But that doesn't mean anything. According to some strict interpretations of the Bible, even masturbation is a no-no, since that results in potential deaths. There is no dismissal of women there, is there.

Sure it does, Krem. A lot of people read the bible and take everything that's in it at face value. If one was to do this, they would see women as "lesser beings". Therefore, because of my believe that abortion is more about women than the actual act of abortion, they would be "pro-life".

Dolce, one thing though. Its not what the male doctors say or the female doctors.

People got mad this week at algren for his comments and said he had nothing to back it up. Some people also voiced their opinions that matched algren's yet it ended up in healthy discussion. If 6 doctors say abortion is wrong, that means nothing. but how they came to their conclusion does. So the male/female/transvestite, hemaphrodite part becomes completely irrelevant. Yes, its a question that is difficult to scientifically prove but the sex of the person giving the answer is completely irrelevant .. its only their study that matters.

makeshift, everytime i enter the US, I'm screened, called in for "random security checks" and my name always draws a match with someone on the watch list because it ends in Ahmed. Does this mean I view America as considering me "a lesser person" than a visitor from England.. cause that implication HAS occured to me.

Actually, bABA, I think you should think that, because unfortunately - it's true. The attitude towards Muslims in this country is seriously messed up. That's a different topic for a different time, though. If you want to talk about it more, you could PM me. :grin:

Well I see your point, but only meant that medicine is coming out of a long tradition of male practice and that many of the practices have not had additional input. Practices mind you, not just outcomes. Even female disection is only a recent introduction into the medical field (recent in the scheme of things). For ages all medical needs and exploration were done on men and the findings just applied to women as well. I don't think the exact layout of female anatomy was even know prior to this past century. Yes, its more about the study, and I can't say I could argue findings that have 85% agrreance amongst doctor's of all backgrounds, but I doubt that's going to happen anytime soon. I believe (since this is a movie website I'll intorduce this) that there have been arguements about the "male gaze" as far as ciname goes, and that since films were birthed on it (male directors, producers, etc) for so long, that even women who pick up the camera tend to coach visions as they've been indoctrinated into them growing up. That they haven't developed a distinct "female gaze." Now this is changing, and medicine will change too, especially with humanities development of the History of Science trying to articulate and draw attention to such subjects and disparities, but there is still so far to go that until then I'll take medical findings witha grain of salt. God we still have the most crappy medical discussions around menopause I can possibly comprehend, women included.

This is a logical fallacy; you're assuming your very conclusion.

In fact, the two issues are separate; to show that they're related, you would have to have evidence that men are significantly likelier to oppose abortion than women are. You lack that proof, therefore you have no basis for your assertion.

I agree that a lot of what is written in the bible is crap.

It doesn't mean that because the Bible says it, it must be wrong.

Like I said, the only "proof" I have is from my own personal experiences, and I understand that that's not really proof. I completely understand that what i'm going for here is a stretch; it's just what I believe.

Funny, how you justify yourself in having your own bias, yet feel it's OK to bash Christians for supposedly being prejudiced and close-minded.

First of all, i've gotten better with the whole christian bashing thing. This thread was the first time i'd done it in a long time, both on here and in real life.

Second, I bash (or used to bash, whatever) Christians because they form their entire belief structure on what I believe to be a book that is a work of fiction. I've formed my belief structure through life experiences. It took me years to get to the things that I believe, not one reading of a book and a lot of people agreeing with me.

I form alot of my beliefs and opinions from books I've read too, does that make them less legitimate? Everyone has their sources. I'm not giving institutionalized religion a freebie, far from it, but this is a post-modern world, legitimacy and reality are always in the eye of the beholder, and anyone looking to get experiences from a book will, and that will be the reality. On the other hand I know where a live and am well aware of religious culture (rather than religiosity) and do realize their are traces of textual propagation that manifest in cultural habits, regardless of if the actual people read any one religious text or not. Let me tell you I was in Rome and almost everyone I met said they'd never been to church, or don't take it seriously, it was still a very Catholic city in social habits. So I think you can deal with questions of living in the U.S, but be aware its how religious discourse has been ingrained into culture, not about any one person or institution that interpreted the Bible last Sunday and how they chose to reflect or personalize it. Though thats part of it. For me its more about the vestiges of old religious and gender interactions and how they resurface today (like I mentioned earlier in medicine and ciname) in fields that are now not considered associated to religion or even to one gender. That's far more important to be conscious of.

However, your belief is based entirely on unreasonable assumptions, just like the Christians' beliefs are (by unreasonable I mean they cannot be proven). So what if you saw a few men who happened to have that point of view about women and abortion? Did you ask enough men to form a reasonable conclusion?

What about the men who don't care about children, and view them as not equal beings, and that's why they support abortion? Did you take them into considertaion?

Your theory is full of holes, yet you hang to in, just because that's what you believe. Sound familiar?

Yes, it does sound familiar. I'll admit, this belief of mine isin't exactly my strongest (far from it), and it would probably do me a lot of good to look into it a little more. Infact, Krem, this is a rare moment in message board history - a debate has actually convinced me to look into something I believe.

Yes but thats not even the point. What you are saying may be correct but we're trying to figure out here whats right or wrong. You're justifying your position by telling me something that we all know is not the right thing to do in the first place. But isn't this what the conversation is about? Whats right and whats wrong ... and not about how things are done right now, or were done before. Does this mean, the 1 female doctor gets a freebie because men have dominated the medical profession (I know thats not what you're saying).

Saying 6 male doctors said yes and 1 woman said no and that is not a basis of making a decision is completely wrong. It is if the reasoning of the 6 male doctors is completely correct.

I have to object to that as well (I am quite a contrarian today - maybe not just today ;-)). There is only one truth; there is only one reality. 2+2 always makes a 4, regardless of what my opinion of the value of arithmetics might be. Believeing in what a book says without question is unreasonable, no matter how you slice it. That doesn't mean that what's in that book is necessarily wrong, or that people shouldn't hold unquestionable beliefs, but there is a thing or two to be said on the value of reason.

A rare moment indeed.

words of wisdom!! I should really consider making a thread, taking this post and plugging it in the thread and making it a sticky for the rest of the forum to read ...

Hey, 2 + 2 = 4 to me, but if someone goes so far as to convince themselves otherwise its going to be there reality regardless. And no that's not true either, two parallel lines never intersect in euclidean geometry, but they do in non0euclidean geometry, and that's the point. Its a whole space that has to be built and not one isolated fact, otherwise yeah, that fact is out of space. Darwin only makes sense if you build an entire discussion and belief system where it holds value, it means shit to someone who believes in creationism and vice versa. Both are "right" depending on how much of a philosophy and understanding the individual built up around them. People do think the seven days actually happened (not many, but some). What I mean to say is beliefs is reality, somce people are just more liekly to question their belifs, and some systems have a sense of self-criticism built into them, and other don't. I just don't think nowadays there is just that much of a distinction between belief and realuty anymore.

And yes, you are always the contrarian, this is certainly not a freak incident.

@bABA...it depedns on what level you put right and wrong. As I said there are many approaches, and one could argue right or wrong in the borader context or around smaller issues. Regardless of if one approaches this from scientific fact (which there isn't much), female rights, political structures, etc, there are broader discussions that take into consideration the many agendas vs. smaller decisions that let the one agenda dictate all the others. If one votes just on gender rights, and argues its okay to legislate up fron on a federal level, it 1. Doesn't take into consideration the furutre introduction of new scientific information, it 2. Does not take into consideration individual decisions (as mentioned many women would opt against, many men for) made at the actual time, it 3. Doesn't take into consideration cultural history, and 4. Reinforces that Federal over the state and individual (if that's the agenda you choose to approach this from, etc). So while one could delay and say something like "upto the individual" and let individuals make decisions based on current scientific findings and their own sense of comfort with the idea (new informationis introduced every day, these policies will feel pretty outdated next year the way scince is moving), or they can just say "Nope" lets write it in stone right now regardless of next year, who, and any one of the other nuances of any of the platforms. One choice is wrong to me because it closes all the possibilities of other agendas. That is still right or wrong, it is just on a different level than the right or wrong some people use as an arguement. Now at other points in other issues I might opt for the second selection and say I do want the one decision to ovveride all the others and I do want the federal to have a say over the state or individual, this isn;t one of them. Anyone who has a sense of all these issues and still says federal ban (and I know overturning roe vs. wade is not a federal ban) chances are there is nothing I can argue to change there minds, just like I believed that there should be a federal ban on some things and no one would have changed my mind on that.

Hmm...let's see what Skeptic's Annonated Bible says about women...

http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/women/long.html

ABORTION DEBATE


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Actually, the Skeptic's Annotated Bible is wrong. It's just wrong.
Under the Genesis listing, it says Adam blames Eve. He doesn't. He blames God. ...

Genesis 3:12 "The woman whom THOU GAVEST to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat."

So, so much for the interpretations of the Skeptic's Annotated Bible.

Oh, that'd be really fair to me.

Actually, just the other day, I was having a debate with Lecter on the merits of debating on message boards. I said that most debates are just debates for the sake of debating because no one ever changes their mind because of them (how many times can YOU say debate in one sentence, Krem?). Looks like i've proved myself wrong.

Wait, what? I've been using that word for months!