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Killing a baby is the same as getting an abortion (1 Viewer)

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What is this concept to a "right" to life?

Should life be a "right" if it's completely shit and the pains outweigh any abstract sense of significance?
Who are you to be able to say if it's a waste of a life, if the pain is not worth whatever small sense of significance they have of themselves, or how important they could or would be to other peoples lives? You can't say that. Whether it should be a right or not is questionable, but your justification is utter rubbish.
 

Lolsmith

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Who are you to be able to say if it's a waste of a life, if the pain is not worth whatever small sense of significance they have of themselves, or how important they could or would be to other peoples lives? You can't say that. Whether it should be a right or not is questionable, but your justification is utter rubbish.
so why are you allowed to do the same thing you said he wasn't lol
 
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so why are you allowed to do the same thing you said he wasn't lol
I didn't say he wasn't allowed mate. Australia's a free country. What I meant was you can't say that as in you can't be sure that they have no quality of life.
If it came across that was please excuse me.
 

Lolsmith

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I didn't say he wasn't allowed mate. Australia's a free country. What I meant was you can't say that as in you can't be sure that they have no quality of life.
If it came across that was please excuse me.
"you can't do something"

"I didn't say he wasn't allowed to do something"
 

IamBread

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People should be able to have an abortion if that want.
 

Bored_of_HSC

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Who are you to be able to say if it's a waste of a life, if the pain is not worth whatever small sense of significance they have of themselves, or how important they could or would be to other peoples lives? You can't say that. Whether it should be a right or not is questionable, but your justification is utter rubbish.
Come on lol. i wasn't denying that there isn't some significance they or some other people may create.
I'm just denying the arguement that life in itself is a "right".

The part i bolded was my point.
 

cheezcake

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Doesn't this depend on when the abortion takes place though? I mean aborting a 2 week long pregnancy is by far nowhere near the same as killing a newborn
 

mirakon

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Singer et al. argued that we should judge an animal on it's functional abilities, what it can actually do.

A newborn baby is cognitively, physically, much less developed than an adult dog, pig etc. So killing a child is less morally questionable than killing a pig, which are killed in their millions daily.

If the child has serious disabilities etc that will make it's life unbearable, it will die soon anyway, or the parents have insufficient capacity to care for such a child, probably a good idea to end it now
Which is all well and good except for the fact that unlike dogs and pigs, a newborn baby is the same species as us.
 

a c

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why does it make a difference what species it is

The whole point of mentioning that a 'human' baby is less cognitively developed than mature animals of other species, is to call into question the basis on which we protect a particular life. Singer postures that the grounds for protecting life is based on it's measured abilities, this is a rational basis for valueing adult human life, your abilities are what make someone a whole 'person', and objectively valuable.

If a particular human has lesser abilities than a particular animal, why should possession of a certain DNA sequence count for more than superior intellect and capacity for suffering?

That is the crux of Singers argument:

"it needs to be shown why mere membership of a given biological species should be a sufficient basis for a right to life. "

http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/1995----03.htm
 

cheezcake

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why does it make a difference what species it is

The whole point of mentioning that a 'human' baby is less cognitively developed than mature animals of other species, is to call into question the basis on which we protect a particular life. Singer postures that the grounds for protecting life is based on it's measured abilities, this is a rational basis for valueing adult human life, your abilities are what make someone a whole 'person', and objectively valuable.

If a particular human has lesser abilities than a particular animal, why should possession of a certain DNA sequence count for more than superior intellect and capacity for suffering?

That is the crux of Singers argument:

"it needs to be shown why mere membership of a given biological species should be a sufficient basis for a right to life. "

http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/1995----03.htm
It's evolutionary instinct and hence perfectly rational.
 

Sunray

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People should be able to have an abortion if that want.
This

Also if people give birth to a child and they have significant health issues such as Down Syndrome then I can see why people think it is OK to kill the child
but if they have no health problems then they should definitely not be allow to kill the newborn.
 

xAlan

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This

Also if people give birth to a child and they have significant health issues such as Down Syndrome then I can see why people think it is OK to kill the child
but if they have no health problems then they should definitely not be allow to kill the newborn.
What if a woman was raped and was pregnant with the rapists' child? Why should they suffer through pregnancy if they had to intentions to produce a child?
 

Sunray

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What if a woman was raped and was pregnant with the rapists' child? Why should they suffer through pregnancy if they had to intentions to produce a child?
Well if that happened the mother could just abort the baby and thus won't need to go through fully with the pregnancy
 
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Provided it's born healthy why would killing it be an option, why not just put it up for adoption or ditch it at an orphanage or something?
 

Chemical Ali

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Can someone find some really angry facebook statuses from dumb people who heard about this? I bet they'd be amazing
 

mirakon

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why does it make a difference what species it is

The whole point of mentioning that a 'human' baby is less cognitively developed than mature animals of other species, is to call into question the basis on which we protect a particular life. Singer postures that the grounds for protecting life is based on it's measured abilities, this is a rational basis for valueing adult human life, your abilities are what make someone a whole 'person', and objectively valuable.

If a particular human has lesser abilities than a particular animal, why should possession of a certain DNA sequence count for more than superior intellect and capacity for suffering?

That is the crux of Singers argument:

"it needs to be shown why mere membership of a given biological species should be a sufficient basis for a right to life. "

http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/1995----03.htm
Intellect has nothing to do with it. It is simple evolutionary theory. That a species will try its best to ensure its own survival. Therefore a newborn baby is far more important to a human being than an adult dog or pig
 

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