Sometimes I wonder why Republicans are pro life. If they are tired of the "leaches on society" then one would think that they would be fine with the poor killing off their government babies. Making everyone have a baby (especially poor) only puts a bigger drain on society when they turn to the government for help.

Exactly. Abortion, as only a small part of a raft of safe sex and sex education policies, helps curtail birthrates and generally make things better for everyone.

1. Yes, that is my point. That is the argument. It is one argument with two variables. I think you're confusing the intent of my post there. badger was saying that there are two distinct arguments. Women's rights vs fetus rights. He called me wrong. I'm saying that from my standpoint, it is one argument of at what point does the fetus actually gain rights, because it is evident to me that both have rights.

2. Why would science conclude what? Life? The definition of life referring to organisms that are capable of homeostasis, where a fetus cannot? The definition of life when we say 'mars has had life at some point'? Our definition of life scientifically is VERY complex and decisive, because scientists depend on them for research, funding, discoveries, etc.

At this point I re-read your second post, and I have to say, I really have no idea what you're saying, so I can't respond further. Homeostasis is an excellent point to define as life because no organism can exist without that ability.

I would imagine they think you shouldn't kill your kids and you also shouldn't be a leech on society. Seems easy enough to understand.

But I don't understand how Democrats can be pro-choice when they want a command economy and all sorts of entitlement programs. How does that square with allowing people to terminate future workers and taxpayers willy-nilly? The difference between having 4 workers per beneficiary and 2 per beneficiary can easily be the difference between solvency and insolvency. Of course, if the programs rely on a constantly expanding population, then that is the very definition of a pyramid scheme.

1. ? Seriously? You quoted my post. Said "no" and then called it kneejerk idiocy. That was a kneejerk reaction to my post was it not? Kasz said it was two different arguments saying fetus rights vs mother rights, when my first post wasn't addressing that. I didn't feel his reply sufficiently addressed what I was saying, so I said "from my point of view, it's one argument with a couple facets".

2. Yes, it IS arbitrary, because nothing in science agrees with that assessment, and neither does anything in the Bible. It is a position taken specifically because it avoids talk of abortion altogether It circumvents the science. Then you say 'it's more philosophical' after countering by saying it's more scientific?

3. Yes sorry, semantics. fetus not egg.

4. Yes, I know it's pro-life, but more importantly, it's pro-sanity. It is a good middle ground, a compromise, where each can have rights. I don't believe that a mother should simply terminate at any point, but three months seems a lengthy amount of time to make that decision, and I even provide that the woman's rights still come first afterwards. If the fetus endangers her life or well being, she can terminate at any time.

Except who's to say those are certain productive citizens? Perhaps having kids with no dad, or in extreme poverty, will lead to a very difficult life where bad choices become easy to make, or force the family to become a burden on the society.

The pro-life says "you shouldn't kill your kids and you shouldn't be a leech on society". In my point of view, you agreeing with this makes me think that you're one of those people who believes things like "people don't succeed because they don't try hard enough".

1. No, I didn't. I said that basically every discussion about abortion boils down to people talking past each other and spewing talking points, and that's kind of sad because philosophically it's a very fascinating subject. I didn't accuse you of doing it. At worst, you're only guilty of not understanding what the terms pro-life and pro-choice mean.

2. That isn't arbitrary at all. Biology holds that from the moment of conception, a new life begins. It's merely at a low level of development. The only reason I can imagine anyone even arguing against this is for political reasons, and it isn't from the pro-life side. And that is anti-science.

It may be an arbitrary point at which to bestow personhood, though.

4. Right, but there's a spectrum of beliefs on the pro-life side, from no abortion period to abortion only in the case of rape to no abortion after a certain stage of development. There really isn't much of one on the pro-choice side, except for when it comes to late term abortion. As per Richard's thread, pro-life doesn't really mean pro-life, full stop. It's shorthand for supporting restrictions on elective abortion. Likewise, pro-choice means being in favor of no restrictions on elective abortion. So most people are somewhere in between the two extremes, but those positions are all variations of pro-life, which is why polls always show that the pro-life side has been gaining ground since the '70s.

Which just sounds like what Bill Bennett said when he said that aborting every black baby - while genocidal and morally reprehensible - would lower crime.

But yeah, I do believe that people often don't succeed because they don't try hard enough. Or they do try but they apply their efforts in the wrong direction. There are principles of success, and most people aren't successful or not because of sheer bad luck. You might have the bad luck to be born into an unproductive culture, though, and you aren't likely to identify the flaws in the behavior and break out of that. Poor education doesn't really equip people to be cultural critics, after all. The question is whether government welfare programs help or hurt, and I don't really think they help. The war on poverty has been as big a failure as the war on drugs because it doesn't improve the cultures in bad areas, it only incentivizes and enables more of the same self-destructive behavior. You could dump trillions of dollars on Appalachia, and nothing would really change.

1.  But you had said that you did not consider the egg (or fetus) to be living, which falls into the argument of the anti-abortionists, whereas the other argument Kasz and badgenome refered to was an argument of women's rights, which does not really seem to address the issue of whether or not the fetus is alive.

2.  Why would science conclude that life comes after the heartbeat or brainwave, I mean?  My point was, to be sure, science can find most any particular characteristic we would ascribe to life, but it cannot come up with the definition of life itself.  Science can only be used to determine when life begins once it's decided what life actually is. 

To me, it sounds like you're saying science itself can come up with the definition of life.

1Apologies, I was assuming that since you said that within your response to me, and was kind of vague that you were talking about me. Sorry.

2 A living organism requires homeostasis, a fetus or embryo is not capable of that. "Life begins" is possibly simply an easier way of saying the process of creating life has begun. All organic life is defined by this element of homeostasis, and embryo's/fetus's are incapable. (as an aside to our "egg" discussion earlier, it is also against church rules to donate eggs, also birthcontrol via egg-regulation, and egg extraction.)

3I think we are arguing semantics at this point. Thank you for acknowledging the terminology of "personhood" though.

4Hmmm, perhaps, but this guy above isn't pro-life is he? He's anti-abortion. So there are 3 sides here, anti abortion, pro-life, and pro-choice, right?