Quote:
Quote by: dotcoma  I used to be pro-choice, but I thought about it for a while, and the privacy issue no longer makes sense to me. If you truly beleive life begins at conception then you have no right to privately destroy that life. It is like taking someone's life in your basement and claiming prosecution would be a violation of privacy in my opinion. |
Life began long before we can currently consider. Realize that the same material that makes up your body was at one time part of a star, and before that, perhaps part os life elsewhere. We as people are only present for a miniscule moment in time. Do you really think an individual makes much difference at all when considering the Universe (including everything we can not see) as a whole? How can we be that conceded and self absorbed !
As for is it wrong to kill. The Ten Commandments say that we shall not kill. If you believe in the Ten Commandments! If you believe in the Ten Commandments then you shall NOT follow the teachings of the Torah, Bible, or Quaan. The Ten Commandments are very specific in that no man shall speak in the name of God. The Ten Commandments are the only writings of God; if you believe in any of the writings attributable to God that is. If God is all knowing and all powerful, why would it need to speak more than once. The seed of its words would permeate every aspect of our society. ALL words spoken in God's name other than the Ten Commandements must be works of man, not God.
And as the seed of knowledge was given by God, and abused by man. So to are the seeds of life put into motion many trillions of years ago. Only from the consequences that followed are we able to exist today.
Oh, if you believe in the Bible, man and all that is known came into existence about 4,000 years before Christ.
Also notice, the Ten Commandments say that thou shalt not kill. It does not say, thou shalt not kill other people. Thou shalt not kill is not open for interpretation! Thou shalt not kill ANYTHING !!!
If you believe the Ten Commandments are the words of God, they are the ONLY words of God. No person shall interpret them for any other person. I can not tell you what to believe, nor can anyone else. My opinion is that if there is a God, it would only need to speak once and not have to explain itself over and over again. In my opinion, every being, everywhere, shall do all they can not to kill another living creature.
Do I believe in a womans' choice to terminate a conceived fetus? I believe that each woman must decide for themselves what they believe and act upon it. I believe I would be absolutely wrong to force her to act differently than she believes.
I believe Capital punishment should never be allowed. Dead people can not tell you what other things they have done. Unsolved cases remain unsolved. We can not analyze their lives to help determine how to keep from creating a similar individual. Killing is not a particularly useful solution.
The weak mind can not conceive of how to productively utilize dysfunctional life. Those persons should have a far lesser amount of control over the fates of other people. Just because they do not have the mental capacity to see beyond primordial instincts, does not mean that other people do not have far superior intelligence for allowing ALL individuals to be productive.
If any person condones forcing a woman to have a child without her desire, then each person must allow society to do with their body whatever is best for society. This includes experimental drug testing, chemical testing, and any other form of testing that would best benefit future society. If you force a person to accept undesireable consequences for their own body, then you must accept undesireable consequences for your body as well.
Life starts with the seeds of the original Universe; we exist because of those seeds. Whether generated intelligently or not. Don't pretend to understand or know what the correct answer should be. Be empathic and allow each person to discover for themselves the consequences of their own actions.
Provide a logical toolset to each person so they can better analyze the complex relationships of which they live and participate. Ethical Reasoning, Six Sigma, Critical Reasoning, all have mathematical and logic based tool sets for better understanding complex interrelationships.
Far too many people are either unable (damage, malnutrition, genetic) or too lazy to use their minds to attempt to understand the broad consequences of even the most simple proposed action.
Off the top of my head, I suspect there are various levels of mental accuity.
Mental Incompetent: Abuse, or be submissive under, anyone or anything that opposes what I want to do.
Mentally Challenged: Empathy driven, little understanding of consequence.
Mentally Inexperienced: Act in moderation so I don't get into trouble.
Mentally Aware: Loose understanding of the consequence of social systems, and able to make small logical changes.
Mentally Enriched: Has strong control of complex relationships while subordinating instinctual drives.
Mentally Enlightened: Able to understand mental processes and how to project higher order mental relationships so that others of lesser capability may understand the higher order relationships and processes.
Based upon my categories, where do you fit in? I would say I'm somewhere between Mentally Aware and superficially fringing upon Mentally Enriched.
How many people of the world do you think should be making decisions to govern the personal nature of peoples' lives? I doubt any of us here are able to make decisions without the contamination of narrow perspectives.
Each woman must choose for themselves.