Is that your position?
Can people have pre-marital sex if there's no chance of conception (for instance, if one of the partners is infertile, or if it's gay sex)?
The Abortion debate
- Thread starter Houseman
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Can people have pre-marital sex if there's no chance of conception (for instance, if one of the partners is infertile, or if it's gay sex)?
Pretty sure gay sex in the eyes of the cults is a one-way trip to the lava zone in Super Mario.
The difference is direct causes and indirect causes, and on top of that, things you know about and things you don't.
Say you buy an iPhone. Are you directly causing the deaths of slave laborers in some foreign country? Are you contributing to wars over conflict minerals?
Say you pay taxes. Are you directly contributing to any number of wars and secret military operations of dubious morality?
Say you buy eggs at a low price. Are you directly helping to keep a local farmer in high-quality grain spirits and assisting him is abusing his wife and children?
If one was unduly concerned about these things, they'd probably reason that the best and most moral way out would be to simply dig a grave, lie in it, and then just wait for death, because doing anything else would cause a butterfly-effect chain of human suffering.
But normal people don't do this, regardless of whether or not they think that fetuses are living persons.
What people are worried about, are direct causes. That's why one evokes more moral outrage than the other.
I don't advocate for "the protection of single celled zygotes" at all. I'm not pushing my morality on anyone else, nor am I trying to make it law.
It might be in the beginning, but many broken things can be fixed. It just requires work.
I believe the environment can be made healthy.
Yes, but I wouldn't frame it as "unintended consequences". Saying that a baby is an unintended consequence of sex is like saying that a bullet being fired is an unintended consequence of playing with a gun. That's how it's supposed to work. Guns fire bullets. Sex makes babies. If you're misusing the thing while trying to avoid what is supposed to happen, you're gonna have a bad time.
The reason why premarital sex would be illegal would have nothing to do with abortion, so no.
So in your fantasy world, what's the punishment for premarital sex? Like what happens if two unmarried, consenting adults partake in sexual intercourse and do NOT conceive a child versus two unmarried, consenting adults who partake in sexual intercourse who DO conceive a child? Assume abortion is not the latter couple's intent; they just happen to become pregnant out of [religious] wedlock.
DEATH
Just kidding, I don't know, and I don't think it's terribly important. I'm not going to mentally construct a fully consistent fantasy world just for argument's sake.
Not saying it's important, just curious how severe the criminal infraction would be. You can't say something's "illegal," then not have at least some idea what happens when the law is broken.
What about Oral sex? Anal sex? Hand play? No chance for procreation in any of those scenarios, but each is arguably a more lascivious act of pure lust and carnal desire (y'know, the very things strict religious tenets seek to cleanse the human spirit of) than the vanilla act of intimacy between two, loving partners. So if you don't know the punishment, which are the crimes? And...
Why is premarital sex illegal at all, then? You suggested early in the thread that premarital sex was a risk one takes (and should be accountable for) as it could result in an unwanted pregnancy, so I think many in here have drawn a connection between the two. If you could delineate how they are separate issues within the context of this thread, it might clear up any confusion.
Because God intended for sex to be between a man and a woman who make the unretractable commitment to spending their lives together. Today we call that marriage.
Beyond that, I suppose you could ask God. He would be there in the fantasy world. You could have him on speed dial.
No thanks, I want no part of a society entirely governed by a book written thousands of years ago as interpreted by man's fallible and selfish understanding and translated into hundreds of evolving languages since that somehow how has maintained its clear, exact and unquestionable meaning because "belief."
Yeah, which is why God would be there, so that man's fallibility and selfishness wouldn't be an issue.
But where is God? He/She/It/They/Helicopter hasn't made an appearance in thousands of years, if in fact you believe the books that said Helicopter did.
And that God is infallible is a human, ie fallible, interpretation of God. If humans are fallible and need Godly guidance, there's no reason to believe God is in fact infallible, because its a human that thinks God is. For all we know God is a few crayons short of being the sharpest marble in the shed.
If the premise is humans can't be trusted, God will fix us, and God isn't fixing us there are three conclusions: God thinks we're right, God doesn't know we're wrong/know how to fix us, or there is no God.
This has consistently been my argument towards people who believe life has to go above all else. Life to-be gets put above life that already exists, and damn all the consequences that come from it.
Also spot on.
Why not? I see this always conveniently get thrown out of the discussion with pro-lifers, because it always runs contrary to their side of the argument. Because now it's not about choice. Now it's not about consenting people. Now it's not about accepting responsibility. Now it's a tragedy forced upon the unwilling through the will of a morally skewed individual. Because now the person posing the argument has to decide between "I believe that women forcibly made pregnant against their will must completely alter their life and take care of the child, regardless of whatever they had in mind for their future," or, "I believe the woman should be able to have an abortion in this case" which runs contrary to their believes. Suddenly it's basic human rights versus beliefs and personal morality. And almost every single time it never gets answered directly. So, what is your answer?
Hate to break it to you, but that's not always how it goes. The world isn't always gonna be that perfect. It can be. But often it's not. And I don't think that's a justifiable risk in this scenario
That's off topic.
For the same reason we don't kill the mother.
Its not off topic.
Premise 1: I do not want a thousands of years old book about a Desert God that's been translated, mistranslated and translated again into hundreds of languages, thousands of dialects by tens of millions of people who could mess up to govern modern medical reproductive practices.
Response 1: If there is a problem God will fix it.
Premise 2: So...why isn't he?
Response 2: Off topic.
Its entirely on topic.
If your position is that your religious beliefs entitle you to create laws that govern the bodies of others, then your beliefs are up for scrutiny and question. Ignoring those questions gives the impression either you don't really believe them, or that there are gaps in your belief you'd rather not admit to because it makes your initial argument of religious belief seem at best ill-defined, if not cheery-picked to arrive at a forgone belief.
You realize we're talking about a hypothetical fantasy world governed by my specific brand of Christian morals, right?
And you want me to explain to you why it seems like God is hiding in our real world?
And you think that's a reasonable, on-topic thing to ask for in a topic about abortion?
Is that your final answer?
I don't believe that. That is not my position. Read the second sentence of post number 4.
Notice that you did basically exactly what I said you would by not addressing everything I said, you simply took a snippet and that's it. It's so incredibly consistent with people like you. But your little snippet answers my question regardless. A woman can be raped and become pregnant, and you believe that she should have to have that child and support it as her "responsibility" as a parent. Never mind the fact she was unwilling in this scenario, and that maybe she had a plan, a future, ideals, everything, and now it must be completely uprooted for a decision that was literally FORCED upon her.
I get abortion is tragic in its own right, but there's gotta be some give here. You're suggesting women shouldn't get to choose how their life goes, and that someone else does. Someone else can force their will upon a woman for their own selfish reasons and she's expected to deal with everything involved, because you believe that's correct. You believe a person can perform an illegal and horrifying act upon someone and they don't get to decide the way they feel is best to help bring back some stability to their life after the fact.
Am I wrong? If I am, tell me where I went askew in my perception of your answer to my initial comment
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Through your own statement on post 1 you are biased against abortion because of your religious beliefs. This is an abortion debate. Ergo those religious beliefs are fair to question. Your beliefs, especially in a conversation you started based off your beliefs, do not exist in a void.
I expected a more thorough answer than just answering a tiny portion of my post, more like a debate (See thread title). But I guess you felt that was enough. You've been plenty wordy before, it's only when I pressed you on this that you seemed to quiet down a little.
Either way, you still have yet to address my follow up in any major way. And if you do not intend to answer said follow up directly, then I'll probably take everything I suggested as a 'yes,' unless you believe I'm wrong and you'd like to tell me otherwise
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