Good thing I support both completely. Fetus, maladjusted criminals... Kill em all

well um

You're WRONG

Yes... the typical Thrawn reasoning... :p

Well, let's look at it this way. Everyone's wrong.

Left: Ignores fact that criminals have killed people.

Right: Ignores fact that fetuses are largely undeveloped and nonsentient.

There, now everyone wins.

I knew this would come up! I'm surprised it happened so relatively early in the debate, though.

It's a totally different issue.

Thrawn: Ignores fact that political alignment is indicative of nothing.

Ugh. It's so strange. For a group of people who enjoy politicizing everything, why do you have such a poor voter turnout?

Why? You're executing people in both instances. In one case, you're killing the totally innocent, and in the other you're killing those that have committed horrendous crimes.

Oh wow, was I GENERALIZING? How silly of me, that was totally unintentional! I shall guard against such blanket stereotypes in the future!

Very good. As you were, then.

When deciding whether a foetus is alive or not, use exactly the same standards as you would with a body. Look at a dead body. What makes that body dead? Answer that question and apply it to the foetus, and there you have your answer as to whether it is alive (and by extension, whether it should be given rights).

This thread is derailed, is it not?

Someday a fetus will emerge from the womb as a baby. The same cannot be said of a cadaver.

Quoted for truth. Even if you don't consider it to be a human being at the time, there is no denying the fact that it will become one.

Hmm I'm pretty sure that this isn't feasible...

Yes, biotech companies can produce DNA strands with any sequence of bases they wish. However, these DNA strands are usually pretty short (~ or less than 20 base pairs) and are used mainly as probes in DNA microarrays and Southern blots (in fact, probes are used to compare a suspect's DNA with the DNA found at the scene of the crime).

Now, a human chromosome is usually between 50 to 250 million base pairs long. In addition, humans have 23 unique chromosomes. You can see the difficulty in producing a full copy of a person's DNA.

Also, DNA doesn't just sit around by itself. It needs to reside within a cell. So not only would one have to produce the DNA, he/she would have to place them one by one inside millions of human cells, which is impossible anyway. What may be possible is placing a copy of the DNA inside a stem cell, which would multiply and copy the DNA inside it as well. However, not even the best researchers at the moment have found out a remotely reliable protocol for doing this.

Not necessarily!

Two wrongs DO make a right, for one, he isn't leaching off the judicial system, for two yes there is no chance of him escaping making parole, and number three, he doesn't deserve time on this wonderful earth.

This whole thread wreaks of people who just fell off the joke bus.

Yecti eats babies, nobody listen to him!

I say kill em for revenge. Kill them because they made a bad decision and no longer deserve to be on this earth. When I screw up I stand ready to face the music. If you're willing kill a innocent person you should sure as hell be ready to fry for it.

Say somebody rapes my sister or GF and gets off the hook. I'm sure as hell going to smoke them for what they did. The justace system can decide what they are going to do with me but I'm not going to cry and whine and try to extend my life. I knew what might happen when I commetted the crime.

And I'm sure I would be qualified as exempt from the whole "Most people that lower them to sub-human level don't know about death and desperation" thing.

If you commit manslaughter I can see some kind of desperation involved.
If you commit cold blooded murder you ARE sub-human.

they are two completley different subjects.



revenge is a childish old way of thinking, in a modern world revenge has no place




maybe you're ignoring the fact that killing the killers does nothing to bring back the original victiums

Revenge must be served. If you think you're above revenge you are fooling yourself.

And you support the death penalty, knowing full well that innocent people will be put to death?

/me kills Jorbo

:p

God will sort them out.

Ahaha, I'll bet he will. :p

What can I say? I put such small value on my own life why would I care what happens to other people?

cause um

jesus loves you?

Irrelevant.

'Potential human' is just as non-human as a dead human. It doesn't really matter whether it is post-human or pre-human, it is still quite non-human, and precisely the same measure should be used in both.

I say let that murderer join this forum. That'll teach him.

How about this - according to the Mayo Clinic, babies born as early as the 23rd week of pregnancy can survive. Is that "pre-human"? Is it non-human? When do they become human and deserving of the same rights you'd accord to serial killers? The third trimester? Immediately after birth? When, Mort?

Against abortion, for killing babies. Best thing ever.

just because something has the potential to be something else doesnt mean it should have the full rights of what it has the potential to be.



revenge serves no purpose, if you look at anyone who makes policies dealing with the death penalty or anyone who is to be taken seriously about defending it, they will reject that revenge has any part in it.

revenge is a somewhat immature-minded concept, george orwell put it good

Revenge Is Sour



I doubt this is a common thing, there are rare occourances that happen in this world, but this isn't common therefore not a good example



its not about granting rights to serial killers but its about that we dont have the right to take their life away

but regardless, this is a completley different subject, don't try to mix the two

A foetus has a certain probability of survival through to birth. It may very well abort spontaneously through no fault of the mother, miscarriages happen all the time. As the pregnancy goes on, that probability will increase (the probability that, if all other factors continue the same, the foetus will survive and be born).
What probability is deemed 'potentially human'? 50%? 75%? 99%? You will end up picking a completely arbitrary probability (and corresponding time).

We already have a method for determining whether something is human or not - deciding whether people are dead or not. Apply exactly the same principles to the foetus and you have a non-arbitrary, non-trivial, consistent measure for whether an organism is 'human life'.

If an organism then is human life, it should be granted human rights, which it shall never forfeit. They are human rights, not human privelidges.

And yet applying these principles is still up to the individual. I think it's a human life when it starts to display human characteristics. Heart, brain, four appendages, etc. You might consider it a human life when it is only emerged into the world.

Yes cause he is doing such a fine job already...

Sorry guys, but no. If you commit cold blooded murder you do not forfit any of your basic human rights. You forfeit the priviledge to a free and unrestricted life, and you may forfeit some of your constitutiona; rights, but no person can ever, ever forfeit their basic human rights.



This is another no. Revenge does not need to be served except by low minded, intellectually impaired savages. Retaliation? Sure, if it is neccesary. Let's say somebody comes up and knocks me on the chin on the street. If he isn't walking away or helping me up because he is one of my idiot friends who thinks that sort of thing is funny, I am going to hit him back, harder, because chances are, he is going to hit me again. If he's running away, I'm going to decide if it is necessary to do anything about it. That is not revenge, that is retaliation.

Revenge is when someone does something bad to you, gets in trouble, and sometimes apologizes, and you go and curb them.

If you cannot see the distinction, or feel that revenge is something you absolutely can't resist (because I must admit, revenge is a natural urge) you have a lot of figuring out to do before you can properly fit into a civilized adult world.

this is way off topic now

plus from what ive heard a fetus doesnt develope a brain until about the second trimaster

well said

No not really way off topic. If you go over the thread, there's really an amalgamation of topics. You and JorBo are talking about revenge and vindictiveness. Mort-Hog, Warlord, and me were going on about human rights and whether the unborn has same basic rights as serial killers (i.e. we do not condemn them to death).

I might very well get hit by a bus tomorrow, spontaneously and through no fault of yours, but the fact that that is possible doesn't make it ok for you to kill me today, does it?


So, are you trying to say that one is non-human up until birth? Your "potentially human" thing works if you mark birth as the starting point of "human-ness". Why?



So uh you're claiming that up until the point of birth, a fetus meets the requirements for death? For the sake of this argument, let's define death as the cessation of brain activity, as that is the current legal definition.


So, Mort, is a fetus deserving of human rights once its brain activity begins?



What exactly is a human fetus, then? Is it not human? Is it not living?

Um...it's a fetus?

By the way, four limbs, a heart, a head, etc., are not "human" characteristics. Lots of other animals have them too, and we kill them all the time. :p