobody, considers to be just, issued by itself to itself as the sole judge and jury, which is just a wordy way of saying "get even"), however killing an unborn child 5 minutes before it is born (and at that stage it is a child, I defy you to prove otherwise) is not immoral based solely on the fact that in a purely mechanical sense it is connected to the mother's body and she has autonomy over it, something you would have a hard time finding support for and a position extremely few medical doctors would consider acceptable. In fact, if we take what was said to the ridiculous extreme, it should be permissible to twist the unwanted child's neck as long as it is still technically connected to the mother with an umbilical cord, although I *very much doubt* that he believes that.

As for the ultimate goal of the exercise, it is to illustrate that the reason why there can never be any peace or agreement between the two parties is because of fringe, extreme positions like this that toss aside any semblence of reason or common sense in favour of towing the party line. I often do this myself, but I don't advertise myself as an impartial arbiter of truth who always follows objective precepts of science and reason - many liberals do just that to minimise dissenting opinions.

Nice word salad though. By the way, I was never against sensible time frames and extenuating circumstances - I started the exchange with "legal, safe and rare", and I maintain that position.

If you're going to misrepresent my positions in such a disingenuous manner, even after I've explained to you how those representations are mistaken, I'm going to block you. For example, I've already explained the difference between revenge and justice. I'm not repeating myself anymore.

 

[gregory-samba]

There's no reason why a person who doesn't get the most votes should be elected president. Conservatives like the Electoral College because it gives them an advantage. Other than that one reason, it's pretty difficult to defend.

I hear that a lot, but I don't have any Conservative friends that don't care about other people once they are born. Those socialist programs you mentioned are an unnecessary burdens on the rest of society. If the two people who conceived the child would feed, cloth, house and basically be parents we wouldn't have to bail out the more shitty ones that simply just refuse to take care of their children. If more time was spent in shaming bad parents or taking away their toys and forcing them to take care of their kids instead of just looking the other way and throwing cash at the problem we would be better off as a society.

Look at Ruth Ginsburg. She was battling cancer, but I didn't see any Liberals offering to take care of her when she was sick or pay her bills. Of course, some still cared about her and her situation, but it wasn't their responsibility. Same thing with illegal immigrants. You don't see many Liberals taking them into their houses, feeding, clothing and providing their medical care. They simply want other people to pay for that, but won't lift a finger themselves.

People's kids aren't other peoples responsibility. Good parents would stick together and raise the children. Bad parents, well, they refuse to feed, cloth, house or take care of the children they created and that are their responsibility. I know that budding socialists want to be in some commune style where the community raises the kid, but that's a horrible idea and since we're not under socialist rule it would be awful for the children to refuse to do your job as a parent.

Conservatives do care and it's dishonest to claim otherwise. It's just not our job to be the parents due to the real parents refusing to do their job.

 

[Lacius]

In all the cases I have seen of it then it is pretty flawed but as you asked there are a few, in addition to things that Foxi4 might be pondering.
"we need more people to fuel our factories/retirement bills and abortion denies us a chance at having them/having them sooner".
The factories bit was actively tried in a few communist states, many still have lingering effects for both sexes (again see the regs regarding getting a vasectomy in Russia -- you have to be quite old or have had several already, compared to elsewhere where you might have to have a look around to find a willing medic but could legally get it done at 18, possibly even on insurance, and plenty have them done in their 20s and consider it a sound financial investment -- https://nypost.com/2017/05/27/hampt...-vasectomies-so-golddiggers-cant-trap-them/4/ ). It did not have a great effect as a net result (unwanted pregnancies tend to make for unwanted children raised in sub optimal environments...).
The latter one I have seen more recently as people look at birth rates being rather below replacement and have banked on there always being more people (more natives being more better for a lot of things, and immigration only works for so long before you exhaust the supplies of quality people and start getting less return on investment, to say nothing of other effects). Why someone else's shit tier financial planning, possibly put in place before I was even born, and unwillingness to react to market conditions (communists, advocate of modern monetary theory, Keynesian, Chicago, Austrian, classical... whatever your position in economics as a whole is then all agree that paying attention to the market, supply & demand, and reacting accordingly is a good plan), means I am supposed to raise a crotch goblin I don't know, not to mention it is debatable that it would even produce more instruments of wealth creation/extraction, but it is still an argument.
Abortion might mostly kick the can down the road but that also means grandparents are then less available (30+30+5 to 7 looking after them= bloody old and decrepit compared to 24+24 + the same, not to mention if we are all supposed to be retiring at 70 or whatever then there is also that) and thus the burden of care shifts either onto the parents, or more likely the state (is the condition of state education a particularly nurturing one that produces well rounded individuals ready to face life, or something that pulls that off coming in cheap?). One also ponders having a career break at 30 when you are probably nicely trained up and bringing in the big money for companies, and having to come back in 5 or so years or only going part time, or not having a break and instead starting reasonably fresh at that time in your mid-late 20s and being to be a good little worker drone (you have 2.3 extra mouths to feed after all). Said drone might possibly be better able to afford a fancy retirement (female poverty rates in retirement is fairly well studied, break to have kids tending to be a big predictor of it) or have your kids get settled in their lives before you get dementia and shuffled into a care home they get to pay for or otherwise geographically restrict them.
I don't know that I have heard it yet but the elements are all out there. Childlessness in women often has some unpleasant psychological effects (fairly well studied, and if nothing else one does not pay the silly money sums for invitro fertilisation and take the massive risks of later life pregnancy (or kick more money to a surrogate), or go through the utter arse ache that is adoption, without a serious underlying drive, one that we can witness in many other animals). Functionally then firing up the womb vacuum might deny them the opportunity to have a kid and in some ways be functionally akin to chopping off an arm because of a condition that says that limb is bad, wind in the issue of biological fertility clocks and issues of older women finding a man ("where are all the good men gone", marriage rates and characteristics thereof, the fun and games of 30 and 40 something divorcees and them finding a new partner...) to that one and it gets even more fun.
There are various places that are more willing to do trade if it is off the table. Most of those having nothing to trade but we are collecting reasons, and who knows what they will dig up tomorrow. On the other hand if one of those is your neighbour and they are doing a roaring trade in taking care of your women as they do a nice day trip just across the border to the womb vacuum and cheap booze shop then it comes back into play.

That would then appear to be several things covering sociological, societal financial, personal financial, international trade, psychological, medical, developmental and similar such reasons, none featuring "because some charlatan in a dress told me in a magic book, written after the fact within a time where industrial farming was not a thing and translated dozens of times since, which I never read yet believe contains truths that it was wrong". How many would stand up in face of no duty to carry a parasite, health reasons, financial reasons, lack sentience in the parasite and all the rest is a different matter, though if we are going to play in societies that are less about the individual and more about the society as a whole (and I don't know that there has ever been a true libertarian state, certainly no big ones) then restrictions and compromises do creep in. Equally is does not have to be restrictions -- too much stick and not enough carrot is a bad plan when you want people do do things.

I imagine it will get even more fun in the future too (the effects widespread of the pill are still being studied after all) when some kind of hypno learning, artificial wombs (already viable for complex mammals and being funded), genetic engineering (see CRISPR), life extension (while above my maths on decrepit ages was more offhand and aimed at being amusing I do note that 50-60 today is not what I saw 30 years ago in the same age range and that is without anything radical happening) and a male pill contraceptive (already in human trials) but I guess we might never see that if whatever the result of this election there will be a hot civil war in the US that kills us all.

I'm short on time, so I only read parts of your post. My apologies. That being said, although they're bad arguments, this is the first time in this thread I've heard secular arguments against abortion.

 

[Foxi4]

If you're going to misrepresent my positions in such a disingenuous manner, even after I've explained to you how those representations are mistaken, I'm going to block you. For example, I've already explained the difference between revenge and justice. I'm not repeating myself anymore.

It's what I've gathered from your explanation, I don't see a reason to be upset. I interpret it as vengeance based on what you've said. I am aware that you denied it, but in my book it still classifies as just that. Your only excuse is that you feel justified - all people who seek vengeance feel justified in their actions, so nothing is different here. As for the baby business, which frankly is getting a bit boring, you said that a fetus becomes a person "at birth". From that I've gleamed that it is not a person before it exits the womb, and becomes a person as soon as it does. If it's more nuanced than that and you have some kind of time frame in mind then our positions aren't that much different - I too believe that abortion, if performed relatively early, isn't as big of a deal as a late-term one. Legal, safe and rare, and whatnot - that used to be the standard.

 

[Lacius]

It's what I've gathered from your explanation, I don't see a reason to be upset. I interpret it as vengeance based on what you've said. I am aware that you denied it, but in my book it still classifies as just that. Your only excuse is that you feel justified - all people who seek vengeance feel justified in their actions, so nothing is different here.

Respectfully, I see no point in continuing our conversation when you're going to ignore much of what I've said. I've already explained in great detail how justice is not the same thing as vengeance, and I used examples. You're either refusing to see the point or cannot see the point. Either way, I'm uninterested in continuing a conversation with someone who cannot/will not see the point.

I'm short of time these days, and I don't have the patience to go in circles I used to have.

 

[Foxi4]

Respectfully, I see no point in continuing our conversation when you're going to ignore much of what I've said. I've already explained in great detail how justice is not the same thing as vengeance, and I used examples. You're either refusing to see the point or cannot see the point. Either way, I'm uninterested in continuing a conversation with someone who cannot/will not see the point.

I'm short of time these days, and I don't have the patience to go in circles I used to have.

That's fine. I didn't exactly mean it as an attack, I simply have a different point of view on this matter. Once again, I'm not going to criticise you for playing to win, I just consider the stance rather inconsistent if your perception of right and wrong directly correlates to how slighted you feel. Call it "two wrongs don't make a right", if you will.

 

[Lacius]

I hear that a lot, but I don't have any Conservative friends that don't care about other people once they are born. Those socialist programs you mentioned are an unnecessary burdens on the rest of society.

In other words, you're fine with burdening society in order to make sure as many pregnancies are carried to term as possible, despite a violation of a woman's right to bodily autonomy, but you don't' want to burden society in order to make sure people have their basic needs met. Got it.

If the two people who conceived the child would feed, cloth, house and basically be parents we wouldn't have to bail out the more shitty ones that simply just refuse to take care of their children. If more time was spent in shaming bad parents or taking away their toys and forcing them to take care of their kids instead of just looking the other way and throwing cash at the problem we would be better off as a society.

Many people don't have the resources to provide for their children. You seem to be making an argument that, in favor of reducing social programs, parents should be able to terminate pregnancies.

Look at Ruth Ginsburg. She was battling cancer, but I didn't see any Liberals offering to take care of her when she was sick or pay her bills. Of course, some still cared about her and her situation, but it wasn't their responsibility.

RBG had family, money, and health care. If she didn't, society shouldn't have let her die on the street without medical treatment.

Same thing with illegal immigrants. You don't see many Liberals taking them into their houses, feeding, clothing and providing their medical care. They simply want other people to pay for that, but won't lift a finger themselves.

There's a long history of American liberals and progressives taking refugees into their homes.

They simply want other people to pay for that, but won't lift a finger themselves.

Liberals/progressives are taxpayers too.

People's kids aren't other peoples responsibility.

Are you arguing a society should turn a blind eye to suffering children because they "aren't theirs"? If so, that's the point. All children should, at the very least, have their basic needs met. If society has to step in with social programs, so be it. With the problem of income inequality as bad as it is (thanks, Republicans), the need for social programs is only getting worse.

I know that budding socialists want to be in some commune style where the community raises the kid, but that's a horrible idea and since we're not under socialist rule it would be awful for the children to refuse to do your job as a parent.

This isn't what Democrats are arguing for.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

That's fine. I didn't exactly mean it as an offense, I simply have a different point of view on this matter. Once again, I'm not going to criticise you for playing to win, I just consider the stance rather inconsistent if your perception of right and wrong directly correlates to how slighted you feel. Call it "two wrongs don't make a right", if you will.

It's one thing to have a difference of opinion. That's going to happen a lot, and lots of things aren't 100% clear or black and white. It's another thing to make a point about something that does appear to be cut and dry (e.g. vengeance vs. justice), and you're refusing to accept the facts of the situation. Whether or not I'm right about it, I have to draw a line in the sand until this most basic of litmus tests is passed. Otherwise, I'm wasting my time. Like, did you honestly ignore my examples?

In other words, if the other party can't even agree 2+2=4, conversation about anything else are futile. The 2+2 example is also about objective truth, not obvious truth, so don't take offense.

 

[FAST6191]

That being said, although they're bad arguments

I don't know that they necessarily are bad.

Most are bad reasons to restrict things wholesale if we are going to go with the present medical ethics and legal takes (the whole compelled to carry, medical exceptions, financial reasons, sentience/senescence/suffering and all that) which provide the basis for it. However if you are deciding upon things to include in your pre event counselling plan (mandating such things is a tricky one but some never the less do, and given the incidence rates of various fun psychological effects resulting from it* is not entirely unjustifiable, and it is presumably an event many would talk over with such a person should they have otherwise engaged their services), life coaching, your tax breaks/government handouts**, your disincentives, your healthcare budgets and trade policy (or hospital policy -- many US hospitals avoid such procedures and not because they are unprofitable in and of themselves) in some instances.

*I am curious to see the differences between places where people make a big deal of it and places where it is as boring and banal as a sorting a toothache, both in access to services and any ethical worries.

**not entirely unrelated (others playing along there is a whole series of these). It presumably cost a non trivial sum to make these so they want an outcome and I doubt it is some kind of reverse psychology ploy

 

[Foxi4]

It's one thing to have a difference of opinion. That's going to happen a lot, and lots of things aren't 100% clear or black and white. It's another thing to make a point about something that does appear to be cut and dry (e.g. vengeance vs. justice), and you're refusing to accept the facts of the situation. Whether or not I'm right about it, I have to draw a line in the sand until this most basic of litmus tests is passed. Otherwise, I'm wasting my time. Like, did you honestly ignore my examples?

In other words, if the other party can't even agree 2+2=4, conversation about anything else are futile. The 2+2 example is also about objective truth, not obvious truth, so don't take offense.

I saw your examples and thought that they have no merit. Justice is metted by an impartial third-party, retribution does not work along the lines of eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth - that's from the book you're not a fan of. Since we're talking examples, if someone parks in the parking space you normally use (which is legal, if a bit annoying) despite the fact that they said you shouldn't do that to theirs last year for some reason, it is demonstrably petty to get planning permission, paint two or three parking spaces over the original ones and ask your friends and family to fill them at all times of day. You're entitled to do it if your city council gave you permission, it's totally legal and above board, but it's still a dick move, and you're doing it to spite your neighbour. That is how I see it. I understand that you have justification, I understand that you were wronged, but your actions have made a bad situation worse. If Democrats don't want that seat filled, they're welcome to deploy all legal means to prevent it from happening, but if they instead allow it to be filled and add extra seats later to tip the balance, that's not a positive outcome - that's just two scummy things happening one after the other. I hope that clarifies my position a bit.

 

[gregory-samba]

In other words, you're fine with burdening society in order to make sure as many pregnancies are carried to term as possible, despite a violation of a woman's right to bodily autonomy, but you don't' want to burden society in order to make sure people have their basic needs met. Got it.

That's you just putting words into my mouth. I already explained that the parents need to step up and take responsibility for the life they created. It's also just not the women's body involved. You have the child you created and the biological father involved too. The rest of your replies (except your last) don't require a followup as you started off with not being able to understand that people need to be responsible for their own actions.

This isn't what Democrats are arguing for.

Actually, a large part of the BLM movement is advocating for just that. It was on their official web page for months.

EDIT: Actually, I will reply to your comments about Ruth Ginsburg. You mentioned how she didn't need public assistance because she was a responsible citizen. If we encouraged people to be responsible citizens like Mrs. Gingsburg was instead of advocating laziness and taking money from responsible people to simply hand out to the irresponsible then there would be less children suffering. After all, it's the shitty parents faults that they kids aren't being fed, given a proper education, clothed properly, housed and have two parents in the household. That's not my fault. That's their fault and I'm not responsible for their actions and mistakes.

 

[FAST6191]

Back to the supreme court lark. Talk of changing a count to effect a different balance, stacking courts is great fun, didn't know (though still somewhat questioning whether) any of the big US political parties even still had it in them to do such brinkmanship.

Is there a particularly compelling reason why the election year... tradition is there? Is it just a tradition for the sake of a tradition for reasons long since obviated (both by life extension and effectively instant communications; we are nearing 100 years since the telegraph which should be more than enough to count there, and dude on a horse is not so bad when all is said and done).

Assuming we even think it a problem to not have a balance of picks (one would hope a judge of that quality is above some measure of party politics, and is more about the law) why not do something like term limits (can still give a good 10 years + active cases and dodge problems of simple elections and presumably also shifting party -- no party is anything like static in their general beliefs, wishes, actions and core setups*), and as much as I loathe the two party system (though it is more or a less a mathematical inevitability with most simplistic voting systems) and the idea of enshrining it in law even more so if we are playing to it then do we want some kind of balancing feature so nobody can take control as it were?

*do we even need to look at all the various shifts such things undergo over the course of a few decades on average? If nothing else for most of my life in the US it has been the republicans that were the enemies of free speech, today (barring the whole flag burning nonsense the other week and the banning games hearings within the current president's term) that seems to be the opposite while I see Democrats do the whole Citizen's united bit and angling somewhat for hate speech codes (indeed enacting something like it in places they nominally control like higher education), though I suppose they are also to thank for the PMRC.

 

[Foxi4]

Back to the supreme court lark. Talk of changing a count to effect a different balance, stacking courts is great fun, didn't know (though still somewhat questioning whether) any of the big US political parties even still had it in them to do such brinkmanship.

Is there a particularly compelling reason why the election year... tradition is there? Is it just a tradition for the sake of a tradition for reasons long since obviated (both by life extension and effectively instant communications; we are nearing 100 years since the telegraph which should be more than enough to count there, and dude on a horse is not so bad when all is said and done).

Assuming we even think it a problem to not have a balance of picks (one would hope a judge of that quality is above some measure of party politics, and is more about the law) why not do something like term limits (can still give a good 10 years + active cases and dodge problems of simple elections and presumably also shifting party -- no party is anything like static in their general beliefs, wishes, actions and core setups*), and as much as I loathe the two party system (though it is more or a less a mathematical inevitability with most simplistic voting systems) and the idea of enshrining it in law even more so if we are playing to it then do we want some kind of balancing feature so nobody can take control as it were?

*do we even need to look at all the various shifts such things undergo over the course of a few decades on average? If nothing else for most of my life in the US it has been the republicans that were the enemies of free speech, today (barring the whole flag burning nonsense the other week and the banning games hearings within the current president's term) that seems to be the opposite while I see Democrats do the whole Citizen's united bit and angling somewhat for hate speech codes (indeed enacting something like it in places they nominally control like higher education), though I suppose they are also to thank for the PMRC.

A short recap of the story is as follows:

The boys see a new kind of candy in the store, so they chip in change to buy a bag, but little Mitch says "no, you guys can't have this candy because I only get lunch money after my parents come home. You have to wait until they're back and then we'll go buy it, that's how we've always done it". The boys reluctantly oblige since Mitch refuses to let them into the store. The parents come home at last, give Mitch a dollar and he buys a different bag of candy that the boys didn't want, ignoring their suggestion entirely.

Some time passes and this time Mitch has some lunch money, but the boys don't. The boys are angry - "wait a minute Mitch, last time you said that we can't have candy until our parents come back home and give us lunch money, that's not fair!", but Mitch just flips them off, says "yeah, but last time I didn't have money, and now I do", and he just buys the bag.

The boys are frustrated, so they go to their parents and say that due to an unforseen downturn in the candy market they need double or triple the money to buy more bags than Mitch has. This is of course in the spirit of fairness, not to flex on Mitch, sitting there with his bag of candy, chewing slowly with a frown on his face. His parents aren't going to give him more lunch money, he's a bad boy.

This is unironically what's happening, except it's grown-ups doing it. Grown-ass adults.

To be fair though, they're not entirely wrong. Black licorice is not candy, it's a punishment.

 

[vincentx77]

Beginning to form a brain and central nervous system does not make sentience. It also doesn't matter if a fetus were sentient (it's not).

As I have said before, I am Pro-Choice, but you're just flat-out wrong here. Saying a fetus isn't sentient doesn't make it true. While the brain begins the majority of it's development starting in the 2nd trimester, by the end of that period, the fetus can recognize both of it's parents' voices. It can remember and be soothed by songs sung to it by either parent. There is research to back this up. If that does not meet the criteria for sentience, then PETA shouldn't be allowed to exist, as many of the animals they try to protect will never be as developed.

Even after saying this, though, I do not want to put restrictions on what decisions a woman can make for her health care. These are difficult decisions she needs to make for herself, and mental health is just as important as any other consideration when you're talking about something with the gravity of beginning or ending new life.

 

[Foxi4]

As I have said before, I am Pro-Choice, but you're just flat-out wrong here. Saying a fetus isn't sentient doesn't make it true. While the brain begins the majority of it's development starting in the 2nd trimester, by the end of that period, the fetus can recognize both of it's parents' voices. It can remember and be soothed by songs sung to it by either parent. There is research to back this up. If that does not meet the criteria for sentience, then PETA shouldn't be allowed to exist, as many of the animals they try to protect will never be as developed.

Even after saying this, though, I do not want to put restrictions on what decisions a woman can make for her health care. These are difficult decisions she needs to make for herself, and mental health is just as important as any other consideration when you're talking about something with the gravity of beginning or ending new life.

At least you're aware. There's certainly a point in early development where the brain changes from a random assortment of neurons into a more complete organ capable of reacting to stimuli and performing its cognitive function. The problem with fetal sentience is that fetuses are effectively "asleep" inside the womb - the conditions inside, particularly oxygen pressure, keep them sedated until the time for birth is nigh and they wake up, with very short breaks in their "sleep" every now and then (around 5% of the total).

Scientists believe that the experience of suddenly receiving intense stimuli to all senses is extremely traumatic and stressful, this is coupled with what they call childhood or infantile amnesia around the age of 3. As a result, people don't have memories before the age of 3, it's not because any child younger than 3, or a fetus at an advanced stage of development, are not sentient. The brain is a tricky matter, I was trying to explain just how quickly it develops, but what can you do.

Around the 16th week the fetus can respond to low frequency noise and around the 19th it develops a defensive pain response by flinching, however those are unconscious reflexes rather than conscious processing. I'd still consider harming a fetus that can process pain to be objectionable, but it's a different kind of experience. Conscious experience of pain can be pinpointed to around the 29th week and sound processing begins at the 26th when the respective neural pathways are developed - that's when the fetus "starts listening", so to speak.

In terms of viability of such a fetus, one just has to glance at premature birth survival rates to get a picture of how things shake up. Children born earlier than the 22nd week of pregnancy have effectively a zero percent survival rate, and the rate climbs rapidly from that point forward. At 34 weeks the baby is equivalent to a child carried to term.

Since the general consensus is that we value sentient human life (I'll make that concession, that's fair), the cut-off point should be somewhere in the neighbourhood of the lower value, as even a 10% chance of saving a person (viable, therefore a person, according to what was discussed) is worth taking. In Great Britain that cut-off is 24 weeks of gestation, which is fair in my opinion. In those late-term cases I would advocate for inducing premature birth as soon as the odds of survival are acceptable to lift the burden of carrying the baby to term off the mother, unless she's amenable to carry it once informed about the state of her pregnancy.

 

[Lacius]

As I have said before, I am Pro-Choice, but you're just flat-out wrong here. Saying a fetus isn't sentient doesn't make it true. While the brain begins the majority of it's development starting in the 2nd trimester, by the end of that period, the fetus can recognize both of it's parents' voices. It can remember and be soothed by songs sung to it by either parent. There is research to back this up. If that does not meet the criteria for sentience, then PETA shouldn't be allowed to exist, as many of the animals they try to protect will never be as developed.

Even after saying this, though, I do not want to put restrictions on what decisions a woman can make for her health care. These are difficult decisions she needs to make for herself, and mental health is just as important as any other consideration when you're talking about something with the gravity of beginning or ending new life.

I'm unaware of any evidence that a fetus gains sentience at any point before it gains bodily autonomy.

In fairness to you and everyone else, sentience is a tricky subject to talk about. For example, is response to stimuli evidence of sentience? I would say not necessarily. I'm willing to say a fetus might be sentient in the very late stages of development, but my point was never meant to be that sentience doesn't exist at all before birth. I also don't consider birth to be a magical transformation from fetus to baby (I consider gaining bodily autonomy to be that definitional line).

The problem for people who are anti-choice is they often argue that a brainless embryo in early development should have the same rights as a baby, for example. This position is untenable from a secular perspective, which was my original point. There are no (good) secular arguments against a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy.

It also wouldn't matter if a fetus were sentient (it's not), since a woman has a right to bodily autonomy regardless.

 

[Foxi4]

I'm unaware of any evidence that a fetus gains sentience at any point before it gains bodily autonomy.

In fairness to you and everyone else, sentience is a tricky subject to talk about. For example, is response to stimuli evidence of sentience? I would say not necessarily. I'm willing to say a fetus might be sentient in the very late stages of development, but my point was never meant to be that sentience doesn't exist at all before birth. I also don't consider birth to be a magical transformation from fetus to baby (I consider gaining bodily autonomy to be that definitional line).

The problem for people who are anti-choice is they often argue that a brainless embryo in early development should have the same rights as a baby, for example. This position is untenable from a secular perspective, which was my original point. There are no (good) secular arguments against a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy.

It also wouldn't matter if a fetus were sentient (it's not), since a woman has a right to bodily autonomy regardless.

Out of plain curiosity, if we assume for 5 minutes that it is, what's the difference between that and death sentences? In both cases you are killing for convinience, with a degree of justification, at least from my point of view. Why support one, but (presumably) not the other? Is it because a prisoner with a life sentence has an infinitesimal chance of being retried with new evidence that may prove their innocence, or that they may be released early for some unspecified reason? Genuinely curious.

 

[choupette]

Trump supporters really scares me, because this man has made too may contradictions and lies and he is an extremist who falls short on his promises. As I said earlier in this thread, it's really not about political side. As an example, I don't think I'd vote for the Republican Party, I could vote for a man like him. That's decency and dignity, and that's what Mr Trump lacks.