Actually, the logic is easy to follow. If you believe a fetus is a person, then killing that person is murder, just the same as murdering someone outside of the womb.

Bah, I'm not gonna get that 'shop. You're all too busy having this stupid argument again..

The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves: Cancer is human, so cancer is a person.

I met him once. Nice guy. Misunderstood. He gave me a cigarette

Gyrfalcon: We need to throw out the legal terms "not guilty" and "innocent until proven guilty" and replace them with what they actually mean, legally, which is "the burden of proof is on the prosecution to demonstrate that the defendant did, in fact, commit the crime of which he/she is accused," and either the prosecution did or did not do so. "Innocent until proven guilty" means only that the defense in a criminal case has no burden to prove anything, not that they didn't do it, not that someone else did (despite years of Perry Mason and Matlock finding the REAL criminal in the last five minutes of the show).

Sometimes, a not-guilty person is in fact innocent, most of the time, in fact; but sometimes, a "not guilty" verdict ONLY means that that prosecution didn't live up to their burden of proof. And the burden is very very high in a capital case where the DA has asked for the death penalty, because a jury just will not sentence someone to death unless they're at least 99% convinced they've done the right thing by doing so.

Either that, or we need a three-verdict system like they still have in Scotland: "guilty", "innocent" and "not proven"--meaning the person isn't innocent, but the prosecution f*cked up. Then we wouldn't have these stupid arguments about whether Anthony is guilty or not.

The accused is presumed innocent, which means the prosecution has the burden of persuasion. That is all. There doesn't need to be a 3rd category because it would serve no utility.

What finally drove me from religion altogether is that Christians believe someone like Casey* can repent, be forgiven and go to heaven while I will be damned to hell for not believing.

/*if she did actually kill the kid

Casey was the mother so it was her right to end her child's life. Sounds like a good rule as long as Casey's mom follows suit.

I would be outraged from the whole circusfest this story has created, but trolling on Casey Anthony discussions on Facebook is too much fun.

Hydra: DLTBGYD: 2) Monozygotic twins don't always develop independently of each other. What if they become conjoined twins? 1 person or 2?

2. It flows rather soundly, logically speaking.


3) What has someone's getting an abortion ever done to you?

That's like asking what OJ did to me when he killed his wife or what Jamie Hood did to me when he shot that cop in Athens, GA, a few months back.

They didn't do anything to me personally, but they all committed acts that resulted in the premature ending of another life. We can't expect society to stay very orderly if we didn't restrict the use of coercive force to the government, so it's important for there to be a law against murder.

An unborn person still has an inalienable right to life that should be as lawfully valid as the mother's right to her own life.
.

in which case, the crusades

So even though they developed from the same zygote, what distinguishes from being 1 person?

MrHappyRotter: The mom at first claimed that Casey's car smelled like a dead body. Well, it's like they always say, "she who smelt it, dealt it". I think Casey's mom is the culprit. She's the one who first smelled the dead body.

Comparing murder to a fart, AWESOME!

Confabulat: Casey Anthony is exactly why abortion should be legal.

Precisely. Then should she wouldn't have had the child in the first place if she didn't want it.

Hydra: You should have to own up to the consequences of your actions instead of acting like an immature child about them.

This is the absolute dumbest right to life argument. You've now equated an unborn child with a punishment while at the same time ridiculed someone for understanding they aren't ready to raise a child.

"Accept the punishment for your immoral behavior!"

Oh well, I am late to the thread. This is becoming disturbingly common on FARK, I can understand a weekly, hate on Christians thread, but, do we really need a daily one? It is making me not want to come visit the site anymore.

Crosshair: Confabulat: Casey Anthony is exactly why abortion should be legal.

Please explain your line of reasoning because I fail to see how murder suddenly becomes less wrong when you do it to a slightly younger child.

It's not like it's a big secret on what makes babies. The issue of contraception is another matter entirely so please don't try and dodge the question by changing the topic.

The issue ultimately boils down to when does a human become a human. People on the Judeo-Christian side quote scripture and correctly point out that the only difference between a 3 month old fetus, a 3 month old baby, and a 3 year old toddler is in what way the baby is dependent on the mother for survival. From a biological standpoint, both are incompletely developed humans incapable of surviving on their own.

People on the other side tend to use the "Because I say so." line of argument and go on about "Women's rights", which is actually stripping the rights away of 2/3 of the relevant parties, the father and the fetus, and giving it to one person and somehow concluding that arrangement is "fair".

/This is fark so I know what to expect.

It's not "because I say so" you stupid lying sack of dogshiat. It's that you, christian taliban, the government, and unborn fetuses DON'T GET TO OWN A WOMAN"S BODY. No potential father has the right to commandeer a woman's body. That is the definition of slavery, you disgusting shiatstain.

It was God's will. Why are you all questioning the Lord?

Yes, I've decided to post this in every Casey thread.

Biological Ali: gerrymander: That's human DNA in action -- something which never happens if the ovum and sperm are kept apart. It's not mature, or even remotely independent, but human? Absolutely.

Well, it's obviously "human" in a taxonomical sense, but I suspect that Loki-L was referring to the process of becoming a person; people often use "human" and "person" interchangeably.

Yes, that is right, person might have been a better word to use here. sorry if that was unclear.

What I was trying to get across is that it is almost impossible to define what separates a bunch of human cells from a a person, a living human being with human rights. we try to make such rules as having a heartbeat, but everyone knows that you can be a person without a heartbeat. People can be revived from having their heart stopped. In fact people can continue to be people even after having their heart removed and replaced by that of someone else and the organ donor at some point did have heartbeat while still being considered no longer a human being due to brain-death. Other dividing lines like viability without outside assistance have their own problems, since there are a lot of people who could not survive without the aid of machines out there. Some people think that being a person has nothing to do with being 'human' and only with being self-aware and sentient. these people are consequently worried about just how smart Dolphins and gorillas are, but the problem with using such a definition is that young children aren't particularly bright. A German Sheppard might compare favorably to a three month old toddler and nobody would deny the humanity of people with diseases or birth defects that leave them with extreme level of mental retardation.

You can't easily define what makes a person, a human being. There is no point in the whole becoming human process that you can point to and say: "At this point a bunch of human cells became an actual human being." It is a gradual process of turning from one into the other, but our ethics only allow us to see two states with no room for anything in between.

DLTBGYD: So even though they developed from the same zygote, what distinguishes from being 1 person?

Genetic testing. Genes control how we develop, how we think, how we act. They, coupled with our experiences (resulting in genetic changes), make us who we are. Unique genes, unique human.

Loki-L: (many very good points) ... It is a gradual process of turning from one into the other...

A gradual process, with a very precise initialization, I think.

Welcome to the people that will be running america.

eudemonist: DLTBGYD: So even though they developed from the same zygote, what distinguishes from being 1 person?

Genetic testing. Genes control how we develop, how we think, how we act. They, coupled with our experiences (resulting in genetic changes), make us who we are. Unique genes, unique human.

so identical twins are the same person? They have the same DNA, and thus the same genes.

Canned Tamales: Crosshair: Confabulat: Casey Anthony is exactly why abortion should be legal.

Please explain your line of reasoning because I fail to see how murder suddenly becomes less wrong when you do it to a slightly younger child.

It's not like it's a big secret on what makes babies. The issue of contraception is another matter entirely so please don't try and dodge the question by changing the topic.

The issue ultimately boils down to when does a human become a human. People on the Judeo-Christian side quote scripture and correctly point out that the only difference between a 3 month old fetus, a 3 month old baby, and a 3 year old toddler is in what way the baby is dependent on the mother for survival. From a biological standpoint, both are incompletely developed humans incapable of surviving on their own.

People on the other side tend to use the "Because I say so." line of argument and go on about "Women's rights", which is actually stripping the rights away of 2/3 of the relevant parties, the father and the fetus, and giving it to one person and somehow concluding that arrangement is "fair".

/This is fark so I know what to expect.

It's not "because I say so" you stupid lying sack of dogshiat. It's that you, christian taliban, the government, and unborn fetuses DON'T GET TO OWN A WOMAN"S BODY. No potential father has the right to commandeer a woman's body. That is the definition of slavery, you disgusting shiatstain.

So because he takes issue with the exclusion of 2/3 of the relevant parties, he's a bible-thumping wharrgarbler worthy of vulgar invective?

What if the father wants the child?

What if the father doesn't want the child?

Way to prove his point.

DLTBGYD: so identical twins are the same person? They have the same DNA, and thus the same genes.

They have the same base, but are not truly identical. Small changes, transcriptions errors, happen as humans grow, from conception 'til death.

eudemonist: DLTBGYD: so identical twins are the same person? They have the same DNA, and thus the same genes.

They have the same base, but are not truly identical. Small changes, transcriptions errors, happen as humans grow, from conception 'til death.

you're grasping at straws now. You know that within your cells you have transcription errors right? There are literally millions of transcription errors in a person's body every day. Are you saying that each cell that is not identical to the original zygote is a different person? So if a person has cancer, the cancer is now a different person? you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about

ansius: Confabulat: Casey Anthony is exactly why abortion should be legal.

Precisely. Then should she wouldn't have had the child in the first place if she didn't want it.

So she should have killed her daughter before she was born in order to save her from being killed 3 years later? Not sure I understand the logic at work here. You could just as easily say it's a good thing Casey killed her at age three, because she just would have ended up strangling to death Caylee during those difficult "teenage years" anyway.

/you have to destroy the village in order to save it

The Pastor is absolutely correct. Sure, he's an attention whore and trying to profit from this murder. But he's right in the sense that we have a culture where it's considered completely normal and acceptable to kill an inconvenient child. We do it a thousand times or more every day.

I used to feel the same way about abortion that most of you do. But my brother knocked up his girlfriend, and everyone told her to abort the kid. My brother was too much of an @sshole to marry her. But she had the kid, and now he's a great guy -good student, great athlete, popular and good looking. And I'm ashamed to admit I once thought so little of human life.

Preserved_Killick: Get Lost: Hey religion? The dark ages is calling and wants you to shut the fark up. We need to evolve and not go back to the dark ages and be slaves under religious oppression.

/Science. It does a body good.
//And a civilization too.

The "Dark Ages" is a term that probably came about in the Victorian Era and has long outlived its usefulness. What most people think of when someone says the Dark Ages is a complete myth.

Consider the developments of the "Dark Ages", a period shorter than Classical Antiquity:

Wind and water power harnessed - earliest known reference for a windmill in England is a rental note from Weedly in 1185.

Magnetic compass introduced 1283.

Eyeglasses introduced in Italy in 1285.

Alcohol distillation - first writings of it in the west come from the School of Salerno, 12th century.

Steel crossbow, stirrup (perhaps the most revolutionary of war inventions), university, music notation - yup, all from the Dark Ages.

Just google Carolingian Renaissance (for literature, arts and writing), Lex Marcatoria (for legal and economic advancement) and the revolutionary switch from feeding grains rather than grass to livestock: all "Dark Ages" innovations.

Do not neglect the architectural and artistic leaps made during the "Dark Ages" including the enhancement, improvement and absorption of classical architecture into an astonishing and innovative era or art and building.

In sum, the notion that the rise of Christianity killed off science and art or that the medieval church supressed the growth of natural science, the idea that autopsies and dissections during the middle ages were illegal, that medieval scholars thought the world was flat, are all widely popular and incredibly erroneous myths that still pass as historical truth without any historical research.

/medieval history nerd
//go ahead post that moronic chart with "progress" on the y-axis or start with me on Galileo

MrHappyRotter: The mom at first claimed that Casey's car smelled like a dead body. Well, it's like they always say, "she who smelt it, dealt it". I think Casey's mom is the culprit. She's the one who first smelled the dead body.

I counter with "Whoever said the rhyme did the crime".

IT WAS YOU!!!!

edmo: I'd be a lot more impressed with the whole "Pro Life" movement if they cared about life beyond unborn fetuses. As long as they think war, capital punishment, etc. are okay ways to kill, I can't buy their concern about the unborn.

You do realize that what you're comparing are the completely guiltless vs the completely guilty right?

Whatever your stance on abortion the 'you can't be against abortion and support capital punishment' argument is stupid. If you assume that the Pro Life argument is valid, then you're saying you can't be against murdering innocent children and then support the execution of a violent murderer. If somebody was about to stab you, would it be alright to stab them first? Would it be alright to stab a child of any age who posed no threat to you? You can't be against stabbing children and for stabbing people trying to murder you right?

Seriously, there are plenty of good, sound, well thought out arguments for the Pro Choice position so quit using this one, it doesn't help, and it makes you look stupid for making such an obviously flawed comparison.

DLTBGYD: You know that within your cells you have transcription errors right?

Grasping at straws? By stating that two different people are two different people? If you believe identical twins have truly identical genes, perhaps you should google about.

If I clone myself right now, for how long is that clone "me"? As soon as it looks around the room, or, in the case of less-developed creatures, senses anything, for example amniotic pressure, it has different experience, which can also cause genetic changes, in addition to the aforementioned genetic changes which invariable take place with the passage of time. An hour later, is that clone still "me"? I don't believe it is.

DLTBGYD: So if a person has cancer, the cancer is now a different person?

Does the cancer have a unique human genetic structure? Will it, if provided only with the proper time, environment, and resources, develop into a fully grown individual? If a cell from that cancer was found at a crime scene, would forensics say it came from you, or from a different person entirely?

DLTBGYD: you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about

/sigh
Maybe you should think a little more deeply about what really defines us as individual animals.

abortion threads, a never-ending delight.