The EARN IT Act Will Be Introduced To Congress For the Third Time (engadget.com) 107
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: The controversial EARN IT Act, first introduced in 2020, is returning to Congress after failing twice to land on the president's desk. The Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies Act, (EARN IT) Act is intended to minimize the proliferation of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) throughout the web, but detractors say it goes too far and risks further eroding online privacy protections.
Here's how it would work, according to the language of the bill's reintroduction last year. Upon passing, EARN IT would create a national commission composed of politically-appointed law enforcement specialists. This body would be tasked with making a list of best practices to ostensibly curb the digital distribution of CSAM. If online service providers do not abide by these best practices, they would potentially lose blanket immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, opening them up to all kinds of legal hurdles -- including civil lawsuits and criminal charges. [...] The full text of H.R.2732 is not publicly available yet, so it's unclear if anything has changed since last year's attempt, though when reintroduced last year it was more of the same. (We've reached out to the offices of Reps. Wagner and Garcia for a copy of the bill's text.) A member of Senator Graham's office confirmed to Engadget that the companion bill will be introduced within the next week. It also remains to be seen if and when this will come up for a vote. Both prior versions of EARN IT died in committee before ever coming to a vote. The Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and the American Civil Liberties Union all oppose the bill.
Those defending it include the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), saying that it will "incentivize technology companies to proactively search for and remove" CSAM materials. "Tech companies have the technology to detect, remove, and stop the distribution of child sexual abuse material. However, there is no incentive to do so because they are subject to no consequences for their inaction."
Here's how it would work, according to the language of the bill's reintroduction last year. Upon passing, EARN IT would create a national commission composed of politically-appointed law enforcement specialists. This body would be tasked with making a list of best practices to ostensibly curb the digital distribution of CSAM. If online service providers do not abide by these best practices, they would potentially lose blanket immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, opening them up to all kinds of legal hurdles -- including civil lawsuits and criminal charges. [...] The full text of H.R.2732 is not publicly available yet, so it's unclear if anything has changed since last year's attempt, though when reintroduced last year it was more of the same. (We've reached out to the offices of Reps. Wagner and Garcia for a copy of the bill's text.) A member of Senator Graham's office confirmed to Engadget that the companion bill will be introduced within the next week. It also remains to be seen if and when this will come up for a vote. Both prior versions of EARN IT died in committee before ever coming to a vote. The Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and the American Civil Liberties Union all oppose the bill.
Those defending it include the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), saying that it will "incentivize technology companies to proactively search for and remove" CSAM materials. "Tech companies have the technology to detect, remove, and stop the distribution of child sexual abuse material. However, there is no incentive to do so because they are subject to no consequences for their inaction."
Glorious Leaders: Please pass the DUMMY Act (Score:4, Funny)
Don't Use More Mungy acronYms Act.
Seriously, the rise of stupid acronyms in legislation is surely concomitant with the fall of our Golden age. The earliest use I can remember is the PATRIOT act.
Glossy names are allowed. The Working Americans Tax Relief Act. The American Communication Infrastructure Act. The Neighborhood Decency Act. These would be helpful . . .
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I think you meant 'virtue signal'.
Sometimes the anti-woke are more cringe than the woke. smh
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Ancillary and prior to that, Reagan introduced the Peacekeeper ICBM (known in the trade as the MX) with twelve 300-kiloton nukes aboard.
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That isn't even really ironic when you consider that relative peace is only maintained by having major powers too scared to attack each other.
Re:Glorious Leaders: Please pass the DUMMY Act (Score:5, Funny)
This gets worse:
S.25: EL CHAPO Act
S.918: E-FRONTIER Act
S.2386: TIANANMEN Act of 2019
S.2374: SAVES Act
S.3722: EMPIL-DOC Act
S.3694: ORE Act
S.3835: SCRIPT Act
S.4101: LIFT UP Act
S.4266: RECLAIM Act
S.4297: AMORE Act
S.4340: SACRED Act
S.4376: CREATE JOBS Act
S.4537: RECOVERY Act
S.4799: SHAME Act
That's right, "Cost Recovery and Expensing Acceleration to Transform the Economy and Jumpstart Opportunities for Businesses and Startups" Act of 2020.
And this is just a list I pulled from Ted Cruz, because he's into that shit harder than anyone I know.
Most of these politicians partake (Score:1, Insightful)
So they don't want really do anything about it.
You want me to trust you with my privacy? (Score:3)
EARN IT.
Oh the Clicky-clicky (Score:2)
Political Abuse? (Score:1)
Zeroing in on this language : "Upon passing, EARN IT would create a national commission composed of politically-appointed law enforcement specialists"
So what is to prevent political abuse of this particular body? Take Desantis and his crusade against Disney in Florida, what's to stop some idiotic politician(s) from using the law in ways it wasn't intended?
It's great and all to assume it'll be used for good, that's why the law needs to exist, but likewise seems like it needs something to prevent misuse espec
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This is true of almost every law and agency created.
The alternative though is we go with some advice and consent type process; where everything become about political litmus tests again anyway and games are played by later generations of politicians to prevent the agency from being staffed etc.
Its basically a no win! At least with political appointments there is some accountability. Don't like Biden's idiotic pandering to various groups at the expense of the general welfare of the public you can vote for D
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This is true of almost every law and agency created.
That's true. But it's only been recently that politics have tried so hard to subvert things that were relatively neutral. Seems like EARN IT would not do enough to prevent this, and that could be a really bad thing.
All the top people should be expected to resign when the Executive changes parties.
That would make the present situation worse. It would drive even harder the urgency to undo whatever the last guy did and not try to come up with something stable for the long term - just something that looks good while "your guy" is in office.
I value expert opinions over politics. I would li
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So what is to prevent political abuse of this particular body?
You're assuming that the purpose of this body isn't political abuse.
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To me EARN IT means that cities should be responsible for murders since they facilitated the criminal in reaching their destination by providing the infrastructure. All utilities provide the energy that powers the infrastructure that empowers criminals. Why don't we start with a law that would first hold gun manufacturers responsible for crimes that are committed with their tools and then apply it to all who facilitated the criminal acquiring the weapon. Think of the children.
why not just focus on CSAM? (Score:2)
It amazes me how incompetent members of Congress truly are. Just pass a clean CSAM bill that deals with that issue and leave the other crap out of the legislation. Or is it we can't agree that child trafficking and pr0n are a bad thing?
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I think both are already illegal. For quite a while, actually.
Re: why not just focus on CSAM? (Score:5, Insightful)
Thing is the politicos and the activists like to think there's a magic csam filter that catches all the kiddie pr0n 100% of the time, has zero false alarms mistaking a painting of a cherub or a picture of a flower for a kid's privates, and somehow automagically doesn't also flag actual pix of kids' privates sent by parents to pediatricians for consultation on a possible rash.
And the evil greedy Epstein-loving tech cos are just refusing to deploy it because they're evil and greedy and wear tophats and monocles.
In real life, of course, such an algorithm doesn't exist. And there have been documented cases of parents being referred to law enforcement and losing their accounts for sending pediatricians pictures of their kids that the human reviewer (ie a minimum wage drone sitting God-knows-where and allotted x seconds per review) didn't think was a legit medical use.
Strangely enough, I haven't seen any stats on how many real ped0s were put away after being flagged by google or apple. Perhaps it actually happens and I just don't know about it.
But either way, in the cave days of 25 years ago in the Pennsylvania public schools, I was taught by a bunch of pinko commie liberal teachers that it's generally better for a thousand guilty men to go free than for one innocent man to be jailed.
Perhaps I don't agree with the exact numbers, but I generally think it's a bad idea to unleash an automatic ped0 flagger on 300 million people given the abismal false alarm and clutter rates in the data it is intended to operate on.
And I'm not even getting into how it's going to deal with teens sending pix of themselves around.
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With the activists, I think they're just so narrowly focused on child pornography that they don't care about the consequences. You se
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Just pass a clean CSAM bill that deals with that issue and leave the other crap out of the legislation. Or is it we can't agree that child trafficking and pr0n are a bad thing?
What's a clean bill? It's already illegal. What can you do beyond that without seriously trampling other freedoms? It's not like these laws are really about thinking of the children. They're just trying to open the door for unrelated things later.
RESRICT, EARN IT, Uhuru (Score:2)
Political appointments (Score:5, Insightful)
Upon passing, EARN IT would create a national commission composed of politically-appointed law enforcement specialists.
This has always worked well in the past, good idea!
The Trend (Score:1)
It will not work cos (Score:2)
The summary says :
"Upon passing, EARN IT would create a national commission composed of politically-appointed law enforcement specialists."
Politically appointed? If they need the senate approval, noone going to be appointed anytime soon.
And why can't they get politically neutral experts? Politics in everything sure screws up everything.
What could go wrong? (Score:2)
"This body would be tasked with making a list of best practices to ostensibly curb the digital distribution of CSAM. If online service providers do not abide by these best practices, they would potentially lose blanket immunity ... opening them up to all kinds of legal hurdles"
So a bunch of "politically-appointed law enforcement specialists" will decide what level of security companies are allowed to have, and anything they don't like will cause the companies to lots of liabilities.
So, not IT specialists, n
"incentives" = punishment (Score:2)
They're creating "incentives" by creating a new punishment for doing things the secure way.
Make sure your platform cannot be used to communicate securely, or else. Burglars deserve to know when you're leaving the house. Insurance companies deserve to know you were at a bar last night. Jealous exes deserve to know whose house you sometimes sleep at. The state of Texas deserves to know that you stopped menstruating a
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That's all you had to say. Even though I happen to lean in the same political direction, I've never understood how legislating from a position of ignorance and stupidity could benefit anyone. At times I wonder if they aren't deliberately passing stupid laws to keep the Californians away, or perhaps, even to make them feel more at home. Texas really does deserve to know.
Politics isn't the main problem with this (Score:5, Insightful)
People are focusing on the political appointment process of the "law enforcement specialists" as the main problem. It might be problematic, but it's not even close to the worst part of this ridiculous plan. The real problem is the nature of the pool from which the commissioners would be selected. Law enforcement officials, primarily police, have one strategy, and only one. We saw it in the gigantic, multi-trillion dollar failure that is the so-called "War On Drugs". It amounts to more police officers, increasingly draconian laws, more tech toys for the police, and more freedom for them to invade every part of a citizen's life whenever and wherever they please. Because so many of the people in charge of enforcement are authoritarian numskulls, the strategy fails. When it fails, they never question it, they just demand even more laws, more cops, more toys and fewer limits on their already-appalling power over the people they are supposed to serve and protect.
Thanks to the "War On Drugs", look at what we've lost in terms of freedom, privacy and status as free citizens going about our legal business without interference from "persons in authority". Yet I can still go into any city in North America and find whatever drugs I want with minimal effort and almost no chance of being caught. Now they're telling us we should trust the same pack of imbeciles with our few remaining defenses against a full-on police state in the name of a "War On Kiddy Porn"? Screw that!
Worse than redundant (Score:3)
The new act is worse than redundant...
There are already very effective collaboration between tech companies, non-profits, and law enforcement on this area. Remember all the hoopla when Google blocked someone's account when they shared their kids photo with the doctor?: https://www.theguardian.com/te... [theguardian.com]. Yes, the system is already there, and it is already hurting actual legitimate users.
Think what will happen if we take this away from companies, which could be sued, to nameless political bureaucrats, who would have "Qualified Immunity" (think the "no-fly" lists which you can't even query, let alone sue for malpractice).
None of these are necessary, unless of course you are the government, and want more control on online debates. Instead of coming out openly and say "we want to be arbiters of truth, and enforce what can and cannot be shared online", they of course once again go with the "won't someone think of the children?" route.
Absolutely sickening.
Indirection Problem (Score:2)
They're using indirection to avoid directly legislating what the expectations are, and that's a big problem. This allows them to do something without having to defend the actual results since they don't know what the regulations will look like. And there's nothing stopping them from doing the exact same thing without any enforcement, so we would first see the recommendations before requiring that they be followed. But then we would see the problems with the law before it passed, so it wouldn't pass. So
politically-appointed (Score:2)
national commission composed of politically-appointed law enforcement specialists.
There's your problem.
Historical parallel (Score:1)
Am I the only one who finds this as a historical parallel with these events in year 1998 in Russia with the appointment of Sergey Kirienko as a Prime Minister? Quoting Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
On April 10 and April 17 Duma disapproved him as Prime Minister twice (April 10: 143 in favor, 186 against, 5 abstained, April 17: 115 in favor, 271 against, 11 abstained), but on the third time on April 24 he was approved by the State Duma (251 in favor, 25 against) and appointed Prime Minister by the President.
The expectation was that the President, if the State Duma disapproves the proposed Prime Minister, would propose a different candidate. However, Boris Yeltsin exploited a loophole in the law and proposed the same candidate three times - with the twist being that the third disapproval would automatically mean dissolution of the State
Logic need not apply (Score:2)
"Those defending it include the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), saying that it will "incentivize technology companies to proactively search for and remove" CSAM materials. "Tech companies have the technology to detect, remove, and stop the distribution of child sexual abuse material. However, there is no incentive to do so because they are subject to no consequences for their inaction.""
Can someone please pick a side? Either "the market will decide" or "companies must be forced to..." bec
The new war, same as the old war (Score:2)
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It's really quite simple once you realize that they just don't want any online record.
If it happens, they want no videos, photos, or depictions allowed online.
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Re:I'm confused (Score:5, Informative)
As Anubis IV already mentioned, it takes willful ignorance to not understand the pro-life viewpoint that life begins at conception and abortion is murder. I disagree with the viewpoint emphatically, but I understand it as being rational and morally consistent. You can make all the arguments you want about woman's rights to someone who has this viewpoint, but in most cases you might as well be arguing that it is okay for a mother to murder her 2 year old child.
It is worthwhile to try to change someone's pro-choice viewpoint, and to work to ensure national laws reflect the significant majority of Americans who believe abortion should be legal, but claiming pro-choice individuals are simply irrational is just false. Perhaps a bit medically and scientifically ignorant in many if not most cases, but perfectly rational and consistent in their views.
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At some point, a clump of cells forms into something that is uniquely human in its form and function, and this life needs to be protected. (If you don't understand why human flesh needs to be protected, read more dystopian cyberpunk.)
I don't know when it happens, and neither do you, or doctors, or politicians,
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
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Nope. It keeps going. Decade after decade...
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While I am on the side that people have rights to own their bodies, I do have an objection about this entire idea of a 'right' to terminate pregnancy, which means - someone else has to provide a woman with TECHNOLOGY to do it.
So what exactly is the 'right' in this case? A 'right' to have access to something is not a right, it is an entitlement. Should women be entitled by the force of government to have access to technology of terminating pregnancy? What does that mean exactly, what if all healthcare pro
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Well, that's weird. I left this comment https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org] to a poster just below you, who left this comment https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
but I just noticed that the account of that poster is deleted. I think this is the second time I saw something like this happen on /. and the previous time was within the last 2 months. What is going on, is /. deleting accounts or is it some sort of a bug or what?
Re:I'm confused (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know when [a fetus becomes a human life in form and function], and neither do you, or doctors, or politicians, or scientists, because NO ONE IS ASKING THE QUESTION.
What are you talking about? Plenty of people are asking and answering that question. The physical substrate of consciousness, the thalamo-cortical complex, develops between 24-28 weeks. [scientificamerican.com] It takes another two months for the neuron integration to be complete, which makes the fetus capable of conscious thought. That aligns with the beginning of the third trimester when a fetus can survive outside the womb.
This aligns with the majority viewpoint on abortion, which is that it should be legal but happen before the third trimester unless their is an extreme medical reason to abort. I for instance consider myself pro-choice, but would support a federal law which made abortion legal only in the first two trimesters with exceptions for unusual medical conditions threatening the mother. When we progress to the point where we can pass federal laws to make abortion legal, I imagine that is close to what that law would look like.
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That aligns with the beginning of the third trimester when a fetus can survive outside the womb.
You know that they've managed to have surviving premature births as early as 21 weeks right?
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You know that they've managed to have surviving premature births as early as 21 weeks right?
Yes, but it certainly isn't common (that is the record). It's even more of a miracle that she survived without multiple neurological conditions. The brain hasn't even started growth in many critical areas at that age, and outside the womb it's far less likely they will develop properly. But it can happen.
No scientist would consider a 21 week old fetus conscious though, regardless of whether they are continuing to grow in the womb or in neonatal care.
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I used to say 'awareness of the self as separate from the world, and the understanding that reality is interactive, not a passive experience'. When this happens varies wildly, but the average is around 7 years old.
This is why I prefer the somewhat abstract concept of 'human-ness' over consciousness. 'Consciousness' (depending on how you define it) applies to some animals, and not even all humans. To me, abortion is a moral issue, but the legal issues (which we will tri
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I know this is slashdot, but I'm genuinely surprised how many people are emerging from the woodwork to say "well, people who want to force 10-year-olds to give birth to their own brother or sister aren't irrational... it's just a different opinion, man.
Calling an argument rational is not the same as agreeing with it. I was clear that I emphatically disagree with this viewpoint, but it doesn't make them irrational. They believe killing a 6 week old fetus is no different than killing a 2 year old child. If I believed that, I would be against abortion even in the case of incest or rape too. For the same reason I would be against killing a 2 year old child because the mother is feeling to much stress from raising her rapist's child.
I still think pro-life argu
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I want to point out that a person being scientifically ignorant and making decisions on that basis, especially if they consciously ignore established science, isn't rational. Being rational implies taking all available factors, information and outcomes into consideration before making a decision or conclusion.
That my opinion anyway, yours may differ.
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Definitions of words are not the best place to use opinion. The dictionary definition of rational simply includes using reason and logic. Not being well informed. You can be perfectly rational while being wildly uninformed.
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Oxford dictionary:
Rational analysis/thought is a deductive thought process based on reasoning and logic. Ignoring what science tells us because it's inconvenient or emotionally upsetting isn't rational.
Re:I'm confused (Score:4, Insightful)
It is not morally consistent because it ignores reality. The little fact they constantly gloss over is that 80% of all fetusses get aborted by the body. That would hence mean that having sex that results in conception makes you an 80% killer. The moral thing, if you believe a person starts at conception, would hence be to outlaw all sex that could result in conception and treat it at the very least as attempted murder. And hence their argument goes completely out the window. The argument that a person starts at conception is completely unsustainable in actual reality.
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Indeed.
Re:I'm confused (Score:4, Insightful)
It is not morally consistent because it ignores reality. The little fact they constantly gloss over is that 80% of all fetusses get aborted by the body. That would hence mean that having sex that results in conception makes you an 80% killer.
That is such a poor argument to use against pro-lifers, because intent is arguably the most important aspect of determining if someone has done something morally wrong. There is no intent when a fetus does not survive for natural causes, but there is intent when someone chooses an abortion. It is perfectly morally consistent to believe it is wrong to choose an abortion even though around 80% of fetuses don't survive 6 weeks of gestation (and 10% of the rest don't survive to term).
There are other silly arguments used by ignorant pro-choicers such as calling masturbation or periods murder since they are potential life. They aren't pointing out inconsistencies is pro-life viewpoints, since nearly all pro-life advocates believe intent is the most important criteria in determining if the death of a fetus is morally wrong.
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80% probability is certainly enough for intent. Seriously. Stabbing somebody is a lot less deadly.
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And while we are at it, your claim is entirely bogus. I think you are just a pro-lifer that is not even honest enough to admit that. The moral problem stems from the kill, not from intent. The pro-lifers claim that they want to reduce the deaths. The only way to do that (as long as you accept the insane claim that life starts at conception) is to prevent conception. Simple as that. If they do care about an abortion as "murder" but do not mind that 80% of all fetuses get killed anyways, then they are simply
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I think you are just a pro-lifer that is not even honest enough to admit that.
Have you ever met a pro-lifer who was ashamed of their position? I don't think I have.
The moral problem stems from the kill, not from intent.
Have you ever met a pro-lifer who thinks someone who had a natural miscarriage committed murder? I haven't. Intent to kill is what they oppose. Just like most if not all laws I'm aware of require intent for a crime to be committed.
I don't believe pro-lifers as a group are completely ignorant that death is a part of nature. They aren't blaming pregnant women for the loss of all human life inside their womb, just the intent
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There are other silly arguments used by ignorant pro-choicers such as calling masturbation or periods murder since they are potential life.
Lol. Pro-choicers aren't the ones who are anti-masturbation. Or anti-birth control for that matter.
I worded that poorly. I meant that the same pro-choicers who bring up natural miscarriages when discussing abortion sometimes also bring up masturbation or periods as the destruction of eggs and sperm which could eventually become a human life. I only brought it up as a similar ridiculous argument that the parent was making.
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> you might as well be arguing that it is okay for a
> mother to murder her 2 year old child.
Oh, sweet holy hell... are you planning to trot down the Yellow Brick Road to the Emerald City with that strawman? See, that's the problem with you people... the hysterics and bad-faith fallacious nonsense like conflating birth control with abortion with infanticide with child homicide. Grow up and work out some good faith arguments.
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See, that's the problem with you people... the hysterics and bad-faith fallacious nonsense like conflating birth control with abortion with infanticide with child homicide. Grow up and work out some good faith arguments.
I'm not defending those who are against birth control, that is just some religious BS which should have no place in our society (outside their home and church).
And infanticide is homicide. Almost everyone agrees with that. I assume you meant to say feticide, but even that isn't completely correct because it includes natural miscarriages. The correct term is abortion.
It is a good faith argument to consider abortion homicide if you believe a fetus is a human life deserving the same rights as a born human. You
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No. I made the distinction between infanticide and child homicide because that hypothetical 2-year old is not an infant and I don't think toddlercide is a real word. I also use it because the right-wing "barefoot, pregnant, in the kitchen" mob fairly often disingenuously
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No. I made the distinction between infanticide and child homicide because that hypothetical 2-year old is not an infant and I don't think toddlercide is a real word. I also use it because the right-wing "barefoot, pregnant, in the kitchen" mob fairly often disingenuously use it to refer to abortion. Like I said... they're operating in bad faith with fallacies. And I'm not sure where you think race factors into anything here. But that sort of deflection is certainly a fallacy of its own.
As the saying goes
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It is a good faith argument to consider abortion homicide if you believe a fetus is a human life deserving the same rights as a born human
I guess? Seems like pulling the plug on a vegetable would always be homicide too by that line of logic. Because at their stage of development they are very little different. Sure, there are a few high profile cases where families fought to keep completely braindead patients on life support, but I don't think it is a majority opinion. And even if it were, you'd find very few that would outright call it homicide.
the problem is prolifer are mostly hypocrites (Score:2)
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Maybe not all , but most are overlapping with groups which are actually anti life : being pro death penalty, against most of ACA or having healthcare, being pro gun, or even being against helping feed children or the adult population, being heavy pro bombing other countries sometimes, or invading or bombing new one e.g. iran etc... If they were REALLY pro life, they would be massively against all those I cited.
Yes, the name pro-life is very misleading and dishonest. You point out the hypocrisy of most conservatives using the label, but I find it more egregious simply because it tries to paint the other side as anti-life. It's just PR though, and nearly any group trying to enact change in politics is going to be guilty of shady PR. For example, even though I support most of the policies in the Inflation Reduction Act, I have to admit the name is an egregious case of shady PR.
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You give radical Christians too much credit. They are only pro-life when you're talking about a mass of cells that has not yet left the mother's breech to become a human being. They are most certainly pro-death once a person has been born:
- They are for the death penalty
- They are against universal access to health care
- They are against making sure everyone has enough food to eat
- They are against making sure everyone has adequate shelter
- They are against getting help for people with substance abuse issue
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You forget that they are also against protecting school children from AR-15s.
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Yet while their own scripture calls on them to open their homes and their wallets for those in need, they not only overwhelmingly refuse to do so
Conservatives donate more to charity than liberals. [sciencedirect.com]
Re:I'm confused (Score:5, Insightful)
For consistency, that's the right tack but you've left out a critical detail.
If the entire viewpoint were that life begins at conception and abortion is murder, you'd anticipate that the "pro-life" movement would be in favor of early sex-education and broad access to contraceptives anyone who could possibly want them. You'd expect strong support for anti-poverty efforts, free health care (especially for pregnant women), and iron-clad legal immunity to doctors who perform medically necessary abortions on non-viable fetuses or in cases where the mother's life in jeopardy.
There's might be someone out there who fits that description, but it's so rare as to be effectively invisible among all the "pro-life" folks who are enthusiastically doing everything in their power to get the exact opposite effect.
But the opposition to all the other means of protecting life and preventing unwanted pregnancy is perfectly consistent with an obvious viewpoint that you'd have to be willfully ignorant not to understand: "Life starts at conception, and sex is a sin against a patriarchal God who intended women to be subservient mothers."
Recognize the _entire_ viewpoint, and the "pro-life" stance is perfectly consistent and predictable.
Not sure about rational, but... whee.
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If the entire viewpoint were that life begins at conception and abortion is murder, you'd anticipate that the "pro-life" movement would be in favor of early sex-education and broad access to contraceptives anyone who could possibly want them. You'd expect strong support for anti-poverty efforts, free health care (especially for pregnant women), and iron-clad legal immunity to doctors who perform medically necessary abortions on non-viable fetuses or in cases where the mother's life in jeopardy.
This touches on what I consider one of the indefensible parts of stereotypical conservative viewpoints. Not wanting sex-ed and contraceptives is because they want to force people to be celibate until marriage. But it is clear that these policies cause an increase in unwanted pregnancies. But that's okay to them because abortion is murder and should be illegal anyway. They offload any guilt to the "evil" pregnant woman getting an abortion. This is where I believe they are more interested in forcing their lif
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...the pro-life viewpoint that life begins at conception and abortion is murder. I disagree with the viewpoint emphatically, but I understand it as being rational and morally consistent
I'll agree to that being rational if women suffering a miscarriage get days of, funerals held or other similar things in human cultures anywhere in the world. Up to that point, the passing of an unborn months before gestation is clearly not considered equal to a person dying, so it cannot rationally be considered murder of a person if such unborn passing is triggered on purpose.
This doesn't change much in the debate, since you're claiming rationality, but usually they don't...
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This is not about protecting children. This is about keeping pictures of abused children off the Internet. The actual abuse does not figure in this act at all. As it is very plausible that most child abuse does not end up on the Internet or, rather does not even get documented as pictures or on video, this is not actually about identifying and helping the vast majority of abuse victims at all. Obviously, some Republicans are just offended that the problem becomes visible. Others understand that this is not
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I don’t think you need to support their ideology to understand their notion that while rape is terrible, taking the life of an innocent victim (i.e. the fetus) merely compounds the crime.
Which must explain why conservatives are so against the death penalty, since killing someone in cold blood merely compounds the crime.
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If you accept that humans are flawed and are prone to making mistakes, then you have to admit that some innocent people are imprisoned and even put to death.
So, yes, some number of people put to death are innocents being murdered by the state.
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There's even a handy list of the people who have been put to death and then determined to be innocent.
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/p... [deathpenaltyinfo.org]
This list, of course, is just a starting point. There are many others who appear to have been innocent, but there wasn't enough evidence to get a post-execution exoneration.
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Because the death penalty meted out to innocent adults who were just minding their own business and never did anything wrong?
Yes, that does happen.
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I mean...I'm 99.9% against the government putting people to death for any reason other than exigent circumstances (i.e. active shooter, hostage situation, etc...)...but your characterization of the death penalty being "murder" in "cold blood" is dishonest. Or you don't have the brain God gave a slug.
Whatever you wish to call it, the fitting punishment that gawd demands, a fun day in public (Republicans now want public executions) watching a criminal or journalist get what they deserve, it is a purposeful act as intentional as first degree murder.
The leader of the Republican party plans to even televise them https://www.rollingstone.com/p... [rollingstone.com] Even to include journalists https://www.foxnews.com/politi... [foxnews.com]
But yeah, Completely consistent and rational.
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Well spotted. Their whole set of "arguments" is nothing but a bunch of lies.
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Who is "they"? You're acting as if the half of the US that voted Trump into office* is a monolith.
While some—even many, and especially the noisiest—people may fit the mold, painting everyone on "the other side" with the same brush is a failure on your part to recognize that rational people can end up at different places because they started from different first principles, one of which I cited earlier in this thread. Moreover, the manner in which you dismissed "them" suggests you've given up on
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Are you saying that pregnant 10-year-olds should be forced to give birth to their father's baby?
You are unlikely to find many pro-choice people who think a 10 year old should be forced to give birth to their father's baby (although they do exist), because of the danger to the pregnant child. Even all right leaning states are likely to make these abortions legal in the future, but their current laws were not well written because Roe v Wade protected them from ever being implemented. These laws are mostly examples of incompetence, not a reflection of what most pro-choice individuals really want.
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If you have to use rape and child abuse as justification of your point, usually you have a really shit point that requires some sort of tragedy in order to make it NOT seem crazy.
Additionally, any response that uses examples like this are being dishonest from the jump...honest people don't need to emotionally manipulate to get their point across. And accusing someone of being FOR something for not agreeing with your point AGAINST something is bald- face manipulation.
Bring actual facts and evidence or get ig
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Getting rid of inbred babies with inferior genetics could be considered a form of eugenics, which has its own set of issues.
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Yes, but they don't give a damn about the kid after it is born. And they are generally for capital punishment. And they greatly approve of flooding the U.S. with guns so that we get the Kessler Syndrome but now with guns and on home turf. So I don't think much of their claims to value human life.
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Nope, not rational at all. Rational would be a Science-based stance that recognize a fetus is not a person at least for a large part of its existence.
While we are at it: 80% of fetuses get aborted naturally. Hence anybody having sex resulting in conception is 80% of a killer by your argument. The moral thing, if people like you were actually honest, would hence be to outlaw all sex that could result in conception. Fortunately, you are just fundamentally wrong.
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If a bunch of cells is a "victim", then Catholics can't eat eggs on Friday since they are chickens and Catholics can't eat meat on Fridays.
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It’s a self-consistent, rational viewpoint that naturally results from the belief that the fetus is a person entitled to human rights.
Did ya ever wonder if women should by law take pregnancy tests and once determined pregnant, be put on surveillance until the fully human person living inside them is born?
If indeed, the fetus is as human as an adult human, it is inescapable that we simply must monitor women through their entire pregnancy, and if stillborn or miscarriage occurs, a homicide investigation must happen.
Thee, if found simply negligent and not taking every possible precaution to bring the human being to term - That's negli