While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
And as almost all scientists agree human life, consciousness as well as ability to feel pain starts from 24 weeks.
Be assured we will fight you secular liberals with such gross disrespect for human life you would abort up to birth every step of the way.
Subcortical responses to stimuli are not enough to demonstrate suffering.
A foetus isn't conscious. By 28 weeks it has the physical structure that could give rise to consiousness, but that doesn't mean it is. It simply isn't conscious.
They aren't enough to demonstrate suffering for your ideological, ultra liberal agenda.
For you wish to advocate baby murder so there can be abortion on demand until birth
"baby murder" is an emotive attack, but worse than that, it begs the question. You want to call a foetus a baby because it answers the question about whether it's wrong to terminate it.
Since it's always impossible to get agreement on when something should be called a "baby", let me ask you this instead: when does a foetus stop being a foetus?
No it is precisely what you advocate. Baby murder. Certainly by the time of the 27th week the foetus has already got most of the characteristics and size of a baby ready for birth
There's a world of difference between being potentially ready for birth and actually born.
Certainly by the 27th week the foetus would not be induced. Good luck going to the NHS at 27 weeks and requesting an induction or c-section with no other reason than the foetus is "ready".
Birth is the beginning of life, there's a reason why we consider someone's age to be 16 at 16 years after birth, rather than 16 years after conception, or 16 years after 24 weeks after the last period before conception.
No it is not the beginning of life, from the earliest stage of course human life does begin at conception and some would indeed ban all abortion on that basis.
However by 24 weeks most medics are agreed life can survive outside the uterus and there is therefore no doubt life has begun by that point and any abortion after that point is murder, simple as
So a woman at 24 weeks can request an induction or c-section that day, since the foetus can survive outside the uterus? 🤔
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
And as almost all scientists agree human life, consciousness as well as ability to feel pain starts from 24 weeks.
Be assured we will fight you secular liberals with such gross disrespect for human life you would abort up to birth every step of the way.
This is not true.
I think most scientists would say that gametes are living cells, so there is a continuum of life from adult to gamete to zygote to foetus to baby. "Life" doesn't start at 24 weeks. But lots of things are living: bacteria, amoeba, mosquitoes, cabbages. What is living isn't particularly important to the ethical debate.
I think most scientists would shy away from claims as to when consciousness begins. That's a hugely complicated question. There are brain structures associated with consciousness that develop around 24-28 weeks, so that's a possible lower limit for consciousness, but most scientists would couch that with a lot of caveats. But animals have some degree of consciousness and we don't give them many rights, so the ethical debate is more complicated than finding a simple cut-off for consciousness anyway. Because there isn't a simple cut-off for consciousness: it's something that develops over time, through to maybe 18 months post-birth.
The ability to feel pain is... guess what? Complicated. Yes, there are brain structures around 24-28 weeks that may be necessary, although other parts of the system are developed much earlier. We're not quite certain. So, with caveats, maybe we could say the cut-off is around 24 weeks. But, again, animals can feel pain and we don't give them many rights, so the ethical debate is more complicated than finding a simple cut-off for pain.
Science is complicated. Legislation often has to be somewhat simpler and I'm not saying 24 weeks isn't a good cut-off for legislative purposes. I note 90% of abortions are done before 12 weeks. I also note that the demand for post-24 week abortions is very small and tends to involve very difficult and complicated cases.
We use stun guns before we kill animals.
And even them the fact we kill animals for food is no argument for legalising murder
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
And as almost all scientists agree human life, consciousness as well as ability to feel pain starts from 24 weeks.
Be assured we will fight you secular liberals with such gross disrespect for human life you would abort up to birth every step of the way.
Subcortical responses to stimuli are not enough to demonstrate suffering.
A foetus isn't conscious. By 28 weeks it has the physical structure that could give rise to consiousness, but that doesn't mean it is. It simply isn't conscious.
They aren't enough to demonstrate suffering for your ideological, ultra liberal agenda.
For you wish to advocate baby murder so there can be abortion on demand until birth
"baby murder" is an emotive attack, but worse than that, it begs the question. You want to call a foetus a baby because it answers the question about whether it's wrong to terminate it.
Since it's always impossible to get agreement on when something should be called a "baby", let me ask you this instead: when does a foetus stop being a foetus?
No it is precisely what you advocate. Baby murder. Certainly by the time of the 27th week the foetus has already got most of the characteristics and size of a baby ready for birth
So at 27 weeks it's still a foetus?
No it has most of the characteristics of a baby and abortion at that point is murder
Technically Infanticide in the first year, recognised as a lesser crime than murder in English law. Incidentally also not unusual in many societies and cultures through human history.
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
And as almost all scientists agree human life, consciousness as well as ability to feel pain starts from 24 weeks.
Be assured we will fight you secular liberals with such gross disrespect for human life you would abort up to birth every step of the way.
This is not true.
I think most scientists would say that gametes are living cells, so there is a continuum of life from adult to gamete to zygote to foetus to baby. "Life" doesn't start at 24 weeks. But lots of things are living: bacteria, amoeba, mosquitoes, cabbages. What is living isn't particularly important to the ethical debate.
I think most scientists would shy away from claims as to when consciousness begins. That's a hugely complicated question. There are brain structures associated with consciousness that develop around 24-28 weeks, so that's a possible lower limit for consciousness, but most scientists would couch that with a lot of caveats. But animals have some degree of consciousness and we don't give them many rights, so the ethical debate is more complicated than finding a simple cut-off for consciousness anyway. Because there isn't a simple cut-off for consciousness: it's something that develops over time, through to maybe 18 months post-birth.
The ability to feel pain is... guess what? Complicated. Yes, there are brain structures around 24-28 weeks that may be necessary, although other parts of the system are developed much earlier. We're not quite certain. So, with caveats, maybe we could say the cut-off is around 24 weeks. But, again, animals can feel pain and we don't give them many rights, so the ethical debate is more complicated than finding a simple cut-off for pain.
Science is complicated. Legislation often has to be somewhat simpler and I'm not saying 24 weeks isn't a good cut-off for legislative purposes. I note 90% of abortions are done before 12 weeks. I also note that the demand for post-24 week abortions is very small and tends to involve very difficult and complicated cases.
We use stun guns before we kill animals.
And even them the fact we kill animals for food is no argument for legalising murder
Speak for yourself, I've been a vegetarian for over 30 years!
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
And as almost all scientists agree human life, consciousness as well as ability to feel pain starts from 24 weeks.
Be assured we will fight you secular liberals with such gross disrespect for human life you would abort up to birth every step of the way.
Subcortical responses to stimuli are not enough to demonstrate suffering.
A foetus isn't conscious. By 28 weeks it has the physical structure that could give rise to consiousness, but that doesn't mean it is. It simply isn't conscious.
They aren't enough to demonstrate suffering for your ideological, ultra liberal agenda.
For you wish to advocate baby murder so there can be abortion on demand until birth
"baby murder" is an emotive attack, but worse than that, it begs the question. You want to call a foetus a baby because it answers the question about whether it's wrong to terminate it.
Since it's always impossible to get agreement on when something should be called a "baby", let me ask you this instead: when does a foetus stop being a foetus?
No it is precisely what you advocate. Baby murder. Certainly by the time of the 27th week the foetus has already got most of the characteristics and size of a baby ready for birth
There's a world of difference between being potentially ready for birth and actually born.
Certainly by the 27th week the foetus would not be induced. Good luck going to the NHS at 27 weeks and requesting an induction or c-section with no other reason than the foetus is "ready".
Birth is the beginning of life, there's a reason why we consider someone's age to be 16 at 16 years after birth, rather than 16 years after conception, or 16 years after 24 weeks after the last period before conception.
No it is not the beginning of life, from the earliest stage of course human life does begin at conception and some would indeed ban all abortion on that basis.
However by 24 weeks most medics are agreed life can survive outside the uterus and there is therefore no doubt life has begun by that point and any abortion after that point is murder, simple as
So a woman at 24 weeks can request an induction or c-section that day, since the foetus can survive outside the uterus? 🤔
Only for emergencies if the mother or foetus is very unwell, not simply because the foetus is as you put it "ready".
For a whole range of reasons including 'if the baby is lying transversely across your womb (instead of in the head-down position), or is in the breech position with a foot down low...'
So yes the foetus can survive outside the uterus in those circumstances
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
And as almost all scientists agree human life, consciousness as well as ability to feel pain starts from 24 weeks.
Be assured we will fight you secular liberals with such gross disrespect for human life you would abort up to birth every step of the way.
Subcortical responses to stimuli are not enough to demonstrate suffering.
A foetus isn't conscious. By 28 weeks it has the physical structure that could give rise to consiousness, but that doesn't mean it is. It simply isn't conscious.
They aren't enough to demonstrate suffering for your ideological, ultra liberal agenda.
For you wish to advocate baby murder so there can be abortion on demand until birth
"baby murder" is an emotive attack, but worse than that, it begs the question. You want to call a foetus a baby because it answers the question about whether it's wrong to terminate it.
Since it's always impossible to get agreement on when something should be called a "baby", let me ask you this instead: when does a foetus stop being a foetus?
No it is precisely what you advocate. Baby murder. Certainly by the time of the 27th week the foetus has already got most of the characteristics and size of a baby ready for birth
So at 27 weeks it's still a foetus?
No it has most of the characteristics of a baby and abortion at that point is murder
Absolutely disgraceful behaviour by Labour in the HOL.
My vote for them in 2024 is really going to be one of holding my nose . With Starmers new found Brexit zeal and their ridiculous over the top balancing the books mantra I’m finding it difficult to muster up any enthusiasm.
I want rid of the Tories and that’s it . But really I expected a bit more !
What happened in the HoL?
The Tories broke convention by using secondary legislation to bring back something the HOL had already voted against re protests . Essentially this means they can just ignore future votes against and bring things back in secondary legislation , the Tories are dismantling UK democracy . Labour then pathetically said they refused to support a fatal motion which would have stopped the Tories . Labour said it wasn’t proper to use a fatal motion in the HOL even though the Tories have already trashed convention. Labour really are deluded if they think the Tories would play fair in the future .
Yes but. It'll be Labour using the precedent soon enough.
Edit: NOT SOON ENOUGH.
Yes, indeed.
Either way it’s a sad day for democracy. The Tories though will probably use the fatal motion and won’t have any qualms about doing that so Labour just look deluded for not using that now .
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
Well said.
To me the whole "24 weeks" cut-off is arbitrary and absurd. A bit like Sunday trading laws. A silly, messy compromise that doesn't really satisfy anyone but most people are content to live with because they'd rather not rock the boat and compromise just sounds reasonable.
To me logically birth is the inflection point as you say, so while I would find the idea of a 32 week abortion to be utterly horrible, I wouldn't make it illegal. Horrible things should not be unlawful. At approximately 37 weeks I believe the NHS could perhaps offer induction as an alternative, so that seems a reasonable cut-off, terminate the pregnancy but with a live-birth at that stage, but 24 is just a messy compromise. They're never going to voluntarily induce then.
I actually have more intellectual respect for people who want the practice outlawed altogether, than for the 24 week cut-off. At least they're intellectually consistent. I don't agree with them, but I can see where they're coming from much better.
You can induce earlier than 37 weeks (or give birth via Caesarean), so your cut off is just as arbitrary. The baby's prospects are less good than if you wait, but better than if you kill them.
Also, abortion after 24 weeks involves 'delivering' your foetus in some way, albeit not alive. It's nothing like the medical procedure at under 12 weeks that normally happens and is closer to a period.
I respect 'my body my choice', but when there are alternatives to get the foetus out of your body alive, hand over to medical professionals to look after until old enough to adopt, it should no longer be your choice to make.
That is why late term abortion as a 'pro choice' mantra is immoral nonsense from a liberal perspective.
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
Well said.
To me the whole "24 weeks" cut-off is arbitrary and absurd. A bit like Sunday trading laws. A silly, messy compromise that doesn't really satisfy anyone but most people are content to live with because they'd rather not rock the boat and compromise just sounds reasonable.
To me logically birth is the inflection point as you say, so while I would find the idea of a 32 week abortion to be utterly horrible, I wouldn't make it illegal. Horrible things should not be unlawful. At approximately 37 weeks I believe the NHS could perhaps offer induction as an alternative, so that seems a reasonable cut-off, terminate the pregnancy but with a live-birth at that stage, but 24 is just a messy compromise. They're never going to voluntarily induce then.
I actually have more intellectual respect for people who want the practice outlawed altogether, than for the 24 week cut-off. At least they're intellectually consistent. I don't agree with them, but I can see where they're coming from much better.
All cut off points are arbitrary. Do we truly believe, for example, that a person goes from being unable to consent to sex at 15 years and 364 days, to being able to do so at 16 years and 1 day?
It seems to me that treating birth as the point at which one acquires human rights, compared to birth minus one day as being the point where one has none, is just as arbitrary.
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
And as almost all scientists agree human life, consciousness as well as ability to feel pain starts from 24 weeks.
Be assured we will fight you secular liberals with such gross disrespect for human life you would abort up to birth every step of the way.
Subcortical responses to stimuli are not enough to demonstrate suffering.
A foetus isn't conscious. By 28 weeks it has the physical structure that could give rise to consiousness, but that doesn't mean it is. It simply isn't conscious.
They aren't enough to demonstrate suffering for your ideological, ultra liberal agenda.
For you wish to advocate baby murder so there can be abortion on demand until birth
"baby murder" is an emotive attack, but worse than that, it begs the question. You want to call a foetus a baby because it answers the question about whether it's wrong to terminate it.
Since it's always impossible to get agreement on when something should be called a "baby", let me ask you this instead: when does a foetus stop being a foetus?
No it is precisely what you advocate. Baby murder. Certainly by the time of the 27th week the foetus has already got most of the characteristics and size of a baby ready for birth
So at 27 weeks it's still a foetus?
No it has most of the characteristics of a baby and abortion at that point is murder
Technically Infanticide in the first year, recognised as a lesser crime than murder in English law. Incidentally also not unusual in many societies and cultures through human history.
No, those who might use infanticide as a defence ie only mothers who kill their babies in the first year of life, are still charged with murder
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
And as almost all scientists agree human life, consciousness as well as ability to feel pain starts from 24 weeks.
Be assured we will fight you secular liberals with such gross disrespect for human life you would abort up to birth every step of the way.
This is not true.
I think most scientists would say that gametes are living cells, so there is a continuum of life from adult to gamete to zygote to foetus to baby. "Life" doesn't start at 24 weeks. But lots of things are living: bacteria, amoeba, mosquitoes, cabbages. What is living isn't particularly important to the ethical debate.
I think most scientists would shy away from claims as to when consciousness begins. That's a hugely complicated question. There are brain structures associated with consciousness that develop around 24-28 weeks, so that's a possible lower limit for consciousness, but most scientists would couch that with a lot of caveats. But animals have some degree of consciousness and we don't give them many rights, so the ethical debate is more complicated than finding a simple cut-off for consciousness anyway. Because there isn't a simple cut-off for consciousness: it's something that develops over time, through to maybe 18 months post-birth.
The ability to feel pain is... guess what? Complicated. Yes, there are brain structures around 24-28 weeks that may be necessary, although other parts of the system are developed much earlier. We're not quite certain. So, with caveats, maybe we could say the cut-off is around 24 weeks. But, again, animals can feel pain and we don't give them many rights, so the ethical debate is more complicated than finding a simple cut-off for pain.
Science is complicated. Legislation often has to be somewhat simpler and I'm not saying 24 weeks isn't a good cut-off for legislative purposes. I note 90% of abortions are done before 12 weeks. I also note that the demand for post-24 week abortions is very small and tends to involve very difficult and complicated cases.
We use stun guns before we kill animals.
And even them the fact we kill animals for food is no argument for legalising murder
I think you find a lot of meat, especially but not just Halal, is not stunned first.
Also every weekend, especially in the summer there will thousands if not more Brits going out fishing intending to kill animals for sport and maybe to eat.
Its not my preferred sport so I'm not particularly an expert on the matter, but I believe using a worm as lure and getting them to jab a hook into their cheek is the preferred method of getting the fish - not stun guns shot into the water which don't sound particularly sporting.
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
And as almost all scientists agree human life, consciousness as well as ability to feel pain starts from 24 weeks.
Be assured we will fight you secular liberals with such gross disrespect for human life you would abort up to birth every step of the way.
Subcortical responses to stimuli are not enough to demonstrate suffering.
A foetus isn't conscious. By 28 weeks it has the physical structure that could give rise to consiousness, but that doesn't mean it is. It simply isn't conscious.
They aren't enough to demonstrate suffering for your ideological, ultra liberal agenda.
For you wish to advocate baby murder so there can be abortion on demand until birth
"baby murder" is an emotive attack, but worse than that, it begs the question. You want to call a foetus a baby because it answers the question about whether it's wrong to terminate it.
Since it's always impossible to get agreement on when something should be called a "baby", let me ask you this instead: when does a foetus stop being a foetus?
No it is precisely what you advocate. Baby murder. Certainly by the time of the 27th week the foetus has already got most of the characteristics and size of a baby ready for birth
So at 27 weeks it's still a foetus?
No it has most of the characteristics of a baby and abortion at that point is murder
Absolutely disgraceful behaviour by Labour in the HOL.
My vote for them in 2024 is really going to be one of holding my nose . With Starmers new found Brexit zeal and their ridiculous over the top balancing the books mantra I’m finding it difficult to muster up any enthusiasm.
I want rid of the Tories and that’s it . But really I expected a bit more !
What happened in the HoL?
The Tories broke convention by using secondary legislation to bring back something the HOL had already voted against re protests . Essentially this means they can just ignore future votes against and bring things back in secondary legislation , the Tories are dismantling UK democracy . Labour then pathetically said they refused to support a fatal motion which would have stopped the Tories . Labour said it wasn’t proper to use a fatal motion in the HOL even though the Tories have already trashed convention. Labour really are deluded if they think the Tories would play fair in the future .
They were right to do so given it is the only way to ensure legislation to stop Just Stop Oil blocking public highways across the country and preventing people going to work and going about their lives
Why is there one law for Trump, and one for everyone else ?
Needs to be noted that Reality Winner printed and mailed one classified document and didn't spend a day out of custody for 4 years from her arrest in early June 2017. She doesn't even own a private plane and has never fomented the bloody sacking of a US govt building. https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/1668717796958642177
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
Not all religions believe in a soul.
No, you're quite right. It did cross my mind to throw that caveat in there but honestly I was mostly aiming at the Christian extremism we get from HYUFD types but without it being quite so targeted so as not to be personal. Your correction to my imprecision is welcome.
It is you who are the extremist advocating abortion to birth and baby murder, a position just 1% of the population advocate
I'm putting forward scientific facts that could be used to defend such a view. That's somewhat short of saying where I think the limit should be. In truth I'm not quite sure.
But I've got the backwards way of looking at things. I like to know the facts of the matter and let that guide me to a conclusion. You're the other way around. You've got your black leather book with a gold embossed title on the cover. You've got a mainline from Fox & Fiends straight into your arteries, and by god you are going to find any scraps of facts that back up your view, no matter how much you have to twist them. You're well known for it, and I call you out on it daily.
The trouble is, if you want to make your argument for no abortion, or abortion at this or that limit, you need to take a cold hard look at the facts before you use them. And your "facts" about pain and consciousness are actually pretty unreliable. And we know because you make such a big deal of it that your thinking is guided by metaphysics. But it's a partial and filtered theology that's been brewed into a political ideology. It's ok if you want to do that, but don't twist the facts, please. They feel more pain than a zygote does.
HYUFD's understanding of biology does consistently suggest that he should have received more sex education in school. However, I think HYUFD is right that Bart's position is extreme, in the sense that it does not match what most people think.
Anti-abortionists love talking about late abortion, because it makes their arguments look better. I think a good way to counter religious extremism in this area is to be very clear that the vast majority of abortions are early, and concern tiny clumps of cells that are very obviously not people, not babies.
All I really want is to get some rationality into the debate, meaning we steer clear of untestable stuff like theology, and we really think critically about the claims that are made regarding pain and consciousness. There are too many people willing to subordinate facts to the conclusion they want to come to, so when an anti-abortionist seems some headline in a right-wing outlet along the lines of "babies can suffer pain just 8 weeks after conception" we stop and really think about what that claim means: is it really a baby? Is it really suffering? And claims around "feeling pain" are really, really flimsy when you dig down.
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
Well said.
To me the whole "24 weeks" cut-off is arbitrary and absurd. A bit like Sunday trading laws. A silly, messy compromise that doesn't really satisfy anyone but most people are content to live with because they'd rather not rock the boat and compromise just sounds reasonable.
To me logically birth is the inflection point as you say, so while I would find the idea of a 32 week abortion to be utterly horrible, I wouldn't make it illegal. Horrible things should not be unlawful. At approximately 37 weeks I believe the NHS could perhaps offer induction as an alternative, so that seems a reasonable cut-off, terminate the pregnancy but with a live-birth at that stage, but 24 is just a messy compromise. They're never going to voluntarily induce then.
I actually have more intellectual respect for people who want the practice outlawed altogether, than for the 24 week cut-off. At least they're intellectually consistent. I don't agree with them, but I can see where they're coming from much better.
All cut off points are arbitrary. Do we truly believe, for example, that a person goes from being unable to consent to sex at 15 years and 364 days, to being able to do so at 16 years and 1 day?
It seems to me that treating birth as the point at which one acquires human rights, compared to birth minus one day as being the point where one has none, is just as arbitrary.
Looking back at the birth of my children, as well as thinking about all that happens with the birth, the last thing I would consider birth to be is arbitrary.
Birth is a joyous event. But, I'm still not seeing the ethical distinction between killing the newborn, and killng the about to be born.
Arguing for abortion up the point of birth is an argument for inhumanity, however logical it may seem to you.
It is completely inhumane I agree, but I don't see why it should be criminal for that reason.
I can't imagine any woman other than in the most extreme and most wretched of circumstances would want to do something so inhumane.
And if she, having weighed up the inhumanity of it and having felt the kicks etc still wants to do it, then I would regret the decision but think it should be hers and hers alone.
Unless or until the foetus is ready to be born, and I don't mean "theoretically if accidentally born could have a very slim chance of survival after spending months in a NICU", I mean "can be scheduled today for an induction or c-section".
The logical conclusion of your argument is not to permit late term abortion, but to permit on-request c-sections after 24 weeks on the condition of giving up for adoption. Which is totally viable medically.
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
Well said.
To me the whole "24 weeks" cut-off is arbitrary and absurd. A bit like Sunday trading laws. A silly, messy compromise that doesn't really satisfy anyone but most people are content to live with because they'd rather not rock the boat and compromise just sounds reasonable.
To me logically birth is the inflection point as you say, so while I would find the idea of a 32 week abortion to be utterly horrible, I wouldn't make it illegal. Horrible things should not be unlawful. At approximately 37 weeks I believe the NHS could perhaps offer induction as an alternative, so that seems a reasonable cut-off, terminate the pregnancy but with a live-birth at that stage, but 24 is just a messy compromise. They're never going to voluntarily induce then.
I actually have more intellectual respect for people who want the practice outlawed altogether, than for the 24 week cut-off. At least they're intellectually consistent. I don't agree with them, but I can see where they're coming from much better.
You can induce earlier than 37 weeks (or give birth via Caesarean), so your cut off is just as arbitrary. The baby's prospects are less good than if you wait, but better than if you kill them.
Also, abortion after 24 weeks involves 'delivering' your foetus in some way, albeit not alive. It's nothing like the medical procedure at under 12 weeks that normally happens and is closer to a period.
I respect 'my body my choice', but when there are alternatives to get the foetus out of your body alive, hand over to medical professionals to look after until old enough to adopt, it should no longer be your choice to make.
That is why late term abortion as a 'pro choice' mantra is immoral nonsense from a liberal perspective.
Are there alternatives?
I haven't named a date as a cut-off, so how is my date arbitrary?
I have said a woman should be able to request a pregnancy is terminated and it should be terminated. Now if its full-term and a viable birth can happen then I have no philosophical objection to that. And if its not yet full-term and a birth is not offered as an option, then I think that an abortion if and only if the woman really wants it, should be the last resort - though it would almost never happen.
What I don't think should happen is to say to someone "no we won't deliver the baby today as its not ready yet, its not safe to do so, and no we won't terminate the pregnancy, so you need to continue to be pregnant for the next four months".
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
And as almost all scientists agree human life, consciousness as well as ability to feel pain starts from 24 weeks.
Be assured we will fight you secular liberals with such gross disrespect for human life you would abort up to birth every step of the way.
This is not true.
I think most scientists would say that gametes are living cells, so there is a continuum of life from adult to gamete to zygote to foetus to baby. "Life" doesn't start at 24 weeks. But lots of things are living: bacteria, amoeba, mosquitoes, cabbages. What is living isn't particularly important to the ethical debate.
I think most scientists would shy away from claims as to when consciousness begins. That's a hugely complicated question. There are brain structures associated with consciousness that develop around 24-28 weeks, so that's a possible lower limit for consciousness, but most scientists would couch that with a lot of caveats. But animals have some degree of consciousness and we don't give them many rights, so the ethical debate is more complicated than finding a simple cut-off for consciousness anyway. Because there isn't a simple cut-off for consciousness: it's something that develops over time, through to maybe 18 months post-birth.
The ability to feel pain is... guess what? Complicated. Yes, there are brain structures around 24-28 weeks that may be necessary, although other parts of the system are developed much earlier. We're not quite certain. So, with caveats, maybe we could say the cut-off is around 24 weeks. But, again, animals can feel pain and we don't give them many rights, so the ethical debate is more complicated than finding a simple cut-off for pain.
Science is complicated. Legislation often has to be somewhat simpler and I'm not saying 24 weeks isn't a good cut-off for legislative purposes. I note 90% of abortions are done before 12 weeks. I also note that the demand for post-24 week abortions is very small and tends to involve very difficult and complicated cases.
We use stun guns before we kill animals.
And even them the fact we kill animals for food is no argument for legalising murder
I think you find a lot of meat, especially but not just Halal, is not stunned first.
Also every weekend, especially in the summer there will thousands if not more Brits going out fishing intending to kill animals for sport and maybe to eat.
Its not my preferred sport so I'm not particularly an expert on the matter, but I believe using a worm as lure and getting them to jab a hook into their cheek is the preferred method of getting the fish - not stun guns shot into the water which don't sound particularly sporting.
And some convicted criminals are beheaded in public in a few Muslim majority countries too still.
Whether fish can feel much pain being hooked or not is debateable however we eat animals but that does not stop us banning killing our own kind
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
And as almost all scientists agree human life, consciousness as well as ability to feel pain starts from 24 weeks.
Be assured we will fight you secular liberals with such gross disrespect for human life you would abort up to birth every step of the way.
Subcortical responses to stimuli are not enough to demonstrate suffering.
A foetus isn't conscious. By 28 weeks it has the physical structure that could give rise to consiousness, but that doesn't mean it is. It simply isn't conscious.
They aren't enough to demonstrate suffering for your ideological, ultra liberal agenda.
For you wish to advocate baby murder so there can be abortion on demand until birth
"baby murder" is an emotive attack, but worse than that, it begs the question. You want to call a foetus a baby because it answers the question about whether it's wrong to terminate it.
Since it's always impossible to get agreement on when something should be called a "baby", let me ask you this instead: when does a foetus stop being a foetus?
No it is precisely what you advocate. Baby murder. Certainly by the time of the 27th week the foetus has already got most of the characteristics and size of a baby ready for birth
So at 27 weeks it's still a foetus?
No it has most of the characteristics of a baby and abortion at that point is murder
Except it’s not.
Except it is
Show me that statute.
Fetal personhood does not exist in English law; just your mind.
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
Well said.
To me the whole "24 weeks" cut-off is arbitrary and absurd. A bit like Sunday trading laws. A silly, messy compromise that doesn't really satisfy anyone but most people are content to live with because they'd rather not rock the boat and compromise just sounds reasonable.
To me logically birth is the inflection point as you say, so while I would find the idea of a 32 week abortion to be utterly horrible, I wouldn't make it illegal. Horrible things should not be unlawful. At approximately 37 weeks I believe the NHS could perhaps offer induction as an alternative, so that seems a reasonable cut-off, terminate the pregnancy but with a live-birth at that stage, but 24 is just a messy compromise. They're never going to voluntarily induce then.
I actually have more intellectual respect for people who want the practice outlawed altogether, than for the 24 week cut-off. At least they're intellectually consistent. I don't agree with them, but I can see where they're coming from much better.
All cut off points are arbitrary. Do we truly believe, for example, that a person goes from being unable to consent to sex at 15 years and 364 days, to being able to do so at 16 years and 1 day?
It seems to me that treating birth as the point at which one acquires human rights, compared to birth minus one day as being the point where one has none, is just as arbitrary.
Looking back at the birth of my children, as well as thinking about all that happens with the birth, the last thing I would consider birth to be is arbitrary.
Birth is a joyous event. But, I'm still not seeing the ethical distinction between killing the newborn, and killng the about to be born.
Arguing for abortion up the point of birth is an argument for inhumanity, however logical it may seem to you.
It is completely inhumane I agree, but I don't see why it should be criminal for that reason.
I can't imagine any woman other than in the most extreme and most wretched of circumstances would want to do something so inhumane.
And if she, having weighed up the inhumanity of it and having felt the kicks etc still wants to do it, then I would regret the decision but think it should be hers and hers alone.
Unless or until the foetus is ready to be born, and I don't mean "theoretically if accidentally born could have a very slim chance of survival after spending months in a NICU", I mean "can be scheduled today for an induction or c-section".
The logical conclusion of your argument is not to permit late term abortion, but to permit on-request c-sections after 24 weeks on the condition of giving up for adoption. Which is totally viable medically.
Either/or, but given the extremely severe risks to the foetus if its born at 24 weeks I would think that an abortion is a better option than being born into a world where no parent wants it.
The longer the Mid Beds by election is delayed the better for Sunak, it is the most likely of the vacant seats to fall given the LDs are targeting it with their formidable by election machine
The longer the Mid Beds by election is delayed the better for Sunak, it is the most likely of the vacant seats to fall given the LDs are targeting it with their formidable by election machine
And wants to use Parliamentary Privilege to attack Sunak before she goes
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
And as almost all scientists agree human life, consciousness as well as ability to feel pain starts from 24 weeks.
Be assured we will fight you secular liberals with such gross disrespect for human life you would abort up to birth every step of the way.
Subcortical responses to stimuli are not enough to demonstrate suffering.
A foetus isn't conscious. By 28 weeks it has the physical structure that could give rise to consiousness, but that doesn't mean it is. It simply isn't conscious.
They aren't enough to demonstrate suffering for your ideological, ultra liberal agenda.
For you wish to advocate baby murder so there can be abortion on demand until birth
"baby murder" is an emotive attack, but worse than that, it begs the question. You want to call a foetus a baby because it answers the question about whether it's wrong to terminate it.
Since it's always impossible to get agreement on when something should be called a "baby", let me ask you this instead: when does a foetus stop being a foetus?
No it is precisely what you advocate. Baby murder. Certainly by the time of the 27th week the foetus has already got most of the characteristics and size of a baby ready for birth
So at 27 weeks it's still a foetus?
No it has most of the characteristics of a baby and abortion at that point is murder
Except it’s not.
Except it is
Show me that statute.
Feral personhood does not exist in English law; just your mind.
You've not been to many secondary schools if you don't think feral personhood exists.
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
Well said.
To me the whole "24 weeks" cut-off is arbitrary and absurd. A bit like Sunday trading laws. A silly, messy compromise that doesn't really satisfy anyone but most people are content to live with because they'd rather not rock the boat and compromise just sounds reasonable.
To me logically birth is the inflection point as you say, so while I would find the idea of a 32 week abortion to be utterly horrible, I wouldn't make it illegal. Horrible things should not be unlawful. At approximately 37 weeks I believe the NHS could perhaps offer induction as an alternative, so that seems a reasonable cut-off, terminate the pregnancy but with a live-birth at that stage, but 24 is just a messy compromise. They're never going to voluntarily induce then.
I actually have more intellectual respect for people who want the practice outlawed altogether, than for the 24 week cut-off. At least they're intellectually consistent. I don't agree with them, but I can see where they're coming from much better.
All cut off points are arbitrary. Do we truly believe, for example, that a person goes from being unable to consent to sex at 15 years and 364 days, to being able to do so at 16 years and 1 day?
It seems to me that treating birth as the point at which one acquires human rights, compared to birth minus one day as being the point where one has none, is just as arbitrary.
Looking back at the birth of my children, as well as thinking about all that happens with the birth, the last thing I would consider birth to be is arbitrary.
Birth is a joyous event. But, I'm still not seeing the ethical distinction between killing the newborn, and killng the about to be born.
Arguing for abortion up the point of birth is an argument for inhumanity, however logical it may seem to you.
It is completely inhumane I agree, but I don't see why it should be criminal for that reason.
I can't imagine any woman other than in the most extreme and most wretched of circumstances would want to do something so inhumane.
And if she, having weighed up the inhumanity of it and having felt the kicks etc still wants to do it, then I would regret the decision but think it should be hers and hers alone.
Unless or until the foetus is ready to be born, and I don't mean "theoretically if accidentally born could have a very slim chance of survival after spending months in a NICU", I mean "can be scheduled today for an induction or c-section".
The logical conclusion of your argument is not to permit late term abortion, but to permit on-request c-sections after 24 weeks on the condition of giving up for adoption. Which is totally viable medically.
Either/or, but given the extremely severe risks to the foetus if its born at 24 weeks I would think that an abortion is a better option than being born into a world where no parent wants it.
Who says no parent wants it? Demand for adoption is extremely high.
And by, say, 28 weeks the survival chances for the baby are over 90%. By 32 weeks it is extremely likely to be a perfectly healthy baby after medical care.
I see no possible justification for permitting the mother to kill the foetus rather than deliver it and give the baby up for adoption.
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
And as almost all scientists agree human life, consciousness as well as ability to feel pain starts from 24 weeks.
Be assured we will fight you secular liberals with such gross disrespect for human life you would abort up to birth every step of the way.
This is not true.
I think most scientists would say that gametes are living cells, so there is a continuum of life from adult to gamete to zygote to foetus to baby. "Life" doesn't start at 24 weeks. But lots of things are living: bacteria, amoeba, mosquitoes, cabbages. What is living isn't particularly important to the ethical debate.
I think most scientists would shy away from claims as to when consciousness begins. That's a hugely complicated question. There are brain structures associated with consciousness that develop around 24-28 weeks, so that's a possible lower limit for consciousness, but most scientists would couch that with a lot of caveats. But animals have some degree of consciousness and we don't give them many rights, so the ethical debate is more complicated than finding a simple cut-off for consciousness anyway. Because there isn't a simple cut-off for consciousness: it's something that develops over time, through to maybe 18 months post-birth.
The ability to feel pain is... guess what? Complicated. Yes, there are brain structures around 24-28 weeks that may be necessary, although other parts of the system are developed much earlier. We're not quite certain. So, with caveats, maybe we could say the cut-off is around 24 weeks. But, again, animals can feel pain and we don't give them many rights, so the ethical debate is more complicated than finding a simple cut-off for pain.
Science is complicated. Legislation often has to be somewhat simpler and I'm not saying 24 weeks isn't a good cut-off for legislative purposes. I note 90% of abortions are done before 12 weeks. I also note that the demand for post-24 week abortions is very small and tends to involve very difficult and complicated cases.
We use stun guns before we kill animals.
And even them the fact we kill animals for food is no argument for legalising murder
"As some areas experienced weather hotter than Ibiza, a bizarre meteorological record - known as the June 13th Enigma - was broken. June 13 was the only day of summer not to see the mercury rise above 30C - that is until now.
According to data stretching back more than 150 years, it has traditionally been cooler than any other day in summer and temperatures of 30C or above had never previously been recorded."
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
And as almost all scientists agree human life, consciousness as well as ability to feel pain starts from 24 weeks.
Be assured we will fight you secular liberals with such gross disrespect for human life you would abort up to birth every step of the way.
This is not true.
I think most scientists would say that gametes are living cells, so there is a continuum of life from adult to gamete to zygote to foetus to baby. "Life" doesn't start at 24 weeks. But lots of things are living: bacteria, amoeba, mosquitoes, cabbages. What is living isn't particularly important to the ethical debate.
I think most scientists would shy away from claims as to when consciousness begins. That's a hugely complicated question. There are brain structures associated with consciousness that develop around 24-28 weeks, so that's a possible lower limit for consciousness, but most scientists would couch that with a lot of caveats. But animals have some degree of consciousness and we don't give them many rights, so the ethical debate is more complicated than finding a simple cut-off for consciousness anyway. Because there isn't a simple cut-off for consciousness: it's something that develops over time, through to maybe 18 months post-birth.
The ability to feel pain is... guess what? Complicated. Yes, there are brain structures around 24-28 weeks that may be necessary, although other parts of the system are developed much earlier. We're not quite certain. So, with caveats, maybe we could say the cut-off is around 24 weeks. But, again, animals can feel pain and we don't give them many rights, so the ethical debate is more complicated than finding a simple cut-off for pain.
Science is complicated. Legislation often has to be somewhat simpler and I'm not saying 24 weeks isn't a good cut-off for legislative purposes. I note 90% of abortions are done before 12 weeks. I also note that the demand for post-24 week abortions is very small and tends to involve very difficult and complicated cases.
We use stun guns before we kill animals.
And even them the fact we kill animals for food is no argument for legalising murder
I think you find a lot of meat, especially but not just Halal, is not stunned first.
Also every weekend, especially in the summer there will thousands if not more Brits going out fishing intending to kill animals for sport and maybe to eat.
Its not my preferred sport so I'm not particularly an expert on the matter, but I believe using a worm as lure and getting them to jab a hook into their cheek is the preferred method of getting the fish - not stun guns shot into the water which don't sound particularly sporting.
And then you bash the fish on the head with a little hammer.
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
Not all religions believe in a soul.
No, you're quite right. It did cross my mind to throw that caveat in there but honestly I was mostly aiming at the Christian extremism we get from HYUFD types but without it being quite so targeted so as not to be personal. Your correction to my imprecision is welcome.
It is you who are the extremist advocating abortion to birth and baby murder, a position just 1% of the population advocate
I'm putting forward scientific facts that could be used to defend such a view. That's somewhat short of saying where I think the limit should be. In truth I'm not quite sure.
But I've got the backwards way of looking at things. I like to know the facts of the matter and let that guide me to a conclusion. You're the other way around. You've got your black leather book with a gold embossed title on the cover. You've got a mainline from Fox & Fiends straight into your arteries, and by god you are going to find any scraps of facts that back up your view, no matter how much you have to twist them. You're well known for it, and I call you out on it daily.
The trouble is, if you want to make your argument for no abortion, or abortion at this or that limit, you need to take a cold hard look at the facts before you use them. And your "facts" about pain and consciousness are actually pretty unreliable. And we know because you make such a big deal of it that your thinking is guided by metaphysics. But it's a partial and filtered theology that's been brewed into a political ideology. It's ok if you want to do that, but don't twist the facts, please. They feel more pain than a zygote does.
HYUFD's understanding of biology does consistently suggest that he should have received more sex education in school. However, I think HYUFD is right that Bart's position is extreme, in the sense that it does not match what most people think.
Anti-abortionists love talking about late abortion, because it makes their arguments look better. I think a good way to counter religious extremism in this area is to be very clear that the vast majority of abortions are early, and concern tiny clumps of cells that are very obviously not people, not babies.
All I really want is to get some rationality into the debate, meaning we steer clear of untestable stuff like theology, and we really think critically about the claims that are made regarding pain and consciousness. There are too many people willing to subordinate facts to the conclusion they want to come to, so when an anti-abortionist seems some headline in a right-wing outlet along the lines of "babies can suffer pain just 8 weeks after conception" we stop and really think about what that claim means: is it really a baby? Is it really suffering? And claims around "feeling pain" are really, really flimsy when you dig down.
So how about defining consciousness as a starter then?
Absolutely disgraceful behaviour by Labour in the HOL.
My vote for them in 2024 is really going to be one of holding my nose . With Starmers new found Brexit zeal and their ridiculous over the top balancing the books mantra I’m finding it difficult to muster up any enthusiasm.
I want rid of the Tories and that’s it . But really I expected a bit more !
What happened in the HoL?
The Tories broke convention by using secondary legislation to bring back something the HOL had already voted against re protests . Essentially this means they can just ignore future votes against and bring things back in secondary legislation , the Tories are dismantling UK democracy . Labour then pathetically said they refused to support a fatal motion which would have stopped the Tories . Labour said it wasn’t proper to use a fatal motion in the HOL even though the Tories have already trashed convention. Labour really are deluded if they think the Tories would play fair in the future .
They were right to do so given it is the only way to ensure legislation to stop Just Stop Oil blocking public highways across the country and preventing people going to work and going about their lives
I'm amazed there isn't already legislation that can be used to stop people blocking roads.
I would very much like to see the "Right to Life" campaign extending its remit beyond birth, and campaigning to end child poverty, to support young parents with accommodation and to invest in child health, particularly mental health services.
I might then start to listen to them over abortion.
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
Not all religions believe in a soul.
No, you're quite right. It did cross my mind to throw that caveat in there but honestly I was mostly aiming at the Christian extremism we get from HYUFD types but without it being quite so targeted so as not to be personal. Your correction to my imprecision is welcome.
It is you who are the extremist advocating abortion to birth and baby murder, a position just 1% of the population advocate
I'm putting forward scientific facts that could be used to defend such a view. That's somewhat short of saying where I think the limit should be. In truth I'm not quite sure.
But I've got the backwards way of looking at things. I like to know the facts of the matter and let that guide me to a conclusion. You're the other way around. You've got your black leather book with a gold embossed title on the cover. You've got a mainline from Fox & Fiends straight into your arteries, and by god you are going to find any scraps of facts that back up your view, no matter how much you have to twist them. You're well known for it, and I call you out on it daily.
The trouble is, if you want to make your argument for no abortion, or abortion at this or that limit, you need to take a cold hard look at the facts before you use them. And your "facts" about pain and consciousness are actually pretty unreliable. And we know because you make such a big deal of it that your thinking is guided by metaphysics. But it's a partial and filtered theology that's been brewed into a political ideology. It's ok if you want to do that, but don't twist the facts, please. They feel more pain than a zygote does.
HYUFD's understanding of biology does consistently suggest that he should have received more sex education in school. However, I think HYUFD is right that Bart's position is extreme, in the sense that it does not match what most people think.
Anti-abortionists love talking about late abortion, because it makes their arguments look better. I think a good way to counter religious extremism in this area is to be very clear that the vast majority of abortions are early, and concern tiny clumps of cells that are very obviously not people, not babies.
All I really want is to get some rationality into the debate, meaning we steer clear of untestable stuff like theology, and we really think critically about the claims that are made regarding pain and consciousness. There are too many people willing to subordinate facts to the conclusion they want to come to, so when an anti-abortionist seems some headline in a right-wing outlet along the lines of "babies can suffer pain just 8 weeks after conception" we stop and really think about what that claim means: is it really a baby? Is it really suffering? And claims around "feeling pain" are really, really flimsy when you dig down.
So how about defining consciousness as a starter then?
Can I get a portion of dim sums, some spring rolls and a consciousness with sweet and sour sauce?
I would very much like to see the "Right to Life" campaign extending its remit beyond birth, and campaigning to end child poverty, to support young parents with accommodation and to invest in child health, particularly mental health services.
I might then start to listen to them over abortion.
It's strange that the group that cares so much about life before birth, seems to care so little for it afterwards.
I would very much like to see the "Right to Life" campaign extending its remit beyond birth, and campaigning to end child poverty, to support young parents with accommodation and to invest in child health, particularly mental health services.
I might then start to listen to them over abortion.
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
Not all religions believe in a soul.
No, you're quite right. It did cross my mind to throw that caveat in there but honestly I was mostly aiming at the Christian extremism we get from HYUFD types but without it being quite so targeted so as not to be personal. Your correction to my imprecision is welcome.
It is you who are the extremist advocating abortion to birth and baby murder, a position just 1% of the population advocate
I'm putting forward scientific facts that could be used to defend such a view. That's somewhat short of saying where I think the limit should be. In truth I'm not quite sure.
But I've got the backwards way of looking at things. I like to know the facts of the matter and let that guide me to a conclusion. You're the other way around. You've got your black leather book with a gold embossed title on the cover. You've got a mainline from Fox & Fiends straight into your arteries, and by god you are going to find any scraps of facts that back up your view, no matter how much you have to twist them. You're well known for it, and I call you out on it daily.
The trouble is, if you want to make your argument for no abortion, or abortion at this or that limit, you need to take a cold hard look at the facts before you use them. And your "facts" about pain and consciousness are actually pretty unreliable. And we know because you make such a big deal of it that your thinking is guided by metaphysics. But it's a partial and filtered theology that's been brewed into a political ideology. It's ok if you want to do that, but don't twist the facts, please. They feel more pain than a zygote does.
HYUFD's understanding of biology does consistently suggest that he should have received more sex education in school. However, I think HYUFD is right that Bart's position is extreme, in the sense that it does not match what most people think.
Anti-abortionists love talking about late abortion, because it makes their arguments look better. I think a good way to counter religious extremism in this area is to be very clear that the vast majority of abortions are early, and concern tiny clumps of cells that are very obviously not people, not babies.
All I really want is to get some rationality into the debate, meaning we steer clear of untestable stuff like theology, and we really think critically about the claims that are made regarding pain and consciousness. There are too many people willing to subordinate facts to the conclusion they want to come to, so when an anti-abortionist seems some headline in a right-wing outlet along the lines of "babies can suffer pain just 8 weeks after conception" we stop and really think about what that claim means: is it really a baby? Is it really suffering? And claims around "feeling pain" are really, really flimsy when you dig down.
So how about defining consciousness as a starter then?
Difficult question! "Awareness of surroundings and self" is what I want to say here, but I feel like I'm partially pushing the question onto the word "awareness". I can limit that word to some extent and say that awareness is much more then just exhibiting response to stimulus, but I'm not sure I can get it more precise than that right now.
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
And as almost all scientists agree human life, consciousness as well as ability to feel pain starts from 24 weeks.
Be assured we will fight you secular liberals with such gross disrespect for human life you would abort up to birth every step of the way.
Subcortical responses to stimuli are not enough to demonstrate suffering.
A foetus isn't conscious. By 28 weeks it has the physical structure that could give rise to consiousness, but that doesn't mean it is. It simply isn't conscious.
They aren't enough to demonstrate suffering for your ideological, ultra liberal agenda.
For you wish to advocate baby murder so there can be abortion on demand until birth
"baby murder" is an emotive attack, but worse than that, it begs the question. You want to call a foetus a baby because it answers the question about whether it's wrong to terminate it.
Since it's always impossible to get agreement on when something should be called a "baby", let me ask you this instead: when does a foetus stop being a foetus?
No it is precisely what you advocate. Baby murder. Certainly by the time of the 27th week the foetus has already got most of the characteristics and size of a baby ready for birth
So at 27 weeks it's still a foetus?
No it has most of the characteristics of a baby and abortion at that point is murder
Except it’s not.
Except it is
Show me that statute.
Fetal personhood does not exist in English law; just your mind.
It does effectively by the 24 week rule, after which abortion becomes murder
I would very much like to see the "Right to Life" campaign extending its remit beyond birth, and campaigning to end child poverty, to support young parents with accommodation and to invest in child health, particularly mental health services.
I might then start to listen to them over abortion.
It's strange that the group that cares so much about life before birth, seems to care so little for it afterwards.
How do you know? There are even traditional Labour supporting Roman Catholics who support the high spending you advocate who are anti abortion. Indeed Liverpool, one of the most Labour voting areas of the UK is also one of the most Roman Catholic and anti abortion areas of the UK. Right to Life is a pressure group to end abortion, it does not take a position on economic issues
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
Not all religions believe in a soul.
No, you're quite right. It did cross my mind to throw that caveat in there but honestly I was mostly aiming at the Christian extremism we get from HYUFD types but without it being quite so targeted so as not to be personal. Your correction to my imprecision is welcome.
It is you who are the extremist advocating abortion to birth and baby murder, a position just 1% of the population advocate
I'm putting forward scientific facts that could be used to defend such a view. That's somewhat short of saying where I think the limit should be. In truth I'm not quite sure.
But I've got the backwards way of looking at things. I like to know the facts of the matter and let that guide me to a conclusion. You're the other way around. You've got your black leather book with a gold embossed title on the cover. You've got a mainline from Fox & Fiends straight into your arteries, and by god you are going to find any scraps of facts that back up your view, no matter how much you have to twist them. You're well known for it, and I call you out on it daily.
The trouble is, if you want to make your argument for no abortion, or abortion at this or that limit, you need to take a cold hard look at the facts before you use them. And your "facts" about pain and consciousness are actually pretty unreliable. And we know because you make such a big deal of it that your thinking is guided by metaphysics. But it's a partial and filtered theology that's been brewed into a political ideology. It's ok if you want to do that, but don't twist the facts, please. They feel more pain than a zygote does.
HYUFD's understanding of biology does consistently suggest that he should have received more sex education in school. However, I think HYUFD is right that Bart's position is extreme, in the sense that it does not match what most people think.
Anti-abortionists love talking about late abortion, because it makes their arguments look better. I think a good way to counter religious extremism in this area is to be very clear that the vast majority of abortions are early, and concern tiny clumps of cells that are very obviously not people, not babies.
All I really want is to get some rationality into the debate, meaning we steer clear of untestable stuff like theology, and we really think critically about the claims that are made regarding pain and consciousness. There are too many people willing to subordinate facts to the conclusion they want to come to, so when an anti-abortionist seems some headline in a right-wing outlet along the lines of "babies can suffer pain just 8 weeks after conception" we stop and really think about what that claim means: is it really a baby? Is it really suffering? And claims around "feeling pain" are really, really flimsy when you dig down.
So how about defining consciousness as a starter then?
Difficult question! "Awareness of surroundings and self" is what I want to say here, but I feel like I'm partially pushing the question onto the word "awareness". I can limit that word to some extent and say that awareness is much more then just exhibiting response to stimulus, but I'm not sure I can get it more precise than that right now.
So. When you are sleeping? Or dreaming? Or under anesthesia? Is someone under a psychotic delusion conscious? Or not? Or under the influence of mushrooms or LSD?
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
And as almost all scientists agree human life, consciousness as well as ability to feel pain starts from 24 weeks.
Be assured we will fight you secular liberals with such gross disrespect for human life you would abort up to birth every step of the way.
Subcortical responses to stimuli are not enough to demonstrate suffering.
A foetus isn't conscious. By 28 weeks it has the physical structure that could give rise to consiousness, but that doesn't mean it is. It simply isn't conscious.
They aren't enough to demonstrate suffering for your ideological, ultra liberal agenda.
For you wish to advocate baby murder so there can be abortion on demand until birth
"baby murder" is an emotive attack, but worse than that, it begs the question. You want to call a foetus a baby because it answers the question about whether it's wrong to terminate it.
Since it's always impossible to get agreement on when something should be called a "baby", let me ask you this instead: when does a foetus stop being a foetus?
No it is precisely what you advocate. Baby murder. Certainly by the time of the 27th week the foetus has already got most of the characteristics and size of a baby ready for birth
So at 27 weeks it's still a foetus?
No it has most of the characteristics of a baby and abortion at that point is murder
Except it’s not.
Except it is
Show me that statute.
Fetal personhood does not exist in English law; just your mind.
It does effectively by the 24 week rule, after which abortion becomes murder
No, it doesn’t. Not does it exist in your favoured guide to morality - see for example Exodus 21:22-25
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
Not all religions believe in a soul.
No, you're quite right. It did cross my mind to throw that caveat in there but honestly I was mostly aiming at the Christian extremism we get from HYUFD types but without it being quite so targeted so as not to be personal. Your correction to my imprecision is welcome.
It is you who are the extremist advocating abortion to birth and baby murder, a position just 1% of the population advocate
I'm putting forward scientific facts that could be used to defend such a view. That's somewhat short of saying where I think the limit should be. In truth I'm not quite sure.
But I've got the backwards way of looking at things. I like to know the facts of the matter and let that guide me to a conclusion. You're the other way around. You've got your black leather book with a gold embossed title on the cover. You've got a mainline from Fox & Fiends straight into your arteries, and by god you are going to find any scraps of facts that back up your view, no matter how much you have to twist them. You're well known for it, and I call you out on it daily.
The trouble is, if you want to make your argument for no abortion, or abortion at this or that limit, you need to take a cold hard look at the facts before you use them. And your "facts" about pain and consciousness are actually pretty unreliable. And we know because you make such a big deal of it that your thinking is guided by metaphysics. But it's a partial and filtered theology that's been brewed into a political ideology. It's ok if you want to do that, but don't twist the facts, please. They feel more pain than a zygote does.
HYUFD's understanding of biology does consistently suggest that he should have received more sex education in school. However, I think HYUFD is right that Bart's position is extreme, in the sense that it does not match what most people think.
Anti-abortionists love talking about late abortion, because it makes their arguments look better. I think a good way to counter religious extremism in this area is to be very clear that the vast majority of abortions are early, and concern tiny clumps of cells that are very obviously not people, not babies.
All I really want is to get some rationality into the debate, meaning we steer clear of untestable stuff like theology, and we really think critically about the claims that are made regarding pain and consciousness. There are too many people willing to subordinate facts to the conclusion they want to come to, so when an anti-abortionist seems some headline in a right-wing outlet along the lines of "babies can suffer pain just 8 weeks after conception" we stop and really think about what that claim means: is it really a baby? Is it really suffering? And claims around "feeling pain" are really, really flimsy when you dig down.
So how about defining consciousness as a starter then?
Difficult question! "Awareness of surroundings and self" is what I want to say here, but I feel like I'm partially pushing the question onto the word "awareness". I can limit that word to some extent and say that awareness is much more then just exhibiting response to stimulus, but I'm not sure I can get it more precise than that right now.
I would very much like to see the "Right to Life" campaign extending its remit beyond birth, and campaigning to end child poverty, to support young parents with accommodation and to invest in child health, particularly mental health services.
I might then start to listen to them over abortion.
I don't think anyone has argued for "Right to Life" - the debate has been about late-term abortions and whether they should remain outlawed.
I am very pro-choice and think the current 24 weeks strikes the balance about right.
I'm also very much in favour of all the other topics you mention.
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
Not all religions believe in a soul.
No, you're quite right. It did cross my mind to throw that caveat in there but honestly I was mostly aiming at the Christian extremism we get from HYUFD types but without it being quite so targeted so as not to be personal. Your correction to my imprecision is welcome.
It is you who are the extremist advocating abortion to birth and baby murder, a position just 1% of the population advocate
I'm putting forward scientific facts that could be used to defend such a view. That's somewhat short of saying where I think the limit should be. In truth I'm not quite sure.
But I've got the backwards way of looking at things. I like to know the facts of the matter and let that guide me to a conclusion. You're the other way around. You've got your black leather book with a gold embossed title on the cover. You've got a mainline from Fox & Fiends straight into your arteries, and by god you are going to find any scraps of facts that back up your view, no matter how much you have to twist them. You're well known for it, and I call you out on it daily.
The trouble is, if you want to make your argument for no abortion, or abortion at this or that limit, you need to take a cold hard look at the facts before you use them. And your "facts" about pain and consciousness are actually pretty unreliable. And we know because you make such a big deal of it that your thinking is guided by metaphysics. But it's a partial and filtered theology that's been brewed into a political ideology. It's ok if you want to do that, but don't twist the facts, please. They feel more pain than a zygote does.
HYUFD's understanding of biology does consistently suggest that he should have received more sex education in school. However, I think HYUFD is right that Bart's position is extreme, in the sense that it does not match what most people think.
Anti-abortionists love talking about late abortion, because it makes their arguments look better. I think a good way to counter religious extremism in this area is to be very clear that the vast majority of abortions are early, and concern tiny clumps of cells that are very obviously not people, not babies.
All I really want is to get some rationality into the debate, meaning we steer clear of untestable stuff like theology, and we really think critically about the claims that are made regarding pain and consciousness. There are too many people willing to subordinate facts to the conclusion they want to come to, so when an anti-abortionist seems some headline in a right-wing outlet along the lines of "babies can suffer pain just 8 weeks after conception" we stop and really think about what that claim means: is it really a baby? Is it really suffering? And claims around "feeling pain" are really, really flimsy when you dig down.
So how about defining consciousness as a starter then?
Difficult question! "Awareness of surroundings and self" is what I want to say here, but I feel like I'm partially pushing the question onto the word "awareness". I can limit that word to some extent and say that awareness is much more then just exhibiting response to stimulus, but I'm not sure I can get it more precise than that right now.
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
Not all religions believe in a soul.
No, you're quite right. It did cross my mind to throw that caveat in there but honestly I was mostly aiming at the Christian extremism we get from HYUFD types but without it being quite so targeted so as not to be personal. Your correction to my imprecision is welcome.
It is you who are the extremist advocating abortion to birth and baby murder, a position just 1% of the population advocate
I'm putting forward scientific facts that could be used to defend such a view. That's somewhat short of saying where I think the limit should be. In truth I'm not quite sure.
But I've got the backwards way of looking at things. I like to know the facts of the matter and let that guide me to a conclusion. You're the other way around. You've got your black leather book with a gold embossed title on the cover. You've got a mainline from Fox & Fiends straight into your arteries, and by god you are going to find any scraps of facts that back up your view, no matter how much you have to twist them. You're well known for it, and I call you out on it daily.
The trouble is, if you want to make your argument for no abortion, or abortion at this or that limit, you need to take a cold hard look at the facts before you use them. And your "facts" about pain and consciousness are actually pretty unreliable. And we know because you make such a big deal of it that your thinking is guided by metaphysics. But it's a partial and filtered theology that's been brewed into a political ideology. It's ok if you want to do that, but don't twist the facts, please. They feel more pain than a zygote does.
HYUFD's understanding of biology does consistently suggest that he should have received more sex education in school. However, I think HYUFD is right that Bart's position is extreme, in the sense that it does not match what most people think.
Anti-abortionists love talking about late abortion, because it makes their arguments look better. I think a good way to counter religious extremism in this area is to be very clear that the vast majority of abortions are early, and concern tiny clumps of cells that are very obviously not people, not babies.
All I really want is to get some rationality into the debate, meaning we steer clear of untestable stuff like theology, and we really think critically about the claims that are made regarding pain and consciousness. There are too many people willing to subordinate facts to the conclusion they want to come to, so when an anti-abortionist seems some headline in a right-wing outlet along the lines of "babies can suffer pain just 8 weeks after conception" we stop and really think about what that claim means: is it really a baby? Is it really suffering? And claims around "feeling pain" are really, really flimsy when you dig down.
So how about defining consciousness as a starter then?
Difficult question! "Awareness of surroundings and self" is what I want to say here, but I feel like I'm partially pushing the question onto the word "awareness". I can limit that word to some extent and say that awareness is much more then just exhibiting response to stimulus, but I'm not sure I can get it more precise than that right now.
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
Not all religions believe in a soul.
No, you're quite right. It did cross my mind to throw that caveat in there but honestly I was mostly aiming at the Christian extremism we get from HYUFD types but without it being quite so targeted so as not to be personal. Your correction to my imprecision is welcome.
It is you who are the extremist advocating abortion to birth and baby murder, a position just 1% of the population advocate
I'm putting forward scientific facts that could be used to defend such a view. That's somewhat short of saying where I think the limit should be. In truth I'm not quite sure.
But I've got the backwards way of looking at things. I like to know the facts of the matter and let that guide me to a conclusion. You're the other way around. You've got your black leather book with a gold embossed title on the cover. You've got a mainline from Fox & Fiends straight into your arteries, and by god you are going to find any scraps of facts that back up your view, no matter how much you have to twist them. You're well known for it, and I call you out on it daily.
The trouble is, if you want to make your argument for no abortion, or abortion at this or that limit, you need to take a cold hard look at the facts before you use them. And your "facts" about pain and consciousness are actually pretty unreliable. And we know because you make such a big deal of it that your thinking is guided by metaphysics. But it's a partial and filtered theology that's been brewed into a political ideology. It's ok if you want to do that, but don't twist the facts, please. They feel more pain than a zygote does.
HYUFD's understanding of biology does consistently suggest that he should have received more sex education in school. However, I think HYUFD is right that Bart's position is extreme, in the sense that it does not match what most people think.
Anti-abortionists love talking about late abortion, because it makes their arguments look better. I think a good way to counter religious extremism in this area is to be very clear that the vast majority of abortions are early, and concern tiny clumps of cells that are very obviously not people, not babies.
All I really want is to get some rationality into the debate, meaning we steer clear of untestable stuff like theology, and we really think critically about the claims that are made regarding pain and consciousness. There are too many people willing to subordinate facts to the conclusion they want to come to, so when an anti-abortionist seems some headline in a right-wing outlet along the lines of "babies can suffer pain just 8 weeks after conception" we stop and really think about what that claim means: is it really a baby? Is it really suffering? And claims around "feeling pain" are really, really flimsy when you dig down.
So how about defining consciousness as a starter then?
Difficult question! "Awareness of surroundings and self" is what I want to say here, but I feel like I'm partially pushing the question onto the word "awareness". I can limit that word to some extent and say that awareness is much more then just exhibiting response to stimulus, but I'm not sure I can get it more precise than that right now.
I hate to repeat myself with this, but the media are potentially missing quite a lot here. Not only has the current US Inspector-General issued no denial of describing David Grusch's extraordinary claims as "credible and urgent", and also taking evidence from him and others for two years, but the person who has agreed to be Grusch's lawyer is the *previous Inspector-General*.
"David Grusch's testimony, guided by his seasoned lawyer, could serve as a pivotal turning point. At the forefront of this effort is Charles McCullough III, a figure with an esteemed background in federal law enforcement and intelligence.
McCullough, appointed as the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community (ICIG) by then-President Barack Obama, served from 2011 to 2017. His tenure was marked by handling high-stakes issues demanding utmost discretion and integrity. What sets McCullough apart is his significant experience with the FBI. This experience has equipped him with the unique ability to navigate the complex maze of government secrecy, making him an ideal advocate in the pursuit of UFO transparency. 11:10 PM · Jun 13, 2023
"As some areas experienced weather hotter than Ibiza, a bizarre meteorological record - known as the June 13th Enigma - was broken. June 13 was the only day of summer not to see the mercury rise above 30C - that is until now.
According to data stretching back more than 150 years, it has traditionally been cooler than any other day in summer and temperatures of 30C or above had never previously been recorded."
I would very much like to see the "Right to Life" campaign extending its remit beyond birth, and campaigning to end child poverty, to support young parents with accommodation and to invest in child health, particularly mental health services.
I might then start to listen to them over abortion.
It's strange that the group that cares so much about life before birth, seems to care so little for it afterwards.
How do you know? There are even traditional Labour supporting Roman Catholics who support the high spending you advocate who are anti abortion. Indeed Liverpool, one of the most Labour voting areas of the UK is also one of the most Roman Catholic and anti abortion areas of the UK. Right to Life is a pressure group to end abortion, it does not take a position on economic issues
I'm talking about the US, where there is an almost perfect correlation between abortion bans and lack of resources for low income families.
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
And as almost all scientists agree human life, consciousness as well as ability to feel pain starts from 24 weeks.
Be assured we will fight you secular liberals with such gross disrespect for human life you would abort up to birth every step of the way.
Subcortical responses to stimuli are not enough to demonstrate suffering.
A foetus isn't conscious. By 28 weeks it has the physical structure that could give rise to consiousness, but that doesn't mean it is. It simply isn't conscious.
They aren't enough to demonstrate suffering for your ideological, ultra liberal agenda.
For you wish to advocate baby murder so there can be abortion on demand until birth
"baby murder" is an emotive attack, but worse than that, it begs the question. You want to call a foetus a baby because it answers the question about whether it's wrong to terminate it.
Since it's always impossible to get agreement on when something should be called a "baby", let me ask you this instead: when does a foetus stop being a foetus?
No it is precisely what you advocate. Baby murder. Certainly by the time of the 27th week the foetus has already got most of the characteristics and size of a baby ready for birth
So at 27 weeks it's still a foetus?
No it has most of the characteristics of a baby and abortion at that point is murder
Except it’s not.
Except it is
Show me that statute.
Fetal personhood does not exist in English law; just your mind.
It does effectively by the 24 week rule, after which abortion becomes murder
No, it doesn’t. Not does it exist in your favoured guide to morality - see for example Exodus 21:22-25
Yes it does.
Taking life for life in Exodus if a pregnant woman is injured if anything only reinforces the point
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
Not all religions believe in a soul.
No, you're quite right. It did cross my mind to throw that caveat in there but honestly I was mostly aiming at the Christian extremism we get from HYUFD types but without it being quite so targeted so as not to be personal. Your correction to my imprecision is welcome.
It is you who are the extremist advocating abortion to birth and baby murder, a position just 1% of the population advocate
I'm putting forward scientific facts that could be used to defend such a view. That's somewhat short of saying where I think the limit should be. In truth I'm not quite sure.
But I've got the backwards way of looking at things. I like to know the facts of the matter and let that guide me to a conclusion. You're the other way around. You've got your black leather book with a gold embossed title on the cover. You've got a mainline from Fox & Fiends straight into your arteries, and by god you are going to find any scraps of facts that back up your view, no matter how much you have to twist them. You're well known for it, and I call you out on it daily.
The trouble is, if you want to make your argument for no abortion, or abortion at this or that limit, you need to take a cold hard look at the facts before you use them. And your "facts" about pain and consciousness are actually pretty unreliable. And we know because you make such a big deal of it that your thinking is guided by metaphysics. But it's a partial and filtered theology that's been brewed into a political ideology. It's ok if you want to do that, but don't twist the facts, please. They feel more pain than a zygote does.
HYUFD's understanding of biology does consistently suggest that he should have received more sex education in school. However, I think HYUFD is right that Bart's position is extreme, in the sense that it does not match what most people think.
Anti-abortionists love talking about late abortion, because it makes their arguments look better. I think a good way to counter religious extremism in this area is to be very clear that the vast majority of abortions are early, and concern tiny clumps of cells that are very obviously not people, not babies.
All I really want is to get some rationality into the debate, meaning we steer clear of untestable stuff like theology, and we really think critically about the claims that are made regarding pain and consciousness. There are too many people willing to subordinate facts to the conclusion they want to come to, so when an anti-abortionist seems some headline in a right-wing outlet along the lines of "babies can suffer pain just 8 weeks after conception" we stop and really think about what that claim means: is it really a baby? Is it really suffering? And claims around "feeling pain" are really, really flimsy when you dig down.
So how about defining consciousness as a starter then?
Difficult question! "Awareness of surroundings and self" is what I want to say here, but I feel like I'm partially pushing the question onto the word "awareness". I can limit that word to some extent and say that awareness is much more then just exhibiting response to stimulus, but I'm not sure I can get it more precise than that right now.
So. When you are sleeping?
Not conscious.
So. You can be terminated then?
Of course not. An important difference is that you had a yesterday as well as a tomorrow. Ending a conscious being's life is qualitatively different to stopping something that has never been conscious from coming into existence. A prophylactic does the latter, or a decision pull out before ejaculation, or even to not have sex. Stopping a thing that could become conscious is not the same as killing someone that has just nodded off on the bus, come on.
I'm trying to argue against lumping disparate things into the same category here. Foetuses and babies are different. Sleepers are also not foetuses, and your attempted gotcha there demeans you.
I would very much like to see the "Right to Life" campaign extending its remit beyond birth, and campaigning to end child poverty, to support young parents with accommodation and to invest in child health, particularly mental health services.
I might then start to listen to them over abortion.
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
Well said.
To me the whole "24 weeks" cut-off is arbitrary and absurd. A bit like Sunday trading laws. A silly, messy compromise that doesn't really satisfy anyone but most people are content to live with because they'd rather not rock the boat and compromise just sounds reasonable.
To me logically birth is the inflection point as you say, so while I would find the idea of a 32 week abortion to be utterly horrible, I wouldn't make it illegal. Horrible things should not be unlawful. At approximately 37 weeks I believe the NHS could perhaps offer induction as an alternative, so that seems a reasonable cut-off, terminate the pregnancy but with a live-birth at that stage, but 24 is just a messy compromise. They're never going to voluntarily induce then.
I actually have more intellectual respect for people who want the practice outlawed altogether, than for the 24 week cut-off. At least they're intellectually consistent. I don't agree with them, but I can see where they're coming from much better.
The logic behind 24 weeks is that is the approximate age of viability.
At that point the child can live independently of the mother.
It seems a reasonable cut off point to say “at this point the child has rights as an independent human being”
There is nothing magical about passage through the birth canal that imbues any mystic rights
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
Not all religions believe in a soul.
No, you're quite right. It did cross my mind to throw that caveat in there but honestly I was mostly aiming at the Christian extremism we get from HYUFD types but without it being quite so targeted so as not to be personal. Your correction to my imprecision is welcome.
It is you who are the extremist advocating abortion to birth and baby murder, a position just 1% of the population advocate
I'm putting forward scientific facts that could be used to defend such a view. That's somewhat short of saying where I think the limit should be. In truth I'm not quite sure.
But I've got the backwards way of looking at things. I like to know the facts of the matter and let that guide me to a conclusion. You're the other way around. You've got your black leather book with a gold embossed title on the cover. You've got a mainline from Fox & Fiends straight into your arteries, and by god you are going to find any scraps of facts that back up your view, no matter how much you have to twist them. You're well known for it, and I call you out on it daily.
The trouble is, if you want to make your argument for no abortion, or abortion at this or that limit, you need to take a cold hard look at the facts before you use them. And your "facts" about pain and consciousness are actually pretty unreliable. And we know because you make such a big deal of it that your thinking is guided by metaphysics. But it's a partial and filtered theology that's been brewed into a political ideology. It's ok if you want to do that, but don't twist the facts, please. They feel more pain than a zygote does.
HYUFD's understanding of biology does consistently suggest that he should have received more sex education in school. However, I think HYUFD is right that Bart's position is extreme, in the sense that it does not match what most people think.
Anti-abortionists love talking about late abortion, because it makes their arguments look better. I think a good way to counter religious extremism in this area is to be very clear that the vast majority of abortions are early, and concern tiny clumps of cells that are very obviously not people, not babies.
All I really want is to get some rationality into the debate, meaning we steer clear of untestable stuff like theology, and we really think critically about the claims that are made regarding pain and consciousness. There are too many people willing to subordinate facts to the conclusion they want to come to, so when an anti-abortionist seems some headline in a right-wing outlet along the lines of "babies can suffer pain just 8 weeks after conception" we stop and really think about what that claim means: is it really a baby? Is it really suffering? And claims around "feeling pain" are really, really flimsy when you dig down.
So how about defining consciousness as a starter then?
Difficult question! "Awareness of surroundings and self" is what I want to say here, but I feel like I'm partially pushing the question onto the word "awareness". I can limit that word to some extent and say that awareness is much more then just exhibiting response to stimulus, but I'm not sure I can get it more precise than that right now.
I would very much like to see the "Right to Life" campaign extending its remit beyond birth, and campaigning to end child poverty, to support young parents with accommodation and to invest in child health, particularly mental health services.
I might then start to listen to them over abortion.
It's strange that the group that cares so much about life before birth, seems to care so little for it afterwards.
How do you know? There are even traditional Labour supporting Roman Catholics who support the high spending you advocate who are anti abortion. Indeed Liverpool, one of the most Labour voting areas of the UK is also one of the most Roman Catholic and anti abortion areas of the UK. Right to Life is a pressure group to end abortion, it does not take a position on economic issues
I'm talking about the US, where there is an almost perfect correlation between abortion bans and lack of resources for low income families.
US Roman Catholics tend to mostly vote Democrat and the Roman Catholic church is strongly anti abortion, Protestant evangelical churches are usually pro Republican and small state economically as well as anti abortion and anti gay marriage and not keen on LGBT.
The Roman Catholic church has generally been much more pro big state tax and spend economics even if equally anti abortion and gay marriage
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
And as almost all scientists agree human life, consciousness as well as ability to feel pain starts from 24 weeks.
Be assured we will fight you secular liberals with such gross disrespect for human life you would abort up to birth every step of the way.
Subcortical responses to stimuli are not enough to demonstrate suffering.
A foetus isn't conscious. By 28 weeks it has the physical structure that could give rise to consiousness, but that doesn't mean it is. It simply isn't conscious.
They aren't enough to demonstrate suffering for your ideological, ultra liberal agenda.
For you wish to advocate baby murder so there can be abortion on demand until birth
"baby murder" is an emotive attack, but worse than that, it begs the question. You want to call a foetus a baby because it answers the question about whether it's wrong to terminate it.
Since it's always impossible to get agreement on when something should be called a "baby", let me ask you this instead: when does a foetus stop being a foetus?
No it is precisely what you advocate. Baby murder. Certainly by the time of the 27th week the foetus has already got most of the characteristics and size of a baby ready for birth
So at 27 weeks it's still a foetus?
No it has most of the characteristics of a baby and abortion at that point is murder
Except it’s not.
Except it is
Show me that statute.
Fetal personhood does not exist in English law; just your mind.
It does effectively by the 24 week rule, after which abortion becomes murder
No, it doesn’t. Not does it exist in your favoured guide to morality - see for example Exodus 21:22-25
Yes it does.
Taking life for life in Exodus if a pregnant woman is injured if anything only reinforces the point
Doctrinaire and ignorant. Not an unusual combination.
The biblical law draws a clear distinction between the life of a mother, or any other person - 'a life for a life' - and that of a foetus, which may be compensated by a cash payment.
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
Not all religions believe in a soul.
No, you're quite right. It did cross my mind to throw that caveat in there but honestly I was mostly aiming at the Christian extremism we get from HYUFD types but without it being quite so targeted so as not to be personal. Your correction to my imprecision is welcome.
It is you who are the extremist advocating abortion to birth and baby murder, a position just 1% of the population advocate
I'm putting forward scientific facts that could be used to defend such a view. That's somewhat short of saying where I think the limit should be. In truth I'm not quite sure.
But I've got the backwards way of looking at things. I like to know the facts of the matter and let that guide me to a conclusion. You're the other way around. You've got your black leather book with a gold embossed title on the cover. You've got a mainline from Fox & Fiends straight into your arteries, and by god you are going to find any scraps of facts that back up your view, no matter how much you have to twist them. You're well known for it, and I call you out on it daily.
The trouble is, if you want to make your argument for no abortion, or abortion at this or that limit, you need to take a cold hard look at the facts before you use them. And your "facts" about pain and consciousness are actually pretty unreliable. And we know because you make such a big deal of it that your thinking is guided by metaphysics. But it's a partial and filtered theology that's been brewed into a political ideology. It's ok if you want to do that, but don't twist the facts, please. They feel more pain than a zygote does.
HYUFD's understanding of biology does consistently suggest that he should have received more sex education in school. However, I think HYUFD is right that Bart's position is extreme, in the sense that it does not match what most people think.
Anti-abortionists love talking about late abortion, because it makes their arguments look better. I think a good way to counter religious extremism in this area is to be very clear that the vast majority of abortions are early, and concern tiny clumps of cells that are very obviously not people, not babies.
All I really want is to get some rationality into the debate, meaning we steer clear of untestable stuff like theology, and we really think critically about the claims that are made regarding pain and consciousness. There are too many people willing to subordinate facts to the conclusion they want to come to, so when an anti-abortionist seems some headline in a right-wing outlet along the lines of "babies can suffer pain just 8 weeks after conception" we stop and really think about what that claim means: is it really a baby? Is it really suffering? And claims around "feeling pain" are really, really flimsy when you dig down.
So how about defining consciousness as a starter then?
Difficult question! "Awareness of surroundings and self" is what I want to say here, but I feel like I'm partially pushing the question onto the word "awareness". I can limit that word to some extent and say that awareness is much more then just exhibiting response to stimulus, but I'm not sure I can get it more precise than that right now.
So. When you are sleeping?
Not conscious.
So. You can be terminated then?
Of course not. An important difference is that you had a yesterday as well as a tomorrow. Ending a conscious being's life is qualitatively different to stopping something that has never been conscious from coming into existence. A prophylactic does the latter, or a decision pull out before ejaculation, or even to not have sex. Stopping a thing that could become conscious is not the same as killing someone that has just nodded off on the bus, come on.
I'm trying to argue against lumping disparate things into the same category here. Foetuses and babies are different. Sleepers are also not foetuses, and your attempted gotcha there demeans you.
No. I'm not trying to catch you out. I'm trying to get everyone to be a little more careful about the terms they use to support their arguments. And sharpen their thinking. You have engaged in the exercise. Much credit. Others aren't willing to define terms.
I would very much like to see the "Right to Life" campaign extending its remit beyond birth, and campaigning to end child poverty, to support young parents with accommodation and to invest in child health, particularly mental health services.
I might then start to listen to them over abortion.
It's strange that the group that cares so much about life before birth, seems to care so little for it afterwards.
How do you know? There are even traditional Labour supporting Roman Catholics who support the high spending you advocate who are anti abortion. Indeed Liverpool, one of the most Labour voting areas of the UK is also one of the most Roman Catholic and anti abortion areas of the UK. Right to Life is a pressure group to end abortion, it does not take a position on economic issues
I'm talking about the US, where there is an almost perfect correlation between abortion bans and lack of resources for low income families.
PJ O'Rourke noticed that there was no overlap, in the US, between those advocating capital punishment and those advocating abortion.
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
Well said.
To me the whole "24 weeks" cut-off is arbitrary and absurd. A bit like Sunday trading laws. A silly, messy compromise that doesn't really satisfy anyone but most people are content to live with because they'd rather not rock the boat and compromise just sounds reasonable.
To me logically birth is the inflection point as you say, so while I would find the idea of a 32 week abortion to be utterly horrible, I wouldn't make it illegal. Horrible things should not be unlawful. At approximately 37 weeks I believe the NHS could perhaps offer induction as an alternative, so that seems a reasonable cut-off, terminate the pregnancy but with a live-birth at that stage, but 24 is just a messy compromise. They're never going to voluntarily induce then.
I actually have more intellectual respect for people who want the practice outlawed altogether, than for the 24 week cut-off. At least they're intellectually consistent. I don't agree with them, but I can see where they're coming from much better.
The logic behind 24 weeks is that is the approximate age of viability.
At that point the child can live independently of the mother.
It seems a reasonable cut off point to say “at this point the child has rights as an independent human being”
There is nothing magical about passage through the birth canal that imbues any mystic rights
How do you mean "independently"? Newborn babies aren't independent. Probably even a fit and healthy 30 year old person isn't independent, not truly.
You could envisage a situation where a zygote can be extracted from the Fallopian tube of a woman shortly after conception and then grown in a machine, or implanted into another woman. So does that mean it's a child that has rights as an independent human? It doesn't seem so different that a newborn, still entirely dependent on others for its survival, being given up by its biological parents and nurtured by someone or something else.
All cut off points are somewhat arbitrary. The "24 weeks" is one that has common currency, and not for insignificant reasons, but it's really an even less magical and mystical moment than passage through the birth canal (or surgical opening!)
"Viability" is not really as obvious as it first seems.
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
Not all religions believe in a soul.
No, you're quite right. It did cross my mind to throw that caveat in there but honestly I was mostly aiming at the Christian extremism we get from HYUFD types but without it being quite so targeted so as not to be personal. Your correction to my imprecision is welcome.
It is you who are the extremist advocating abortion to birth and baby murder, a position just 1% of the population advocate
I'm putting forward scientific facts that could be used to defend such a view. That's somewhat short of saying where I think the limit should be. In truth I'm not quite sure.
But I've got the backwards way of looking at things. I like to know the facts of the matter and let that guide me to a conclusion. You're the other way around. You've got your black leather book with a gold embossed title on the cover. You've got a mainline from Fox & Fiends straight into your arteries, and by god you are going to find any scraps of facts that back up your view, no matter how much you have to twist them. You're well known for it, and I call you out on it daily.
The trouble is, if you want to make your argument for no abortion, or abortion at this or that limit, you need to take a cold hard look at the facts before you use them. And your "facts" about pain and consciousness are actually pretty unreliable. And we know because you make such a big deal of it that your thinking is guided by metaphysics. But it's a partial and filtered theology that's been brewed into a political ideology. It's ok if you want to do that, but don't twist the facts, please. They feel more pain than a zygote does.
HYUFD's understanding of biology does consistently suggest that he should have received more sex education in school. However, I think HYUFD is right that Bart's position is extreme, in the sense that it does not match what most people think.
Anti-abortionists love talking about late abortion, because it makes their arguments look better. I think a good way to counter religious extremism in this area is to be very clear that the vast majority of abortions are early, and concern tiny clumps of cells that are very obviously not people, not babies.
All I really want is to get some rationality into the debate, meaning we steer clear of untestable stuff like theology, and we really think critically about the claims that are made regarding pain and consciousness. There are too many people willing to subordinate facts to the conclusion they want to come to, so when an anti-abortionist seems some headline in a right-wing outlet along the lines of "babies can suffer pain just 8 weeks after conception" we stop and really think about what that claim means: is it really a baby? Is it really suffering? And claims around "feeling pain" are really, really flimsy when you dig down.
So how about defining consciousness as a starter then?
Difficult question! "Awareness of surroundings and self" is what I want to say here, but I feel like I'm partially pushing the question onto the word "awareness". I can limit that word to some extent and say that awareness is much more then just exhibiting response to stimulus, but I'm not sure I can get it more precise than that right now.
So. When you are sleeping?
Not conscious.
So. You can be terminated then?
Of course not. An important difference is that you had a yesterday as well as a tomorrow. Ending a conscious being's life is qualitatively different to stopping something that has never been conscious from coming into existence. A prophylactic does the latter, or a decision pull out before ejaculation, or even to not have sex. Stopping a thing that could become conscious is not the same as killing someone that has just nodded off on the bus, come on.
I'm trying to argue against lumping disparate things into the same category here. Foetuses and babies are different. Sleepers are also not foetuses, and your attempted gotcha there demeans you.
No. I'm not trying to catch you out. I'm trying to get everyone to be a little more careful about the terms they use to support their arguments. And sharpen their thinking. You have engaged in the exercise. Much credit. Others aren't willing to define terms.
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
Well said.
To me the whole "24 weeks" cut-off is arbitrary and absurd. A bit like Sunday trading laws. A silly, messy compromise that doesn't really satisfy anyone but most people are content to live with because they'd rather not rock the boat and compromise just sounds reasonable.
To me logically birth is the inflection point as you say, so while I would find the idea of a 32 week abortion to be utterly horrible, I wouldn't make it illegal. Horrible things should not be unlawful. At approximately 37 weeks I believe the NHS could perhaps offer induction as an alternative, so that seems a reasonable cut-off, terminate the pregnancy but with a live-birth at that stage, but 24 is just a messy compromise. They're never going to voluntarily induce then.
I actually have more intellectual respect for people who want the practice outlawed altogether, than for the 24 week cut-off. At least they're intellectually consistent. I don't agree with them, but I can see where they're coming from much better.
The logic behind 24 weeks is that is the approximate age of viability.
At that point the child can live independently of the mother.
It seems a reasonable cut off point to say “at this point the child has rights as an independent human being”
There is nothing magical about passage through the birth canal that imbues any mystic rights
Neither magic nor mysticism exist, so nor should there be.
There certainly is something about a babies first breath that is a reasonable point to mark that as when it is born and life begins from there.
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
Well said.
To me the whole "24 weeks" cut-off is arbitrary and absurd. A bit like Sunday trading laws. A silly, messy compromise that doesn't really satisfy anyone but most people are content to live with because they'd rather not rock the boat and compromise just sounds reasonable.
To me logically birth is the inflection point as you say, so while I would find the idea of a 32 week abortion to be utterly horrible, I wouldn't make it illegal. Horrible things should not be unlawful. At approximately 37 weeks I believe the NHS could perhaps offer induction as an alternative, so that seems a reasonable cut-off, terminate the pregnancy but with a live-birth at that stage, but 24 is just a messy compromise. They're never going to voluntarily induce then.
I actually have more intellectual respect for people who want the practice outlawed altogether, than for the 24 week cut-off. At least they're intellectually consistent. I don't agree with them, but I can see where they're coming from much better.
The logic behind 24 weeks is that is the approximate age of viability.
At that point the child can live independently of the mother.
It seems a reasonable cut off point to say “at this point the child has rights as an independent human being”
There is nothing magical about passage through the birth canal that imbues any mystic rights
Neither magic nor mysticism exist, so nor should there be.
There certainly is something about a babies first breath that is a reasonable point to mark that as when it is born and life begins from there.
There is nothing magical about a babies first breath that justifies murdering a 38 week old baby
I would very much like to see the "Right to Life" campaign extending its remit beyond birth, and campaigning to end child poverty, to support young parents with accommodation and to invest in child health, particularly mental health services.
I might then start to listen to them over abortion.
It's strange that the group that cares so much about life before birth, seems to care so little for it afterwards.
How do you know? There are even traditional Labour supporting Roman Catholics who support the high spending you advocate who are anti abortion. Indeed Liverpool, one of the most Labour voting areas of the UK is also one of the most Roman Catholic and anti abortion areas of the UK. Right to Life is a pressure group to end abortion, it does not take a position on economic issues
I'm talking about the US, where there is an almost perfect correlation between abortion bans and lack of resources for low income families.
PJ O'Rourke noticed that there was no overlap, in the US, between those advocating capital punishment and those advocating abortion.
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
Well said.
To me the whole "24 weeks" cut-off is arbitrary and absurd. A bit like Sunday trading laws. A silly, messy compromise that doesn't really satisfy anyone but most people are content to live with because they'd rather not rock the boat and compromise just sounds reasonable.
To me logically birth is the inflection point as you say, so while I would find the idea of a 32 week abortion to be utterly horrible, I wouldn't make it illegal. Horrible things should not be unlawful. At approximately 37 weeks I believe the NHS could perhaps offer induction as an alternative, so that seems a reasonable cut-off, terminate the pregnancy but with a live-birth at that stage, but 24 is just a messy compromise. They're never going to voluntarily induce then.
I actually have more intellectual respect for people who want the practice outlawed altogether, than for the 24 week cut-off. At least they're intellectually consistent. I don't agree with them, but I can see where they're coming from much better.
The logic behind 24 weeks is that is the approximate age of viability.
At that point the child can live independently of the mother.
It seems a reasonable cut off point to say “at this point the child has rights as an independent human being”
There is nothing magical about passage through the birth canal that imbues any mystic rights
Neither magic nor mysticism exist, so nor should there be.
There certainly is something about a babies first breath that is a reasonable point to mark that as when it is born and life begins from there.
There is nothing magical about a babies first breath that justifies murdering a 38 week old baby
So why does the God you worship cause so many miscarriages?
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
And as almost all scientists agree human life, consciousness as well as ability to feel pain starts from 24 weeks.
Be assured we will fight you secular liberals with such gross disrespect for human life you would abort up to birth every step of the way.
Subcortical responses to stimuli are not enough to demonstrate suffering.
A foetus isn't conscious. By 28 weeks it has the physical structure that could give rise to consiousness, but that doesn't mean it is. It simply isn't conscious.
They aren't enough to demonstrate suffering for your ideological, ultra liberal agenda.
For you wish to advocate baby murder so there can be abortion on demand until birth
"baby murder" is an emotive attack, but worse than that, it begs the question. You want to call a foetus a baby because it answers the question about whether it's wrong to terminate it.
Since it's always impossible to get agreement on when something should be called a "baby", let me ask you this instead: when does a foetus stop being a foetus?
No it is precisely what you advocate. Baby murder. Certainly by the time of the 27th week the foetus has already got most of the characteristics and size of a baby ready for birth
So at 27 weeks it's still a foetus?
No it has most of the characteristics of a baby and abortion at that point is murder
Except it’s not.
Except it is
Show me that statute.
Fetal personhood does not exist in English law; just your mind.
It does effectively by the 24 week rule, after which abortion becomes murder
No, it doesn’t. Not does it exist in your favoured guide to morality - see for example Exodus 21:22-25
Yes it does.
Taking life for life in Exodus if a pregnant woman is injured if anything only reinforces the point
Doctrinaire and ignorant. Not an unusual combination.
The biblical law draws a clear distinction between the life of a mother, or any other person - 'a life for a life' - and that of a foetus, which may be compensated by a cash payment.
Nope, only mentions her giving birth prematurely after being hit with no serious injury requiring a cash payment. Not a word in the actual biblical text there about cash payment for death of the foetus
Really odd concept, converting electronic money to plastic tokens, carrying them around, then giving them to someone who then has to find a lady in a pinstripe skirt in a bank so she can convert them back into electronic money. Some of the notes might look pretty (not that I would know) but what a pointless, time-consuming faff!
I would very much like to see the "Right to Life" campaign extending its remit beyond birth, and campaigning to end child poverty, to support young parents with accommodation and to invest in child health, particularly mental health services.
I might then start to listen to them over abortion.
It's strange that the group that cares so much about life before birth, seems to care so little for it afterwards.
How do you know? There are even traditional Labour supporting Roman Catholics who support the high spending you advocate who are anti abortion. Indeed Liverpool, one of the most Labour voting areas of the UK is also one of the most Roman Catholic and anti abortion areas of the UK. Right to Life is a pressure group to end abortion, it does not take a position on economic issues
I'm talking about the US, where there is an almost perfect correlation between abortion bans and lack of resources for low income families.
PJ O'Rourke noticed that there was no overlap, in the US, between those advocating capital punishment and those advocating abortion.
It's really only in the last couple of decades that the overlap has shrunk almost to the point of invisibility.
To the extent I know US issue polling, both issues would have big majorities, so some fair share of people must agree with both. Probably your archetypal low-info centrist voter.
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
Well said.
To me the whole "24 weeks" cut-off is arbitrary and absurd. A bit like Sunday trading laws. A silly, messy compromise that doesn't really satisfy anyone but most people are content to live with because they'd rather not rock the boat and compromise just sounds reasonable.
To me logically birth is the inflection point as you say, so while I would find the idea of a 32 week abortion to be utterly horrible, I wouldn't make it illegal. Horrible things should not be unlawful. At approximately 37 weeks I believe the NHS could perhaps offer induction as an alternative, so that seems a reasonable cut-off, terminate the pregnancy but with a live-birth at that stage, but 24 is just a messy compromise. They're never going to voluntarily induce then.
I actually have more intellectual respect for people who want the practice outlawed altogether, than for the 24 week cut-off. At least they're intellectually consistent. I don't agree with them, but I can see where they're coming from much better.
The logic behind 24 weeks is that is the approximate age of viability.
At that point the child can live independently of the mother.
It seems a reasonable cut off point to say “at this point the child has rights as an independent human being”
There is nothing magical about passage through the birth canal that imbues any mystic rights
Neither magic nor mysticism exist, so nor should there be.
There certainly is something about a babies first breath that is a reasonable point to mark that as when it is born and life begins from there.
There is nothing magical about a babies first breath that justifies murdering a 38 week old baby
So why does the God you worship cause so many miscarriages?
As mentioned umpteen times before and you continue to ignore, 'miscarried babies go to eternal life with Christ that is not the same as forcibly murdering babies at the early stages of human life'
Really odd concept, converting electronic money to plastic tokens, carrying them around, then giving them to someone who then has to find a lady in a pinstripe skirt in a bank so she can convert them back into electronic money. Some of the notes might look pretty (not that I would know) but what a pointless, time-consuming faff!
You view of this is hopelessly wide of the mark: the person in the pinstripe skirt in the bank might be a gentleman.
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
And as almost all scientists agree human life, consciousness as well as ability to feel pain starts from 24 weeks.
Be assured we will fight you secular liberals with such gross disrespect for human life you would abort up to birth every step of the way.
Subcortical responses to stimuli are not enough to demonstrate suffering.
A foetus isn't conscious. By 28 weeks it has the physical structure that could give rise to consiousness, but that doesn't mean it is. It simply isn't conscious.
They aren't enough to demonstrate suffering for your ideological, ultra liberal agenda.
For you wish to advocate baby murder so there can be abortion on demand until birth
"baby murder" is an emotive attack, but worse than that, it begs the question. You want to call a foetus a baby because it answers the question about whether it's wrong to terminate it.
Since it's always impossible to get agreement on when something should be called a "baby", let me ask you this instead: when does a foetus stop being a foetus?
No it is precisely what you advocate. Baby murder. Certainly by the time of the 27th week the foetus has already got most of the characteristics and size of a baby ready for birth
So at 27 weeks it's still a foetus?
No it has most of the characteristics of a baby and abortion at that point is murder
Except it’s not.
Except it is
Show me that statute.
Fetal personhood does not exist in English law; just your mind.
It does effectively by the 24 week rule, after which abortion becomes murder
No, it doesn’t. Not does it exist in your favoured guide to morality - see for example Exodus 21:22-25
Yes it does.
Taking life for life in Exodus if a pregnant woman is injured if anything only reinforces the point
Doctrinaire and ignorant. Not an unusual combination.
The biblical law draws a clear distinction between the life of a mother, or any other person - 'a life for a life' - and that of a foetus, which may be compensated by a cash payment.
Nope, only mentions her giving birth prematurely after being hit with no serious injury requiring a cash payment. Not a word in the actual biblical text there about cash payment for death of the foetus
Plus as King David tells God at Psalm 139:16 'Your eyes even saw me as an embryo; All its parts were written in your book Regarding the days when they were formed, Before any of them existed.'
Really odd concept, converting electronic money to plastic tokens, carrying them around, then giving them to someone who then has to find a lady in a pinstripe skirt in a bank so she can convert them back into electronic money. Some of the notes might look pretty (not that I would know) but what a pointless, time-consuming faff!
I'm still 100% in favour of cash despite your posts on here.
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
Well said.
To me the whole "24 weeks" cut-off is arbitrary and absurd. A bit like Sunday trading laws. A silly, messy compromise that doesn't really satisfy anyone but most people are content to live with because they'd rather not rock the boat and compromise just sounds reasonable.
To me logically birth is the inflection point as you say, so while I would find the idea of a 32 week abortion to be utterly horrible, I wouldn't make it illegal. Horrible things should not be unlawful. At approximately 37 weeks I believe the NHS could perhaps offer induction as an alternative, so that seems a reasonable cut-off, terminate the pregnancy but with a live-birth at that stage, but 24 is just a messy compromise. They're never going to voluntarily induce then.
I actually have more intellectual respect for people who want the practice outlawed altogether, than for the 24 week cut-off. At least they're intellectually consistent. I don't agree with them, but I can see where they're coming from much better.
The logic behind 24 weeks is that is the approximate age of viability.
At that point the child can live independently of the mother.
It seems a reasonable cut off point to say “at this point the child has rights as an independent human being”
There is nothing magical about passage through the birth canal that imbues any mystic rights
Neither magic nor mysticism exist, so nor should there be.
There certainly is something about a babies first breath that is a reasonable point to mark that as when it is born and life begins from there.
There is nothing magical about a babies first breath that justifies murdering a 38 week old baby
So why does the God you worship cause so many miscarriages?
As mentioned umpteen times before and you continue to ignore, 'miscarried babies go to eternal life with Christ that is not the same as forcibly murdering babies at the early stages of human life'
Why not just conjure them up straight into the eternal life part instead of inflicting that process on a couple? It is an oddly roundabout way to hurt some wannabe parents? Why not just smite them with locusts or suppurating boils like a normal god?
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
Well said.
To me the whole "24 weeks" cut-off is arbitrary and absurd. A bit like Sunday trading laws. A silly, messy compromise that doesn't really satisfy anyone but most people are content to live with because they'd rather not rock the boat and compromise just sounds reasonable.
To me logically birth is the inflection point as you say, so while I would find the idea of a 32 week abortion to be utterly horrible, I wouldn't make it illegal. Horrible things should not be unlawful. At approximately 37 weeks I believe the NHS could perhaps offer induction as an alternative, so that seems a reasonable cut-off, terminate the pregnancy but with a live-birth at that stage, but 24 is just a messy compromise. They're never going to voluntarily induce then.
I actually have more intellectual respect for people who want the practice outlawed altogether, than for the 24 week cut-off. At least they're intellectually consistent. I don't agree with them, but I can see where they're coming from much better.
The logic behind 24 weeks is that is the approximate age of viability.
At that point the child can live independently of the mother.
It seems a reasonable cut off point to say “at this point the child has rights as an independent human being”
There is nothing magical about passage through the birth canal that imbues any mystic rights
How do you mean "independently"? Newborn babies aren't independent. Probably even a fit and healthy 30 year old person isn't independent, not truly.
You could envisage a situation where a zygote can be extracted from the Fallopian tube of a woman shortly after conception and then grown in a machine, or implanted into another woman. So does that mean it's a child that has rights as an independent human? It doesn't seem so different that a newborn, still entirely dependent on others for its survival, being given up by its biological parents and nurtured by someone or something else.
All cut off points are somewhat arbitrary. The "24 weeks" is one that has common currency, and not for insignificant reasons, but it's really an even less magical and mystical moment than passage through the birth canal (or surgical opening!)
"Viability" is not really as obvious as it first seems.
Has a reasonable chance of surviving to adulthood. Below about 21/22 weeks it is very low.
Surrogacy doesn’t offer additional rights vs traditional pregnancy
And a zygote can’t be grown in a machine at present
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
Well said.
To me the whole "24 weeks" cut-off is arbitrary and absurd. A bit like Sunday trading laws. A silly, messy compromise that doesn't really satisfy anyone but most people are content to live with because they'd rather not rock the boat and compromise just sounds reasonable.
To me logically birth is the inflection point as you say, so while I would find the idea of a 32 week abortion to be utterly horrible, I wouldn't make it illegal. Horrible things should not be unlawful. At approximately 37 weeks I believe the NHS could perhaps offer induction as an alternative, so that seems a reasonable cut-off, terminate the pregnancy but with a live-birth at that stage, but 24 is just a messy compromise. They're never going to voluntarily induce then.
I actually have more intellectual respect for people who want the practice outlawed altogether, than for the 24 week cut-off. At least they're intellectually consistent. I don't agree with them, but I can see where they're coming from much better.
The logic behind 24 weeks is that is the approximate age of viability.
At that point the child can live independently of the mother.
It seems a reasonable cut off point to say “at this point the child has rights as an independent human being”
There is nothing magical about passage through the birth canal that imbues any mystic rights
Neither magic nor mysticism exist, so nor should there be.
There certainly is something about a babies first breath that is a reasonable point to mark that as when it is born and life begins from there.
Really odd concept, converting electronic money to plastic tokens, carrying them around, then giving them to someone who then has to find a lady in a pinstripe skirt in a bank so she can convert them back into electronic money. Some of the notes might look pretty (not that I would know) but what a pointless, time-consuming faff!
I'm still 100% in favour of cash despite your posts on here.
Try going cashless for a few weeks. It’s liberating, time-saving. You’ll never look back.
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
Well said.
To me the whole "24 weeks" cut-off is arbitrary and absurd. A bit like Sunday trading laws. A silly, messy compromise that doesn't really satisfy anyone but most people are content to live with because they'd rather not rock the boat and compromise just sounds reasonable.
To me logically birth is the inflection point as you say, so while I would find the idea of a 32 week abortion to be utterly horrible, I wouldn't make it illegal. Horrible things should not be unlawful. At approximately 37 weeks I believe the NHS could perhaps offer induction as an alternative, so that seems a reasonable cut-off, terminate the pregnancy but with a live-birth at that stage, but 24 is just a messy compromise. They're never going to voluntarily induce then.
I actually have more intellectual respect for people who want the practice outlawed altogether, than for the 24 week cut-off. At least they're intellectually consistent. I don't agree with them, but I can see where they're coming from much better.
The logic behind 24 weeks is that is the approximate age of viability.
At that point the child can live independently of the mother.
It seems a reasonable cut off point to say “at this point the child has rights as an independent human being”
There is nothing magical about passage through the birth canal that imbues any mystic rights
Neither magic nor mysticism exist, so nor should there be.
There certainly is something about a babies first breath that is a reasonable point to mark that as when it is born and life begins from there.
There is nothing magical about a babies first breath that justifies murdering a 38 week old baby
So why does the God you worship cause so many miscarriages?
It’s rather unpleasant that you are trying to make a cheap debating point from something as tragic as a miscarriage
But they occur naturally when pregnancies are non viable
I guess I should be darkly entertained, but I’m finding the Revenge of the Borisians just bloody boring.
What a pathetic bunch they are, like shrill hyperactive spoilt children who have been overfed Haribo.
We can talk through hair trends instead? hair trend is shorter length in 2023, I’ve been growing mine to try something different not amazingly different, it’s still a lob. I’m calling it Angled Long Lob Balayage. I don’t think hair should ever be on trend, don’t it look horrid when everyone had the same hair, like on film and vid footage of sixties and eighties? There is a certain amount of science, numerous face types different styles compliment some more than others, outside of that, to go with trend or not, do your own thing and try to stand out should be your own articles of faith.
A lob is slightly longer than a bob. bob’s length stops somewhere between the tips of the ears and well above the shoulders. A simple long bob’s length goes to just above or just below the shoulders. Balayage is highlighting technique where dye is swept artistically onto the hair using a brush to create totally natural-looking colour tones.
This is what I’m using as template.
All the Labour front bench are going shorter and for bangs, Rachel has effectively remodelled based on Bridgette, maybe I think because Starmer was using Bridgette more in publicity and seen with her more. The reason for those horrendous fringes is one of two answers, without them they are looking at their face in the mirror and don’t like what they see, they think they look better with bangs, or they leave hair style decision making to their stylist who is giving them the 2023 trend. I think manufactured and structured bangs look hideous though, and should never be on trend. 🤦♀️
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
And as almost all scientists agree human life, consciousness as well as ability to feel pain starts from 24 weeks.
Be assured we will fight you secular liberals with such gross disrespect for human life you would abort up to birth every step of the way.
Subcortical responses to stimuli are not enough to demonstrate suffering.
A foetus isn't conscious. By 28 weeks it has the physical structure that could give rise to consiousness, but that doesn't mean it is. It simply isn't conscious.
They aren't enough to demonstrate suffering for your ideological, ultra liberal agenda.
For you wish to advocate baby murder so there can be abortion on demand until birth
"baby murder" is an emotive attack, but worse than that, it begs the question. You want to call a foetus a baby because it answers the question about whether it's wrong to terminate it.
Since it's always impossible to get agreement on when something should be called a "baby", let me ask you this instead: when does a foetus stop being a foetus?
No it is precisely what you advocate. Baby murder. Certainly by the time of the 27th week the foetus has already got most of the characteristics and size of a baby ready for birth
So at 27 weeks it's still a foetus?
No it has most of the characteristics of a baby and abortion at that point is murder
Except it’s not.
Except it is
Show me that statute.
Fetal personhood does not exist in English law; just your mind.
It does effectively by the 24 week rule, after which abortion becomes murder
No, it doesn’t. Not does it exist in your favoured guide to morality - see for example Exodus 21:22-25
Yes it does.
Taking life for life in Exodus if a pregnant woman is injured if anything only reinforces the point
Doctrinaire and ignorant. Not an unusual combination.
The biblical law draws a clear distinction between the life of a mother, or any other person - 'a life for a life' - and that of a foetus, which may be compensated by a cash payment.
Nope, only mentions her giving birth prematurely after being hit with no serious injury requiring a cash payment. Not a word in the actual biblical text there about cash payment for death of the foetus
Plus as King David tells God at Psalm 139:16 'Your eyes even saw me as an embryo; All its parts were written in your book Regarding the days when they were formed, Before any of them existed.'
"embryo" is, of course, a useful translation if you want to support your point (and it's weak support anyway, who cares what some book says?)
But what if it's not the best translation? After all, it wasn't written in English. So who has chosen "embryo"... and why?
The NIV reads: My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
So.. unformed body? Frame? (And by the way, what of these days being written beforehand... does that mean even a murder is preordained by God?)
The Hebrew, גָּלְמִ֤י, comes from גולם, meaing "golem" (yes, really!) meaning -an inchoate object, an amorphous mass -a dummy, a form -(mythology, Jewish folklore) a golem, a clay automaton -(entomology) a pupa -(colloquial) a fool, a clod, an oaf, an awkward person
Not very convincing any more, is it? But here's the final nail: your eyes saw my unformed body... all the days ordained for me... before one of them came to be That... that reads an awful lot to me like this "unformed body" or "embryo" is... before his numbered days. Doesn't sound like your God is counting the embryo stage.
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
Well said.
To me the whole "24 weeks" cut-off is arbitrary and absurd. A bit like Sunday trading laws. A silly, messy compromise that doesn't really satisfy anyone but most people are content to live with because they'd rather not rock the boat and compromise just sounds reasonable.
To me logically birth is the inflection point as you say, so while I would find the idea of a 32 week abortion to be utterly horrible, I wouldn't make it illegal. Horrible things should not be unlawful. At approximately 37 weeks I believe the NHS could perhaps offer induction as an alternative, so that seems a reasonable cut-off, terminate the pregnancy but with a live-birth at that stage, but 24 is just a messy compromise. They're never going to voluntarily induce then.
I actually have more intellectual respect for people who want the practice outlawed altogether, than for the 24 week cut-off. At least they're intellectually consistent. I don't agree with them, but I can see where they're coming from much better.
The logic behind 24 weeks is that is the approximate age of viability.
At that point the child can live independently of the mother.
It seems a reasonable cut off point to say “at this point the child has rights as an independent human being”
There is nothing magical about passage through the birth canal that imbues any mystic rights
Neither magic nor mysticism exist, so nor should there be.
There certainly is something about a babies first breath that is a reasonable point to mark that as when it is born and life begins from there.
There is nothing magical about a babies first breath that justifies murdering a 38 week old baby
So why does the God you worship cause so many miscarriages?
As mentioned umpteen times before and you continue to ignore, 'miscarried babies go to eternal life with Christ that is not the same as forcibly murdering babies at the early stages of human life'
Why not just conjure them up straight into the eternal life part instead of inflicting that process on a couple? It is an oddly roundabout way to hurt some wannabe parents? Why not just smite them with locusts or suppurating boils like a normal god?
Suffering is part of human life, sustained by the knowledge of eternal life with Christ for those who trust in him
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
Well said.
To me the whole "24 weeks" cut-off is arbitrary and absurd. A bit like Sunday trading laws. A silly, messy compromise that doesn't really satisfy anyone but most people are content to live with because they'd rather not rock the boat and compromise just sounds reasonable.
To me logically birth is the inflection point as you say, so while I would find the idea of a 32 week abortion to be utterly horrible, I wouldn't make it illegal. Horrible things should not be unlawful. At approximately 37 weeks I believe the NHS could perhaps offer induction as an alternative, so that seems a reasonable cut-off, terminate the pregnancy but with a live-birth at that stage, but 24 is just a messy compromise. They're never going to voluntarily induce then.
I actually have more intellectual respect for people who want the practice outlawed altogether, than for the 24 week cut-off. At least they're intellectually consistent. I don't agree with them, but I can see where they're coming from much better.
The logic behind 24 weeks is that is the approximate age of viability.
At that point the child can live independently of the mother.
It seems a reasonable cut off point to say “at this point the child has rights as an independent human being”
There is nothing magical about passage through the birth canal that imbues any mystic rights
Neither magic nor mysticism exist, so nor should there be.
There certainly is something about a babies first breath that is a reasonable point to mark that as when it is born and life begins from there.
There is nothing magical about a babies first breath that justifies murdering a 38 week old baby
So why does the God you worship cause so many miscarriages?
It’s rather unpleasant that you are trying to make a cheap debating point from something as tragic as a miscarriage
But they occur naturally when pregnancies are non viable
If your God exists, why doesn't He act to prevent them?
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
Well said.
To me the whole "24 weeks" cut-off is arbitrary and absurd. A bit like Sunday trading laws. A silly, messy compromise that doesn't really satisfy anyone but most people are content to live with because they'd rather not rock the boat and compromise just sounds reasonable.
To me logically birth is the inflection point as you say, so while I would find the idea of a 32 week abortion to be utterly horrible, I wouldn't make it illegal. Horrible things should not be unlawful. At approximately 37 weeks I believe the NHS could perhaps offer induction as an alternative, so that seems a reasonable cut-off, terminate the pregnancy but with a live-birth at that stage, but 24 is just a messy compromise. They're never going to voluntarily induce then.
I actually have more intellectual respect for people who want the practice outlawed altogether, than for the 24 week cut-off. At least they're intellectually consistent. I don't agree with them, but I can see where they're coming from much better.
The logic behind 24 weeks is that is the approximate age of viability.
At that point the child can live independently of the mother.
It seems a reasonable cut off point to say “at this point the child has rights as an independent human being”
There is nothing magical about passage through the birth canal that imbues any mystic rights
Neither magic nor mysticism exist, so nor should there be.
There certainly is something about a babies first breath that is a reasonable point to mark that as when it is born and life begins from there.
There is nothing magical about a babies first breath that justifies murdering a 38 week old baby
So why does the God you worship cause so many miscarriages?
As mentioned umpteen times before and you continue to ignore, 'miscarried babies go to eternal life with Christ that is not the same as forcibly murdering babies at the early stages of human life'
Why not just conjure them up straight into the eternal life part instead of inflicting that process on a couple? It is an oddly roundabout way to hurt some wannabe parents? Why not just smite them with locusts or suppurating boils like a normal god?
Suffering is part of human life, sustained by the knowledge of eternal life with Christ for those who trust in him
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
And as almost all scientists agree human life, consciousness as well as ability to feel pain starts from 24 weeks.
Be assured we will fight you secular liberals with such gross disrespect for human life you would abort up to birth every step of the way.
Subcortical responses to stimuli are not enough to demonstrate suffering.
A foetus isn't conscious. By 28 weeks it has the physical structure that could give rise to consiousness, but that doesn't mean it is. It simply isn't conscious.
They aren't enough to demonstrate suffering for your ideological, ultra liberal agenda.
For you wish to advocate baby murder so there can be abortion on demand until birth
"baby murder" is an emotive attack, but worse than that, it begs the question. You want to call a foetus a baby because it answers the question about whether it's wrong to terminate it.
Since it's always impossible to get agreement on when something should be called a "baby", let me ask you this instead: when does a foetus stop being a foetus?
No it is precisely what you advocate. Baby murder. Certainly by the time of the 27th week the foetus has already got most of the characteristics and size of a baby ready for birth
So at 27 weeks it's still a foetus?
No it has most of the characteristics of a baby and abortion at that point is murder
Except it’s not.
Except it is
Show me that statute.
Fetal personhood does not exist in English law; just your mind.
It does effectively by the 24 week rule, after which abortion becomes murder
No, it doesn’t. Not does it exist in your favoured guide to morality - see for example Exodus 21:22-25
Yes it does.
Taking life for life in Exodus if a pregnant woman is injured if anything only reinforces the point
Doctrinaire and ignorant. Not an unusual combination.
The biblical law draws a clear distinction between the life of a mother, or any other person - 'a life for a life' - and that of a foetus, which may be compensated by a cash payment.
Nope, only mentions her giving birth prematurely after being hit with no serious injury requiring a cash payment. Not a word in the actual biblical text there about cash payment for death of the foetus
Plus as King David tells God at Psalm 139:16 'Your eyes even saw me as an embryo; All its parts were written in your book Regarding the days when they were formed, Before any of them existed.'
"embryo" is, of course, a useful translation if you want to support your point (and it's weak support anyway, who cares what some book says?)
But what if it's not the best translation? After all, it wasn't written in English. So who has chosen "embryo"... and why?
The NIV reads: My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
So.. unformed body? Frame? (And by the way, what of these days being written beforehand... does that mean even a murder is preordained by God?)
The Hebrew, גָּלְמִ֤י, comes from גולם, meaing "golem" (yes, really!) meaning -an inchoate object, an amorphous mass -a dummy, a form -(mythology, Jewish folklore) a golem, a clay automaton -(entomology) a pupa -(colloquial) a fool, a clod, an oaf, an awkward person
Not very convincing any more, is it? But here's the final nail: your eyes saw my unformed body... all the days ordained for me... before one of them came to be That... that reads an awful lot to me like this "unformed body" or "embryo" is... before his numbered days. Doesn't sound like your God is counting the embryo stage.
'Unformed body' ie a human life created by God, David was of course anointed King by God, the reference to days being days on earth ultimately ending in that role, his human body already having been formed well before. Murder has nothing to do with it, that is down to human will, as free will has been present since Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge.
Oh it is very convincing and in the everlasting and eternal fight against ideological secular liberals like you we remain steadfast in upholding the word of God
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
Well said.
To me the whole "24 weeks" cut-off is arbitrary and absurd. A bit like Sunday trading laws. A silly, messy compromise that doesn't really satisfy anyone but most people are content to live with because they'd rather not rock the boat and compromise just sounds reasonable.
To me logically birth is the inflection point as you say, so while I would find the idea of a 32 week abortion to be utterly horrible, I wouldn't make it illegal. Horrible things should not be unlawful. At approximately 37 weeks I believe the NHS could perhaps offer induction as an alternative, so that seems a reasonable cut-off, terminate the pregnancy but with a live-birth at that stage, but 24 is just a messy compromise. They're never going to voluntarily induce then.
I actually have more intellectual respect for people who want the practice outlawed altogether, than for the 24 week cut-off. At least they're intellectually consistent. I don't agree with them, but I can see where they're coming from much better.
The logic behind 24 weeks is that is the approximate age of viability.
At that point the child can live independently of the mother.
It seems a reasonable cut off point to say “at this point the child has rights as an independent human being”
There is nothing magical about passage through the birth canal that imbues any mystic rights
How do you mean "independently"? Newborn babies aren't independent. Probably even a fit and healthy 30 year old person isn't independent, not truly.
You could envisage a situation where a zygote can be extracted from the Fallopian tube of a woman shortly after conception and then grown in a machine, or implanted into another woman. So does that mean it's a child that has rights as an independent human? It doesn't seem so different that a newborn, still entirely dependent on others for its survival, being given up by its biological parents and nurtured by someone or something else.
All cut off points are somewhat arbitrary. The "24 weeks" is one that has common currency, and not for insignificant reasons, but it's really an even less magical and mystical moment than passage through the birth canal (or surgical opening!)
"Viability" is not really as obvious as it first seems.
Has a reasonable chance of surviving to adulthood. Below about 21/22 weeks it is very low.
Surrogacy doesn’t offer additional rights vs traditional pregnancy
And a zygote can’t be grown in a machine at present
"at present" is the issue here. I'd add to that "at present and here". You see, technology changes and is unevenly distributed. The purpose of my "you could envisage" was to get you to think about whether the law should track technological availability. Also think about whether that technology was available but only at huge cost. Who should pay for someone to fulfil their legal obligations? The woman? The state? What if the state cut back on the service but didn't change the law? What if some device were invented that could beam a foetus harmlessly out, Star-Trek style, into an incubator?
The problem with the viability argument is it's contingent on all these things. It's not a fatal flaw, but it's considerably murkier than it first appears.
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
Well said.
To me the whole "24 weeks" cut-off is arbitrary and absurd. A bit like Sunday trading laws. A silly, messy compromise that doesn't really satisfy anyone but most people are content to live with because they'd rather not rock the boat and compromise just sounds reasonable.
To me logically birth is the inflection point as you say, so while I would find the idea of a 32 week abortion to be utterly horrible, I wouldn't make it illegal. Horrible things should not be unlawful. At approximately 37 weeks I believe the NHS could perhaps offer induction as an alternative, so that seems a reasonable cut-off, terminate the pregnancy but with a live-birth at that stage, but 24 is just a messy compromise. They're never going to voluntarily induce then.
I actually have more intellectual respect for people who want the practice outlawed altogether, than for the 24 week cut-off. At least they're intellectually consistent. I don't agree with them, but I can see where they're coming from much better.
The logic behind 24 weeks is that is the approximate age of viability.
At that point the child can live independently of the mother.
It seems a reasonable cut off point to say “at this point the child has rights as an independent human being”
There is nothing magical about passage through the birth canal that imbues any mystic rights
Neither magic nor mysticism exist, so nor should there be.
There certainly is something about a babies first breath that is a reasonable point to mark that as when it is born and life begins from there.
There is nothing magical about a babies first breath that justifies murdering a 38 week old baby
So why does the God you worship cause so many miscarriages?
As mentioned umpteen times before and you continue to ignore, 'miscarried babies go to eternal life with Christ that is not the same as forcibly murdering babies at the early stages of human life'
Why not just conjure them up straight into the eternal life part instead of inflicting that process on a couple? It is an oddly roundabout way to hurt some wannabe parents? Why not just smite them with locusts or suppurating boils like a normal god?
Suffering is part of human life, sustained by the knowledge of eternal life with Christ for those who trust in him
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
And as almost all scientists agree human life, consciousness as well as ability to feel pain starts from 24 weeks.
Be assured we will fight you secular liberals with such gross disrespect for human life you would abort up to birth every step of the way.
Subcortical responses to stimuli are not enough to demonstrate suffering.
A foetus isn't conscious. By 28 weeks it has the physical structure that could give rise to consiousness, but that doesn't mean it is. It simply isn't conscious.
They aren't enough to demonstrate suffering for your ideological, ultra liberal agenda.
For you wish to advocate baby murder so there can be abortion on demand until birth
"baby murder" is an emotive attack, but worse than that, it begs the question. You want to call a foetus a baby because it answers the question about whether it's wrong to terminate it.
Since it's always impossible to get agreement on when something should be called a "baby", let me ask you this instead: when does a foetus stop being a foetus?
No it is precisely what you advocate. Baby murder. Certainly by the time of the 27th week the foetus has already got most of the characteristics and size of a baby ready for birth
So at 27 weeks it's still a foetus?
No it has most of the characteristics of a baby and abortion at that point is murder
Except it’s not.
Except it is
Show me that statute.
Fetal personhood does not exist in English law; just your mind.
It does effectively by the 24 week rule, after which abortion becomes murder
No, it doesn’t. Not does it exist in your favoured guide to morality - see for example Exodus 21:22-25
Yes it does.
Taking life for life in Exodus if a pregnant woman is injured if anything only reinforces the point
Doctrinaire and ignorant. Not an unusual combination.
The biblical law draws a clear distinction between the life of a mother, or any other person - 'a life for a life' - and that of a foetus, which may be compensated by a cash payment.
Nope, only mentions her giving birth prematurely after being hit with no serious injury requiring a cash payment. Not a word in the actual biblical text there about cash payment for death of the foetus
Plus as King David tells God at Psalm 139:16 'Your eyes even saw me as an embryo; All its parts were written in your book Regarding the days when they were formed, Before any of them existed.'
"embryo" is, of course, a useful translation if you want to support your point (and it's weak support anyway, who cares what some book says?)
But what if it's not the best translation? After all, it wasn't written in English. So who has chosen "embryo"... and why?
The NIV reads: My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
So.. unformed body? Frame? (And by the way, what of these days being written beforehand... does that mean even a murder is preordained by God?)
The Hebrew, גָּלְמִ֤י, comes from גולם, meaing "golem" (yes, really!) meaning -an inchoate object, an amorphous mass -a dummy, a form -(mythology, Jewish folklore) a golem, a clay automaton -(entomology) a pupa -(colloquial) a fool, a clod, an oaf, an awkward person
Not very convincing any more, is it? But here's the final nail: your eyes saw my unformed body... all the days ordained for me... before one of them came to be That... that reads an awful lot to me like this "unformed body" or "embryo" is... before his numbered days. Doesn't sound like your God is counting the embryo stage.
'Unformed body' ie a human life created by God, David was of course anointed King by God, the reference to days being days on earth ultimately ending in that role, his human body already having been formed well before. Murder has nothing to do with it, that is down to human will, as free will has been present since Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge.
Oh it is very convincing and in the everlasting and eternal fight against ideological secular liberals like you we remain steadfast in upholding the word of God
But you aren't upholding the word of God. You're upholding a politically useful translation. You choose the word "embryo" because you think it helps your politics, then you externalise that choice and pretend it was delivered unto you by the Divine. It's abject. Even your source implies the opposite of what you want it to say.
And THIS is your evidence? Why has your God armed you with such flimsy, ambiguous, hole-infested nonsense? Why has he reduced you to poring over the equivalent Haifa subsamples, trying to excavate strands of coherence from a clogged mass of words? Don't you feel let down? Don't you feel the sting of shame at being sent out to the crease with your bat already broken?
I guess I should be darkly entertained, but I’m finding the Revenge of the Borisians just bloody boring.
What a pathetic bunch they are, like shrill hyperactive spoilt children who have been overfed Haribo.
We can talk through hair trends instead? hair trend is shorter length in 2023, I’ve been growing mine to try something different not amazingly different, it’s still a lob. I’m calling it Angled Long Lob Balayage. I don’t think hair should ever be on trend, don’t it look horrid when everyone had the same hair, like on film and vid footage of sixties and eighties? There is a certain amount of science, numerous face types different styles compliment some more than others, outside of that, to go with trend or not, do your own thing and try to stand out should be your own articles of faith.
A lob is slightly longer than a bob. bob’s length stops somewhere between the tips of the ears and well above the shoulders. A simple long bob’s length goes to just above or just below the shoulders. Balayage is highlighting technique where dye is swept artistically onto the hair using a brush to create totally natural-looking colour tones.
This is what I’m using as template.
All the Labour front bench are going shorter and for bangs, Rachel has effectively remodelled based on Bridgette, maybe I think because Starmer was using Bridgette more in publicity and seen with her more. The reason for those horrendous fringes is one of two answers, without them they are looking at their face in the mirror and don’t like what they see, they think they look better with bangs, or they leave hair style decision making to their stylist who is giving them the 2023 trend. I think manufactured and structured bangs look hideous though, and should never be on trend. 🤦♀️
My hair has long been trending toward disappearing.
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
Well said.
To me the whole "24 weeks" cut-off is arbitrary and absurd. A bit like Sunday trading laws. A silly, messy compromise that doesn't really satisfy anyone but most people are content to live with because they'd rather not rock the boat and compromise just sounds reasonable.
To me logically birth is the inflection point as you say, so while I would find the idea of a 32 week abortion to be utterly horrible, I wouldn't make it illegal. Horrible things should not be unlawful. At approximately 37 weeks I believe the NHS could perhaps offer induction as an alternative, so that seems a reasonable cut-off, terminate the pregnancy but with a live-birth at that stage, but 24 is just a messy compromise. They're never going to voluntarily induce then.
I actually have more intellectual respect for people who want the practice outlawed altogether, than for the 24 week cut-off. At least they're intellectually consistent. I don't agree with them, but I can see where they're coming from much better.
The logic behind 24 weeks is that is the approximate age of viability.
At that point the child can live independently of the mother.
It seems a reasonable cut off point to say “at this point the child has rights as an independent human being”
There is nothing magical about passage through the birth canal that imbues any mystic rights
Neither magic nor mysticism exist, so nor should there be.
There certainly is something about a babies first breath that is a reasonable point to mark that as when it is born and life begins from there.
There is nothing magical about a babies first breath that justifies murdering a 38 week old baby
So why does the God you worship cause so many miscarriages?
As mentioned umpteen times before and you continue to ignore, 'miscarried babies go to eternal life with Christ that is not the same as forcibly murdering babies at the early stages of human life'
Why not just conjure them up straight into the eternal life part instead of inflicting that process on a couple? It is an oddly roundabout way to hurt some wannabe parents? Why not just smite them with locusts or suppurating boils like a normal god?
Suffering is part of human life, sustained by the knowledge of eternal life with Christ for those who trust in him
Yes, but why do it? Your answer is no answer. Why let people think they're going to have a baby, and then nah oops sorry have some suffering instead? Cui bono? And the solace is what... you get to spend all eternity with me when you're done with the suffering I keep sending you. And he expects people to turn up grateful instead of saying actually mate, you've been a bit of cnut to me.
Comments
And even them the fact we kill animals for food is no argument for legalising murder
So yes the foetus can survive outside the uterus in those circumstances
Also, abortion after 24 weeks involves 'delivering' your foetus in some way, albeit not alive. It's nothing like the medical procedure at under 12 weeks that normally happens and is closer to a period.
I respect 'my body my choice', but when there are alternatives to get the foetus out of your body alive, hand over to medical professionals to look after until old enough to adopt, it should no longer be your choice to make.
That is why late term abortion as a 'pro choice' mantra is immoral nonsense from a liberal perspective.
Also every weekend, especially in the summer there will thousands if not more Brits going out fishing intending to kill animals for sport and maybe to eat.
Its not my preferred sport so I'm not particularly an expert on the matter, but I believe using a worm as lure and getting them to jab a hook into their cheek is the preferred method of getting the fish - not stun guns shot into the water which don't sound particularly sporting.
Needs to be noted that Reality Winner printed and mailed one classified document and didn't spend a day out of custody for 4 years from her arrest in early June 2017. She doesn't even own a private plane and has never fomented the bloody sacking of a US govt building.
https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/1668717796958642177
I haven't named a date as a cut-off, so how is my date arbitrary?
I have said a woman should be able to request a pregnancy is terminated and it should be terminated. Now if its full-term and a viable birth can happen then I have no philosophical objection to that. And if its not yet full-term and a birth is not offered as an option, then I think that an abortion if and only if the woman really wants it, should be the last resort - though it would almost never happen.
What I don't think should happen is to say to someone "no we won't deliver the baby today as its not ready yet, its not safe to do so, and no we won't terminate the pregnancy, so you need to continue to be pregnant for the next four months".
Whether fish can feel much pain being hooked or not is debateable however we eat animals but that does not stop us banning killing our own kind
Fetal personhood does not exist in English law; just your mind.
Edit: just seen this from HYUFD.
And by, say, 28 weeks the survival chances for the baby are over 90%. By 32 weeks it is extremely likely to be a perfectly healthy baby after medical care.
I see no possible justification for permitting the mother to kill the foetus rather than deliver it and give the baby up for adoption.
According to data stretching back more than 150 years, it has traditionally been cooler than any other day in summer and temperatures of 30C or above had never previously been recorded."
Mail
Your Honour.
I might then start to listen to them over abortion.
Or dreaming? Or under
anesthesia?
Is someone under a psychotic delusion conscious? Or not?
Or under the influence of mushrooms or LSD?
Not does it exist in your favoured guide to morality - see for example Exodus 21:22-25
I am very pro-choice and think the current 24 weeks strikes the balance about right.
I'm also very much in favour of all the other topics you mention.
What a pathetic bunch they are, like shrill hyperactive spoilt children who have been overfed Haribo.
"David Grusch's testimony, guided by his seasoned lawyer, could serve as a pivotal turning point. At the forefront of this effort is Charles McCullough III, a figure with an esteemed background in federal law enforcement and intelligence.
McCullough, appointed as the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community (ICIG) by then-President Barack Obama, served from 2011 to 2017. His tenure was marked by handling high-stakes issues demanding utmost discretion and integrity. What sets McCullough apart is his significant experience with the FBI. This experience has equipped him with the unique ability to navigate the complex maze of government secrecy, making him an ideal advocate in the pursuit of UFO transparency.
11:10 PM · Jun 13, 2023
Although 13 June is astronomical spring…
Taking life for life in Exodus if a pregnant woman is injured if anything only reinforces the point
I'm trying to argue against lumping disparate things into the same category here. Foetuses and babies are different. Sleepers are also not foetuses, and your attempted gotcha there demeans you.
At that point the child can live independently of the mother.
It seems a reasonable cut off point to say “at this point the child has rights as an independent human being”
There is nothing magical about passage through the birth canal that imbues any mystic rights
The Roman Catholic church has generally been much more pro big state tax and spend economics even if equally anti abortion and gay marriage
The biblical law draws a clear distinction between the life of a mother, or any other person - 'a life for a life' - and that of a foetus, which may be compensated by a cash payment.
You have engaged in the exercise. Much credit.
Others aren't willing to define terms.
You could envisage a situation where a zygote can be extracted from the Fallopian tube of a woman shortly after conception and then grown in a machine, or implanted into another woman. So does that mean it's a child that has rights as an independent human? It doesn't seem so different that a newborn, still entirely dependent on others for its survival, being given up by its biological parents and nurtured by someone or something else.
All cut off points are somewhat arbitrary. The "24 weeks" is one that has common currency, and not for insignificant reasons, but it's really an even less magical and mystical moment than passage through the birth canal (or surgical opening!)
"Viability" is not really as obvious as it first seems.
There certainly is something about a babies first breath that is a reasonable point to mark that as when it is born and life begins from there.
New article by Anthony Daniels / Theodore Dalrymple, about banknotes.
https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2023/06/tyrants-framed-and-put-up-against-a-wall/
It's more like Johnson, Dorries and Adams are cutting their own heads off.
Sunak's played this week as well as he can. He isn't clawing back his 15 point deficit (yet) but he certainly hasn't made it worse.
"Trump indictment looks good for him in a primary, poor in a general
Indies: 54% say charges appropriate; 37% say politically motivated
Repubs: 15% appropriate; 81% politically motivated
Democrats: 84-11%"
https://www.nytimes.com/2000/05/21/magazine/the-way-we-live-now-5-21-00-counter-culture-the-double-life-crusade.html
It's really only in the last couple of decades that the overlap has shrunk almost to the point of invisibility.
Biden 81 million votes
Trump 74 million votes
the person in the pinstripe skirt in the bank might be a gentleman.
Regarding the days when they were formed, Before any of them existed.'
Surrogacy doesn’t offer additional rights vs traditional pregnancy
And a zygote can’t be grown in a machine at present
You are taking a maximalist approach.
But they occur naturally when pregnancies are non viable
A lob is slightly longer than a bob. bob’s length stops somewhere between the tips of the ears and well above the shoulders. A simple long bob’s length goes to just above or just below the shoulders. Balayage is highlighting technique where dye is swept artistically onto the hair using a brush to create totally natural-looking colour tones.
This is what I’m using as template.
All the Labour front bench are going shorter and for bangs, Rachel has effectively remodelled based on Bridgette, maybe I think because Starmer was using Bridgette more in publicity and seen with her more. The reason for those horrendous fringes is one of two answers, without them they are looking at their face in the mirror and don’t like what they see, they think they look better with bangs, or they leave hair style decision making to their stylist who is giving them the 2023 trend. I think manufactured and structured bangs look hideous though, and should never be on trend. 🤦♀️
But what if it's not the best translation? After all, it wasn't written in English. So who has chosen "embryo"... and why?
The NIV reads:
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
So.. unformed body? Frame?
(And by the way, what of these days being written beforehand... does that mean even a murder is preordained by God?)
The Hebrew, גָּלְמִ֤י, comes from גולם, meaing "golem" (yes, really!) meaning
-an inchoate object, an amorphous mass
-a dummy, a form
-(mythology, Jewish folklore) a golem, a clay automaton
-(entomology) a pupa
-(colloquial) a fool, a clod, an oaf, an awkward person
Not very convincing any more, is it? But here's the final nail: your eyes saw my unformed body... all the days ordained for me... before one of them came to be
That... that reads an awful lot to me like this "unformed body" or "embryo" is... before his numbered days. Doesn't sound like your God is counting the embryo stage.
Oh it is very convincing and in the everlasting and eternal fight against ideological secular liberals like you we remain steadfast in upholding the word of God
The problem with the viability argument is it's contingent on all these things. It's not a fatal flaw, but it's considerably murkier than it first appears.
I just hang on
Suffer well
Sometimes it's hard
So hard to tell
https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1668747661028081664
Trump International Hotel? Ask for a room in the former Dead Letter Office!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Post_Office_(Washington,_D.C.)
And THIS is your evidence? Why has your God armed you with such flimsy, ambiguous, hole-infested nonsense? Why has he reduced you to poring over the equivalent Haifa subsamples, trying to excavate strands of coherence from a clogged mass of words? Don't you feel let down? Don't you feel the sting of shame at being sent out to the crease with your bat already broken?
And the solace is what... you get to spend all eternity with me when you're done with the suffering I keep sending you. And he expects people to turn up grateful instead of saying actually mate, you've been a bit of cnut to me.