Searching for GOD...

[Enki]

These three conditions are separated by the word "or" which means that any one of them can prevail.  It does not take much legal expertise to realise that the third condition would allow abortion up to birth if the mother claimed to have mental health issues.  Saying this, there can be no objection to abortion if it is to save the life of the mother.

Which, as I have already said, is a world away from your insinuation and distortion that New York State has given 'the green light to abortion up to birth.' 

[Alan Burns]

Which, as I have already said, is a world away from your insinuation and distortion that New York State has given 'the green light to abortion up to birth.'

https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2019/january/a-sad-and-evil-day-new-york-legalizes-abortion-up-to-babys-birth-day-on-anniversary-of-roe-v-wade

[Alan Burns]

AB,

Personal opinion is exactly what it is. No organisation that I know of “campaigns…to allow abortion up to birth..." as you asserted, least of all AI.

When you get something wrong that’s a mistake; when the mistake is corrected for you and you continue you with it then you’re lying. I know that lying for Jesus is your thing, but it does you no credit when you do it.

https://www.preciouslife.com/news/93/amnesty-international-launches-global-campaign-for-unrestricted-access-to-abortion/

[Gordon]

https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2019/january/a-sad-and-evil-day-new-york-legalizes-abortion-up-to-babys-birth-day-on-anniversary-of-roe-v-wade

This link is to an site with a clear religious agenda, and does come across as somewhat hysterical, such as in highlighting the views of a US sports chappie whose primary qualification seems to be that he is a Christian and he gets paid for playing a game 'Outspoken Christian and New Orleans Saints tight end Ben Watson also strongly condemned the law.'

Can you point to the specific clause in this legislation that specifies 'birth day' and explains how this date is defined?

[Stranger]

https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2019/january/a-sad-and-evil-day-new-york-legalizes-abortion-up-to-babys-birth-day-on-anniversary-of-roe-v-wade

Yet, according to CNN:

The law also addresses late-term abortions. Under New York's Reproductive Health Act, they can be performed after 24 weeks if the fetus is not viable or when necessary to protect the life of the mother.

-- New York puts in measures to protect access to abortion even if Roe v. Wade is overturned

Note the "if".

[Gordon]

https://www.preciouslife.com/news/93/amnesty-international-launches-global-campaign-for-unrestricted-access-to-abortion/

Even in recognising that this site has an agenda as regards the position in NI, as its name suggests, I can't see a clear statement that abortion up to 'day of birth' is being actively campaigned for.

Perhaps you are reading too much into the 'unrestricted access' phrase since in relation to NI, as far as I'm aware, the issue is that women there aren't covered by the abortion legislation that applies elsewhere in the UK and it is the introduction of similar legislation in NI that is being campaigned for.   

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

https://www.preciouslife.com/news/93/amnesty-international-launches-global-campaign-for-unrestricted-access-to-abortion/

I’d have thought even someone as lost in prejudice and misunderstanding as you would have had an alarm bell or two set off by a dodgy website that says things like: “increasingly pro-abortion and homosexualist lobby group says…”.

Moreover, if you’d bothered to read what the AI campaign actually concerns you’d have seen that it doesn’t argue for abortion “up to birth” at all. AI’s “My Body My Rights” document concerns three issues: decriminalisation of abortion; freedom from discriminatory laws; and access to safe sexual and reproductive health services.

What the campaign document actually says about the first of these is as follows:

“Decriminalisation of abortion

Unsafe abortions are a leading cause of maternal deaths – about 13% globally. And 40% of women of childbearing age live in countries where abortion is banned, restricted or not accessible (Source: World Health Organisation). Seeking an abortion – or helping someone get one – should not make anyone a criminal. Women and girls and health workers must not face jail for accessing or providing abortion services”.

(https://www.amnesty.org.uk/files/aiuk_mbmr_pocket_guide.pdf) 

Nowhere though does AI “campaign…to allow abortion up to birth..." as you wrongly claimed it to do.

So now your lie has been nailed, here’s your chance to withdraw it. 

[Alan Burns]

Even in recognising that this site has an agenda as regards the position in NI, as its name suggests, I can't see a clear statement that abortion up to 'day of birth' is being actively campaigned for.

Perhaps you are reading too much into the 'unrestricted access' phrase since in relation to NI, as far as I'm aware, the issue is that women there aren't covered by the abortion legislation that applies elsewhere in the UK and it is the introduction of similar legislation in NI that is being campaigned for.

Amnesty International is using the NI issue to promote its pro abortion agenda which was initiated over ten years ago and which openly violates the founding member's original aim.

https://davidalton.net/2010/12/23/amnesty-and-abortion/

[Alan Burns]

Moreover, if you’d bothered to read what the AI campaign actually concerns you’d have seen that it doesn’t argue for abortion “up to birth” at all.

It argues for decriminalisation of abortion with no specified restrictions, which would make it legal to kill the child in its mother's womb at any time up to natural birth.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Amnesty International is using the NI issue to promote its pro abortion agenda which was initiated over ten years ago and which openly violates the founding member's original aim.

https://davidalton.net/2010/12/23/amnesty-and-abortion/

Campaigning for the decriminalisation of something isn't "promoting" it no matter what religiously-inspired websites tell you otherwise, and again there's nothing whatever that says that AI are campaigning for abortion "up to birth" despite you're claiming that they do.   

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

It argues for decriminalisation of abortion with no specified restrictions, which would make it legal to kill the child in its mother's womb at any time up to natural birth.

No it doesn't. It's silent on late term abortions - presumably because there are exceptional cases in which it can be argued for (death of the mother for example). All AI argues for is the decriminalisation of abortion in general. If a country that criminalises abortion in general decided to accept AI's campaign and to decriminalise it in general and also put in place specific rules on late term abortions AI does not and would not campaign against that.   

However much you twist in the wind about this, there's no evidence whatever that AI campaigns for abortion "up to birth" as you wrongly asserted.   

[Gordon]

Amnesty International is using the NI issue to promote its pro abortion agenda which was initiated over ten years ago and which openly violates the founding member's original aim.

https://davidalton.net/2010/12/23/amnesty-and-abortion/

The aims and objections of organisations do change over time, Alan, and it seems to me AI are concerned about the criminalisation of those needing to access abortion services, which isn't the same thing as advocating abortion up to the so-called 'day of birth'. It seems you aren't in the least frightened by slippery slopes.

It would also pay to read what you cite, since in this case the 2nd para says 'Highly influential churchmen, such as Cardinal Keith O’Brien and Bishop Michael Evans, of East Anglia (a member of Amnesty for 31 years) have been left with no choice but to resign.'

Keith O'Brien, now dead, was indeed influential but his influence was far from benign, since subsequent to this 2007 article he was defrocked due to his sexual conduct, which I'd have thought you'd have noticed.   

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Amnesty International is using the NI issue to promote its pro abortion agenda which was initiated over ten years ago and which openly violates the founding member's original aim.

https://davidalton.net/2010/12/23/amnesty-and-abortion/

I agree that the concerns raised in the article are valid - there is a huge negative aspect to freely available abortion such as the discrimination of nearly a million girl babies being aborted each year in India, the one-child abortion policy in China and the resulting skewed population that means there are nearly 70 million more men than women in the world's two largest countries, and the associated problems in the economy as well as problems in society due to male loneliness, male violence, sex trafficking, prostitution.

On the other hand, forcing a woman to continue with a pregnancy that she does not want sounds discriminatory, given a man is not in a similar position - it seems like violence against a woman since pregnancy is a physical issue that causes various physical hardships and complications. Having been through it twice I really disliked the vulnerability of being pregnant. So decriminalising abortion seems a valid response to what can be for some, the burden of pregnancy. More importantly than this discriminatory angle, over-populating the planet with lots of unwanted babies seems a crazy idea. For the sake of the rest of the planet, I'd say the less sanctity of human life (and not just for babies), the better - up to a point. 

[bluehillside Retd.]

Here’s what can happen when religious dogma in this area is allowed to prevail:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/04/raped-argentina-church-deny-abortion

[jeremyp]

Amnesty International is using the NI issue to promote its pro abortion agenda which was initiated over ten years ago and which openly violates the founding member's original aim.

https://davidalton.net/2010/12/23/amnesty-and-abortion/

This is what a more neutral site says about Amnesty’s abortion policy:

In April 2007, Amnesty International changed its neutral stance on abortion to supporting access to abortion in cases of rape and incest, and when the life or the health of the mother might be threatened. Amnesty's official policy is that they "do not promote abortion as a universal right" but "support the decriminalisation of abortion"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Amnesty_International#Amnesty_International's_abortion_policies_since_2007_and_the_Catholic_Church


Can you explain what is unreasonable about that policy?

[Alan Burns]

Can you explain what is unreasonable about that policy?

A policy which advocates the decriminalisation of abortion condones a woman's legal right to have her child killed for any reason while it is in the womb.

I cannot understand how an organisation which claims to stand up for human rights can have total disregard for the fact that there are two human lives at stake - not just one.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

A policy which advocates the decriminalisation of abortion condones a woman's legal right to have her child killed for any reason while it is in the womb.

Wrong again. Neither a zygote, nor an embryo, nor a foetus is "a child". Here's a link to get you started:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_embryonic_development

I cannot understand how an organisation which claims to stand up for human rights can have total disregard for the fact that there are two human lives at stake - not just one.

See above.

[Alan Burns]

AB,

Wrong again. Neither a zygote, an embryo or a foetus is "a child". Here's a link to get you started:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_embryonic_development

See above.

"Human" is the keyword to consider.

Zygote, embryo, foetus, baby, infant, teenager, adult - these are just labels used to describe different stages of the continuous development of human life which begins at conception.  You were a foetus in your early life, just as you were a baby, or an infant.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

"Human" is the keyword to consider.

Zygote, embryo, foetus, baby, infant, teenager, adult - these are just labels used to describe different stages of the continuous development of human life which begins at conception.  You were a foetus in your early life, just as you were a baby, or an infant.

Only if your understanding of human life is defined by religious dogma.

Here's Sam Harris with some facts instead:

“A three-day-old human embryo is a collection of 150 cells called a blastocyst. There are, for the sake of comparison, more than 100,000 cells in the brain of a fly. The human embryos that are destroyed in stem-cell research do not have brains, or even neurons. Consequently, there is no reason to believe they can suffer their destruction in any way at all. It is worth remembered, in this context, that when a person's brain has died, we currently deem it acceptable to harvest his organs (provided he has donated them for this purpose) and bury him in the ground. If it is acceptable to treat a person whose brain has died as something less than a human being, it should be acceptable to treat a blastocyst as such. If you are concerned about suffering in this universe, killing a fly should present you with greater moral difficulties than killing a human blastocyst.

Perhaps you think that the crucial difference between a fly and a human blastocyst is to be found in the latter's potential to become a fully developed human being. But almost every cell in your body is a potential human being, given our recent advances in genetic engineering. Every time you scratch your nose, you have committed a Holocaust of potential human beings.”

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/191185-a-three-day-old-human-embryo-is-a-collection-of-150-cells

Your cheat there was the phrase "continuous development". Yes a person would have gone through these stages, and indeed you could add sperm and egg to that list if you wanted to. That doesn't mean though that each of these stages will in fact become a person later on. 

[SusanDoris]

"Human" is the keyword to consider.

Zygote, embryo, foetus, baby, infant, teenager, adult - these are just labels used to describe different stages of the continuous development of human life which begins at conception.  You were a foetus in your early life, just as you were a baby, or an infant.

Yuk! If mods want to remove this, so be it, but I'm going to write that first!

[Stranger]

"Human" is the keyword to consider.

Zygote, embryo, foetus, baby, infant, teenager, adult - these are just labels used to describe different stages of the continuous development of human life which begins at conception.  You were a foetus in your early life, just as you were a baby, or an infant.

Given then that 50% or more of zygotes fail to implant, that definition would make your god (if it existed) by far the most prolific abortionist or, as you seem to prefer, child-killer in the world...

[wigginhall]

And don't forget, God has to produce lots of babies, to fuel the need of priests to rape them.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Wiggs,

And don't forget, God has to produce lots of babies, to fuel the need of priests to rape them.

Ouch.

[torridon]

The point is that we are animals....aspiring to come out of the animal slot.   And we are capable of coming out of it.  That is what makes us different.

All our attempts at becoming cooperative, selfless, charitable, altruistic and humane is to move into a 'higher' mental framework.  It is a natural but unique tendency and capability we seem to have developed. 

Even though some animal species may have developed rudimentary aspects of the 'higher' mind, we have it in full bloom.

Since we have the capability to move out of the animal mental slot and also seem to be directed towards it naturally, we should make it our objective of life.  That is what religions and spirituality teach.

This is, to a degree, hubris, taking human superiority as an unquestioned given. I agree, chimpanzees have not produced a Shakespeare or a J S Bach, or landed a rover on an asteroid yet.  On the other hand, they are not knowingly driving species into extinction, filling the oceans with plastic or building weapons of mass destruction.  Maybe there is a terrible maths to this, the cost of producing a genius, is a hundred thousand morons.

[Nearly Sane]

This is, to a degree, hubris, taking human superiority as an unquestioned given. I agree, chimpanzees have not produced a Shakespeare or a J S Bach, or landed a rover on an asteroid yet.  On the other hand, they are not knowingly driving species into extinction, filling the oceans with plastic or building weapons of mass destruction.  Maybe there is a terrible maths to this, the cost of producing a genius, is a hundred thousand morons.

A slight disagreement -  the idea that the genius isn't also a moron is a false dichotomy. There is no guarantee that your Shakespeares or Bachs are not morons of the highest order in other ways.