Since imgflip changed I can't comment until I reach 1,000 points so here is a response to some latest memes.

Tell those lazy fetuses to try to live harder. If they don't want to die they should find another uterus to live in. Damn welfare fetuses.

Is it wrong to kill unborn babies?

Yes

Correct, Shaitans_Muse. The baby's body is not the mother's body. Not her business.

So one conjoined twin has the right to kill the other and cannot be found guilty of murder because they are conjoined at the cellular level? Do I about have that logic correct?

So, if one person kills another, it's not my business. Don't call the police, nothing? Or if one person molests a child, just mind my own business? No interference? Your logic kind of sucks. Your argument is only valid if you can establish the fetus as a non-person, which only applies to its early to mid development.

I've already come up with a good comparison for that, which is one conjoined twin killing the other (they are still attached and share a body, after all). As for the "safe time frame," you're probably referring to "safe for the mother." There are places which permit unnecessary late term abortions. So, why don't you answer me this: what is the ethical distinction between killing a baby immediately before it's born, and immediately after it's born?

Again, I must reiterate, for however hard this is for you to understand: if something is objectively wrong, it is the business of any passerby who has something to say about it. You've not provided me any sound reasoning to show me a lack of objective wrong in mid to late term abortion: only "it isn't happening to you," which I must again reiterate, is not even an argument, nor is your excuse of "changing the parameters," when "changing the parameters" is the only way of drawing a comparison to something to illustrate a point.

@Shaitans_Muse,
Again... reiterating... for the whatever-eth time, if the fetus has its own personhood, then it should also have its own right to bodily autonomy, which should not be encroached upon. You try to make all these arguments, but without being able to define the fetus as something without personhood, these arguments of bodily autonomy all fall apart, because the fetus should have it every bit as much as the mother. There is no cognitive dissonance in my thinking; it's consistent. You're the one who makes up arguments which defeat themselves. I'm totally stress-free in my thinking. Case in point: I'm not stressing out, calling you a psychopath, accusing you of hating women/men just because you disagree with me.

Hehe. All I did was point out a flaw in your reasoning.

Because from what I can tell, from the information you provided so far, someone who stops a kidnapper from abducting a child, for example, matches the definition of a "control freak" because it's not happening to them. Or how we put a cork screw up Germany's ass in WW2... that was just our entire country being control freaks?

You act so brainwashed. You've already presumed my entire stance, yet you probably don't even know it. You just call me names because my world view doesn't match yours.

I've nothing against early term abortion. It's abortion that takes place after the fetus is conscious that I take issue with.

I don't think that what makes human dignity is conscience in itself. What about the vegetables? What about people sleeping? And why would conscience be an excuse to say that killing is wrong? Because conscience is valuable? Yes and so what? Perhaps money is more valuable for me than the conscience of a man I don't know. So why would it be wrong to kill him to take his money? You may say : It is wrong to kill because we need society, and society is made of conscious beings. Ok, but I don't need everyone to be part of the society. So I could say : Let's make a society only with white people. And since Blacks are not part of this society, it would not be wrong for us to kill them or to put them in slavery. So you see : if you want to say that it's wrong to kill any human being, conscience is not a sufficient argument.

Vegetables aren't conscious, sleep is not an indefinite state, and your prattling is mostly incoherent. Awareness is the thing through which we process all information, our values included; any other being which is aware therefore should be valued in kind. Your argument seems to hinge on some weird form of extreme relativism whereby all morals are subjective, and that's simply a load.

Not at all, I have strongly objective morals. But I say that if we take conscience as the criteria, then we can't have objective morals.
Yes, precisely, they aren't conscious. So would you kill persons who are vegetables?
The fact that I hold my values through my conscience only shows me that MY conscience is valuable, and valuable only for ME. That's why I say if you take conscience as the criteria, the logical consequence is totally relative morals.

Oh, THAT kind of vegetable.
Well, if they are brain dead, they have no personhood; and if you believe in souls, keeping them alive fundamentally means ensnaring them on this planet in a flesh prison. So either way, I don't see the purpose in not pulling the plug on a brain dead person. I'm definitely consistent in my values in that regard.

Brain dead means dead. Vegetables have serious brain damage, but the brain is still alive. No need to presuppose the immortality of the soul to conclude there are objective morals. But conscience can't be the criteria (I gave you a general argument, after the example of the vegetables, but you still didn't answer it).

I don't believe in souls; I just assumed you were about to argue from a religious standpoint, perhaps mistakenly. If a person is not experiencing their situation and they have 0% chance of regaining consciousness, I still stand by that criteria. If they are not sentient, if they do not dream, if they simply exist without thought or joy or fear, and the state is indefinite, there is no personhood left of them. And I never used the word "conscience," only "consciousness." You can substitute it for sentience if you wish, but I never emphasized conscience. I disagree that sentience (switching to that word choice) being the criteria results in totally relative morals; if killing that which is sentient is objectively wrong, and if I am correct in that value, then that is how I would argue- within those parameters. You might argue "because it's human," but I argue "because it's sentient," which functionally assumes that I extend my values to animals. Objectivism doesn't have to mean you take the broad strokes of something and call it all wrong; it means that something must be wrong at least in a fixed parameter, and that no coinciding parameters can change the context of it being wrong. Relativism argues that people decide what is right and wrong per their culture and must therefore respect the values of another culture because it is what they chose for themselves. Objectivism can still place a fixed condition under which an act is wrong. "All killing is wrong," is objectivist in its most extreme, but, "Murder is wrong," could also be an objectivist phrase, which preconditions killing as acceptable in self-defense, for example. Just because I deviated from the broad stroke (killing) does not mean that the subsequent value is subjective.

@dh, Obviously there are mitigating factors which apply on top of sentience, but sentience is the first and foremost factor; it is what gives life forms the ability to witness their own situation. It is why we don't give a second thought to killing plants or bacteria. The first and foremost standard is sentience. Other factors can mitigate from it, but you start there.

Ok, I agree with your definition of objectivism. There is no problem with that. What I contest, however, is your criteria. Indeed, why would it be wrong to kill sentient beings, just because they are sentient? It seems you have no rational reason for that.

Here is my two cents: Human life is the objective standard. We either agree that the mere state of being human sets us all apart or we are subjecting our lives to arbitrary “fixed parameters” such as sentience.
Given the parameter of sentience, I shouldn’t bother to save you from being eaten by a polar bear. If I accept that you are no more special than a polar bear, given that you are both sentient, then believe me, I am sleeping soundly. Having done nothing to save you.

@memedagain,
I would not save someone from a polar bear for one very simple reason: I am not stupid enough to be anywhere where the risk of engaging a polar bear is present. The value of human life clearly deviates on the merits of the person. For instance, you would not sentence an innocent person to death (deliberately) the same way you would James Holmes or Tsarnaev. Good and evil are simply labels applied to acts and persons. And if a person can be good through their acts, so then too can an animal.

Your thinking is more dogmatic than you realize. It's kind of funny. First wave feminists were against abortion; they viewed it as an attack on women. And if we lived in a society that substantially valued males more and consequently resulted in female fetuses being aborted, you'd probably see a shift in feminist thinking regarding the value of the fetus. If you were born in the 50's, you'd probably be taking the exact opposite stance on behalf of your clique.

Who said anything about "living in the what if"? I'm just illustrating a point about how your opinions are poorly formed by a group who thinks up slogans for its followers to regurgitate and that you're a product of the times, not of your own reasoning.

@Shaitans_Muse, You seriously think you created that? My word. Now that, sir or ma'am, is a delusion.