Nobody here has yet commented on the unethical and illegal harvesting and sale of fetal parts by Planned Parenthood. Don't be shy peeps.
The guy in the vid seems to take a negative stance towards abortion in general, which automatically makes me not want to take anything he says seriously. On the subject of fetal harvesting, I'm not entirely clear on the details. Are they taking parts from aborted fetuses and selling them, or purposefully encouraging abortion just to harvest the parts? If the former, I have no problem with this; waste not, want not. It's already dead, so why not? If the later, I agree that something should be done. But honestly the majority of this video isn't even about the OP's debate. It portrays some zealot and his rambling diatribe that makes me think he read an internet blog post, or watched a video or two, and is suddenly an expert on the subject. Basically, the whole presentation is WAY too pretentious, and the speaker is totally full of himself, attempting to take the moral high ground on a topic way out of his depth.
1) Well yeah, he opposes the unnatural termination of life. Without abortion, the vast majority of those fetuses would pop out as healthy neonates in 6-7 more months. Disagreements are normal. Why would that make you not take him seriously? Do "serious" people only stand on 1 side of this issue? "I"m not entirely clear on the details." Research the situation. It is unethical AND illegal to sell aborted fetal parts. The government uses force--jails, fines, guns, shaming, bullying--and one MUST pay taxes. Said taxes are then used to unnaturally terminate fetuses. (You should look at pics of 2-3 month old fetuses so as to have better perspective). Scores of millions of Americans believe that the vast majority of abortions are murder. And they don't want their sweat, tears, and blood wasted aborting even 1 fetus, let alone dozens of millions. Thus the government promised--trying to keep a straight face as I type this--that only a tiny little drop of a percentage of fetuses would ever be aborted and that the parts would NOT be auctioned off. It is illegal to do so. But you gots to catch them, and then hope and pray that the powers-that-be will actually comply with the law they themselves created. (If you are watching closely, or ever do eval in depth in the near future, you will eventually realize that the US of A is in a post constitutional era). If you believe that "waste not, want not" is the best path forward--you should be arguing for a change in the ethics and laws on this matter. As it stands now, Planned Parenthood has been caught red-handed breaking the law. 2) His diatribe is against the use of force by the very few at the top, against everyone else... or else. You MUST comply... or else. I oppose the killing of many 1000s of innocent muslims since Obama became President. (And I have come to realize that GW Bush is guilty of the same crime). But a percentage of my taxes helped the US of A kill those muslims. I oppose the unnatural termination of fetuses, but I MUST pay for that too. And on and on. Do you comprehend?? Stefan is taking the moral high ground, the humane ground, and the logical ground. He speaks truth. It is your responsibility to keep up.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/michael-w-chapman/nyc-more-black-babies-killed-abortion-born http://www.lifenews.com/2014/12/01/...york-city-were-done-on-black-hispanic-babies/ https://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/sfaa/new_york.html http://nypost.com/2013/04/28/the-truth-about-late-term-abortion/ http://www.theamericanmirror.com/shock-more-black-babies-aborted-than-born-in-new-york-city/ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/22/u...eos-activist-ignites-abortion-issue.html?_r=0
From what I've gathered, a pro-life group allegedly investigated Planned Parenthood for 3 years, got a couple people to say stuff that is potentially incriminating, but there is no actual evidence that any law has been broken. Now we wait for the investigations to see if these "sales" are actually for profit or if they are, as PP claims, cost covering and are done with the patient's consent for medical research.
It's actually been about 50/50 for awhile now. So while you are technically correct, scores of millions of Americans also believe that abortion should be a legal choice.
Somewhat related, a podcast on what happens to a baby's parts when it is donated (in this case, the baby lived for 6 days and died, and they donated the body to medical science): http://www.radiolab.org/story/grays-donation/
I havent got time to read everything and watch the video but on the subject of abortion Im just going to say that in my opinion abortion should always be an option to a pregnant woman. If they are actively encouraging abortions for the end game of harvesting donor organs and such for profit or medical science then thats a big no no for me, especially if it is also illegal. The woman should be under no pressure to make a decision either way, its a difficult enough subject as it is without adding pressure from outside influences.
Tax money is used for a lot of things, such as improving public services. To say that the government is forcing people to pay taxes just so they can abort fetuses is ludicrous. Now yes, some of that money may go towards abortion. But do I care about that? Hell no, I fully support and believe in abortions at the discretion of the parent(s). Having a child is a life-changing decision that should not be taken lightly; and while in an ideal world everyone would practice safe sex 100% of the time, that's obviously not going to happen. Therefore, abortion must remain an option for people who never intended to have a child. Not to mention all the cases of women becoming pregnant through ****, for whom an abortion is an entirely logical option. I've seen pictures of 2-3 month old fetuses; they're nothing special. To say than an organism has achieved awareness at that stage in development, and is "alive" in the same way you would consider a newborn baby alive, is presumptuous at best. As to the government's use of "force", the only thing they are FORCING you to do is pay taxes. If tax money gets directed towards areas you find morally objectionable, well, get in line, because people across the world have been complaining about that ever since the notion of government was conceived. You can rally and cry havoc all you want, but at the end of the day if it's not being done publicly it's going to be done under the table. If enough people band together and oppose a form of government spending, they might succeed in eliminating it publicly. But behind the scenes, nothing will have changed; people in power will always be corrupt because that's simply a facet of the human condition. When these new under-the-table deals come to light again, the government will apologize, formally denounce the offenders, pin the blame on a patsy, then quietly strike up new deals and start the whole thing over again. It's funny in a way, because all these people who are against abortion are basically continuing the cycle; the more people who are born into this world, the more of them will eventually become corrupt government officials.
I'm just going to leave this here. Please keep in mind, this is not an argument, it is a stand up comedy bit, and should be listened to as such.
Not much to say. It was proven to be a heavily cut recording that was cut in such a way as to give a different message than what was actually being discussed. Basically propaganda. The type of propaganda that hurts people.
At the prices given for the baby parts it's hard to imagine that a lot of profit could have been made from them. To me they seem to be in the cost covering range. Also I didn't watch the video. Why in the world would anyone watch a video of someone rambling instead of reading an article that can convey more in-depth information in a faster way.
I'm curious, how many people have actually watched the videos (there are more than one) that Stefan is referencing?
So... just give up? Let governments spend money on things a person finds morally objectionable? Just let that happen without objection or any sort of resistance? Setting aside abortion (around which there are several arguments and I don't want to get into it yet), should people stop protesting wars and torture and bankster bail-outs (oh my!) just because some shady corrupt a-hole in the government will try it again and possibly in a slightly different way? "People are fundamentally evil"? Sure, you're scenario is possible, provided that government continues to expand the number of officials (otherwise beyond a certain point, kind of doesn't matter no? hard to become a corrupt government official when all the spots are already filled), but you claim it as a fore-gone conclusion.
Giving up does seem appealing, but I would be lying if I said I'm suggesting it. I was merely stating that this is the way the government works: they abuse their power in the most undetectable way possible until some person or group exposes them, then they apologize, things go back to normal, until another scandal comes to light. All the while, the government is constantly adjusting their process to make sure people don't find out for as long as they can (though not indefinitely, since eventually people WILL find out somehow). This process repeats endlessly, and has been occurring for so long now that it has become the norm of how the government operates. Interrupting said process (i.e. giving up) would make the system fall apart in the same way that excessive change in the positive direction would cause the system to fall apart. I do think that people are fundamentally evil, but that's not the point I was driving at with the second part. Rather I was saying that, mathematically speaking, we can only go so long before a person is born who will eventually become a corrupt government official. Not necessarily because they're evil, but merely because the circumstances of their life will end up in such a way that them becoming a corrupt government official is the end result. Just like how current government officials are corrupt, of the future generations of people who choose to work in government, a certain portion of them will invariably become corrupt as well. Since I highly doubt that people will stop having children any time soon, it is a forgone conclusion that somewhere, at some level of power, there will eventually be new corrupt government officials to replace the ones that are getting old and dying. It doesn't matter if the government expands or not, all that matters is that new members rise to take the place of the old ones.
The most interesting part of this whole PP thing to me is actually Congressional reaction. There are already several bills being pushed around to defund PP - before any official investigation can be done. Many want to see the entire thing completely removed, which kind of ignores the fact that abortions are hardly the only thing PP does, but it sure would seem like that is all they do based on what is being said about it on the Hill. (Many of those things have shown to have a positive impact on things like STDs, teen pregnancies, etc.) And yet in other scenarios, such as with the CIA Torture report, very little was done aside from a few paragraphs in the NDAA and similar bills saying that the US shouldn't do it anymore. Meanwhile, Gitmo still exists with innocent people inside while legislation passes which seemed aimed to keep things the way it is. Or in the case of the Financial Crisis where regulations were placed with barely any teeth and now those same regulations are being used to argue for even less regulation. It's just confusing sometimes to see the fervor with which certain things are pursued, while other things gets ignored or receive a completely different reaction.
The Congressional reaction to Planned Parenthood and Gitmo is fundamentally the same. It is the "how can I spin this to get more votes" reaction. Gitmo is how the government shows that they are punishing the boogyman. They pay lip-service to any innocent people that may be collateral damage saying that we shouldn't do that, but keep it open because it keeps the average uninformed citizen feeling safe in bed at night. Meanwhile they can spin the Planned Parenthood situation into a white knight scenario. The politicians are saving us from the evil baby killers, even though hospitals do far more abortions and less sex education than Planned Parenthood does. My preference would be that every dead body was used to further science. Collecting our dead to take up space in the ground so we can go visit a piece of stone a few times a year is a horrible waste of resources. Anyone that has an objection to being carved up post mortem should be exempt from the scientific study, but disposed of in a better manner than we currently do.
i thought the issue involved letting the fetus develop into more expensive parts. Whether it crosses a legal line or not isn't quite the point. The fear of anti abortionists is of harvesting human beings for money. With the callus way this is being discussed in the video one has to wonder if that fear isn't justified.
