Compulsary Blood Donation

[Dee Dee Warren]

Read post #2. Already answered.

Sorry, no. The situations aren't analogous in ways that would make such a conclusion valid. In the vast majority of cases, the woman is actually responsible for the infant being there in the first place -- it is her fault that the infant is there and dependent on her in the first place. In the case of someone needing blood, it is not the fault of the potential donor that the person is in such a situation in the first place. Now if the potential donor is responsible for the injury that makes someone need blood, then yes, I believe it would be more than fair to require them to donate(assuming their blood is compatible and drug/disease free, of course). Much the same way thieves and people who breach contracts are required to compensate their victims. That's an entirely separate case than the one in the OP altogether, though.

Be careful in your use of "fault" as in "it is her fault" and stick with the word responsibility. A woman chooses to have sex, there is a chance she will get pregnant.

And since the amount of abortions occurring from rape are miniscule, I don't even want to hear it. The simple answer there is that life sometimes sucks and is not fair and bad things happen, but that doesn't give a victim the right to victimize someone else to make themselves feel better, and the child can be given up for adoption.

And I have known a girl who was a virgin, raped, got pregnant, and had the child. She said the child was blessing and demonstration on how God can bring beauty from ashes. There are plenty of women who end up loathing the father of their children, and many times the children remind these women of the father. That doesn't mean she can kill them.

We are not promised that life will be a rose garden.

[Dee Dee Warren]

Oh LS only the first sentence was directed to you, the rest was to the readers at large.

[Little Shepherd]

Be careful in your use of "fault" as in "it is her fault" and stick with the word responsibility. A woman chooses to have sex, there is a chance she will get pregnant.

I have absolutely no idea what you mean. I used the word fault in an accurate manner -- the vast majority of pregnancies occur from situations in which a woman willingly has sex. As the action is of her own volition, anything that results from that action is her fault. My statement also said "in the vast majority of cases" rather than "all," so I was also being careful to acknowledge that there are some situations in which the presence of the infant is not the woman's fault.

[Dee Dee Warren]

Eh? Fault implies that something wrong was done. It is her responsibility, not her FAULT. Fault implies that bad girls deserve to be punished for having sex. I also said only the first sentence was in response to you, the rest was a general anticipation of an objection by pro-aborts.

[Little Shepherd]

I also said only the first sentence was in response to you, the rest was a general anticipation of an objection by pro-aborts.

I know. That's why I only responded to that sentence. I also don't see why you're quibbling over my word choice. Yes, fault can have negative connotations(I'll admit that I'm most often going to use it when attempting to blame someone for something), but it does not have to. I've used it in a positive manner even, and have heard many others do the same. My use here was more neutral, but it runs the whole gamut.

[Dee Dee Warren]

You responded to more than that sentence. Why would you use a word that the vast majority of cases implies blame, guilt, or another negative connotation.

If you want to dismiss what I said, that's fine, but just remember I am coming from the perspective of an ex-abortion clinic defender and that is the impression that many pro-lifers gave me. You can take it or leave it.

[NeilUnreal]

Be careful in your use of "fault" as in "it is her fault" and stick with the word responsibility.

(OT, but...)

See! Postmodernism does have some valid points! Specific choices in language can both reveal and shape how we see the world.

-Neil

[joel]

(OT, but...)

See! Postmodernism does have some valid points! Specific choices in language can both reveal and shape how we see the world.

-Neil

No, it's the opposite of postmodernism: the principle that words have meaning.

[NeilUnreal]

No, it's the opposite of postmodernism: the principle that words have meaning.

You're making my point. There might be nothing wrong with using a word like "fault" if words carried intrinsic meanings.

But they do not. The meanings of words convey cannot be divorced from the context of discourse in which they are used. And, post-structuralism would argue, we do not have the luxury of arbitrarily circumscribing this context of discourse.

The current case is a good example of this. The argument is about whether "fault" carries culturally determined negative connotations that go beyond its simple use as a signifier of cause and effect. Modernism would say we can use "fault" in this pure, abstract sense, if we define our terms up front. Postmodernism would claim we cannot; that the connotations remain even when the term is artificially defined.

However, postmodernism would acknowledge that, by deliberately subverting the idea of intrinsic meaning, we can come to understand the process by which we fool ourselves into thinking words have intrinsic meanings.

-Neil

p.s. I accept the fact that there may be basic biological constraints which do contribute some intrinsic value to sounds. For example, cases of onomatopoeia.

[Epoetker]

Neil, your hairsplitting has done nothing but put a stake through the heart of postmodernism. When someone substitutes the word 'fault' for 'responsibility' because the second word defined the state in question a whole lot better than the first term, we are not 'understanding the lack of meaning in a word', we're deliberately giving up our imperfect experience or usage of a word's meaning in order that the word may not be drained of definition. Sensitivity in such discourse is the art of finding the words with meaning so inherent that everyone, or at least the vast majority of people, does not misunderstand the meaning.

In other words, if a word had no inherent meaning, it would not be a word. As soon as a word is spoken, one searches for the inherent meaning immediately. As soon as it's found, and the word is repeated, the understanding of the inherent meaning is fleshed out with common usage and agreed definition. A word without inherent meaning is an anomaly by definition, a short-lived word that disappears from the memory banks as fast as elementary particles disappear when smashing atoms together. Postmodernism is simply atom smashing without regard to any particular goal, and just as dangerous.

(There's also a theology lesson on John 1:1-2 and John 1:14 in the above paragraph, if you're nerdy enough to find it.)

And for the record, I'm against compulsory blood donation because free blood donation works. Especially among the pro-life, and especially among those who have rare blood types, like me, because the usual rejoinder is that type O-, CMV - blood usually goes straight to babies, since it carries the least risk. Abortion does not work, to put it mildly.

[joel]

You're making my point. There might be nothing wrong with using a word like "fault" if words carried intrinsic meanings.

I never said intrinsic meaning (i.e., apart from minds). Obviously the meaning of words is conventional. My point is that they have meaning.

[NeilUnreal]

Interesting observations, Epoetker, I want to think about them some more.

However, regarding:

Postmodernism is simply atom smashing without regard to any particular goal, and just as dangerous.

I disagree. There are radical deconstructivist branches of postmodernism that do just as you describe. However, such branches are not all of postmodernism. (Among popular authors, for example, Eco argues for postmodernism understandings of meaning that do not imply a nihilism of meaning.)

To continue your analogy, these less radical ideas deconstruct discourse in order to examine the entanglements from which meaning is constructed. Only by splitting discourse repeatedly and showing that it has no fundamental unit can it be shown that meaning itself must lie in relation.

Zen and postmodernism split hairs for the same reason: it teaches one to flip convention on its head. We are used to seeing relation as an abstract quantity that obtains between real things. The alternate way is to see things as abstract quantities that obtain between real relations.

-Neil

[NeilUnreal]

Obviously the meaning of words is conventional. My point is that they have meaning.

They do. The main difference between postmodernism and modernism is in that word “conventional.” In modernism, it makes sense to talk about an abstract “convention,” divorced from its expression. In postmodernism, it’s always a two-way street; conventions rely exactly as much on expression as expressions on convention.

A thing can only be used to express a convention to the same degree that it can be used to create a convention.

-Neil