Abortion

[Hawker]

...snipped image to save space...

Really...

The difference is that we don't protect the lives of persons only.  You can be in a coma or born with severe mental disabilities and we don't kill you.

Abortion is one of those topics where looking for a logically consistent justification is missing the point.  Its something women insist on and anyone who has been married will tell you that, sooner or later, the little woman will get what she wants.

I have changed my opinion after reading many of the morally depraved comments on this list and other places.... As stated before, should a woman choose to gratuitously murder her unborn baby, let's allow it on condition that the process causes mandatory sterilization.  At least then no more defenseless humans can be harmed by her in that manner.

When I said that you can't be logically consistent about abortion, that wasn't an invitation to go totally mad.  Are you seriously suggesting that police raid the records of hospitals, get the tens of millions of names of all women who had abortions, incarcerate them and then perform surgery without consent on them causing permanent infertility?

I disagree with the word "murder" you used.  Murder is unlawful killing.  Even if you firmly believe that some unborn children deserve the same protection from killing that you and I deserve, provided abortion is legal the people who do it are not murderers.  

[1714998628]

1714998628

[Hawker]

I have changed my opinion after reading many of the morally depraved comments on this list and other places.... As stated before, should a woman choose to gratuitously murder her unborn baby, let's allow it on condition that the process causes mandatory sterilization.  At least then no more defenseless humans can be harmed by her in that manner.

When I said that you can't be logically consistent about abortion, that wasn't an invitation to go totally mad.  Are you seriously suggesting that police raid the records of hospitals, get the tens of millions of names of all women who had abortions, incarcerate them and then perform surgery without consent on them causing permanent infertility?

I disagree with the word "murder" you used.  Murder is unlawful killing.  Even if you firmly believe that some unborn children deserve the same protection from killing that you and I deserve, provided abortion is legal the people who do it are not murderers.  

Nope didn't suggest that at all, I said as a part of the process of gratuitous abortions, sterilization is involved... i.e. here is your abort-o-matic pill (which happens to contain sterilization drugs as well) ... not a recommendation to apply it retroactively.  I specifically implied concentual behavior by paring it with the process of abortion.

Murder is murder is murder... lawful or not as most dictionaries point out "to kill or slaughter inhumanly or barbarously", and the definition applies, any way you slice it you are either chemically murdering an unborn baby (Would you like to test out the gas chamber?), or you are physically murdering the unborn baby (Would you like to test out dismemberment?).  Just because you don't hear it cry or even just because it can't audibly cry doesn't make it any less brutalizing.

The problem you have is that people, decent people who would otherwise strike you as model human beings, deeply disagree with you.  And in a democracy, respecting people's right to vote on these things is important.

[JA37]

There's a fair bit of stress on a woman's body during pregnancy. Large health risks. Why shouldn't she alone be the judge on weather or not she's prepared to take those risks?

[Iseree22]

There's a fair bit of stress on a woman's body during pregnancy. Large health risks. Why shouldn't she alone be the judge on weather or not she's prepared to take those risks?

+1

Using the woman's body as a moral battleground shows how these ideologues struggle to reconcile complex situations with their impractical simple moral rules. Lets all decide what the women can do with her body. That is the only moral and just way to solve this situation.

Somthing else you need to take in consideration is that if you consider a fetus to have all those rights way before it's much more than a simple organism, then shouldn't other similarly simple organisms have the same rights even if currently we don't have the technology to advance them to a similar level as an adult human?

+10

Your too far ahead.

[Hawker]

The problem you have is that people, decent people who would otherwise strike you as model human beings, deeply disagree with you.  And in a democracy, respecting people's right to vote on these things is important.

I 100% agree with the right to vote... too bad no one/very few actually voted to legalize abortion and it was forced down our throats at a national level by legislation from the bench.  There was no federal laws written to legalize it, some states did and some did not.  This is an example of the Supreme Court over stepping its boundaries.

Yes I can see Americans have a unique problem with guns and abortion.  In the UK and most other countries, these things are put to the vote and people just accept what the majority vote.

[EhVedadoOAnonimato]

Humorous, but actually this aspect is somehow missing from the debate.

You are evicting someone from your house that you took in yourself. Isn't this a non-verbal contract? The person might have sneaked in somehow, or you could have accidentally let them in, but if there is consent I think it's a game changer.

Doing sex is in no way a contract with the fetus simply because the fetus didn't even exist when such action took place. You can't make a contract with a non-existent party. Every party in a contract must consent for it to be acceptable.

That doesn't rule out the possibility of contracts with other people which existed before the conception, of course. There may be a contract between the mother and the father, or even between the mother and some religious community, and such contracts may punish abortion.

But a contract with something that doesn't exist, no, that you can't make.

[FredericBastiat]

When I said that you can't be logically consistent about abortion, that wasn't an invitation to go totally mad.  Are you seriously suggesting that police raid the records of hospitals, get the tens of millions of names of all women who had abortions, incarcerate them and then perform surgery without consent on them causing permanent infertility?

I disagree with the word "murder" you used.  Murder is unlawful killing.  Even if you firmly believe that some unborn children deserve the same protection from killing that you and I deserve, provided abortion is legal the people who do it are not murderers.  

Yes Hawker, we're all very aware of your position on lawfulness. If it's a law then it isn't "murder", or "theft", or "slavery". You never look at the logical consistency of an argument. You merely determine that if a majority of persons within a "society" make it so, it must be lawful. There is no need for logic at that point. You can throw it all out the window and just say, "but the law says....!!!"

[FredericBastiat]

There's a fair bit of stress on a woman's body during pregnancy. Large health risks. Why shouldn't she alone be the judge on weather or not she's prepared to take those risks?

I suppose the same could be said about a young single mother with a baby. If she can't take care of the child, maybe she should give it up. Of course, "giving up" a child is different than abortion. One cannot abort a child outside of the womb (murder), why should should abort one from within? And don't you think if she did attempt to kill the child, that others might want to intervene to save the child? See, it's not so different after all. Who is the advocate for the unborn child? It certainly can't just remain exclusively with the mother could it; any more than it could for a mother with child outside the womb? Why is location the only determining factor here?

I suppose you could look at it from a number of different perspectives. If the woman's life is truly endangered from the fetus, you could look at it from the point of view of self-defense and evict the fetus. This would then potentially kill the unborn child. That's more justifiable. As far as I know, you typically cannot remove the child from the womb at any point in the development of the child and not severely risk it's life.

Nevertheless, it seems we should be weighing the life of the mother against the life of the child in a worst case scenario (imminent threat). The question should be one of eviction, trespass or self-defense not abortion and death irrespective of action and consequence. A proportionality of force thru action is key.

Just as in life outside the womb (analogy), evicting a person from "off of" or "out of" a location, you must use proportional force. For example: if a child wanders onto my property (it doesn't matter how he/she got there actually), I can't just shoot to kill. I could probably escort the child to the edge of my property with a stern warning to not trespass again (assuming he/she would even understand such a request) but that's about the sum total of it.

I know that a child on or in a property, and one inside a woman presents a clearly different environment, but the child within the womb really doesn't have the opportunity to be "free of" the mother until a certain point in its development.

[Hawker]

Yes I can see Americans have a unique problem with guns and abortion.  In the UK and most other countries, these things are put to the vote and people just accept what the majority vote.

No country should just accept the voice of majority vote, just because >50% say something doesn't make it right...  If that were the case then there would have never been athiests.  Since up until recently and in most places even today religious outnumber non-religious.  I am not saying people should stop arguing for "pro-abortion", I am just stating my moral belief that it is wrong and there are better ways to solve many/most of the issues that abortion was an attempt to solve.  When it comes down to it I believe abortion in its modern form to be a construct of the irresponsible.
...snip...

I personally am pro-life.  I firmly believe that one day people will look back at our society's treatment of the unborn in the same way we look back at slavery or serfdom.

I live in a country where the law allows abortion before 20 weeks.  Its a democracy and I see the only alternative to violence being that I try to persuade people that abortion is a bad thing.  Just because I believe something is wrong does not mean I am entitled to use violence against those who disagree with me.

I suspect that off the forums in real life you take the exact same position and would not harm a girl who had an abortion just because you feel she did wrong.  On moral issues, we all have our own consciences but its majority rule as far making laws is concerned.

[memvola]

Humorous, but actually this aspect is somehow missing from the debate.

You are evicting someone from your house that you took in yourself. Isn't this a non-verbal contract? The person might have sneaked in somehow, or you could have accidentally let them in, but if there is consent I think it's a game changer.

Doing sex is in no way a contract with the fetus simply because the fetus didn't even exist when such action took place. You can't make a contract with a non-existent party. Every party in a contract must consent for it to be acceptable.

That doesn't rule out the possibility of contracts with other people which existed before the conception, of course. There may be a contract between the mother and the father, or even between the mother and some religious community, and such contracts may punish abortion.

But a contract with something that doesn't exist, no, that you can't make.

I humbly disagree. This is just trying to operate on definitions that are inapplicable to the case. The specific norms you have chosen are not God's will, they come from higher philosophical inquiries, which should have a say on this matter. Basically, you are responsible, because it's your decision. To me, it's not at all apparent that it is your right to dispose of a person you've created just because it didn't exist at the time of your decision. At the time if its death, it exists, and it dies as a consequence of prior decision.

[Bind]

Sorry, no matter how enjoyable it is, sex is not a recreational sport. Its a mechanism for the creation of life. With such power comes responsibility.

[Rassah]

Maybe a different take on this:

What defines a human life? Can any collection of cells with human DNA be considered human life? Do the cells have to have a potential to become human in the future (fertilized egg cells)? If future technology allows us to take any clump of human cells (such as skin or muscle tissue) and make them grow into a full human being (e.g. through cloning), would any clump of cells being killed be considered equivalent to abortion? What if we progress to a technology level where human consciousness can be uploaded to a computer? In a world where inteligent computers loaded with human inteligence are on par with "natural" humans, would destroying a computer capable or rational thought, though not yet loaded with it, be considered abortion? Or if we go further, and create machines that can develop their own AI on par with human intelligence, would destroying a machine that is capable of this, but was never turned on and allowed to develop its AI, be equivalent to abortion?
These are all questions we'll run up against soon, and I believe anti-abortion people will have a huge problem with.

My opinion is that the value of human life (or intelligent life in general) is determined by its capacity to reason. A clump of cells has no value. An unconsciout person, or a baby, only has value to others who value that person (parents/family). Someone without the ability to have rational thought should be irrelevant, even if they have the ability to some day in the future develop rational thought.

[TiagoTiago]

Hypothetical scenario:

There is a proposal to add a safe, temporary, taste-free, sterilizer to piped water and other things so to ensure everyone gets it just by drinking and eating normally, and in order for women to get pregnant and men to produce fertile sperm, they need to take a pill that is highly controlled in order to cancel out the effect of the sterilizer, and anyone wanting to make babies must go thru the same process as people wanting to adopt in order to be given that pill.

Would you be for or against such proposal?

[memvola]

These are all questions we'll run up against soon, and I believe anti-abortion people will have a huge problem with.

I don't see how "abortion people" have an easier time with these questions. Just because they have a lower threshold? Well, maybe a little...

I'm not exactly against abortion, at least not enough to forcefully prevent other people from doing it, but until I have clear answers to these questions, I abstain from killing as much as possible.

EDIT: If your measure is capacity of reason, you can define a person by the complexity of its nervous system. For instance, if you don't have anything against killing rabbits, you could kill a fetus that is at that level of complexity. I don't kill rabbits as well, so, wouldn't be my preference, but as long as you have that measure, it makes sense. The "machine with the potential to think" problem is much easier for me. It's not on, so, you are not destroying any ongoing process. Not the same as abortion.

My opinion is that the value of human life (or intelligent life in general) is determined by its capacity to reason. A clump of cells has no value. An unconsciout person, or a baby, only has value to others who value that person (parents/family). Someone without the ability to have rational thought should be irrelevant, even if they have the ability to some day in the future develop rational thought.

While at it, why not take another small step and question why capacity to reason determines value? Nothing apparent, other than the fact that it is an arbitrary point where social evolution took us (economical benefits of better cooperation, etc.). You could as well include animals and beings with potential of rational thought, or go the other way and exclude some human races, social classes, etc. It's all arbitrary from a personal point of view. Not against your opinion (makes sense to me too), just questioning where it's coming from.

Suppose you have a sick person who has lost the ability to develop rational thought. You have means to fix this person. This man has the potential to do important things. Does this entity (I won't even call it a person, since it can't reason) have any value at all? There is some value because of the investment gone into developing this human of course, but let's say fixing has the same cost as developing a new person from scratch, so that we can exclude that.

An interesting side example would be cryogenics. I agree that there is almost no incentive to restore the frozen individual for people who don't value that person directly (family, etc.). However, I just don't see the difference between this and a non-frozen, living thinking person. I think the main anti-abortion opinion in this thread stems from the idea that you don't have to care for any person. No person or entity has inherent value, it doesn't matter of it can reason or not. People are saying you can evict your child from your home without giving any means to survive as long as you make it public.

[Rassah]

These are all questions we'll run up against soon, and I believe anti-abortion people will have a huge problem with.

If your measure is capacity of reason, you can define a person by the complexity of its nervous system. For instance, if you don't have anything against killing rabbits, you could kill a fetus that is at that level of complexity. I don't kill rabbits as well, so, wouldn't be my preference, but as long as you have that measure, it makes sense.

I guess you could expand it to include being self-aware and feeling pain, too. Rabbits would qualify then. Conscious ones, anyway.

The "machine with the potential to think" problem is much easier for me. It's not on, so, you are not destroying any ongoing process. Not the same as abortion.

I would argue it's no different from killing someone who is asleep or unconscoious.

While at it, why not take another small step and question why capacity to reason determines value? Nothing apparent, other than the fact that it is an arbitrary point where social evolution took us (economical benefits of better cooperation, etc.). You could as well include animals and beings with potential of rational thought, or go the other way and exclude some human races, social classes, etc. It's all arbitrary from a personal point of view. Not against your opinion (makes sense to me too), just questioning where it's coming from.

The "why" would be because this person/being is able to make their own rational choices, and can chose to live. A fetus or an unconscious entity cannot. I think it's kinda close to the base libertarian or objectivist source or rights thing; I have a right to my own being. If someone can declare that, they have that right. As for animals with rational thought, pretty sure that's coming too, and if right-wing extremists had issues with blacks and gays, omg that will open a can of worms!

Suppose you have a sick person who has lost the ability to develop rational thought. You have means to fix this person. This man has the potential to do important things. Does this entity (I won't even call it a person, since it can't reason) have any value at all? There is some value because of the investment gone into developing this human of course, but let's say fixing has the same cost as developing a new person from scratch, so that we can exclude that.

I would say that no, this person does not have value by themselves. The development portion is a sunk cost at this point. If someone else values them, like a family member, or a business owner who knows that this person has a lot of potential talent as a future employee, then they can value them. If no one values them, then there's no point in their existence, which I assume would be at the expense of the state with nofuture fix options (unless society deems that people like that should be fixed, and votes to foot the bill, but in this case society is valuing them for whatever reason).

I think the main anti-abortion opinion in this thread stems from the idea that you don't have to care for any person. No person or entity has inherent value, it doesn't matter of it can reason or not. People are saying you can evict your child from your home without giving any means to survive as long as you make it public.

I agree with the eviction sentiment. If you make it public, someone else will step in and take that child.if no one does, then society may have way bigger problems than just abortion.
I have a feeling the main anti-abortion opinion stems from religious beliefs, that as soon as a sperm enters an egg and the two halves of the DNA mingle, god imbues the resulting cell with a soul, and at that point it's a human life, the killing of which is murder. Questions of what embryo or fetus souls would look like in heaven aside, I have a feeling a lot of them also have never really bothered to consider what really defines human life, worth, and consciousness.

[JA37]

Sorry, no matter how enjoyable it is, sex is not a recreational sport. Its a mechanism for the creation of life. With such power comes responsibility.

Why does that responsibility land only on the woman? Why do men get to fuck about and when conception is the result tell women what they can and can't do with their bodies?
A zygote doesn't have any rights. A foetus gets rights when it can survive outside the womb.

How about this? If you get to decide what a woman has to carry a conception to term (ie. controlling her body), then she has the right to do the same for you. Let her select a few major invasive surgical procedures that you have to undergo, and pay for. Fair enough? I'm sure we could solve a few transplant problems in the process. 

[Hawker]

Maybe a different take on this:

What defines a human life? Can any collection of cells with human DNA be considered human life? Do the cells have to have a potential to become human in the future (fertilized egg cells)? If future technology allows us to take any clump of human cells (such as skin or muscle tissue) and make them grow into a full human being (e.g. through cloning), would any clump of cells being killed be considered equivalent to abortion? What if we progress to a technology level where human consciousness can be uploaded to a computer? In a world where inteligent computers loaded with human inteligence are on par with "natural" humans, would destroying a computer capable or rational thought, though not yet loaded with it, be considered abortion? Or if we go further, and create machines that can develop their own AI on par with human intelligence, would destroying a machine that is capable of this, but was never turned on and allowed to develop its AI, be equivalent to abortion?
These are all questions we'll run up against soon, and I believe anti-abortion people will have a huge problem with.

My opinion is that the value of human life (or intelligent life in general) is determined by its capacity to reason. A clump of cells has no value. An unconsciout person, or a baby, only has value to others who value that person (parents/family). Someone without the ability to have rational thought should be irrelevant, even if they have the ability to some day in the future develop rational thought.

So you think its OK to kill mentally handicapped people?  And brain damaged soldiers?  And newborn babies? 

[Rassah]

So you think its OK to kill mentally handicapped people? And brain damaged soldiers?

If mentally handicapped/brain damaged to the point of being catatonic and unresponsive (basically a vegetable), and if no one else values them (I.e. they have been abandoned into the custody of the state or the street), then yes.If someone else claims them and wants to willingly take care of them for whatever reason (I.e. someone values them), then no.

And newborn babies?  

Newborn babies can feel, and killing them inhumanely would be cruel. If they are abandoned and no one wants them, then painless euthinasia would be OK I guess. I seriously doubt no one would want or care about them though.

Why? Do you believe a hunk of living flesh that has all the physical characteristics of a human being, but none of the brain activity, reasoning, or capability for thought, should be forced on someone, and that someone should be required to support it financially and keep it alive, without possibility of it becoming anything useful in the future? Who would be required to pay for that and why?

[Rassah]

Woot Woot!  Long Live Sparta!

Sparta was above all a militarist state, and emphasis on military fitness began virtually at birth. Shortly after birth, the mother of the child bathed it in wine to see whether the child was strong. If the child survived it was brought before the Gerousia by the child's father. The Gerousia then decided whether it was to be reared or not. If they considered it "puny and deformed", the baby was thrown into a chasm on Mount Taygetos known euphemistically as the Apothetae (Gr., ἀπoθέτας, "Deposits"). This was, in effect, a primitive form of eugenics.
There is some evidence that the exposure of unwanted children was practiced in other Greek regions, including Athens.

And the alternative would have been... what? Let the baby lie there and die of thirst because no one wanted it? Or was this custom something enforced by the state against the mother's wishes, in which case there was someone who was valuing the baby, and thus this whole Sparta thing doesn't even apply to what I said?

BTW, it almost sounds like you guys are advocating for controlling sex to make it only exist for the purpose of procreation, not recreation.

[Bind]

Why does that responsibility land only on the woman? Why do men get to fuck about and when conception is the result tell women what they can and can't do with their bodies?

Nowhere did I say woman has the only responsibility. Both hold equal responsibility, but in todays law the woman is the only one who can make a life and death decision on allowing the life to gestate or murdering that life.

It almost sounds like you guys are advocating for controlling sex to make it only exist for the purpose of procreation, not recreation. I mean, condoms break, contraseption sometimes fails, and girls sometimes lie about being on the pill. What if the father does not want a baby, and doesn't want to, or can't, support it financially? (Let me guess, "he should've been more responsible and not stuck 'it's where it didñ't belong?")

That is what sex is. The mechanism for the creation of life. Sure its great for recreational activity between comitted individuals, but that does not negate the fact that sex is the way you create human life. With such awesome power comes responsibility.

If you have a problem with it, do not have sex outside of a relationship in which you want to create said life.

It's your choice no matter how you look on it socially.

Again, with such awesome power, and choice, comes responsibility.

You act like humans have absolutely no control over their sexual desires.

You can, by choice, masturbate or take a cold shower much more responsibly, efficiently, and conveniently than having sex with a woman if its just about recreation