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What the Bible says about Abortion
The Right to Choose
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The Sorry States of America and Jesusland
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The Theory and Practice of Masturbation
Why Grown Men Lust after Teenagers
Captain Kirk Meets Pollyanna
Anti-Semitism: the Big Lie
Aborting Babies
I joined in with a discusion about abortion and confused a lot of people by getting out of the trenches.
>> The unborn are very often referred to
as babies.
>> You can look up the definition in a dictionary.
>>
>
> Only by idiots who do not know better.
Actually by most pregnant women. I have never heard any woman say she's got a foetus, that term is only used by those who want to try to deny or minimise the humanity of the unborn child for their own purposes. It is a weasel word like collateral damage or downsizing, designed to hide the reality of the situation but such weasel words don't work, people know that foetuses are unborn babies and collateral damage means dead civilians. Those who cling to the weasel words look foolish. Tell it like it is. If you can't use the opposition's preferred language, even in passing, you look like you have got something you are embarrassed about.
Tell it like it is. Abortion means killing unborn babies. Denying
abortion is making women or girls (yes, a girl of 12 doesn't miraculously
become a woman because she gets knocked up) go through a mental, physical
and emotional torture to make other people feel better about themselves.
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
> Are you a Merkin loony fundie, or what?
No, I am somebody who hates lies and liars and people who use weasel words in a futile attempt to hide the truth.
If the only way you can accept your own views on abortion is by rigorously refusing to accept that abortion involves killing unborn babies and trying to make the rest of the world join you in your linguistic self-delusion then you are dangerous.
I am an English atheist and I support abortion rights. What I don't support is lies, deception and weasel words. Why are you apparently defending such tactics with your use of hate labels? Are you so unconvinced about the rightness of your cause that you have to lie, bamboozle and prevaricate in order to get people to accept it?
Demanding that people call an unborn baby a foetus or vice versa is weasel words. The reality of the situation is not changed by changing the words you use. If you are afraid of the reality then that suggests you are afraid that your case is weak. Calling it a hamburger doesn't stop it being a bit of dead cow in a bun and knowing it is a bit of dead cow in a bun doesn't stop me ordering it. I can support a woman's right to end her pregnancy, thus killing her unborn child, why can't you? Are your beliefs so flaccid?
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
>>>> Tell it like it is. Abortion means killing unborn
babies.
>
> No it doesn't. It depends on how long the pregnancy has been going
> on. In the early weeks, your statement is categorically untrue. In
> the weeks immediately before birth, your statement is more than
> likely true. In between, there is a grey area. If the foetus is
> incapable of independent existence, then it is no more a baby than
> your liver is.
A liver will not develop into a baby if you don't intervene. A foetus is a potential baby, it is all set to become a baby, no outside intervention is required to enable it to become a baby beyond allowing the mother to breathe and feed as she would normally want to. It takes a special act of will not to accept that. Congratulations on your faith.
>
>> Demanding that people call an unborn baby a foetus or vice versa is
weasel words.
>
> Rubbish. So you think a 32 cell blastocyst is a "baby", do you?
>
Of course it is an unborn baby, it is not the early stages of a third leg, is it? It is an unborn baby. Accepting that fact does not imply that a human blastocyst has human rights. It is at the same time just a bunch of cells with no feeling and a potential human being. Pretending that it is just 32 cells and nothing more is disingenuous, almost as disingenuous as those arseholes who consider that it has more rights than a family of Iraqis.
Can't you see that it can be both 21.6 grams of tetrahedrally bonded
carbon atoms and a priceless and fabulous jewel?
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
>> I can support a woman's right to end her pregnancy, thus
killing her unborn child, why can't you?
>
> Where the fuck did you get that from?
> Who said I don't?
> You've made too many wrong assumptions from a simple statement.
>
> Whatever, you still can't abort a baby.
>
I think you have misread that. I did not mean to suggest that you did not support a woman's right to an abortion just that you seem incapable of accepting that this means killing a baby so you make a big deal about the language.
Abort means ending before the normal end of the process. You can't abort a baby, you abort a pregnancy, this usually involves killing what the woman would call her baby, until her doctors, counsellors and others involved in the abortion trade tell her to call it a foetus.
I haven't spotted you posting on alt.english.usage or alt.usage.english
so I am assuming the reason for you making that point is more down
to ideology than pedantry about the use of the word.
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
> Abortion is not the killing of a baby. The use of the word 'baby'
is a ploy
> by the yellow press to stir up emotional responses from the idiot
> readership, to create controversy where there is none, usually from some
> time in August to a couple of weeks before christmas (the silly season,
when
> there is first a parliamentary recess, then a short parliamentary session,
> during which no major (controversial) legislation is debated).
> Politicians like to mis-use the term too. For instance, Conservative MP
> Nadine Dorries, who is trying to make a name for herself, by stirring up
> controversy (where there was none) with a ten-minute rule bill, which she
> knows full well will never become law, but makes her look good amongst
> reactionary right-wing fuckwits. See
> http://www.abortionrights.org.uk/content/view/142/59/
>
> (Luckily, it was voted down, and exposed for the nonsense it was -
> http://www.abortionrights.org.uk/component/option,com_frontpage/Itemid,1/
)
>
As I stated, you seem unable to accept that an abortion kills a baby. No woman ever greets her partner by saying "Our foetus has implanted!" The use of the word baby to refer to an unborn child or foetus is as technically inaccurate and commonplace as referring to a "six pack" as a flat stomach. Yes it isn't technically accurate. I freely admit it is the word chosen by the anti-abortion lobby because it is emotionally charged but you running around like a headless chicken trying to make out that babies are not killed in abortions just makes you look to the unbiased observer (who isn't watching any longer) like a shifty politician.
Come on, it's the same thing, a foetus is an unborn child, a rosebud
by any other name would still (subject to not being picked before its
time) smell as sweet.
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
>
> If she wants an abortion then she doesn't want to support a fetus.
Well duh, that's why I support her right to have an abortion.
>
>>>> Demanding that people call an unborn baby a foetus or vice versa
is weasel words.
>>> Rubbish. So you think a 32 cell blastocyst is a "baby",
do you?
>> Of course it is an unborn baby, it is not the early stages of a third
leg, is it? It is an unborn baby.
>
> And when it splits into two and ends up being born as twins, are they
> still just one baby?
>
No, obviously. It is a bunch of cells that have the potential to be a baby, more than one baby, an aborted foetus or a faint smear on a pair of knickers. Haven't you studied biology?
The same thing can be different depending upon which way you look at it. Insisting it is always called one thing rather than another is pig-headedness.
It is the collateral, the next job, Jenny and Michael's house, "The Willows", number 33 Weasel Lane, the house with green garage door, the place the black dog lives, the Smith residence and the murder scene: all at the same time. Can't you grasp that? Saying that it is "really" one thing does not stop it from being any of the others.
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
Remove a foetus from the womb and what is it? If it is alive it is given a few minutes in limbo in a sterile dish then if it hasn't conveniently died it is suddenly reclassified as a severely premature baby, it changes its status from medical waste and becomes a patient, a person. Its survival has repercussions: inquests, lawsuits, performance league tables. It now needs a name. The religious begin to swarm around like vultures, they can sense the fresh meat.
Life's a funny old game isn't it?
Nobody likes situations like that. They're messy, awkward and potentially horrendously expensive as unwanted demic bastard children need to be farmed out to people with excess sympathy. It is so much tidier if, for sound medical reasons you understand, the foetus (and when it is inside the womb there is much less debate on this terminology) is neatly and clinically killed, by a man or woman in a white coat before anybody gets a chance to see the unwanted growth/patient move of its own volition outside the womb.
Call it a foetus if you want, if it helps you sleep better, I know
bovine meconium when I smell it.
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
> WTF has it to do with you, a male, anyway?
Ah, the voice of reason, moderation and tolerance. It's funny but it always sounds somehow a little shrill and even hysterical to me for some reason.
There are no limits on my concern except those I choose. How about
you, do you let other people decide what you should take an interest
in?
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
> It's more counter propaganda, since the anti-choice faction prefers
> it's use due to the connotations it carries. An emotional appeal as
> opposed to a factual discussion.
>
Why can't people understand that it is possible to understand the topic fully and grasp the case made by each side? It comes down to a simple decision as to whether you see the right of the foetus/baby as trumping the rights of the mother or not, and if so whether there any limits to that. It is not necessary to destroy or belittle the opposition case. It isn't necessary to prove that a lion is smaller than a grapefruit to prove that a tiger is bigger than a lion. It isn't necessary to prove that a lion is a pussycat or that a tiger can swallow mountains whole. Tigers are bigger than lions. That's it. The woman's right to choose trumps the right of the foetus to continue the pregnancy up to a point at which the foetus approaches viability and then the right of the foetus to life become much stronger.
The right to life is all about emotion, you can't frame it in entirely factual terms. It isn't a fact. People have decided to give people rights by framing laws. That was done in response to an understanding of the emotions of the issues involved rather than the facts. It is not self evident that men were born with inalienable rights, they weren't. Laws give rights. One of the clearest examples of this is the lex caesarea the Roman law by which dying mothers in late pregnancy were to be opened up to allow the child the chance of life.
Complaining that the anti-abortion side brings emotion to the issue is as sensible as complaining that water is wet. The anti-abortion lobby are using emotion and calling foetuses babies. Well who would ever have anticipated that? Come on, if a ten year old couldn't see that one coming you'd put them down as "intellectually challenged".
Why can't you just tell them that you hear them, you understand them, you empathise, you know where they are coming from, you can feel their sincerity and you like babies too but you disagree with them? What's so fucking hard about that?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, yeah, right, yeah, uh-huh. But no.
You really don't have to scoff and scorn everything they say and insult the clothes they are stood up in too. You just have to disagree with their conclusions and policy suggestions. Arguing that they are being over-emotive in their word choices is just plain stupid and it is counter-productive too as it makes you look like heartless, emotionless dogmatic extremists. Is that the image that you intend to put across? If not try to step outside yourself and look at yourself from the point of view of somebody who doesn't instinctively believe you are incapable of being wrong.
Being in favour of a woman's right to choose does not mean you have
to treat a human foetus as having no more significance and emotional
resonance than a used tampon.
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
>> How about you, do you let other people decide what you should
take an interest in?
>
> You want to have a go at me personally, fine.
>
> You're still wrong.
I asked you whether you let other people decide what you should take
an interest in. You didn't answer. Perhaps I should have asked whether
you let other people decide what you should take an interest in based
on your sex? (Words have gender, people have sex) Would I be wrong
in assuming that you'd tell them to fuck off?
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
>> So changing the name changes the reality does it? How so?
>
> You are using the word' baby' in the same emotive way (and in deliberately
> emotive posts) as the gutter press. Stick to the facts (for instance, a
> foetus is not a baby) and you might get somewhere.
Most pregnant women think the thing inside is a baby, and they call it that. Do you tell them they are wrong and being overly emotional and acting like the gutter press?
Isn't "gutter press" a bit of an emotionally loaded term? Do you have monopoly rights on the use of emotional terms and rhetorical devices in debate?
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
>
>> I think
>> the Christian
>> faith makes us more aware of the sanctity of life
>
> Then you know nothing of the foundation of christianity.
>
> Jesus exhorts us to put our mother, father, sisters and brothers to the
> sword, in order to follow him., so bringing sky-fairies into the discussion
> is no help at all.
>
> 'Sanctity' is another emotive term that has no place in the discussion.
>
Quite right, "sanctity" is an emotive term you should be
ashamed of using in an adult debate. Whereas "sky-fairy" is
a carefully defined scientific term of great academic respectability.
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
>> Would I be wrong in
>> assuming that you'd tell them to fuck off?
>
> Yes, very wrong. Now fuck off.
From where? I'm in alt.atheism where are you? I guess not alt.society.liberalism unless you are trying to be ironic.
I wasn't the one to tell somebody what they should be concerned with based on their sex. I'm not like that. I am a liberal.
I am confused now, you are telling me that you wouldn't tell somebody
to fuck off if they told you what you could be interested in based
upon your sex, which is what you told me, then you tell me to fuck
off. Is it because I am male or because I'm showing you up as a small
mind in a big debate?
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
>> The same thing can be different depending upon which way
you look at it. Insisting it is always called one thing rather than
another is pig-headedness.
>
> Humpty Dumpty strikes again.
Nonsense. Words have meanings. Reality is reality. Pinning one word
on reality does not shape reality to fit the definition of the word.
Still less does it preclude that reality fitting the shape of a different
word. Pinning any word on reality does not change the reality. The
same reality can comfortably wear multiple pegged-on words. "It's
not a baby it's a foetus" is the same sort of argument as "it's
not pasta it's spaghetti". Yes, you're right dear, it's spaghetti,
now eat up your pasta it's going cold.
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
>> Quite right, "sanctity" is an emotive term you
should be ashamed of
>> using in an adult debate. Whereas "sky-fairy" is a carefully
defined
>> scientific term of great academic respectability.
>
> :-) I hope JAF will see the humour in that line.
>
I don't do this for other people's fun.
I tend to go for "sky pixie" myself. Oh yes, according to Google Groups I have used that phrase about 18 times. It felt like more.
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
> I would love to see you on Question Time! :-) It would never
be boring,
> that's for sure :-)
>
> It's quite refreshing to hear someone showing respect to both sides of
> the debate btw.
> I think that opinions on this are more polarized in the US though.
> It's a big political issue. Although many people have deep concern
> about abortion in the UK , it doesn't generate quite the same extreme
> response as we sometimes see in America.
>
Unfortunately I don't think fast enough to do this in real time. I
have met three people directly as a result of them being impressed
by my writing. All of them promptly vanished from my life almost instantly.
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
> Of course women think of their foetus as a baby (a baby is what
they're *expecting*), and even doctors call it a baby when talking
to the pregnant woman, but when talking to their medical colleagues
they refer to it as a foetus ... even during delivery. To use inaccurate
terminology as you're doing leads to absurdity - you could just as
logically call them 'unborn senior citizens' ... but that doesn't have
the same emotive ring about it, does it?
>
> [snip]
>
Everybody except medical professionals calls it a baby. I saw something in the papers today that had a scan on it, I looked quickly at the story, it was nothing to do with abortion but talked about the baby in the womb. Everybody knows what you mean, it isn't hiding truth or distorting meaning to talk about a baby in the womb. Just try it for yourself in a search engine of your choice:
Results 1 - 10 of about 83,400 English pages for "baby in the womb".
Results 1 - 10 of about 34,700 English pages for "fetus in the womb"
Results 1 - 10 of about 14,500 English pages for "foetus in the womb"
Results 1 - 10 of about 209 English pages for "foetus in the uterus"
Results 1 - 10 of about 17,300 English pages for "fetus in the uterus"
Results 1 - 10 of about 12,100 English pages for "baby in the uterus"
Referring to a baby in the womb is not something obscure and only used for a particular political effect.
Maybe doctors do refer to a foetus (or fetus) when they are talking among themselves in a professional capacity, as I am sure they use the term vagina and birth canal, but do you think that's the terminology they use at home with their partners?
The idea that only devious people trying to lie about abortion rights because of their religiously inspired dogma use the word baby in reference to a mid-term foetus is quite simply wrong. And provably so.
Of course those who wish to frame the rights of the foetus as paramount over the rights of the mother will use emotional language which stresses the humanness and helplessness of the foetus, and calling it a baby whenever they can is one way of doing this. But it is not factually inaccurate to refer to a foetus as an unborn child or unborn baby and it is the common sense way that most mothers regard their passengers, both wanted and unwanted. The fact that it is a foetus isn't the problem, no woman ever has a major problem with carrying a foetus, ever, it is the fact that it is a potential human child that is always the heart of the problem. Calling it a foetus is therefore hiding the full implications of the procedure, that a human life will be terminated along with the pregnancy. Insisting that it is not a baby but just a foetus, while technically accurate, is weasel-words, designed to shelter those involved in abortions from the full magnitude of the actions involved.
If you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen. If you can't kill an animal don't eat meat and if you can't cope with the idea that abortions kill babies don't promote abortion rights. The world is not going to change to suit your sensibilities.
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
>>> Most pregnant women think the thing inside is a baby,
and they call it
>>> that.
>> Which proves what?
>
> Absolutely fuck all.
>
> When I shagged my wife, I said "Jesus, that's the best sex I've had
in my entire life without drugs".
>
> I didn't say "What shall we call her, sweetcheeks?"
>
> Sperm + Egg = Foetus. Deal with it, fuckers.
>
>
Sperm and egg usually means nothing at all. Sometimes it might mean an embryo. An actual pregnancy is something much more significant, and you know that, everybody does. You can posture all you like but you are just making yourself look stupid, uncaring and shallow, which is only hurting the cause you claim to be promoting, but are clearly only harming.
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
>> As I stated, you seem unable to accept that an abortion kills
a baby.
>
> You seem to be unable to accept that it doesn't.
It doesn't what? Doesn't kill? Or kills something that isn't a baby *because a baby needs to be born*. You're right, it isn't a baby, it's a foetus because it needs to be born to count as a baby, or it needs to move after it has been aborted to the extent that the medical staff decide to treat it as a premature baby. Great distinction that. Tear it out of the womb with a view to killing it (or without the view of saving it) and it is "just a foetus", tear it out of the womb with a view to delivering it, even at the same stage of gestation and with little real hope of its survival, and it becomes a baby. It must make living with your conscience so much easier. It wasn't a baby because it wasn't given the chance to be born or we weren't trying to deliver it alive when we removed it from its mother's body. It was just a foetus. It didn't count because we got in there in time while it was still small, helpless and ugly, and luckily it died before we had to class it as a baby.
There is a distinction between a baby and foetus but it is not a clear and noble one that makes all abortionists murderers or saints working on behalf of their (born) patients. The line is blurred and messy. Denying that messy reality makes people look stupid. And yet they seem to keep volunteering to do so.
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
> A fetus is destroyed. The result is that no eventual baby is
born. I
> see you admit the use of the word is pure propaganda.
No, it isn't pure propaganda. The term that most pregnant women use is baby, including after they have had their abortion. The reality of a pregnancy is a potential child. It is the use of the term that would otherwise only be used by medical professionals that is the propaganda.
Your search - "I killed my foetus" - did not match any documents.
Results 1 - 1 of 1 English pages for "I killed my fetus"
Results 1 - 2 of 2 English pages for "i killed the fetus"
Results 1 - 10 of about 533 English pages for "I killed my baby"
Results 1 - 10 of about 25 English pages for "I killed our baby"
Results 1 - 10 of about 27 English pages for "I killed his baby"
>
>> Come on, it's the same thing, a foetus is an unborn child, a rosebud
by any other name would still (subject to not being picked before its time) smell
as sweet.
>
> And a 60 year old man is a baby to his 80 year old mother.
>
Yes. Nobody ever uses the word foetus as a term of endearment, do
they? Nor blastocyst, nor embryo nor zygote. Strange that, isn't it?
--
Martin Willett
>
> Please give a reference to a right to life for anyone. Please be
> specific - I am interested in the exact details as to what is included
> under what conditions.
>
>> The right to life is all about emotion, you can't frame it in entirely
factual terms. It isn't a fact. People have decided to give people rights by
framing laws.
>
> The only rights that exist are those defined b and enforced by law.
Correct. At least that is something I as a utilitarian can agree with you on.
The right to life is what the appropriate laws state or imply that it is. As people don't have licence to kill us we have a right to life, this right extends before birth as most late-term abortions are illegal.
>
>> That was done in response to an understanding of the emotions of the
issues involved rather than the facts. It is not self evident that men were born
with inalienable rights, they weren't. Laws give rights. One of the clearest
examples of this is the /lex caesarea/ the Roman law by which dying mothers in
late pregnancy were to be opened up to allow the child the chance of life.
>>
>> Complaining that the anti-abortion side brings emotion to the issue
is as sensible as complaining that water is wet. The anti-abortion lobby are
using emotion and calling foetuses babies. Well who would ever have anticipated
that? Come on, if a ten year old couldn't see that one coming you'd put them
down as "intellectually challenged".
>
> Emotion is used because they have totally failed when trying to use
> the actual facts.
No, their whole debate stance is emotional. Win lose or draw they would always play the emotion card because it is how they think and it is who they are. Facts are not important to them, emotions are. Even if they had a huge array of facts to justify their case they would not feel comfortable with using them because facts are not important to why people support their cause.
>
>> Why can't you just tell them that you hear them, you understand them,
you empathise, you know where they are coming from, you can feel their sincerity
and you like babies too but you disagree with them? What's so fucking hard about
that?
>
> Because they have a habit of physically attacking and even killing
> those with whom they disagree. Not to mention lying in order to
> achieve their goals. Since most of their position is based on
> religion many of them feel justified in doing anything they can in
> whatever way they can to achieve their desired results.
>
Then they condemn themselves, if you are the only people being reasonable you win. But you don't, do you? For some reason the ideologically empowered people in the pro-choice lobby have to fight their way. Just as the anti-lobby doesn't use facts as long as it has got emotions to play with the pro-choice lobby doesn't like to use a reasonable tone. Victory isn't important, striving and being strident is what matters. The pro-choice lobby will continue to lobby and be strident and militant and be distinctly unreasonable even if free abortion vouchers appear in every copy of Smash Hits.
>
>> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, yeah, right, yeah, uh-huh. But no.
>>
>> You really don't have to scoff and scorn everything they say and insult
the clothes they are stood up in too.
>
> Yes, we do. The camel will not get his nose under the tent wall.
It's not the having won that matters, it's the keeping on fighting. Eh comrades?
>
>> You just have to disagree with their conclusions and policy suggestions.
Arguing that they are being over-emotive in their word choices is just plain
stupid and it is counter-productive too as it makes you look like heartless,
emotionless dogmatic extremists. Is that the image that you intend to put across?
If not try to step outside yourself and look at yourself from the point of view
of somebody who doesn't instinctively believe you are incapable of being wrong.
>>
>> Being in favour of a woman's right to choose does not mean you have
to treat a human foetus as having no more significance and emotional resonance
than a used tampon.
>
> It doesn't.
>
How many hundreds of people have you signed up to the cause this week due to your reasonable and constructive attitude?
To listen to the tone of the rhetoric and test the heat of the debate
anybody would think we were living in the era of prohibition and abortionists
being transported to Botany Bay. Miraculously, against all the odds
and against all logic of political debate you fanatics actually represent
something rather close to the status quo position and yet you still
posture and play righter-on-than-thou with each other (note the tampon
comment above). Why? Is being in the mainstream uncomfortable for you?
Is being reasonable and measured actually painful?
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
>>>
>>> Can you quote the New Testament passage
where Jesus
>>> tells us to do that?
>> Matthew 10:21 And the brother
shall deliver up the brother to death, and the
>> father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents,
and
>> cause them to be put to death.
>> 10:35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and
the
>> daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother
in
>> law.
>> 10:36 And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.
>> 10:37 He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of
me: and
>> he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
>>
>
> This doesn't tell us to slaughter our families!
> This was a prediction that families would betray each other.
>
Right. That shows a very poor understanding of what that passage was all about. When I saw that post I thought that was severe over-reaching and I thought I knew which passages would be used. I was right.
It is correct to say that Christianity gives a much higher level of sanctity to life than most creeds. I hate a lot of what Christianity has done to our world, if it wasn't for Christianity we'd have been colonising the outer planets by now, but Christianity has made modern post-Christian societies more respectful of life than they would otherwise be.
On the whole I put Christianity in the same category as the Black Death, the industrial revolution, the Permian mass extinction crisis and the Thatcher government: things that I am glad happened but I'm much more glad they don't have to happen again.
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
>
>>>>> Rubbish. So you think a 32 cell blastocyst is a "baby",
do you?
>>>> Of course it is an unborn baby, it is not the early stages of
a third leg, is it? It is an unborn baby.
>>> And when it splits into two and ends up being
born as twins, are they
>>> still just one baby?
>> No, obviously. It is a bunch of cells that have the potential to be
a baby, more than one baby, an aborted foetus or a faint smear on a pair of knickers.
Haven't you studied biology?
>
> But you said it was a baby. Now you say it's something else.
>
> Which is it really?
>
>> The same thing can be different depending upon which way you look at
it.
>
> Smirk. That's how dishonest people think.
>
It's just a rock. It's 3.53 kilos of weathered schist. It's part of Mr McGregor's rockery. It's Exhibit A in the case of the Crown Vs. McGregor. Which is it really?
It's a large orange thing dad bought from a man in a pub because he was drunk. It's a lantern with a face that is meant to be scary but looks strangely like Roy Hattersley. It's the stuff left over from the pumpkin pie before we throw the pie out. Which is it really?
Same thing, different interpretation isn't dishonest, it's how intelligent people think. One thing, one meaning, is how dogmatic people think, or avoid thinking.
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
>> Can't you see that it can be both 21.6 grams of tetrahedrally
bonded carbon atoms and a priceless and fabulous jewel?
>
> If the transformation of the carbon to the proper crystalline
> structure is complete. Would you pay diamond prices for a lead
> pencil?
>
It wouldn't be tetrahedrally bonded would it? Or lead. Or my analogy.
Funnily enough buying a priceless and legendary jewel has never crossed
my mind. It doesn't seem to be a thing that people buy. It's found,
given or taken. Not sold. Ever. Maybe nobody has ever had enough money.
"If a strong man should take five stones, and throw one north, one south,
one east, and one west, and the last straight up into the air, and the space
between filled with gold and gems, that would equal the value of the Koh-i-noor" Nobody
has ever named or paid a price for it. But it's just 21.6 grams of tetrahedrally
bonded carbon atoms.
Just is a small word.
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
>> Just try it for yourself in a search engine of your choice:
>
> If a million people are using the incorrect terminology,
that is all a
> search engine will show you. It is not a reference source.
It is an excellent reference source as it shows both correct and common usage and shows you how widespread each is. What it does show is that the use of the word baby rather than foetus is very widespread and not any more sinister than using the word stomach to mean abdomen, arse to mean buttocks or guy to mean man.
In an English speaking country many people prefer English words to Latin ones and resist authority figures making them use a foreign word instead, baby is as English as arse or shit.
Millions of people regularly refer to the unborn with the common English
word baby, and they do so with no ulterior motive other than the fact
that this seems to be the word that feels right for them to use, the
word they naturally use themselves and a word that does not strike
them as foreign or imposed on them by authority figures. Dictionaries
vary as to whether this is correct or not
http://www.answers.com/baby&r=67
ba·by (ba-'be-)
n., pl. -bies.
A very young child; an infant.
*An unborn child; a fetus.*
The youngest member of a family or group.
A very young animal.
An adult or young person who behaves in an infantile way.
Slang. A girl or young woman.
Informal. Sweetheart; dear. Used as a term of endearment.
Slang. An object of personal concern or interest: Keeping the boat in good
repair is your baby.
adj., -i·er, -i·est.
Of or having to do with a baby.
Infantile or childish.
Small in comparison with others of the same kind: baby vegetables.
tr.v., -bied, -by·ing, -bies.
To pamper like a baby; coddle. See synonyms at pamper.
[Middle English.]
Do you regularly berate people for days on end for not using the "correct" Latin words such as flatus rather than fart or mucus rather than snot? If not please explain why you need to do so on this issue.
Nobody actually pictures foetuses in little romper-suits and bibs, we all know the difference between babies on the Pampers adverts and those in the hospital incinerator. Why are you too precious to accept this? Why is your assessment of the mentality of your fellow voter and newspaper reader so pitifully and condescendingly low?
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
>> Everybody except medical professionals calls it a baby.
>>
>
> Bloody hell. So when did I become a medical professional, and why didn't
I notice the training? Am I a doctor, a nurse, or (horror) a chiropodist? Why
isn't my salary being paid in to my bank account?
>
The other reason to call it a foetus is so you can think of it as less than a potential child, something much easier to kill.
Foetus is the correct term for an expendable or unwanted unborn child. Any parent who is happy to be a parent doesn't think and talk about a foetus, even if they know it is the correct term.
It is easier to kill a foetus than a baby just as it is easier to skin a coney than a rabbit. It's a foreign word, it makes the killing more clinical doesn't it?
When I was contemplating spreading wild oats (more contemplating than actually sowing) I thought about foetuses, when I got married that all changed. It's an ugly word that makes loving and bonding harder, which is why the vanguard of the pro-choice movement prefers it over the cosy, English and lovable word baby.
So why do you use the foetus?
Possibilities:
Terminal pedantry
Political dogmatism
The fear that you'll get lucky, then unlucky
Some kind of death-to-Chavs eugenics kick
Wanting to fit in with the feminazis
You're a reincarnated Ancient Roman or some other sort of Latin-lover
I hope that answers your questions doctor.
My wife's best friend was a theatre nurse for many years and talked about foetuses in a professional capacity while she helped kill them. It is a mental trick that only goes so far. They weren't foetuses to her inside. I suggest it is better to grasp the bull by the balls and accept that abortion kills babies rather than trying to tie yourself up in linguistic knots to hide that reality from the part of you that understands it very clearly.
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
>> Sperm and egg usually means nothing at all. Sometimes it
might mean an embryo.
>
> Ah, now it suits you to use the correct terminology . . .
>
> Listen carefully, and you can hear the goalposts shifting.
My whole point right from the beginning has been that the various terms overlap in meaning. When I need precision in language I use it. In that sentence I needed it, in that sentence only embryo would do.
The word baby has a wide range of meanings in common usage which includes the use as a synonym for the ugly, technical and foreign-sounding foetus.
ba·by
n., pl. -bies.
A very young child; an infant.
An unborn child; a fetus.
The youngest member of a family or group.
A very young animal.
An adult or young person who behaves in an infantile way.
Slang. A girl or young woman.
Informal. Sweetheart; dear. Used as a term of endearment.
Slang. An object of personal concern or interest: Keeping the boat in good
repair is your baby.
adj., -i·er, -i·est.
Of or having to do with a baby.
Infantile or childish.
Small in comparison with others of the same kind: baby vegetables.
tr.v., -bied, -by·ing, -bies.
To pamper like a baby; coddle. See synonyms at pamper.
[Middle English.]
http://www.answers.com/baby
I have never suggested that the word foetus (or fetus, which is more technically correct - Americans are not *always* wrong) is wrongly used. I have been trying to show that it is the insistence on using the word foetus and *never using baby* which is the more ideologically inspired than the reverse. A newspaper will never use a six letter word when a four letter one will do, especially if the four letter one packs a bigger punch. It is a golden rule of newspaper headlines and leads to the use of weird and wonderful newspaper-only words and phrases such as boffin for scientist, quiz or probe for enquiry, SW19 for Wimbledon and Mucca for Heather Mills-McCartney. Shorter is always better, even if it is less accurate and especially if it makes a story seem more shocking than they really are. Yes newspapers have an agenda, making a story bite you on the arse and make you want to read it. To have used foetus instead of baby would actually have been gross professional misconduct for a tabloid journalist because it used more letters, lessened the visual impact of the headline, lessened the emotional impact of the story and denied an obvious stimulus to correspondence and renewed controversy. It would be worse than missing an opportunity to make a pun with the name of a footballer.
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
> You pro-liars are such arrogant assholes that you think that
you alone
> have any business deciding right from wrong. You have no problems
> with morality because you believe you're never wrong.
>
How dare you assume I am on the opposite side of the great debate
from you just because I expose your shifty tactics? I believe in a
woman's right to choose to terminate a pregnancy. I don't think that
gives anybody the right to lie about the nastiness of abortion and
try to cover it up with dusty technical language and wild aspersions
against perceived opponents. Abortion is a fucking tragedy every time
it happens. But sometimes it has to happen to avoid bigger tragedies.
People who make out that it is all clean and clinical and no more traumatic
or redolent with consequences and moral dimensions than changing a
tampon make me ashamed to be human.
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
>>> It is correct to say that Christianity gives a much higher
level of
>>> sanctity to life than most creeds.
>> Biblical deaths caused by god - around 2.25 to
2.5 million.
>> Biblical deaths caused by the Devil - 10.
>>
>> I think you could be wrong . . .
>
> Numbers of murdered millions by official atheists...
>
> Mao Tse Tung: 65 million
> Stalin: 25 million (Stalin +others in former USSR)
> Vietnam: 1 million
> North Korea: 2 million
> Cambodia: 2 million
> Eastern Europe: 1 million
> Africa (various): 1.7 million
> Afghanistan: 1.5 million
> Others: 10,000
>
> Total estimated deaths from offical atheism: 99 million.
>
>
How many thousands of those were killed for not being atheists?
Communists killed political opponents, hated classes and people they feared. They did not do much killing of religious people simply because they were religious. That is what religious people do to each other, it is religious people who murder in the name of religious belief. Many of those killed by the "atheist Communists" were themselves atheists. And communists.
Christian respect for life does not always extend to heathens, infidels and heretics. When Christians kill en masse they do so with prayers on their lips, often with the approval of their church and in the case of the crusades papal forgiveness not only for all the sins they had committed in this vale of tears but also for those they were surely about to commit.
The fact that Christians have been less efficient than Chairman Mao
in killing people is far more to do with the crusader's lack of automatic
weapons, aircraft and poison gas than it is to do with Christian mercy.
If a medieval pope had access to a B-52 Arabia would still be glowing
today.
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
>>>>
>>>> Can't you see that it can be both 21.6 grams of tetrahedrally
bonded carbon atoms and a priceless and fabulous jewel?
>>> If the transformation of the carbon to the
proper crystalline
>>> structure is complete. Would you pay diamond prices for a lead
>>> pencil?
>>>
>> It wouldn't be tetrahedrally bonded would it?
>
> Nope.
>
>> Or lead.
>
> The 'lead' in what is commonly called a 'lead pencil' is actually a
> form of graphite.
>
>> Or my analogy. Funnily enough buying a priceless and legendary jewel
has never crossed my mind. It doesn't seem to be a thing that people buy. It's
found, given or taken. Not sold. Ever.
>
> A number of them have been sold, among the most famous is the Hope
> diamond.
That is just a big shiny rock. Comparing that bauble to the Koh-i-noor
is like comparing Jordan to Cleopatra.
>
>> Maybe nobody has ever had enough money.
>
> Since most of them were found a long time ago and "somehow' ended up
> in Crown Jewels few can be sold.
>
>
>> "If a strong man should take five stones, and throw one north,
one south, one east, and one west, and the last straight up into the air, and
the space between filled with gold and gems, that would equal the value of the
Koh-i-noor" Nobody has ever named or paid a price for it.
>
> It can't be - legally.
Nobody has ever seriously valued the Koh-i-noor, it is by far the
most
valuable diamond known to man but by no means the largest. You cannot
begin to put a value on it except to say that whatever anybody offers
for it you can safely assume it is worth a bit more than that.
>
>> But it's just 21.6 grams of tetrahedrally bonded carbon atoms.
>>
>> Just is a small word.
>
> The same is true of anything that is a storehouse of value.
>
> Gold is even smaller.
Rubbish. One carat diamonds are worth $6,600 per carat, with 142 of
them
making up an ounce. Five carat diamonds are worth $16,700 per carat, 28
stones worth 2.3 million dollars per ounce. Bigger stones
are worth even more per carat. If you have to ask you can't afford them.
The Koh-i-noor is less than an ounce and is worth, approximately, Belgium.
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
>> "So? You're still wrong."
>
> so what? they didn't do it in the name of atheism, unlike christianity,
> judaism, islam, etc.
Your debating style has all the subtly of a 1960s shopping centre.
Absolutely deadly if your opponent happens to be travelling along at
high speed without looking, but otherwise ugly, inefficient and easily
avoided.
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
>> No, it isn't pure propaganda. The term that most pregnant women use
is baby, including after they have had their abortion.
>
> So what? At one time a table had limbs.
So what the women who are actually involved think isn't important? They don't count against your own right-on dogma about The Rights of Women. The thoughts of women, no capital letters, don't count against the abstract Rights of The Woman. Very empowering. Very enlightened.
>
>> The reality of a pregnancy is a potential child.
>
> Here we have another example of the Stupid Woman Syndrome. The
> assumption is made that the woman involved is too stupid to understand
> that she is pregnant and if she stays pregnant the result will be the
> birth of a baby. However, if she secures an abortion the result will
> be that she does not have a baby.
>
> Somehow the woman is too stupid to understand the relationship between
> having an abortion and not having a baby.
>
>
>> It is the use of the term that would otherwise only be used by medical
professionals that is the propaganda.
>>
>> Your search - "I killed my foetus" - did not match any documents.
>>
>> Results 1 - 1 of 1 English pages for "I killed my fetus"
>>
>> Results 1 - 2 of 2 English pages for "i killed the fetus"
>>
>> Results 1 - 10 of about 533 English pages for "I killed my baby"
>>
>> Results 1 - 10 of about 25 English pages for "I killed our baby"
>>
>> Results 1 - 10 of about 27 English pages for "I killed his baby"
>
> And "I had an abortion" would probably melt your search engine.
Nothing ever melts a search engine.
Results 1 - 10 of about 88,900 English pages for "i had an abortion"
Try looking, I dare you. It might make you feel distinctly less cocky and gung-ho about the issue if you look at what the women involved actually have to say for themselves.
Of course women prefer not to talk about killing anything, that is why the foam-at-the-mouth pro-abortionists hardly ever use the word and go out of their way not to. When challenged about it they say killing is implied and they don't want to insult the intelligence of the women involved by mentioning it. You don't need much intelligence to get pregnant, do you? And to get pregnant when you don't want to must hardly require MENSA standard intellect. Which is not to imply that women who need abortions are by definition stupid or have made foreseeable mistakes just that the opposite certainly does not follow. A twelve year old with the IQ and intellect of a six year old who doesn't know the correct term for her front bottom and still believes in fairies can get pregnant. To some feminists a miracle as profound as anything ever believed in by a Catholic now takes place, this stupid child who believed the stories about going to see the puppies now miraculously becomes a woman. Not in my book she doesn't.
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
> You're getting over-emotional.
> So much so that it's becoming almost impossible to tell exactly
which 'side'
> you are on.
I am always on the side of truth, that makes things nice and simple. I never have to worry about whether what I think is what I should think. What I do think is what matters. If the world doesn't like it the world will just have to adjust or get used to being wrong.
If I don't cry when I'm writing from time to time I'm doing it wrong.
Today I've done it right.
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
>>>> Just try it for yourself in a search engine of your
choice:
>>> If a million people are using the
incorrect terminology, that is all a
>>> search engine will show you. It is not a reference source.
>> It is an excellent reference source as it shows both correct
and common usage and shows you how widespread each is.
>
> Look up "alien abduction".
>
Your point? A search engine can show what is out there, the material needs to be interpreted. If you treat it as an oracle you will be mislead because it has no judgement. But because it has no judgement you can use it to see what is out there.
In this case it shows that people use the word baby where technically
they shouldn't. They don't do it just for political effect, to make
a point and to hide the reality from themselves. That is the reality
they perceive. The idea that everybody knows the correct word is foetus
and not baby and anybody using the term baby when they mean foetus
is a lying conniving anti-abortionist Christian fundamentalist is simply
bullshit. It is quite the other way around, it is more often those
who use the ugly word foetus or fetus outside of a medical environment
who have chosen the word for its political and emotional connotation.
When people aren't manning the barricades they will freely use either
word interchangably, with a preference for the sweeter and more euphonic
English word baby; as evidenced by the much more popular usage of the
phrase "baby in the womb" which yes, we know, you've told
us, is technically inaccurate but it is what people use. Even when
they haven't got a Christian fundamentalist news editor breathing down
their neck.
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
>> How dare you assume I am on the opposite side of the great
debate from you just because I expose your shifty tactics?
>
> "You have no problems with morality
because you believe you're never
> wrong."
>
> More of the usual pro-liar arrogance.
>
I was making a point about people using language and loaded terms
as a weapon to stifle debate while pretending to be engaged in it.
I think you have made it for me.
Ray is a doubleplusgood duckspeaker.
Expand your vocabulary and open your mind to the possibilities of nuance.
--
Martin Willett
>>> Bloody hell. So when did I become
a medical professional, and why didn't I notice the training? Am I
a doctor, a nurse, or (horror) a chiropodist? Why isn't my salary being
paid in to my bank account?
>>>
>> The other reason to call it a foetus is so you can think of
it as less than a potential child, something much easier to kill.
>>
>
> Only if you are unable to distinguish between the word and the
thing. What I call a developing human being during various stages of
development doesn't in any way affect how I believe it should be treated.
I can't imagine anybody ever saying anything different, but we know that "other people" do have different attitudes to the same thing depending on how it is labelled. I suppose you could call it third person stupidity, the sort of stupid thinking that only other people do, no matter who the first and second person are.
>
>> Foetus is the correct term for an expendable or unwanted unborn
child. Any parent who is happy to be a parent doesn't think and talk
about a foetus, even if they know it is the correct term.
>>
>
> Utter nonsense. Prospective parents use all sorts of terms to refer
to an unborn child. There is absolutely no evidence of any correlation
between the words they choose to describe it and how they feel about
it. Two of the most devoted and loving parents I know have referred to
both their children as "the lump" most of the way through pregnancy,
and sometimes refer to their children as "the rugrats" or "the
spawn". You may have a problem developing empathy and respect for
a foetus without using the word "baby", however it definitely
isn't the case for most people.
Have you asked them? Better yet have you observed them? Looking at the words people use when they want a baby they call it a baby, when they don't they call it a foetus. That pattern is very clear to anybody with a mind open enough to accept it.
Of course there is overlap and people will use both words, which is how it should be, but those who are unhappily pregnant prefer foetus and the happily pregnant prefer baby.
>
>> It is easier to kill a foetus than a baby just as it is easier
to skin a coney than a rabbit. It's a foreign word, it makes the killing
>> more clinical doesn't it?
>
> No it doesn't. It doesn't make a blind bit of difference. What it
does is allow the possibility of accurately describing different stages
of development.
Why do people go shooting rabbits and then sell coney fur if the word doesn't have any effect on people's perceptions? You're on a sticky wicket with this one but you don't seem to have the guts to admit it. Foetus is an ugly word that people don't normally use unless they have a particular reason to be strictly medically accurate or they want to put the maximum mental distance between the unborn child and a born child.
I suggest that most people and journalists should use both terms to show that they are not a closed minded bigot on one side of the barricades or the other. "Aborted babies in incinerator" is a reasonable headline to grab attention, if the word foetus didn't appear in the body copy then you could accuse them of bias.
>
>> When I was contemplating spreading wild oats (more contemplating
than actually sowing) I thought about foetuses, when I got married that
all changed. It's an ugly word that makes loving and bonding harder,
which is why the vanguard of the pro-choice movement prefers it over
the cosy, English and lovable word baby.
>>
>
> I think you have a real problem separating
language and concept.
>
>> So why do you use the foetus?
>>
>> Possibilities:
>>
>> Terminal pedantry
>>
>> Political dogmatism
>>
>> The fear that you'll get lucky, then unlucky
>>
>> Some kind of death-to-Chavs eugenics kick
>>
>> Wanting to fit in with the feminazis
>>
>> You're a reincarnated Ancient Roman or some other sort of Latin-lover
>>
>
> Actually I rather like the word. Not least because I used to regularly
use the same recording studio as the excellent Scraping Foetus Off The
Wheel (amongst other names). The English language is rich and diverse
and it's good to use the complete range of words available in order to
maximise accuracy and minimise ambiguity.
You obviously have an ear for language and you noted the ugliness of the word foetus and chose it specifically for that shocking title.
Foetus is a nasty sounding word, like a contraction of fenian rictus or foetid flatus. It's an ugly sound for an ugly thing and it makes it sound nasty.
I can't think of anything nice that sounds remotely like foetus. Not a single chocolate bar, washing powder, car, item of lingerie, or style of coffee. Not even an insurance company or low price airline. It is an ugly ugly sound.
In contrast the world is full of baby sounds even for things that don't have anything to do with babies or all things cute and small.
With your ear for words I put it to you (you don't have to answer) that it is no coincidence that rabid anti-anti-abortionists make such a big thing about not using the euphonous B word when there's a perfectly cacophonous F word to use that also has the secondary advantage of being more technically accurate. That's my point. I won't labour it much longer as I don't expect anybody to admit that I have convinced them on the matter. I know how debate works.
>
>> I hope that answers your questions doctor.
>>
>> My wife's best friend was a theatre nurse for many years and
talked about foetuses in a professional capacity while she helped kill
them. It is a mental trick that only goes so far. They weren't foetuses
to her inside. I suggest it is better to grasp the bull by the balls
and accept that abortion kills babies rather than trying to tie yourself
up in linguistic knots to hide that reality from the part of you that
understands it very clearly.
>>
>
> I'd appreciate it if you attempted to debate
with me rather than following up my posts with arguments directed at
your wife's best friend.
Wha? I wasn't arguing at her, I was using her as an example of somebody using the term foetus in a professional capacity while she was fully aware of their humanity and baby-nature. You can't assume anything about the feelings of somebody in the medical profession who is using the correct medical term or what words they might use when they are not on duty. That was the point.
> At no point have I suggested that abortion is or should be easy.
At no point have I suggested that it's ever something I would personally
favour in a situation where I was directly concerned. I just don't
think that using some kind of "baby talk", rather than the
correct terms, is doing anything to help the debate from either direction.
>
> It's not me trying to hide from anything. So far as I can see it's
you. At some point there has to be a point at which you count human life
as beginning. Refusing to use accurate terminology prevents you from
being able to face the fact that there isn't a clearly definable point
at which the potential for a human being actually becomes one.
>
I don't have many arguments with you. Our attitudes to abortion are very similar. Human life does not spring up fully formed and I don't consider it wise to make policy as if it did. I don't have any great moral objections in keeping back some degrees of legal protection for a child even several months after birth. But that's another debate for another time.
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/