Inexcusable Foreshadowed

[dukealien]

Inexcusable Foreshadowed


Now we live in this awful time
when we know how our tragedy will end
but it has not ended yet
the curse begins devouring
commencing to burn and only worse
because we’ve learned of it
as a spoiler not by waiting
to learn of it and feel its sorrow
in a proper sequence.

Now in this gap of time we tremble
ashen scored with forced knowledge
of our millions murdered and dismembered
ten times those millions done to death
in last century’s German hell on earth
more even than Pol Pot and Mao
and Stalin added in
voiceless drowning cries
of children hated more unwanted
than Jews, gypsies, kulaks
for their innocent
insistence to exist.

And now we are made to know
that all those babies died
so we might rut without consequences
tickle our fancies though it meant
assassinating our each offspring
individually with wires needles knives
until they passed evacuated
and now their cast curse
multiplied by silence theirs and ours
alights and no excuse remains.

[busker]

If you ever spilt your seed,
you’re guilty of genocide.
For your cells, they live,
as bees in a hive,
and willingly strewn
seed alone
in the shower, sputterer,
makes you a murderer.
“Life begins at conception”
is your axiom, not a fact,
there is no pact
between Hashem and his Jews.
Jesus died in suffering,
his great gashes chuffering,
and still lies behind
a rock in Palestine.
There was no resurrection
of your homeschooled god,
that ignorant preacher,
that sometimes fraud.

Life isn’t something
Republicans should worry about.

[dukealien]

@busker - Thanks for the read.  You make, perhaps unintentionally, my point here - that we are now moved, inescapably, back to making actual moral arguments instead of pretending some fifty year-old legalese mumbo-jumbo could take their place and make them unnecessary.  What the leaked document did was dissipate the pseudo-legal smokescreen: it does not pretend to moral judgements, which must properly be made by the citizens on a delegated, i.e. representative basis rather than by appointed justices acting ultra vires (or would it be ultra viribus?)  The moral choice is stark again, and it must now be made instead of funked.

I regard the argument that onanism is murder if abortion is murder to be a straw man at best.  Women also involuntarily expel ova, though on a more regular basis than wet dreams.  The maximalist anti-abortion position is that life begins at conception, i.e. when the ovum is fertilized.  This results from an intentional act (though that may not be what the act intends - "90% of people are caused by accidents," as the saying goes).  But that doesn't detract from the humanity of the fertilized ovum, or the consequent responsibility of his/her parents for it, or even the responsibility of others to avoid harming him/her before it's brought to term.  The Hippocratic Oath recognizes this responsibility; an abortionist is no doctor.

[busker]

[qoute]
I regard the argument that onanism is murder if abortion is murder to be a straw man at best.  Women also involuntarily expel ova, though on a more regular basis than wet dreams.  
[/quote]
So they must try their utmost to get impregnated every month

The maximalist  uneducated anti-abortion position is that life begins at conception, i.e. when the ovum is fertilized

See correction

But that doesn't detract from the humanity of the fertilized ovum,

Now this is mumbo-jumbo. A fertilised ovum is as arbitrarily "human" as its constituent sex cells.
You have provided no justification for why a fertilised ovum is human. It may be the 'maximalist position' of a group, but then again, the 'maximalist position' of the flat earth society is that the earth is not only flat, but also supported by turtles. It has no bearing on the truth.

or the consequent responsibility of his/her parents for it, or even the responsibility of others to avoid harming him/her before it's brought to term.  

once a castle is made in the air, it doesn't matter how many storeys you want to add to it 

The Hippocratic Oath recognizes this responsibility; an abortionist is no doctor.[/p.s.]

A wanker is a murderer
Ironically, all ancient cultures, including that of the Greeks, viewed abortion is perfectly normal.
It's only the poor and poorly educated Christian lobby that has an issue with it. Because it's one of those issues where they can appear to be intelligent by putting forward what they think are sophisticated arguments.

---

@busker - Thanks for the read.  You make, perhaps unintentionally, my point here - that we are now moved, inescapably, back to making actual moral arguments instead of pretending some fifty year-old legalese mumbo-jumbo could take their place and make them unnecessary.

I'd take the 50 year old mumbo jumbo over the 'considered' legal opinion of a bunch of wankers who think that a dead rabble rouser who his illiterate followers believe came back to life over 2,000 years ago, is the literal son of god and shall return sitting on some brightly lit clouds. Anyone who subscribes to such a primitive notion of reality is not fit to judge even a beauty contest.

[CRNDLSM]

Conception is murder since all will die. To intentionally bring life is to essentially bring death. The woman has never had an abortion, it's always the man. Spilling the seed saves lives

[busker]

The real question here is - what is the point at which a foetus should be recognised as a human with human rights? It is perhaps safe to say that as long as it is in the womb, its right to life will be subordinate to the right to life of the mother, in the event of medical complications developing. But such special cases aside, at what point should it be seen as living?

'Maximalist positions' such as 'at conception' or 'at birth' are based on religion and convenience, respectively.
Historically, the baby kicking was seen as the point at which it had life - in certain cultures.
The current position in abortion laws centres around 'foetal viability'. But this too, is a definition of convenience. Stephen Hawking couldn't survive on his own either, doesn't mean that he should've been left to starve in the hallway in Cambridge.

A sensible point of departure between foetus sans rights to foetus with rights is the point at which the brain has developed to a point where it is distinguishably superior to that of an animal. A baby is born with 100 billion neurons. A cow has 3 billion. Since people eat cows, the point at which the foetal brain has developed in excess of 3 billion neurons could be used for the distinction.

This also means that creatures such as orcas, with 10 bn + neurons, should have rights similar to human babies.

[CRNDLSM]

Andrea Yates aborted all of her babies after they were born because the husband made her a sex slave and she went crazy. The husband still eats at a restaurant I used to wait at. However I feel about abortion, I hate the law more.

[Mark A Becker]

Andrea Yates aborted all of her babies after they were born because the husband made her a sex slave and she went crazy.  The husband still eats at a restaurant I used to wait at.  However I feel about abortion, I hate the law more.

The highlighted section above is a patently incorrect statement. Abortions are performed once a woman know she's pregnant, yet well before birth. 

I'm presuming that you hate the current federal law which guarantees a woman's right to abortion.  If you hate that law, then I guess you're OK with returning to 'back-alley, coat hanger' abortions.  Women with the financial means will continue to have abortions regardless what you think.

I don't really think that men can truly understand this issue, and I'd bet that if men could get pregnant that abortion would have been legal well before Roe v Wade, and would remain permanently legal.

[CRNDLSM]

Andrea Yates drowned all her kids in the tub, I was referring to the point we determine right to life while blaming the husband and the culture. I do hate abortion, I hate punishing women for it even more.

---

I'm probably the biggest conspiracy theorist in this room, but I can't help but think the sudden red state reversal is about a future work force and military, the state needs people

[NobodyNothing]

Roe v. Wade basically got it about right.  Looking back, I'm actually a little surprised they did so in 1973.

[TranquillityBase]

Andrea Yates aborted all of her babies after they were born because the husband made her a sex slave and she went crazy.  The husband still eats at a restaurant I used to wait at.  However I feel about abortion, I hate the law more.

The highlighted section above is a patently incorrect statement. Abortions are performed once a woman know she's pregnant, yet well before birth. 

I'm presuming that you hate the current federal law which guarantees a woman's right to abortion.  If you hate that law, then I guess you're OK with returning to 'back-alley, coat hanger' abortions.  Women with the financial means will continue to have abortions regardless what you think.

I don't really think that men can truly understand this issue, and I'd bet that if men could get pregnant that abortion would have been legal well before Roe v Wade, and would remain permanently legal.

As a protester's sign read:  If men could get pregnant, you could get an abortion at your ATM.

[dukealien]

As this thread amply demonstrates, we at least now have the opportunity to debate the issue in an adult manner and on a moral as well as practical basis.  Whether or not any of us take advantage of that opportunity instead of name-calling, over-generalizations, straw men and bumper sticker slogans.

Somewhere up there, someone alluded to errors committed for the sake of convenience.  The great and foundational such error was trying to settle the issue by pronunciamento in the same way Justice Taney did with slavery in Dred Scott v Sandford, thus avoiding messy politics and contrary opinions regarded as unsophisticated or biased.  Another, seldom discussed, is the convenience of  limiting consideration to "a woman's sole choice," "our bodies ourselves," etc., because it is inconvenient and messy to acknowledge the man's very real interest in his unborn child's future.  Denying that interest is a big part of today's moral and ethical infantilization; it is the Original Cancellation.

[busker]

As this thread amply demonstrates, we at least now have the opportunity to debate the issue in an adult manner and on a moral as well as practical basis.  Whether or not any of us take advantage of that opportunity instead of name-calling, over-generalizations, straw men and bumper sticker slogans.

Somewhere up there, someone alluded to errors committed for the sake of convenience.  The great and foundational such error was trying to settle the issue by pronunciamento in the same way Justice Taney did with slavery in Dred Scott v Sandford, thus avoiding messy politics and contrary opinions regarded as unsophisticated or biased.  Another, seldom discussed, is the convenience of  limiting consideration to "a woman's sole choice," "our bodies ourselves," etc., because it is inconvenient and messy to acknowledge the man's very real interest in his unborn child's future.  Denying that interest is a big part of today's moral and ethical infantilization; it is the Original Cancellation.

In an ideal world, amongst intelligent counterparties, there would be dialogue and debate followed by agreement on a mutually acceptable conclusion.
In the real world, it is a "debate" between intelligent liberals on the one hand, and either the old-and-too-far-out-of-date-but-holding-steadfastly-to-incorrect-viewpoints-and-not-that-intelligent-anyway, or honest sons of the soil who believe Jesus was born of a virgin (the mistranslation of the Hebrew into the Greek now widely known except in their benighted part of the world).
Rather than waste time on a meaningless debate with an adversary not fit to judge, it is a better course of action to let the first lot die out, and render the second powerless through the selective activism of an enlightened judiciary.
It is for the greater good.

[NobodyNothing]

The biggest problem we have in America now is one of minority rule.  When you look at the some of the big issues facing our society (gun control, abortion rights, climate change, the growing wealth/income/opportunity gap, health care, etc...), there is either a solid majority, or even a super majority of Americans, who more or less know where they stand and the direction they would like our institutions to move us in. 

But almost nothing happens.

Minority rule. 

We have a structural problem whereby a minority of people and interests can exert a disproportionate influence over our body politic.  I mean, when the combined populations of North Dakota and South Dakota add up to less than half the population of ONE county in California (San Diego County), yet these states have twice the representation in the US Senate than California...that's the kind of structural problem that a minority of people and interests can politically exploit to exert their will over the interests of the majority of Americans.

There are other structural problems as well.

Other than waiting for the Boomers to die off, the only hope for moving forward in positive directions is for the voters to overwhelm the system and create representative majorities that will act in the interests of the majority on a consistent basis.

Outside of that, we're kind of toast now.

[dukealien]

@NobodyNothing - There's also the problem of leverage.  As you point out, residents of some states have greater political leverage.  On the other hand, some other (mostly larger) states are essentially one-party, depriving other opinions within them of representation... another kind of leverage.  In a basically balanced and fairly even opinion mix such as we have, other forms of leverage - social media algorithms, foreign contributions in cash and kind, etc. - can tip election results; so can cheating (though it gets pretty obvious when it has to overcome majorities in several states at once).

As for reasoned disagreements, it's like pulling weeds.  The name-callers are prickly and obnoxious but shallowly rooted:  they give up easy.