Posted by yxibow on September 30, 2009, at 2:02:55
In reply to Re: Regarding PBC on Sarah Palin, posted by Dinah on September 30, 2009, at 0:48:29
> Are you saying that all atheists and agnostics believe that we should kill anyone who may be profoundly or may be mildly retarded? Or those with IQ's below normal, no matter whether they're mildly or profoundly retarded?
>
> Are you saying that for atheists and agnostics, whether or not someone deserves to live is based on a cost benefit analysis?
>
> Do you speak for the other atheists and agnostics? A substantial majority?
I don't speak for any other agnostic, I speak only as an agnostic myself.I speak as someone who believes in the right to choose, the availability of contraception, and against the death penalty among other things.
Surely you know there is no test for an IQ in the womb but there sure are tests for chromosomal 21 abnormalities and I defend my position that it is CRUEL to bring someone "so blessed" into this world.
I will use I statements. I find it personally nauseating to hear that the child and mother are "blessed" for their pregnancy of a child with known mild to severe limitations that will affect the rest of their lives.
As far as my agnosticness knows, we only get ONE Here and Now. I would want my offspring to have the best chance at that.And as I say, I can't debate religion. It ISNT killing someone. They aren't a person, they're a fetus. I can see where this is going, down the road of religious and high morality convictions.
I don't advocate the killing of anyone, that is a PERSON, not a non-living entity (something that CANNOT survive outside of a mother without guess what SCIENCE)... well accidentally offing key terrorists I don't like but I'll just leave it at that.
I know, I know... my scientific mind still says slippery slope... well if we can test for mental illness, homosexuality, deafness....I have limits. I'm not blessed to have the worst streak in my mother's lineal of mental health problems.
But I'm an intelligent human being who has up until now as it has gotten serious, against all odds graduated from college, and had some short jobs amongst the start of the worst episode I have ever had.
Being gay I don't believe in aborting someone who is homosexual... and here's the wry ... those who are so religiously zealous against homosexuals when we find out a gene or set of scenarios that definitively causes it, may have to finally concede that its NOT A CHOICE.
Anyhow, it has survived millenia, albeit with torture and death.
I could even conceive it as a population control, although males are perfectly capable of having (heterosexual) offspring even if they are gay.
Who knows.
And then there is, as I am aware, having a deaf friend, the controversy in the community of things such as cochlear implants that allow real hearing for the first time, in children, who don't grow up to use sign language, etc.
So it isn't easy... Humanity and sentience is one of the most complex things.
poster:yxibow
thread:918937
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20090827/msgs/919104.html