What Is Pro-life?

[Basilisa Marie]

To me, being pro-life means...

 

We work to protect the unborn.

We serve the poor in all their needs. 

We promote the quality and availability of education.

We promote the rights of workers and just wages.

We care for the physically, mentally, and spiritually ill.

We promote healthy relationships among all people.

We promote dignified care for the elderly.

We promote social, political, and restorative justice, and continue to care for those in prison.

We oppose the death penalty in all cases except in dire necessity.  

We oppose the mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual abuse of all people.

We oppose suicide in all forms.

We promote freedom of speech and expression.

We promote the right to defend one's self and one's property.

We care for all of creation, promoting humane treatment of other beings and custody for the environment.

We see Christ in all persons.  

[The Master]

I don't really care to have people who support neo-con foreign police and cutting social programs lecturing me on the preciousness of human life. Which is why the pro-life movement is smell of elderberries a crock. A clump of cells with no capacity for independent life and no conceptualization of their own existence is not a human person. That becomes much more murky as those clumps if cells start to actually develop into something recognizably human.

[The Master]

The only thing that all people who are born go through us conception. Any one that is born is considered a person. Also, children that are born dead are still considered people. Therefore, I would have to think that conception is the point at which one becomes human and anyone conceived is a person.

[jeffboom]

The only thing that all people who are born go through us conception. Any one that is born is considered a person. Also, children that are born dead are still considered people. Therefore, I would have to think that conception is the point at which one becomes human and anyone conceived is a person.

 

The majority of Catholics believe that human life begins at conception. Even though the embryo is not viable outside the mother's body until much later in the pregnancy, the embryo still has genetic material that is unique.

[4588686]

 

Ah. We must be "recognizably human" before the choice to destroy us becomes morally "murky." How post mod. I see. So ... "recognizably human" according to who?

According to the rich and powerful of course. They would be the ones to decide such things. And the rich and powerful believe all humans ought to be patterned  after themselves. So we know the rich male is more recognizably human than the poor woman. White skin is more human than black.  Intelligent is more human than retarded.  No surprise that ovens of industry feed on the bodies of the poor, the imprisoned, the sick, the blacks, the migrants. They are not so recognizably human ... so grinding them down to dust is hardly even a moral question.

That being said there is only one class of human being designated as non-people by the law, and that is the human fetus. Naturally so. A poor, sick, black, newborn female at least has the air to scream and make the violation of her rights a troublesome business.  The human fetus is the weakest of the weak.  So no one will recognize it as human unless they first climb down from their perch on the ladder of privilege. And for those with the power to decide which people count as "recognizably human" it is a long way down.

Ok. You convinced me. Only I think you didn't go far enough. I think that all sentient being are persons. I assume that you'll agree with me since this logic perfectly demolishes speciest pretenses and you will now vocally fight for animal liberation.

 

 

Edited May 6, 2013 by Hasan

[PhuturePriest]

I don't really care to have people who support neo-con foreign police and cutting social programs lecturing me on the preciousness of human life. Which is why the pro-life movement is smell of elderberries a crock. A clump of cells with no capacity for independent life and no conceptualization of their own existence is not a human person. That becomes much more murky as those clumps if cells start to actually develop into something recognizably human.

 

Awwww! Does someone need a hug?

 

[Lilllabettt]

 

Ok. You convinced me. Only I think you didn't go far enough. I think that all sentient being are persons. I assume that you'll agree with me since this logic perfectly demolishes speciest pretenses and you will now vocally fight for animal liberation.

 

belief that all human beings are people regardless of age, sex, gender, color, race, religion, sexual orientation, physical or intellectual disability = belief that all animals are people. 

 

totes makes sense.
 

[4588686]

belief that all human beings are people regardless of age, sex, gender, color, race, religion, sexual orientation, physical or intellectual disability = belief that all animals are people.

totes makes sense.

You didn't offer any positive definition of what constitutes a human person. You just presented an generic analysis of the role of power in determining humanity and exclusion. I want to include animals. If a fetus merits protections then surely a chimp does as well. A chimp is much more capable of feeling pain and despair. And who are we, the dominate species, to determine what is and isn't a person? I think your critique of those with power determining who merits being recognized as human applies equally well to the dominate species structuring a legal ecosystem where only one genetic code gets you some semblance of rights. Why shouldn't all sentience be recognized and protected?

Unless, of course, what you said above was just a lot of fluff to cover the fact that your position is wholly a religious one and supported, ultimately, by an antiquated metaphysics. Edited May 6, 2013 by Hasan

[Lilllabettt]

What I am getting out of this is that you do not think there is anything especially special about biological humanity.  Rather what makes an organism special is its sentience.  Humans are special in that they have an exceptional degree of sentience.  Dignity diminishes with diminished sentience. An ape has more sentience than a human fetus, therefore it has more dignity. Am I getting that right?

 

Loyalty to the human race ... that strikes me as a good working definition of "pro-life." I am a racist in that case I guess, and proud of it!  <---- things that should never come up on a googlesearch of your username.

[Chestertonian]

A word of advice to the OP: Don't waste your time debating the preciousness of human life with people who reject objective morality; it's a waste of time. There are enough "pro-choice" theists out there to keep you busy.

 

[Lilllabettt]

summation:

 

the culture of death is a symptom of our inability to recognize humanity in one another, especially in the weakest and poorest.

 

the pro-life movement seeks to heal that blindness and make humanity, in all its conditions, visible to the world.

[eagle_eye222001]

anti-death

[4588686]

What I am getting out of this is that you do not think there is anything especially special about biological humanity.  Rather what makes an organism special is its sentience.  Humans are special in that they have an exceptional degree of sentience.  Dignity diminishes with diminished sentience. An ape has more sentience than a human fetus, therefore it has more dignity. Am I getting that right?

 

Loyalty to the human race ... that strikes me as a good working definition of "pro-life." I am a racist in that case I guess, and proud of it!  <---- things that should never come up on a googlesearch of your username.

 

I wouldn't say that dignity diminishes or one has more dignity.  But I don't see why an ape should have zero rights and a newly fertilized egg should have full rights.  I don't think that you can intellectually argue your case at this point without invoking religion which is my point.  You can throw out a;; the social justicy arguments you will about power and power interests shaping law (as though the pro-life movement weren't funded by it's own very powerful interests) but your argument is really an inherently religious one.  You're not really critiquing power structures you're just borrowing some verbiage to try to make a religious appeal seem more secular and neutral than it is 

[Lilllabettt]

this is the first time a non-theist has ever suggested to me that religion is necessary to a transcendental understanding of the meaning of human life.

Usually I see that argument raised by theists as a way of showing that atheism succkkks.

[4588686]

this is the first time a non-theist has ever suggested to me that religion is necessary to a transcendental understanding of the meaning of human life.

Usually I see that argument raised by theists as a way of showing that atheism succkkks.

 

 

I try to be intellectually honest.