Chrono Compendium
Zenan Plains - Site Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: MDenham on August 15, 2009, 07:04:36 am
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I'd go into a long, involved discussion of my ideological leanings, but I'd prefer not to disturb the entire forum population to the point where you all start trying to come after me with torches and pitchforks (or, worse, pitches and torchforks).
I will say that, in my opinion, the ideal government requires a person in charge with absolute power and the good sense to rarely, if ever, exercise it outside of small situations (but good luck finding someone, other than maybe me, who's not going to be like "O HAI I CAN HAS ABSOLUTE POWAR NOW, TIEMS FOR ABYOOSE", which is why this doesn't work in practice).
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In other words, MDenham, an autocracy.
I don't say monarchy because you made no mention of royalty or bloodlines.
* * * * * *
My idea of an ideal society includes:
1. private ownership
2. agriculture and teaching being the most important jobs
3. everybody works without excuse (minus the terminally ill, elderly, and crippled)
4. basic welfare and health care laws for anyone of all income levels
5. no income tax or death tax
6. a direct democracy (encourages community participation)
7. a free market economy (no capitalism)
8. opposing abortion
9. advocating the death penalty & passive euthanasia
10. separation of church & state
Of course, this is just a short list. If anything on the list appears to contradict, do bring it up.
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why oppose abortion? in an ideal society there would be no need for it in theory. theories dont include the human element. what if the woman was raped and simply didnt want the child, or didnt have a job? what if she and her boyfriend/husband simply werent ready to take care of a child? what if the child were to live an empty life due to an illness?
what then, my good friend? what then?
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Let me rephrase that point, then.
8. Opposes abortion (except in cases of rape)
Although rape is just one case, there are several other scenarios I know of that pose no fair stance on behalf of the unborn child (i.e. it cannot help itself):
1. Because it was the wrong gender.
2. Because it was conceived under a drunken stupor from the parents.
3. Because it had a physical deformation.
4. Because either/both parent(s) failed to use contraceptives.
5. Because either/both parent(s) decided to cop out on raising the child.
6. Because it was conceived out of wedlock.
Now you know why I think "Pro-Choice" is a loaded phrase.
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8. opposing abortion
9. advocating the death penalty & passive euthanasia
Now you know why I think "Pro-Choice" is a loaded phrase.
Now you're beginning to see why "pro-life" is a fraudulent descriptor.
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Now you're beginning to see why "pro-life" is a fraudulent descriptor.
A rose by any other name, my friend.
Also
8. Opposes abortion (except in cases of rape)
should be
8. Opposes abortion (except in cases of rape and danger to the mothering figure)
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Now you're beginning to see why "pro-life" is a fraudulent descriptor.
How is pro-life (standing for the right to live) a fraudulent descriptor?
Is it because I am for the death penalty also, thereby making it a contradiction in my beliefs?
I beg to differ, for it's perfectly clear why I can be against abortion and for the death penalty at the same time.
An abortion involves the termination of the innocent life of a person who has done nothing wrong whatsoever except perhaps be an inconvenience to the mother who wants to get rid of it.
A death penalty involves the termination of a criminal whose acts were consciously committed and proven to be a menace to society in order to keep the public safe from any future felonies he or she may commit.
See the difference?
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how does the child inconvenience the mother? you make it sound like the mother was a stupid blonde chick who got knocked up one night by a drunk man. thats not always the case.
is the child even alive in the first month of pregnancy? i dont think the heart has even properly formed yet. its just a mass of cells. and we kill our own cells every day. hell, they die on their own! and what if the child wouldnt last outside the womb? what if it were going to kill the mother? what if it were to be born into a world where he/she couldnt be acurately taken care of?
and who says a criminal did it on his own? what if he was forced to? what if he was insane or something?
my stance is that abortions are right under circumstances. like you shouldnt get an abortion every few weeks (haha like thatll ever happen) and it shouldnt be given to just everyone. therell be forms to fill out, like why you want/need an abortion. and the ties to religion? the religious people contradict their own books every day (who wants a shrimp cocktail?) so why listen to them? a person who is violently protesting abortion should be arrested. plain and simple. no excuses, no 'BUT ITS FOR TEH JESUS', none of that shit.
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how does the child inconvenience the mother? you make it sound like the mother was a stupid blonde chick who got knocked up one night by a drunk man. thats not always the case.
is the child even alive in the first month of pregnancy? i dont think the heart has even properly formed yet. its just a mass of cells. and we kill our own cells every day. hell, they die on their own! and what if the child wouldnt last outside the womb? what if it were going to kill the mother? what if it were to be born into a world where he/she couldnt be acurately taken care of?
and who says a criminal did it on his own? what if he was forced to? what if he was insane or something?
If you've ever seen Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (kai), also known as When They Cry in english, then one should believe that fate can be changed, and is not something to be taken lightly.
*shrug* just my 2 cents.
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and the ties to religion? the religious people contradict their own books every day (who wants a shrimp cocktail?) so why listen to them?
You seem to know well enough that generalizing all women who get abortions as bimbos is unfair, and yet you do the same to religious people.
You're not alone in disparaging religious people on this forum, but do try to not be such a hypocrite about it.
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and the ties to religion? the religious people contradict their own books every day (who wants a shrimp cocktail?) so why listen to them?
You seem to know well enough that generalizing all women who get abortions as bimbos is unfair, and yet you do the same to religious people.
You're not alone in disparaging religious people on this forum, but do try to not be such a hypocrite about it.
Shall we all stick to the subject at hand? And Truth you may be right, however the way you say it makes you sound somewhat condemning.. Even if he sounded the same way as well, its good to end that kind of conversation quickly =D
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how does the child inconvenience the mother? you make it sound like the mother was a stupid blonde chick who got knocked up one night by a drunk man. thats not always the case.
Those are your words to accuse me of (none of which I implied, by the way), but do realize that abortion is mostly conducted on the basis of whether the unborn child is wanted or not. The fetus is no in way attempting to commit a felony against the mother, but is doing what all fetuses do, including what you did as a fetus, so how exactly is it fair that a fetus gets his or her life terminated at the whim of the mother?
This is why I stand for the death penalty. If you want to debate that as well, start a new thread and I'll go for it from there.
is the child even alive in the first month of pregnancy? i dont think the heart has even properly formed yet. its just a mass of cells. and we kill our own cells every day. hell, they die on their own! and what if the child wouldnt last outside the womb? what if it were going to kill the mother? what if it were to be born into a world where he/she couldnt be acurately taken care of?
Your argument is based upon a layman's knowledge in the area of embryology. The science of embryology tells us that human beings develop rapidly after fertilization of the egg. In fact, since the heart of the fetus begins to beat by 24 days, virtually all abortions (other than "emergency contraception") stop a beating heart. Also, since most abortion occur between 4-6 weeks, they also destroy a functioning brain. Even modern embryology textbooks agree that human life begins at conception. Since abortion ends human life, one must ask the question whether abortion is justifiable homicide or murder.
and who says a criminal did it on his own? what if he was forced to? what if he was insane or something?
The insanity defense, IMHO, is perhaps the best "Get out of Jail Free" Card a killer can ever get. Hey, better a padded cell than a gas chamber, huh?
my stance is that abortions are right under circumstances. like you shouldnt get an abortion every few weeks (haha like thatll ever happen) and it shouldnt be given to just everyone. therell be forms to fill out, like why you want/need an abortion.
I thought the circumstances were rape, endangerment of the mother's life, or even an abnormality of the fetus. Actually, these hard cases (for lack of a better phrase) represent a mere 5% of all abortion cases.
and the ties to religion? the religious people contradict their own books every day (who wants a shrimp cocktail?) so why listen to them? a person who is violently protesting abortion should be arrested. plain and simple. no excuses, no 'BUT ITS FOR TEH JESUS', none of that shit.
I never once brought religion into this argument, and I was hoping we would steer clear of any religious arguments against abortion. I will gladly stick to the secular arguments. Heck, I'll do you one better with some legal arguments against abortion.
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Shall we all stick to the subject at hand? And Truth you may be right, however the way you say it makes you sound somewhat condemning.. Even if he sounded the same way as well, its good to end that kind of conversation quickly =D
I know Serge, I tried to limit my reply so that it wouldn't diverge into that.
I'd actually like a secular discussion on abortion, rather than the usual religious fair we have here.
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Shall we all stick to the subject at hand? And Truth you may be right, however the way you say it makes you sound somewhat condemning.. Even if he sounded the same way as well, its good to end that kind of conversation quickly =D
I know Serge, I tried to limit my reply so that it wouldn't diverge into that.
I'd actually like a secular discussion on abortion, rather than the usual religious fair we have here.
I know you know, but perhaps by pointing such things out in such a way, I could... lighten the mood?
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It's fascinating how quickly Islam can get out of the abortion debate, for all the other difficulties conservative societies like to impose through that religion: life begins after the first trimester in the Islamic point of view (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_abortion), at least in certain schools of thought. However, I wonder just how "universal" the opinion regarding preservation of the mother's life is in conservative Islamic societies. Have they really managed a better track record than Christian societies in that regard, or is it about the same?
I wonder if there are other religious rationales that could support abortion rights. For example, is/was there any sect that views pregnancy as a devolution of creative power from a divine source onto women? If so, that might suggest that just as God has a say in whether an adult human lives or dies, then a woman has a say in whether her child lives or dies. Inasmuch as religion served partly as a behavioral adaptation that promotes reproduction and survival of the human species, this is probably rare, but I'm still curious how many religions are out there that might go against the grain and dig into the supernatural to rationalize certain reproductive choices.
As far as a secular rationale in favor of abortion rights, I would make the following observation:
Biophilosophically speaking, the child is an extension of the mother's body whilst in the womb. If she is said to exercise control over her own body, then she must be able to exercise control over the fetus that is just as much a physical part of her as her right arm. Despite Roe v. Wade's foundation on the legal question of privacy as a philosophical underpinning, it seems to me the biological question must take precedence; I can't think of any more convincing rationale to explain why a fetus should lack a right to life whereas the freshly born child immediately gains some legal status at the moment of separation from the mother.
However, what complicates the question of abortion from a biophilosophical standpoint is that the fetus' consciousness and perception are separate from the mother's, even though the fetus is physically supplied by the mother's body. For this reason, I find late-term abortions questionable on grounds of pain that the fetus may experience during the process. Certainly, if we are worried about animals experiencing pain, we should concern ourselves with pain experienced by human beings in all stages of their life cycle. Lord J had previously cornered me philosophically with the observation that the birth process subjects the fetus-becoming-child to huge physical pains, probably far more than the pain of abortion if anesthesia is administered properly.
There is also the issue of fetal viability. If we were to eschew the biophilosophical reasoning I offer above in favor of the fetus' mere ability to sustain itself outside of the mother's body (albeit with medical intervention) then yesterday's fetus is today's child due solely to advancements in life support, and legal rights may be partially dependent on technology.
All this is why I advocate the creation of children via "birth pods," otherwise known as artificial wombs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_womb). The Pro-Life movement might actually gain some philisophical ground by supporting such a scientific advancement; it eliminates the biological argument in favor of abortion rights mentioned above, though the privacy concerns of Roe v. Wade would still apply I suppose -- however, the privacy concerns would presumably apply to both parents equally in the case of birth pods, creating even more interesting legal dynamics.
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Biophilosophically speaking, the child is an extension of the mother's body whilst in the womb.
A fetus is as much as part of a womans body as Ivy is a part of a tree... its not >.>
...from my point of view *shrug*
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see this is why i tend to stay away from these things in general. you guys talk too fast for me to respond to in general lol.
okay... where to start...
i dont think i said that all women who get abortions are stupid bimbos. and if i did, i apologize, because that is quite frankly not true.
as for religious people, the only people ive seen who oppose abortion due to a religious nature also contradict many rules in their own books or whatever. like its not cool for you to get an abortion even if the child is highly deformed yet you can go out for shrimp cocktails (even though one of the passages in the bible says that thou shalt not eat shellfish), or its not cool to perform homosexual activities yet you can sell your daughter into slavery and take gods name in vain.
true, i have no experience with embryology. and yes, human 'life' begins at conception. but when does thought begin? for the first few years of our lives we are simply animals, going on instinct. babies cry, poop, eat, sleep, and mess around with toys. when do they start thinking 'hey im gonna play with the green ball instead of the blue ball!' or 'hey what do i want to wear?' or 'hey where the hell did i come from?'
and for that comment about the circumstances, how can we prove that it was rape? many women dont come forward in rape cases because of shame. will we know if the child is that ill early on? will we know if its going to endanger the woman? people lie. we cant escape that.
and with that, im leaving this topic. im not good at this kind of debate.
and dammit stop talking while im trying to post!!
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It's fascinating how quickly Islam can get out of the abortion debate, for all the other difficulties conservative societies like to impose through that religion: life begins after the first trimester in the Islamic point of view, at least in certain schools of thought. However, I wonder just how "universal" the opinion regarding preservation of the mother's life is in conservative Islamic societies. Have they really managed a better track record than Christian societies in that regard, or is it about the same?
Actually, FW, I had to read a book for English this past Winter about a former American mountain climber turned humanitarian in a primitive Pakistani village. It's called "Three Cups of Tea," by Greg Mortenson, a great book and probably a must-read for most college English classes from what I've heard.
Anyway, one of my favorite anecdotes from the novel was about a man whose wife had had the placenta not come out with the baby after giving birth. The narrator/author, Greg Mortenson, who had a background in medicine, was allowed by the husband to reach into the woman and pull the placenta out. It is something practically unspeakable in the Muslim faith for a man to be allowed to touch the wife of another man, however the husband put this aside for the sake of his wife's health.
Now, the story leads one to believe that this is a far more progressive and accepting village than some in Pakistan, but the general idea is prevalent throughout Pakistan as a whole. This is what the reader is led to believe, anyways.
So what you're suggesting may be entirely possible. However, in America, the idea of having a doctor touch a man's wife in order to save her life isn't so much as an afterthought. So my guess is that the Muslim community might be a bit behind in this regard.
as for religious people, the only people ive seen who oppose abortion due to a religious nature also contradict many rules in their own books or whatever.
Then you need to meet more religious people, rather than people who call themselves Christian. You'll find that many of us do follow the teachings of the Bible that are universally moral, i.e., not selling children into slavery. In all honesty, I think God's reasonable enough to punish those that eat shrimp far more lightly(if at all) than those who sell children.
But to dismiss the entire Religious Right(and Left, as there are plenty of Christian libs) as opposition for hypocrisy, based solely on the people you've met, is extremely short sighted.
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But to dismiss the entire Religious Right(and Left, as there are plenty of Christian libs) as opposition for hypocrisy, based solely on the people you've met, is extremely short sighted.
Imo... the whole political party thing is an entire scheme in which no matter which one is elected, the same things will be carried out, which the president is really a puppet of a group conspiracy in which controls the US by giving them the IDEA that they're free.
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Pakistan and especially Afghanistan were definitely what I had in mind there. Looks like Three Cups of Tea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Cups_of_Tea) even has its own Wiki! I'll have to pick that up sometime.
A fetus is as much as part of a womans body as Ivy is a part of a tree... its not >.>
...from my point of view *shrug*
Analogy is always useful for analysis. However, I question whether the typical Ivy plant is a perfect or close-to-perfect comparison to the human fetus. Wikipedia doesn't seem to help much in this regard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy) judging from a quick glance; anyone know if Ivy nourishes itself through its own means, or if it directly sucks nutrients from trees it happens to grow on? Certainly an Ivy plant might use a tree as a prop to help it reach sunlight, but the human fetus isn't just sitting on its mother's shoulder. The fetus shares his or her mother's very blood supply.
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A fetus is as much as part of a womans body as Ivy is a part of a tree... its not >.>
...from my point of view *shrug*
Analogy is always useful for analysis. However, I question whether the typical Ivy plant is a perfect or close-to-perfect comparison to the human fetus. Wikipedia doesn't seem to help much in this regard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy) judging from a quick glance; anyone know if Ivy nourishes itself through its own means, or if it directly sucks nutrients from trees it happens to grow on? Certainly an Ivy plant might use a tree as a prop to help it reach sunlight, but the human fetus isn't just sitting on its mother's shoulder. The fetus shares his or her mother's very blood supply.
Mistletoe then...
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The analogy was merely trying to state that, IMO, a fetus is a parasite, whos host is the mother.
And from what I know, Ivy CAN suck its nutrients from a tree.. but also can live without (as there is a strand growing up one of the brick walls outside our house).
So yes, Mistletoe... or, perhaps, this extremely strange flower that is 100% dependant on a host... http://waynesword.palomar.edu/ww0602.htm#corpse
Of course, a fetus eventually is birthed, and leaves its parasitic stage for good.. (lest you count the teenage years of it as being a parasite on your ATM account)
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Biophilosophically speaking, the child is an extension of the mother's body whilst in the womb. If she is said to exercise control over her own body, then she must be able to exercise control over the fetus that is just as much a physical part of her as her right arm. Despite Roe v. Wade's foundation on the legal question of privacy as a philosophical underpinning, it seems to me the biological question must take precedence; I can't think of any more convincing rationale to explain why a fetus should lack a right to life whereas the freshly born child immediately gains some legal status at the moment of separation from the mother.
Sounds reasonable, FaustWolf. However, embryology has shown that the fetus is not actually part of the mother's body. The fetus is a separate being, complete with its own circulatory system and a DNA sequence unique from the mother.
As for Roe v. Wade, believe it or not, Norma McCorvey (aka "Jane Roe") released a public statement many years later stating that she was wrong in her decision. Nowadays, she is working to overturn that Supreme Court decision.
I find your rationale to be baseless on the grounds that every living person has the right to life, as outlined in the Declaration of Independence. Giving that unborn child an unborn in basically denying them that right After all, the right to life is one of the most important principles of law within a free republic.
Wouldn't you agree?
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We just had the latest eruption of this never-ending debate barely a month ago. Argh! Don't you people have anything better to do with your lives than try and control women? And to justify yourselves by invoking the rights of "people" who aren't even people...what cheek!
Controlling female sexuality and the sexual access to females is the foundation of all sexism. All you pompous pricks who want a piece of that pie should forget about abortion and go to therapy. What fool decided to create this thread? Was it the topic creator, or was this the result of a topic split and thus the action of some idiotic moderator or admin? I want to know who to STERNLY REBUKE!
Here, read just three of the Compendium's previous excursions into this subject:
http://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php/topic,1725.0.html
http://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php/topic,5259.165.html
http://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php/topic,7769.0.html
I promise you there are more than three (use the search function), but those three are pretty substantial, wouldn't you say? Do we really need a whole other thread so absurdly soon after the last one? Is it that important to you to get your dehumanizing slime comments out to the general public? What personal degradations and deprivations have you endured in your wretched lives to make you feel so entitled to be dictating the most basic aspects of other people's lives, all on the word of some make-believe faerie lord in the sky?
You people are sick. Sick in the head. You need help. You are delusional. You don't have the foggiest idea about abortion or anything else you claim to know about, because if you did then you wouldn't be so damn screwed up about it. You are a danger to society. You are an offense to decency. You need to reeducated, drugged, or locked up. What a load of disgusting, self-indulgent, ignorant, domineering, assholish, contemptible, obscene, hypocritical, BUFFOONERY!
Edit: Edited out the unkindlier bits, for a more wholesome America.
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Yes, the ability to have a safe abortion should be a right. Debate ethics all you want, but at the end of the day no woman should be driven to potential suicide over the desperation of an unplanned pregnancy. That's barbarism.
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We just had the latest eruption of this never-ending debate barely a month ago. Argh! Don't you people have anything better to do...?
I agree. This very topic is an abortion. :P
Again I say, abortions for some, miniature American flags for others~!!
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Well, J, perhaps it was better to have an actual thread about the topic rather than it diverding the Eff Sexism thread or any other thread so often.
And perhaps it was a good thing for a change to have others share their input in the debate other than yourself, Daniel Krispin and Zephira, the three people that seem to always resolve the topic.
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In other words, you don't like being in the minority. Cry me a river. Knowledge is power. If you haven't got the power, then shut up. My entire political existence is that of a minority; the only reason I can tango with the best of them is that I've had to spend so much time tangoing with the worst of them. On many forums, your side is the bigger faction, and what willingness you Jesus-smoochers show to allow your opponents to even speak is usually measurable in ANGSTroms per micro-giveshit (ANG/µGS).
I know how this works. When you're in the majority, you're cruel and extreme in your statements. When you're in the minority, you're cautious and try to be moderate, even as you whine that others wash out your arguments with "length" or "rhetoric" or whatever else you can think of. But I can just imagine some of the stuff you say on other forums, forums where your side of the debate is dominant.
Here at the Compendium you get to spout off all you want, as this thread attests. Don't expect to earn many plaudits for your blithering blabbery, but if crapping all over women is what you want to talk about, then talk away. I just hope somebody with spare time and good sense has the energy to put your arguments into the ground whenever you get the itch to make them, because this damn sexist marginalization of the female half of humanity is really getting old, and it's time for it to stop. If steamrolling over the likes of you and this topic creator is the price of that, then I'll pay triple whenever I can, and I hope others will too, because I just haven't got the time or the patience today to re-argue something that already completely played out on this forum just one friggin' month ago!!
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A shame this got turned into an abortion thread, rather than the ideal society thread as it seems to have started out as (at least, the first two posts seem to imply that). I say a shame because there was a thread just like this a few weeks ago. Heck, it's still on the front page! It was last posted in on Thursday last. Thanks to J for even providing the links, which shows more effort than I would have put in.
Ah well, what are you going to do? Invent a time machine, go back, and change the past? Well... this IS the Chrono Compendium, so I guess that isn't too far-fetched.
Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads...
what if it were to be born into a world where he/she couldnt be acurately taken care of?
That's a really bad argument; essentially you are saying that it is better to have never lived than to have lived in poverty. And, furthermore, even if one were to suppose that such is a true statement, there is still the nasty subject of society deciding this for another person without their consent. If these are concepts that society should hold to be true, what should stop us from solving the homeless problem with chemicals?
like you shouldnt get an abortion every few weeks (haha like thatll ever happen)...
http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/24513
To be fair, that link doesn't contain the whole story, but rather the one that the individual in question wanted to put forward.
Since it was brought up, early gnostic sects of Christianity actually routinely employed both contraceptives and abortion practices. ... Course, supposedly they also ate semen, menstrual fluid, and aborted fetuses. The validity of this information is dubious, though it is accurate in that historical sources claimed this.
I wonder if there are other religious rationales that could support abortion rights.
I am reminded of the "debate" against the use of anesthetics during childbirth. Curiously, most of the objections to the use of ether came from medical doctors, not the clergy or lay-individuals. However, a few arguments were put forward very early (and very early addressed and subsequently dropped) that stated that labour pains were the result of humanity's fall, and so attempting to subvert them was like attempting to subvert God's will. These arguments were addressed by merely pointing out that, by that logic, any labour saving device was likewise attempting to subvert the will of God.
But I bring this up because one might be able to extrapolate a basic argument from it to use for the advocation or defense of abortion on religious grounds. One might object to abortion on the grounds that it violates a perceived divine order in the universe. However, one might in turn object to this objection on the grounds that imprisonment as punishment for a crime is in turn a violation of a perceived divine order. The OT generally states two kinds of punishment: death or fines. Forcibly restricting the freedoms of another individual, however, is not included.
It is a weak argument, admittedly, but that is because the religious arguments against abortion are likewise weak. Objections to abortion seldom rest entirely on religious grounds (though certainly the concept of ensoulment does come into play), but rather human nature itself. Human's have a basic instinct to protect our children, and we have an imagination. Put the two together and people can perceive a fetus as a child and thus have the desire to protect it. Often, arguments against abortion tend to be founded in a sense of wrongness that cannot be attributed to any logical argument. People feel that it is wrong, as they feel that ranch dressing on peanut butter chocolate chip pie is wrong, and they search for justification after the fact.
The concept of ensoulment does provide difficulties for the Christian pro-choicer, but given that few Christians are well versed on the concept of ensoulment, that can't be the cause of people's stance.
Biophilosophically speaking, the child is an extension of the mother's body whilst in the womb. If she is said to exercise control over her own body, then she must be able to exercise control over the fetus that is just as much a physical part of her as her right arm.
I am curious, if a woman wanted to cut off her right arm, provided that there was not a medical threat to her wellbeing emanating from the arm, would we allow her to do it or would she be directed to seek psychological help? Or let us extrapolate that further, suppose a woman wanted to reject a part of her body necessary for life (her heart, let's say): would society allow her to? This, of course, gets into the topic of euthanasia. As a society we hold that no one has complete control over their body, and thus it is now a question of where we draw the line of who much control a woman has. Not enough control to kill herself, and perhaps not enough control to maim herself, but enough control to eject what is essentially a parasite? A parasite that, though it inhabits her body, is not entirely hers (unless we have a case of virgin pregnancy, of course).
While I am generally in favor of abortion as a right (and I try to use the word "right" very sparingly, as it is much abused in modern discourse), I do find the concept that a person has exclusive dominion over their own body to be a curious one. That which is merely within the body does not fall under such jurisdiction (such as in the case of drugs specifically ingested with the intent of later regurgitating), and likewise that which is supplied by and dependent on the host body isn't entirely free to the individual's decision (as there can be court orders forcing individuals to get treated for various medical problems). If we have control over our bodies, it is a very shaky control. Perhaps the abortion issue might thus be helped by establishing first a human's relationship to their body, and then extrapolating that concept uniformly across concepts?
Such an approach would be inherently biased, however. It assumes dualism where dualism may not (and probably doesn't) exist. But at the same time, I believe many modern individuals are dualists, and so addressing this philosophy might in turn help the abortion debate.
... also contradict many rules in their own books or whatever. like its not cool for you to get an abortion even if the child is highly deformed yet you can go out for shrimp cocktails (even though one of the passages in the bible says that thou shalt not eat shellfish)
Curses, if only Christians believed that something or someone had come along and replaced the old religious code with a new one. This would, of course, be transmitted to us via a testament, of sorts. A "New Testament," as it were.
<.<
>.>
To be fair, Christians are rather selective in what they choose to hold as still valid from the Old Testament. For example, murder is still bad, but I can wear a shirt that's 50% cotton and 50% polyester and not worry about sinning. Often, however, this is because of various classifications of the laws found in the OT. Certain laws were fundamental, others were circumstantial. Of course, even such classifications are artificial; they aren't found within the text itself. But this is also a religion based on the concept of a messiah, which isn't found explicitly in the OT either. We have a history of “interesting” interpretations.
...or its not cool to perform homosexual activities yet you can sell your daughter into slavery and take gods name in vain.
I'm just curious, what Christians are selling their daughters into slavery?
Imo... the whole political party thing is an entire scheme in which no matter which one is elected, the same things will be carried out, which the president is really a puppet of a group conspiracy in which controls the US by giving them the IDEA that they're free.
Would this group conspiracy be run by a select organization known as the Pentavirate, which meets tri-annually at a secret mansion in Colorado known as "The Meadows." And would this group be comprised of the five wealthiest people, including: The Queen, the Vatican, the Gettys, the Rothschilds, and Colonel Sanders before he went tits-up?
Sounds reasonable, FaustWolf. However, embryology has shown that the fetus is not actually part of the mother's body. The fetus is a separate being, complete with its own circulatory system and a DNA sequence unique from the mother.
Yet at the same time, it is possible for my right hand to have a DNA sequence unique from my left hand. An individual can be their "own twin" as it were. It is called Chimerism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimerism).
Now, may I be selfish for a moment and return to what appears to have been the original topic, an ideal society?
1. A small government would exist, but its primary purpose would be to manage the pooled resources of the community and direct it towards necessary large scale projects. Laws would be unnecessary as no one would behave in a manner un-conducive to the prosperity of the whole. Likewise taxes would not exist as individuals would willingly and happily provide to resources for the greater good.
2. A free and easily accessible educational system in which human development is emphasized. Math and science would have important places within the curriculum, but because they are fields of study worthwhile in themselves to be studied, not because they are perceived as keys to desirable jobs later in life. Thus, philosophy, english, history, and various forms of art (music, painting, sculpting, woodworking, etc) would be highly emphasized as well. Physical education would be largely unnecessary as individuals would be naturally introduced to a wide range of physical activities by their parents. Sports in general would be well honored, but not obsessed over. Teachers would get "paid" far more than athletes.
3. Everyone would engage in activities as best suits the society as a whole and their own personal interests. Undesirable activities which are necessary but which no one desires to perform would be handled by robots. If an individual desired to till land, then they would be well welcomed to do so, but if no one desired to, robots would fill in the activity.
4. Robot uprisings would not occur as at no point with the machines be given an intelligence sufficient enough to lead to sentience. A robot citizenry might be created, but these groups would be kept strictly separate.
5. And since it has been mentioned here, abortion would be a non-issue as there would be no need for it; no woman would ever become pregnant unless she so desired, there would never be medical complications, and the child would also be healthy and viable.
Of course, such a society totally can't exist, but no one ever said these had to be viable.
And now, for our robots in the audience, a binary solo!
01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101000 01110101 01101101 01100001 01101110 01110011 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01100100 01100101 01100001 01100100
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We just had the latest eruption of this never-ending debate barely a month ago. Argh! Don't you people have anything better to do with your lives than try and control women? And to justify yourselves by invoking the rights of "people" who aren't even people...what cheek!
Controlling female sexuality and the sexual access to females is the foundation of all sexism. All you pompous pricks who want a piece of that pie should forget about abortion and go to therapy. What fool decided to create this thread? Was it the topic creator, or was this the result of a topic split and thus the action of some idiotic moderator or admin? I want to know who to STERNLY REBUKE!
Here, read just three of the Compendium's previous excursions into this subject:
http://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php/topic,1725.0.html
http://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php/topic,5259.165.html
http://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php/topic,7769.0.html
I promise you there are more than three (use the search function), but those three are pretty substantial, wouldn't you say? Do we really need a whole other thread so absurdly soon after the last one? Is it that important to you to get your dehumanizing slime comments out to the general public? What personal degradations and deprivations have you endured in your wretched lives to make you feel so entitled to be dictating the most basic aspects of other people's lives, all on the word of some make-believe faerie lord in the sky?
You people are sick. Sick in the head. You need help. You are delusional. You don't have the foggiest idea about abortion or anything else you claim to know about, because if you did then you wouldn't be so damn screwed up about it. You are a danger to society. You are an offense to decency. You need to reeducated, drugged, or locked up. What a load of disgusting, self-indulgent, ignorant, domineering, assholish, contemptible, obscene, hypocritical, BUFFOONERY!
Edit: Edited out the unkindlier bits, for a more wholesome America.
How about I debase that entire (misguided) argument by saying that if men could have babies too, I would still be standing where I am.
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In other words, you don't like being in the minority. Cry me a river. Knowledge is power. If you haven't got the power, then shut up. My entire political existence is that of a minority; the only reason I can tango with the best of them is that I've had to spend so much time tangoing with the worst of them. On many forums, your side is the bigger faction, and what willingness you Jesus-smoochers show to allow your opponents to even speak is usually measurable in ANGSTroms per micro-giveshit (ANG/µGS).
I know how this works. When you're in the majority, you're cruel and extreme in your statements. When you're in the minority, you're cautious and try to be moderate, even as you whine that others wash out your arguments with "length" or "rhetoric" or whatever else you can think of. But I can just imagine some of the stuff you say on other forums, forums where your side of the debate is dominant.
Here at the Compendium you get to spout off all you want, as this thread attests. Don't expect to earn many plaudits for your blithering blabbery, but if crapping all over women is what you want to talk about, then talk away. I just hope somebody with spare time and good sense has the energy to put your arguments into the ground whenever you get the itch to make them, because this damn sexist marginalization of the female half of humanity is really getting old, and it's time for it to stop. If steamrolling over the likes of you and this topic creator is the price of that, then I'll pay triple whenever I can, and I hope others will too, because I just haven't got the time or the patience today to re-argue something that already completely played out on this forum just one friggin' month ago!!
I honestly don't know where you're getting most of this. It just seems to me that its a better option to have a separate thread on abortion rather than having the Frustration thread or the Eff Sexism thread get diverted into a debate on abortion every few days.
Now, apparently this topic wasn't completely run through last month, or else you wouldn't have people still arguing over it, would you? And the problem with having this topic run through you, Zeph and Daniel Krispin every time is that we hear the same arguments over and over again from you three.
I myself have avoided putting my actual input on the subject in in this thread. Instead, I've been trying to make sure that the topic remains robust, yet civil and doesn't go of on a religious tangent as most of the others do. Surprisingly, it remained relatively civil until you burst in here decrying the "faerie lord in the sky" argument.
So boo-hoo, cry me a river if you don't think this topic is worth exploring. If it's that much of a bother to you, then don't contribute, and let some other people have a go at the topic.
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How about I debase that entire (misguided) argument by saying that if men could have babies too, I would still be standing where I am.
Quite simply put, this controversy would not exist in its present form if males could have babies too. The human species would be completely different and our civilization would look completely different. There is almost no chance of a parallel controversy, because the controversy arises out of this fundamental disparity between the sexes. For you to say that you'd "still" be against abortion in such a world is a logical fallacy.
Now, apparently this topic wasn't completely run through last month, or else you wouldn't have people still arguing over it, would you?
This topic has run its course and been rerun many times. The only reason it persists is because there's always another flapjack whose mind is made up that pregnant females are the property of society.
And the problem with having this topic run through you, Zeph and Daniel Krispin every time is that we hear the same arguments over and over again from you three.
You picked those names out of thin air. You picked Daniel Krispin as the token anti-choicer and Zephira either as the token female or because you just wanted another name and she came to mind. The real axis of this debate is between you, a couple of other wingers, myself, ZeaLitY, a few assorted hangers-on in rotation, and, until the finger-chopping incident, Daniel.
I myself have avoided putting my actual input on the subject in in this thread. Instead, I've been trying to make sure that the topic remains robust, yet civil and doesn't go of on a religious tangent as most of the others do. Surprisingly, it remained relatively civil until you burst in here decrying the "faerie lord in the sky" argument.
It's not civil for this debate to even exist. It's like debating whether we should commit genocide or reinstitute slavery. This is a fucked up debate and you're on the wrong side of it. It really is that simple. If you're personally against abortion, then fine. Don't have one. End of debate.
This is a non-issue. Every argument the anti-choicers put out has been thoroughly debunked repeatedly or discredited on grounds of illegitimacy, a thousand times in a thousand ways. Don't blame me if you're too stubborn to fold your tent and go home, and don't expect a merit badge for claiming that you're trying to preserve decorum in a debate whose very existence is an obscenity. We know very well why you're here and what you're doing.
So boo-hoo, cry me a river if you don't think this topic is worth exploring.
Do you know anything about history? No, you don't. You don't even know anything about the present day. If you want to "explore" the topic, then don't start with an opinion. Start with humility and curiosity, and go learn something. You will find that all of this abortion nonsense is a ruse perpetrated by religious demagogues and political personalities, and perpetuated masses of easily hoodwinked people who are too beholden to their own faith or dogma to critically evaluate the premises and policies at issue. The controversy wouldn't exist without this dynamic in place, because reproductive rights are so obviously a part of human rights that, absent these entrenched conservative interests, nobody would even think to undertake such a bizarre and offensive and hurtful campaign.
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...or its not cool to perform homosexual activities yet you can sell your daughter into slavery and take gods name in vain.
I'm just curious, what Christians are selling their daughters into slavery?
Any arranged marriages that would be/have been blindly respected via the 5th commandment, I would assume.
]Now, apparently this topic wasn't completely run through last month, or else you wouldn't have people still arguing over it, would you?
For people like you who don't know how to use the search function (let alone the tenacity to digest posts before voraciously looking for some detail therein to rebuke) you would realize otherwise if you actually did. That this even needs to be rediscussed exposes how close-minded you are. Read the fucking manual er... previous topics before posting.
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It's not civil for this debate to even exist. It's like debating whether we should commit genocide or reinstitute slavery. This is a fucked up debate and you're on the wrong side of it. It really is that simple. If you're personally against abortion, then fine. Don't have one. End of debate.
This is a non-issue. Every argument the anti-choicers put out has been thoroughly debunked repeatedly or discredited on grounds of illegitimacy, a thousand times in a thousand ways. Don't blame me if you're too stubborn to fold your tent and go home, and don't expect a merit badge for claiming that you're trying to preserve decorum in a debate whose very existence is an obscenity. We know very well why you're here and what you're doing.
And that is why you fail.
Why should any "anti-choicer" be bothered to see any legitimacy in anything you say if you can't grant them that same common courtesy? I myself find the actions and ideas of the KKK and Black Panther Party to be morally repugnant, but I still believe they should be granted a place at the table when discussing race relations, as they play a central role in the matter. At the same time, both the religious and the supremely anti-religious, two extremes of the issue, should be allowed their say.
Furthermore, rather than accept that there are rational people who disagree with you, you choose to denigrate any opposition, either referring to them as a puppet or a demonic king who only wishes to suppress women.
BROJ, I didn't start this topic. I couldn't care less about the merits of abortion at the moment. It was divided off by someone from the Libertarian topic, and since it was, presumably by one of the admins here, apparently it wasn't capable of just being deleted.
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Any arranged marriages that would be/have been blindly respected via the 5th commandment, I would assume.
Ah, I could see that, then. Hmm... I wonder, then, if we should be offended by the fact that a lot of wedding ceremonies include the concept of someone "giving away" the bride, as if she were something that could be given.
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i dont think this actually started as its own thread. if i remember right, it was in that really long thread about libertanism. i didnt read through most of it because quite frankly it was too long and too complicated for me. i only posted because of the second post in this topic, regarding an ideal society and that thing about abortion. because i am for a womans choice to have a child or not.
after reading these debates, i feel enlightened somehow. like i just realized how totally right you guys are. how the whole issue of abortion itself can be traced back to sexism. and even if i knew that before, i never saw how it was everywhere. everywhere you look, women are discriminated against. theyre used as objects. and when they start to act like men, people push them down again.
thank you for opening my eyes, you guys. but for now, im going to go back to just reading these things. i honestly just cant keep up.
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Why should any "anti-choicer" be bothered to see any legitimacy in anything you say if you can't grant them that same common courtesy?
That's a stark bit of moral relativism coming from someone who claims to believe in supreme absolutes. It's a pretty sick claim that all sides of this debate are equally valid. You're entitled to your opinion, but you're not entitled to be right, or to be apportioned half the "rightness" and the rest given to the other side. This is one of those times when there is a clear right and a clear wrong, and the debate between the two is long since over for all reasonable-minded people. What remains is for people like you to realize it.
This wasn't figured out on the Compendium. This was determined before you and I were even born.
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after reading these debates, i feel enlightened somehow. like i just realized how totally right you guys are. how the whole issue of abortion itself can be traced back to sexism. and even if i knew that before, i never saw how it was everywhere. everywhere you look, women are discriminated against. theyre used as objects. and when they start to act like men, people push them down again.
thank you for opening my eyes, you guys. but for now, im going to go back to just reading these things. i honestly just cant keep up.
At least something good came out of this sorry thread, then. I'm glad to see that.
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Eh, I can see the justification for this thread on three grounds:
1. The first thread Lord J linked was waaay old (however, covered the topic very in-depth -- for future reference, most proper thing to do would have been to zombie that one and examine extraneous issues that hadn't been covered back then).
2. Second topic was entitled "Oh no. Oh God no." Not the more obvious "Abortion Thread Ex Ultra."
3. While we did go through the abortion debate in the Sexism thread, there are philosophical grounds for separating the ideas of abortion and sexism. Although feminists tend to link the two without exception (and for good reason) there's probably a feminist or two out there who believe a Pro-Life stance is compatible with feminism; the traditional rationale I was able to find on this is that the Uber Pro-Life Stance obliterated the practice of female infanticide, itself a sexist practice. There's also the argument that a Pro-Life stance does not single out the gender of the fetus/child it seeks to protect. Also, there's the issue of the human fetus' personhood or lack thereof, which is a moral consideration separate from the oppression of women by patriarchal laws and norms.
Er, on the other hand, I just did a search on "abortion" and the Abortion Ex Ultra thread was the third or fourth result. Hehehhhehezzz.
So shall we keep this thread separate or merge with the Abortion Ex Ultra thread, to bring greater attention to what's already been discussed and focus the debate without treading old ground?
Thought, on the issue about arm-cutting: yes, by the biological rationale I proposed above, I would have to support a woman's right to cut off her arm if she so pleased. We could probably have an interesting debate over whether arm cutting should be covered by the (now-unfortunately-likely-to-be-nonexistent) (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090817/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_health_care_overhaul) public healthcare option as abortions would have been.
As for Roe v. Wade, believe it or not, Norma McCorvey (aka "Jane Roe") released a public statement many years later stating that she was wrong in her decision. Nowadays, she is working to overturn that Supreme Court decision.
Yes, this is a huge fact bolstering the Pro-Life movement: that women "typically" regret having an abortion afterward, exemplified by Roe herself. I read that McCorvey was even one of the people thrown out of the Sotomayor hearings recently for protesting Sotomayor's Pro-Choice stance. However, it would be fallacious of us to generalize Roe's reaction and apply it to all women who undergo an abortion, and it is certainly possible for women to be against women's rights. As Queen Victoria of England once said:
" I am most anxious to enlist everyone who can speak or write to join in checking this mad, wicked folly of 'Women's Rights', with all its attendant horrors, on which her poor feeble sex is bent, forgetting every sense of womanly feelings and propriety. Feminists ought to get a good whipping. Were woman to 'unsex' themselves by claiming equality with men, they would become the most hateful, heathen and disgusting of beings and would surely perish without male protection."
Source: http://www.biographyonline.net/2007/10/quote-of-queen-victoria-on-womens.html
Does anyone know if either Linda Coffee or Sarah Weddington (Roe's attorneys) had undergone an abortion illegally prior to Roe v. Wade? I wanted to point one of them out as an example of a woman who had undergone abortion and continued to appreciated the abortion right, but I don't feel comfortable making that claim without a source because I'm not 100% sure I'm remembering correctly. I thought I read it somewhere.
I find your rationale to be baseless on the grounds that every living person has the right to life, as outlined in the Declaration of Independence. Giving that unborn child an unborn in basically denying them that right After all, the right to life is one of the most important principles of law within a free republic. Wouldn't you agree?
The issue of personhood is precisely why Pro-Lifers and Pro-Choicers don't see eye to eye philosophically. Pro-Choicers simply do not view the fetus as its own person separate from the mother. Otherwise the Pro-Choice/anti-Death Penalty combo would be just as ludicrous (possibly more so) than the Pro-Life/pro-Death Penalty combination.
However, I can't claim to speak on behalf of all who are Pro-Choice, nor would I dare. So what philosophical rationales does everyone else use to deny personhood to the human fetus? Because that's precisely what's at the heart of the matter I think, despite the fact that traditional male dominance of society's legal organs complicates matters by thrusting sexism into the equation.
Another consideration I'd like to get feedback on: the popular moderate position of advocating abortion rights in only cases of incest and rape is also fraught with inconsistency, is it not? What makes a fetus conceived as a result of rape any less of a person than a fetus conceived as a result of the mother's free will?
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Another consideration I'd like to get feedback on: the popular moderate position of advocating abortion rights in only cases of incest and rape is also fraught with inconsistency, is it not? What makes a fetus conceived as a result of rape any less of a person than a fetus conceived as a result of the mother's free will?
I'd like to say that there is a certain eugenic quality there. From what I've heard from a geneticist that visited my Criminal Studies class when I was a sophomore, there's evidence that supports the notion that the apple really doesn't fall far from the tree; that is, a lot of behavioral and psychological traits are passed down through and caused by genetics.
More famous examples would be the extra Y-Chromosome in some males, causing excess aggression that has been linked to an inclination towards murder or domestic violence, or the "gay gene" that supposedly determines if someone will grow up to be a homosexual.
With those two in mind, its not a far leap in logic to suggest that the tendency towards rape is caused by something genetic too, and that a fetus conceived through rape will have an inclination to rape when it gets older.
Of course, all of this is merely speculation at this point. The y-chromosome example isn't seen as a justifiable legal defense yet(not that it should be; murder is murder) but as more study into this phenomenon goes on, we may find an answer.
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There is almost no chance of a parallel controversy, because the controversy arises out of this fundamental disparity between the sexes.
Prove to me, that I, myself, am pro-life because I have a Vendetta against all things female, and I might believe you. Until then, leave the conspiracy theories to me.
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Thought, on the issue about arm-cutting: yes, by the biological rationale I proposed above, I would have to support a woman's right to cut off her arm if she so pleased. We could probably have an interesting debate over whether arm cutting should be covered by the (now-unfortunately-likely-to-be-nonexistent) (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090817/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_health_care_overhaul) public healthcare option as abortions would have been.
The arm cutting was just a stepping stone to the ultimate issue of bodily determinism. If we say that a person's body is theirs to do totally as they wish, then it would seem that euthanasia would fall under that umbrella. Indeed, perhaps if people had less of a fear of death, the abortion issue itself would be less intense. Address death-fears and dualism, and one might well address the underlying objections to abortion.
As a side note, I thought that the idea of "elective amputation" was so ridiculous as to be purely hypothetical in nature. Why oh why must I be proven wrong in these sort of matters? It appears that extreme cases of body dysmorphic disorder might actually lead to a person desiring elective amputation.
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Well Thought, if its any consolation I can agree to the psychological administering part of that procedure. In fact, a lot of abortion clinics do something comparable by mandating a waiting period, and some even have some sort of counseling program to take beforehand.
Of course, elective amputation is a bit less...for lack of a better word, normal, than abortion.
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Josh, I'm the admin who split this thread from the libertarianism thread. I did so to keep that topic on track, not to bring up settled issues in this one.
Thought, an ideal society thread would be very interesting. Why not start one?
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You?! I can't sternly rebuke you--certainly not for doing this to keep my own topic on track. Way to undermine my wrath. I should sternly rebuke you for that.
:kz
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You?! I can't sternly rebuke you--certainly not for doing this to keep my own topic on track. Way to undermine my wrath. I should sternly rebuke you for that.
:kz
While I still don't understand where you got the basis of your argument, that is not what I was calling out. The way you coated your arguments seemed as if it was aimed towards my side of the dissenting compendiumites, rather than just at the subject itself. While I can say I have heard some pretty bad stories involving religion, and that I believe that no matter which side you vote for in an election that both sides will always have alterior agendas and hidden schemes... I would have to argue that the religious and/or right of the compendium has no connection to either.
It was looking like you were calling out the compendiumites for being sexist bastards that want to put a leash on all women, and all things female. I have no doubt there are bastards like this in the world, but I believe that none of us are amongst that group.
Simply, it seemed as if you were calling us out for being girl-haters, and I just was calling you out for (atleast sounding like you were) saying that.
I have no problem with your smiting and rebuking, I probably deserve it for something else, anyways. *shrug*
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Lord J Esq, your diatribe about bringing religion into the mix goes against what I stated earlier in this thread, which was that I would steer clear of such arguments and stick specifically to secular and legal arguments against abortion. Seeing how you haven't done so, your words are nothing more than a self-contained flame war with those who also wanted to steer clear of religious arguments against abortion. Flame wars are for 4chan and other places of similar attitude, but not here.
Also, if you honestly believe that this thread is secretly masquerading as a form of sexism, you couldn't have missed the mark even more than you already have. Personally, I blame men for the abortion problem. Lest I be accused of being sexist, here's why I say so:
Men have the power to impregnate women. They never have to worry about carrying a child for nine month because they are biologically incapable of doing so (save for a couple of men in recent history and some creatures in the animal kingdom). Men who accidentally or purposely get a woman pregnant and decide to throw their responsibility out the window for rearing the child carry the full responsibility of the abortion since their actions have eliminated the choice down to "abort the unborn child".
I blame parents for failing to teach men about the hard-hitting responsibilities of raising a child with the mother. The result has been a generation of men who think that women are to be manipulated into being their sex toys and abandoned when no longer useful in that capacity. These kinds of callous attitudes have led to large increases in the number of incidences of abuse against women and children within the last thirty years for women who decide to give birth instead of getting an abortion.
Another problem is the Judicial system. The great American push for rights has resulted in an attitude that individual rights should always prevail over personal responsibility. The Superior courts have perpetuated rights over responsibility in every major decision. Should individual rights prevent men from even knowing that they had responsibilities to women? This shouldn't be the case.
I believe that all men who get women pregnant and then abandon them in their time of need are nothing short of shallow-minded, cruel, and outright terrible denizens of society. If ever such a thing were to happen to me, I would take responsibility for my actions. I would encourage her not to get an abortion, but instead offer to help raise the child. If she doesn't want the child to be with her forever, I could help her raise the child to the proper age and have him or her adopted into a caring and loving family. Yes, I would do all of this at the drop of a hat, because I was raised to take responsibility for my decisions and to help those who are truly in need.
Lord J Esq, I would advise you to think twice before being accusing me or anyone else in this thread of being sexist. I care about what women go through and the pain they feel after they commit such irreversible act. Minority or not, this is a social issue that affects everybody at some personal level. The answers to such problems are already out there in plain sight for anyone to investigate. I'm simply making it available for anyone to read and examine. It's not my research, so I have no right to be arrogant about it, and I do my best not to be ignorant on the subject.
What really grinds my teeth is that you had to put your viewpoint of everybody who wanted to have an intellectual debate on such a hot-button issue in such an offensive way. I will not stand for being falsely accused of being sexist when, in fact, I have demonstrated that I'm quite the opposite. If you have a bone to pick with whoever started this thread, look no further.
This thread only came about when I made a short list a while ago about some attributes that I believe exist in an ideal society:
8. Opposes abortion (except in cases of rape or endangerment of the mother)
So go ahead. Lash out at me like a caged animal. Fire off all the insults you want at me. Do whatever you wish, because I know what I stand for, and your ad hominems toward people like me are not going to alter my beliefs, but it will definitely leave an impression about your attitude towards people like me. Just remember, nobody's tethering you to this thread. You can leave whenever you wish.
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Woah woah wooaah, Genesis One...
He may have been overbearing and such earlier...
...however thats no reason to be overreactive.
I understand what you're saying but it seems kinda hostile as well...
...I'm trying to prevent hostility and such things from both sides...
So just... if you wanna get angry at anyone just get angry at me. Because I just made my self an open target, so send any flames anyone has built up over this topic MY way. I'll take it full force.
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Woah woah wooaah, Genesis One...
He may have been overbearing and such earlier...
...however thats no reason to be overreactive.
I understand what you're saying but it seems kinda hostile as well...
...I'm trying to prevent hostility and such things from both sides...
So just... if you wanna get angry at anyone just get angry at me. Because I just made my self an open target, so send any flames anyone has built up over this topic MY way. I'll take it full force.
It's alright Serge, you haven't done anything wrong.
You've been a good nanny-figure in this conversation.
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IAmSerge just became Jesus!?
I think there's definitely sound rationale for both sides of the abortion debate to get riled up as they typically do. From the point of view of Pro-Lifers, the Pro-Choicers are basically advocating genocide of innocent people; and from the point of view of Pro-Choicers, the Pro-Lifers are advocating removing from women right of control over their own bodies. The stakes are huge regardless of the angle from which you view it. And perhaps the most horrific part of all this is, it's either a bunch of men who get together to debate this, or men arguing with women in every case I've been exposed to. I'd like to see a proper national debate on abortion between large numbers of Pro-Life and Pro-Choice women for once, because only women and maybe certain ambiguously gendered people can appreciate the process that is natural childbearing, and all its ramifications, from a first-person perspective.
But I'm sure the only way to resolve this is through use of birth po--
Shaft's Mom: Shut yo' mouth!
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I have no problem with your smiting and rebuking, I probably deserve it for something else, anyways.
Last time I checked, your name is not Radical_Dreamer.
Lord J Esq, I would advise you to think twice before being accusing me or anyone else in this thread of being sexist.
One doesn't have to choose to be sexist, to be sexist. In some ways, sexism by ignorance is even harder to combat than sexism by malevolence, because--as you have demonstrated--such people will swear to the high heavens that they're loving and caring and blah, blah, blah, whereas at least the outright bigots are straightforward enough to take at face value.
I'll think twice. I'll even think three times. Let's take a look at my second thought:
Men who accidentally or purposely get a woman pregnant and decide to throw their responsibility out the window for rearing the child carry the full responsibility of the abortion since their actions have eliminated the choice down to "abort the unborn child".
My second thought, upon reading your words of wisdom, is that, in one sentence, you have both discounted a woman's ability to raise a child on her own and you have implied that men are the sole determining factor in whether somebody gets pregnant. Look at your language: "get a woman pregnant"; "throw their responsibility out"; "their actions have eliminated the (woman's) choice." By focusing so exclusively on males in your righteous indignation, you demean and patronize females. Sexism, check.
I believe that all men who get women pregnant and then abandon them in their time of need are nothing short of shallow-minded, cruel, and outright terrible denizens of society. If ever such a thing were to happen to me, I would take responsibility for my actions. I would encourage her not to get an abortion, but instead offer to help raise the child. If she doesn't want the child to be with her forever, I could help her raise the child to the proper age and have him or her adopted into a caring and loving family. Yes, I would do all of this at the drop of a hat, because I was raised to take responsibility for my decisions and to help those who are truly in need.
My third thought is that your entire paragraph here is a case-in-point: Dripping with self-indulgence. Dripping with condescension. Dripping with manipulative intent. I'd better get the mop!
See, here you're saying that, because you claim to be willing to raise a kid, nobody else should ever get to decide for themselves what to do. You've made up everybody's mind for them: Women have no choice but to bring the kid to term, and men have no choice but to own up to fatherhood or face your Devout Disapprobation. Essentially, you're telling every woman on Earth that you know better than them. You're doing the same for men, actually. Sexism, check--this time from both the misogynistic and misandristic sides.
There. I've thought about it twice and thrice. You're a sexist. You're also ignorant and selfish about this topic. My advice is that you limit your decision making powers to your own self.
What really grinds my teeth is that you had to put your viewpoint of everybody who wanted to have an intellectual debate on such a hot-button issue in such an offensive way. I will not stand for being falsely accused of being sexist when, in fact, I have demonstrated that I'm quite the opposite.
What's offensive is that you and others think so little of women that you're prepared to take away one of their most fundamental forms of self-determination in the name of unborn children who don't even possess personhood. The concept of reproductive rights is so beyond your dogmatic mind that it truly doesn't occur to you that opposing those rights is like supporting the restoration of slavery. What has the outlawing of abortion accomplished to date? Sickness, misery, poverty, disinheritance, and subjugation. Not just for the mothers, but often for the children too, and sometimes the fathers, and even others! I find your ignorance beyond disgusting, because in this case the ramifications of your desire are beyond the pale.
So go ahead. Lash out at me like a caged animal. Fire off all the insults you want at me. Do whatever you wish, because I know what I stand for, and your ad hominems toward people like me are not going to alter my beliefs, but it will definitely leave an impression about your attitude towards people like me. Just remember, nobody's tethering you to this thread. You can leave whenever you wish.
This is the part where I clap sarcastically for your moral rectitude. I've heard that line a million times, buster. Ad hominem. Ad hominem! You know, what is a piece of shit but a piece of shit? Is it ad hominem to call it by its own name? Sometimes the truth hurts. I would be sympathetic for you, were my sympathies not already stretched so far and wide on behalf of the millions of victims of your philosophy and its spectacularly foolish practitioners. So, as it is, you'll have to live with it. Nobody's tethering you to this thread either. If you're not prepared to get burned, you shouldn't play with fire.
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FW, I've been pondering a bit on your birth pod idea, and I'm not sure how it would work. The nearest I can figure is that your plan has to do with something similar to in vitro fertilization being the only means of conception.
Something like that might have a eugenic quality, in that only those that want and can afford to raise a child will have a child, but it also has a bit of an anti-humanist streak in that women who want children but can't afford them will have to do without.
Or am I just not understanding the procedure correctly?
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Alright, who said the BP?? *looks around sternly* (Just kidding. I'll let FW answer that one.)
Well, this has certainly been an entertaining and even enlightening thread so far. Once again, the Compendium delivers. I'm just going to toss in a few points here:
Regarding the issue of whether or not an otherwise healthy person should be allowed to amputate limbs and such, this is actually a pertinent issue for people with and healthcare/psychiatric professionals who treat body integrity identity disorder, sometimes referred to (incorrectly?) as body dysmorphic disorder. Essentially, people with the disorder have a strong desire to have limbs amputated or to be disabled in some other way, and some will actually go about trying to carry out amputations on their own. Obviously it would be better for such patients to seek amputations in a hospital, but according to the wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_integrity_identity_disorder) surgeons will not treat patients by performing amputations. I've heard of at least one extreme case where doctors did make an exception, probably from some random documentary I watched online. (I used to be a documentary addict in the days of the old TV links.)
Also, while I was *very* close to agreeing with FW that the primary issue at hand in the abortion debate is (or should be) the personhood or lack thereof of a fetus, I realized that it would have been silly of me to say so given that my unwavering stance is the result of consideration for the women who would seek an abortion. It's certainly an interesting issue to debate in itself, but I really can't distance the abortion debate from those to whom the right to a safe abortion matters most.
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In my vision of a perfect society in which there are birth pods, conception could presumably take place either in vitro and then implanted into the birth pod, or in vivo and then implanted into the birth pod. The government in said society (or a conglomeration of charities if you prefer a private option) would presumably provide the birth pods as a public service, as part of guaranteeing all citizens a minimum standard of living.
In addition to the logistical nutritional considerations that I think Uboa pointed out earlier, I do fear a possible anti-humanist streak in the practice somehow demeaning women who choose to carry pregnancies to term the old fashioned way. In other words, whereas conservative norms tend to berate the decision not to carry a pregnancy to term, ultraliberal (or whatever you would call an ideology that promotes birth pods) norms might berate the decision to carry the pregnancy to term. For example, a natural birth may become frowned upon for the pain inflicted upon the child being birthed during the process, as compared to the potentially nontraumatic...hatching...process.
:picardno
Hey, at least I know I'm not totally nuts; Cornell University scientists have actually managed to get embryos to implant properly in artificial wombs. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_womb) We're getting there technologically. Like flying and landing on the moon, it's only a matter of time.
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...perhaps there would be a way to cryogenically freeze an embryo or fetus... and save it for a family who cant have a baby in the future..
birth pods are a wonderful idea... if cryogenics could work (unlike the usual "doesn't work on humans") on not-far-along embryos, then combine that with a website database on the mother and father, as well as a birth pod option...
...well it sounds like the perfect adoption agency.
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It's certainly an interesting issue to debate in itself, but I really can't distance the abortion debate from those to whom the right to a safe abortion matters most.
I was probably being presumptuous because the first live one-on-one Pro-Life vs. Pro-Choice debate I was ever involved in (which left a big impression on me, and started my travel across the Pro-Life/Pro-Choice divide to where I am now) was largely set in the context of fetal personhood. It was also conducted between two men -- once again, go figure. I'm always interested in learning more about how women typically rationalize both sides of the abortion debate, since men are so removed from the issue biologically that we're often tempted to debate in abstractions. Men debating abortion amongst themselves are somewhat like a group of people trying to describe how pizza tastes when none in the group have ever experienced the joys and heartburn of consuming it.
But I still can't shake the notion that the fetus' lack of personhood has to go hand in hand with reproductive freedom. It has been said, in various different iterations, that "Freedom is the right to do anything that doesn't impede the freedom of another." Philosophically speaking (again, I'm guilty of bypassing the practical issues and abstracting), abortion isn't an exception to that piece of moral guidance as long as the fetus is not an other, i.e., the fetus is one flesh with the mother herself.
I think we can all agree that Andrea Yates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Yates) committed a grave moral offense...or can we?
In addition to cognitive development and physical growth, a factor that separated Andrea Yates' children from human fetuses was that the children were not physically inside her body, nor connected to her vital systems at the time their growth was terminated. Unless we tie the childrens' right to life to attainment of a specific level of cognitive development or physical growth, then whether the being in question is or is not part of the mother's own body seems to be the single determining factor in whether the Pro-Choice viewer should attach moral disdain to the mother's decision to terminate that organism. This is what I was trying to get at before when I opined that fetal personhood should be placed at the center of the debate.
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I think we can all agree that Andrea Yates committed a grave moral offense...or can we?
Of course we can, just as much as this bitch(I dunno how to do the html thing that links it while only having that text on there): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Smith (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Smith)
Both of them were miscarriages(pardon the unintentional pun) of justice.
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I probably should have used Susan Smith to begin with, so thanks for pointing out that example of filicide (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filicide). Andrea Yates was a poor choice on my part in terms of legality, if not morality, since she was found not guilty by reason of insanity. That nuance might have needlessly complicated the discussion.
The basic purpose of my previous post was to prod at the possible moral differences between abortion and filicide, and the source, or potentially, sources, of those differences. Both the prospect of raising a child and the prospect of carrying a fetus to term can place great stress on the mother psychologically and emotionally, and in terms of resources, and impinge on her future. Yet Pro-Choicers will often support the mother's decision to have an abortion, but oppose her decision to engage in filicide. The obvious solution to filicidal desires on the mother's part would be to compel her to give up the child for adoption, yet this is not the answer for Pro-Choicers when it comes to abortion -- the mother exercises full dominion over the fetus' future development, but a possible course of action is removed from her once the child has become disentangled from her own body.
I'm trying to rely exclusively on secular and humanist ideas as a basis for my thinking, but we could also have an interesting tangential discussion on how traditional religious stories would seem to justify filicide in certain cases ("certain cases" being "when God tells you to to prove your faith"), even within religions that staunchly oppose the existence of an abortion right.
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Good news everyone! After searching a bit, I found an article on Wikipedia about pro-life feminism(the exact wording of the article's title took me a while to find).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-life_feminism
Surely this and the links therein will provide for a good look into the mind of a pro-life feminists. Oddly enough, I couldn't find an article on pro-choice feminism, so this will have to do:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-choice
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One doesn't have to choose to be sexist, to be sexist. In some ways, sexism by ignorance is even harder to combat than sexism by malevolence, because--as you have demonstrated--such people will swear to the high heavens that they're loving and caring and blah, blah, blah, whereas at least the outright bigots are straightforward enough to take at face value.
And yet your ignorance of my position of magnitudes beyond any ignorance I carry in this discussion. Careful who you judge, Lord J.
I can’t help but wonder why you don’t at least attempt to refute any of my secular arguments against abortion, but instead proclaim to the masses what a sexist figure I am by setting up a straw man of someone who opposes abortion. Please get off your digital soapbox and let’s discuss this like scholars.
My second thought, upon reading your words of wisdom, is that, in one sentence, you have both discounted a woman's ability to raise a child on her own and you have implied that men are the sole determining factor in whether somebody gets pregnant. Look at your language: "get a woman pregnant"; "throw their responsibility out"; "their actions have eliminated the (woman's) choice." By focusing so exclusively on males in your righteous indignation, you demean and patronize females. Sexism, check.
Okay. Fair enough. Next time I see a woman on the street who advocates abortion, I’ll ask her who has the most blame for such a social issue in the first place. I’ll eat one of my shoes if she said that women are to blame and not men.
Would you rather that I paint a quixotic picture of strong-willed women who can take care of children all by themselves without a father figure? I wish I could, but this isn’t “Murphy Brown”; this is reality. The ones that do get by in such a manner and the few and far between. If you do find such a mother, ask her if raising children by herself and keeping a steady income job has been cakewalk. I’ll eat my other shoe if she says yes.
Strike one.
My third thought is that your entire paragraph here is a case-in-point: Dripping with self-indulgence. Dripping with condescension. Dripping with manipulative intent. I'd better get the mop!
While you’re at it, you could pick up the coals you keep hauling over me.
See, here you're saying that, because you claim to be willing to raise a kid, nobody else should ever get to decide for themselves what to do. You've made up everybody's mind for them: Women have no choice but to bring the kid to term, and men have no choice but to own up to fatherhood or face your Devout Disapprobation. Essentially, you're telling every woman on Earth that you know better than them. You're doing the same for men, actually. Sexism, check--this time from both the misogynistic and misandristic sides.
I never said I hated men or women. On the contrary, I said I care about women, and I said that I “personally” find men responsible. It’s like you’re deliberately taking everything I say, even opinions, at face value, which is so far removed from what a debate should be about; defending your own beliefs instead of offending someone else’s.
If she still wants the abortion and doesn’t want me around, then that’s fine by me. I won’t tread upon her personal beliefs just to get a point across. No, they wouldn’t suffer under any Devout (religious term, something I thought you’d at least try to avoid since I agreed that I would) Disapprobation. I’ll just tell them that they’ll just have to live with the consequences of their actions, just like the man who gets her pregnant in the first place. However, that’s just my opinion, and that of every other adult on this planet.
Zero for two, Lord J. I’d stay out of Vegas if I were you.
There. I've thought about it twice and thrice. You're a sexist. You're also ignorant and selfish about this topic. My advice is that you limit your decision-making powers to your own self.
Wow. Such a resolute answer, and yet somehow, I don’t buy it for one minute because you have yet to factually refute any of my secular arguments against abortion. My advice to you is to do some research instead of accusing me of being ignorant in the hopes that you might “call my bluff” or something along those lines.
What's offensive is that you and others think so little of women that you're prepared to take away one of their most fundamental forms of self-determination in the name of unborn children who don't even possess personhood. The concept of reproductive rights is so beyond your dogmatic mind that it truly doesn't occur to you that opposing those rights is like supporting the restoration of slavery.
Again, who has the final authority to determine personhood? The mother? A doctor? A Superior Court judge? I can’t rely on such a rubber yardstick to validate your argument. Again, you have shown how you believe civil rights are much higher in priority than personal responsibility, which doesn’t take a “dogmatic mind” to figure out. Sounds to me like you don’t like the concept of personal responsibility, be it man or woman.
Consider this. Everyone who supported slavery was free. Everyone who supports abortion was born. This is how oppression works.
What has the outlawing of abortion accomplished to date? Sickness, misery, poverty, disinheritance, and subjugation. Not just for the mothers, but often for the children too, and sometimes the fathers, and even others! I find your ignorance beyond disgusting, because in this case the ramifications of your desire are beyond the pale.
Have you been reading anything I’ve written down? I just got through saying how women and children are the ones who suffer the most over the issue of abortion. On the other hand, what has abortion accomplished to date? Inconsistent laws, death in the millions, and sadness, just to name a few. “Safe, legal, and rare” is a motto for those who support abortion, except 30% of pregnancies in the U.S. end in abortion. I kid you not.
If abortion were a good thing, why should it be rare? Even our pro-choice President Obama has said “Let's work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions by reducing unintended pregnancies, and making adoption more available, and providing care and support for women who do carry their child to term.”
If you’re gonna accuse me of being sexist, then you better aim at the President as well.
This is the part where I clap sarcastically for your moral rectitude. I've heard that line a million times, buster. Ad hominem. Ad hominem! You know, what is a piece of shit but a piece of shit? Is it ad hominem to call it by its own name? Sometimes the truth hurts. I would be sympathetic for you, were my sympathies not already stretched so far and wide on behalf of the millions of victims of your philosophy and its spectacularly foolish practitioners. So, as it is, you'll have to live with it. Nobody's tethering you to this thread either. If you're not prepared to get burned, you shouldn't play with fire.
And this is the part where I do nothing except reflect on your feelings towards people like me. What’s with the holier-than-thou attitude, Lord J?
Yours are the same old out-dated arguments for abortion rights. I don’t blame you for feeling the way you feel. I once stood for abortion rights, until I did the research and found out the awful truth behind it. You can keep pretending that the ball’s in your court when it comes to abortion rights. I won’t hinder you if that’s what you honestly believe.
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Consider this last bit before you fire back at me with whatever candlestick of a flame you possess.
If you possessed undeniable proof that a certain social practice (think of something besides “abortion”, if you can) was wrong in almost every conceivable way, wouldn’t you do everything in your power to get that information to the people who applied that social practice without taking into the account the irreversible harm they’re doing?
Let me put it this way: for anyone who willingly withholds information that could potentially reduce the harm or hurt that comes from a destructive social practice or event, I couldn’t find a better textbook definition for the word “evil.”
Don't screw with me on this issue. I know my facts.
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I once stood for abortion rights, until I did the research and found out the awful truth behind it.
The awful truth? What, pray tell, is this awful truth behind the right to a medical procedure.
Oh no, people are free to decide what to do with their own lives and face the consequences, good, bad, or terrible? That's LIFE. I wouldn't call the contrary living; certainly not gainful living. Should hard decisions, decisions which constitute, as you mentioned, responsibility be left up to a third party rather than the individuals whose lives they directly affect? What do individuals gain from being "responsible" at gunpoint? There's no opportunity for real growth there, for coming to any kind of real terms with life, the world, or god if that's your understanding.
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I was probably being presumptuous because the first live one-on-one Pro-Life vs. Pro-Choice debate I was ever involved in (which left a big impression on me, and started my travel across the Pro-Life/Pro-Choice divide to where I am now) was largely set in the context of fetal personhood. It was also conducted between two men -- once again, go figure. I'm always interested in learning more about how women typically rationalize both sides of the abortion debate, since men are so removed from the issue biologically that we're often tempted to debate in abstractions. Men debating abortion amongst themselves are somewhat like a group of people trying to describe how pizza tastes when none in the group have ever experienced the joys and heartburn of consuming it.
If anyone wants to understand more about the lives of women facing the decision to have an abortion, the doctors who perform abortions, and also get some unique perspective on the pro-life movement, I suggest they pirate, megavideo, google, rent, buy, steal, borrow, or catch a showing of Lake of Fire. I can't go an abortion debate without mentioning this documentary. It is monumentally insightful.
I was really tempted to go ahead and try to stir up the fetal personhood debate, because I remember the subject well from my ethics courses. Our in-class debates about abortion usually centered around the same issue. But, now I do find it odd that the issue of the personhood of the fetus seems to trump the freedom of the mother in the majority of debates. How morally beholden is a woman to a fetus, and why overlook the mother entirely in the debate? It is suspiciously reminiscent of a time when society had a host of different ideas about the nature of fetuses (that they had souls and the like) and women and children (both belonged to men, literally).
But I still can't shake the notion that the fetus' lack of personhood has to go hand in hand with reproductive freedom. It has been said, in various different iterations, that "Freedom is the right to do anything that doesn't impede the freedom of another." Philosophically speaking (again, I'm guilty of bypassing the practical issues and abstracting), abortion isn't an exception to that piece of moral guidance as long as the fetus is not an other, i.e., the fetus is one flesh with the mother herself.
I don't know that it is an issue of the fetus being a part of the mother so much as it is an issue of a fetus not being an "other" -- a person in the fullest sense, or any sense. I think that people can choose to grant a fetus personhood by accepting a fetus as a member of a family in utero, and don't get me wrong, that is a beautiful choice should a family decide to make it. Nevertheless, it is a personal choice, not one to be made by the state, or anyone else except the mother primarily, and the immediate family.
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“Safe, legal, and rare” is a motto for those who support abortion, except 30% of pregnancies in the U.S. end in abortion. I kid you not.
Seriously? Where'd you get this statistic? I don't mean to sound condescending, but I just have a hard time believing that...
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Another problem is the Judicial system. The great American push for rights has resulted in an attitude that individual rights should always prevail over personal responsibility.
I would argue that one cannot have responsibility without rights; any system which attempts to do so will fail in time. The courts aren't enforcing rights over responsibilities, they are enforcing rights so that we may have responsibilities.
Rights never free us from responsibility; one requires the other. The right to vote, for example, does not free an individual from the responsibility of being educated in how one votes. The right to speech does not free an individual from the responsibility of ensuring that one's speech is meaningful. If men have a responsibility in this matter (and we do), then there must be an associated right. Violation of that right removes the responsibility. If we wish to return that responsibility, we must likewise return the right.
The “right” I refer to is not that men get to make the choice for women in any regard. At no point would a man become the “arbiter of the frozen flame” for the woman. Rather, it would take the form of a legal standing. If a man wants a woman to abort a child that has his genetic information and she chooses to keep it, then that is all well and good. The man should thus be freed from all legal responsibilities and rights there associated. She can’t go after him for child support, and he cannot demand visiting privileges. Unfortunately, currently there is no legal president protecting sperm donors from being forced to pay child support, much less unwilling fathers. Just as it would be fundamentally wrong to force a woman to have a child, so too is it fundamentally wrong to force a man to have a child.
If the woman desired to abort the child but the man wanted to keep it? Well the woman has "51% of the vote, that's all the right she needs;" the abortion goes through. However, there should be legal recourse for the man. He might have the legal right to make a monetary offer to compensate the woman for the inconvenience and risk of carrying the child to term. If she rejects the offer, then that is all well and good, but let it be required that the man at least has the right to make the offer. Of course, in issues of what we might call illegal impregnation (the instances of rape which often get mentioned in these discussions), the perpetrator's unlawful actions have voided their rights.
End of the day, the woman still has her rights of choice intact, but the rights of men are not discarded in the process either. As such, we can then reasonable expect men, having rights, to have responsibilities and in turn fulfill those responsibilities. To require men to be responsible without rights will just not work.
As a side note, it occurs to me that the argument that a child is 50% genetically the father's and therefore he should have some say on those grounds is incorrect. While the DNA found in the nucleus might be 50/50, the mitochondrial DNA is 100% the mother’s, and so a fetus/child is always genetically more similar to the mother than father. If genetic similarity may give a say in the matter, then it doesn’t matter. The woman's rights are still supreme.
Obviously it would be better for such patients to seek amputations in a hospital...
What about if they sought professional help to treat the disorder without amputation at all? That seems like that would be better still.
Though again, the amputation corollary was just a stepping stone to the euthanasia conundrum. If any person has absolute authority over their own body and can determine what aspects of it live or die (such as a fetus), then does that authority extend to the whole body? Generally, western society says no; suicide or anything that might be labeled as such is not good. Western society has thus placed a limit on an individual’s right in that regard. Having allowed for society to impose on our bodies to some extent, the issue is no longer if regulations as a concept are good or bad, but how far those regulations ought to go.
But I suspect I'm the only one (or one of the few) who finds this issue, and the issue of dualism, relevant and central to the abortion debate.
In my vision of a perfect society in which there are birth pods, conception could presumably take place either in vitro...
Unfortunately there has been a blow to the birth pods: In vitro fertilization has been linked with changes in genetic expression (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/health/17ivf.html?_r=1&ref=science).
Apparently even the very act of pipetting a fertilized embryo will alter how it develops.
But, now I do find it odd that the issue of the personhood of the fetus seems to trump the freedom of the mother in the majority of debates.
As the saying goes, "my freedom to swing my fist ends where you're face begins." If we have to rank rights, the right to life would seem to be more fundamental to most people than any other right. Therefore, from such a perspective, it is better to step on the lesser right of choice than the greater right to life. While I happen to agree which this hierarchy, my intent here is not to argue or defend but rather to explain.
I think that people can choose to grant a fetus personhood...
allow me to play devil’s advocate for a few minutes…
If personhood is something that can be willingly granted, is it also something that a parent can refuse to grant? So that even a born "fetus" might not be granted personhood? Or does leaving the womb in some manner inherently grant personhood apart from the mother's wishes? If so, then I am afraid Faust's beloved birth pods are under attack, since there would never be a proper birthing to grant that personhood. This would also seem to make abortions a rather mean spirited affair; the fetus is barely a few inches away from the rights that would grant it life, yet abortion procedures, though they would eliminate that barrier, would also take away life before the fetus can get a right to it.
Or perhaps is personhood granted by time since conception? We would say that killing a 2 week old child is wrong, yes? But what if that child was born a month premature? Instead of 9.5 months since conception, it is only 8.5 months. I suspect most of us would still find that objectionable, regardless of stance on abortion.
Allow me to be materialistic in this matter: is there a physical mechanism in the mother's body that grants personhood at some point during development or childbirth? If not, then is there a mechanism in the fetus' body that grants personhood at some point during pre or post natal development? If not, then I must propose that personhood is fundamentally an intellectual construct of society and does not exist in nature. We, as a society, choose to grant it to those on whom we find favor. If we choose to grant it to an adult but not a fetus, that is, within the established parameters, fine. But if we choose to grant it to both an adult and a fetus, that is also within the established parameters and it becomes hypocritical for a single adult to gainsay society's choice. It is no more "liberal," "enlightened," or "whatever-word-you-would-like-to-use" to deny one person's right than white men attempting to argue that black men should not have been given the right to vote. Unless there is a real, physical difference that necessitates special treatment, let all humans be treated equivalently.
If there is not a materialistic cause of personhood, then we as a society are free to label those whom we choose as persons. If we so choose to label an unborn fetus as a person, that does not preclude the possibility of an abortion. But it must strip away the veil of innocents from abortion. If one desires an abortion, get an abortion, but do not fool yourself into believing that it is entirely and solely the woman's choice. It is ultimately the woman's choice, but not entirely or solely.
... if, of course, we attempt to bring personhood into the matter, and if there is no materialistic cause of personhood, and if we so desire to label a fetus as a person. That is a lot of if's.
As a side note, Lake of Fire has been added to my “to watch” list.
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I won't say another thing here until I watch "Lake of Fire," thanks Uboa. I'll also read that Pro-Life feminism article Truthordeal, since the combination has always intrigued me.
My poor, poor birth pods....
EDIT: Oh, I forgot -- Truthordeal called both Andrea Yates (not guilty) and Susan Smith (life in prison) "miscarriages of justice." Implying, maybe, that a number of people would have liked the death penalty in both cases?
Leaving aside Andrea Yates to focus on Smith (who didn't have the legal excuse of craziness), Smith committed what could technically be called a "double filicide," I guess. Usually we'd think a double homicide a crime fit for the death penalty in the United States. Does the fact that Susan Smith received a lesser punishment than the maximum, on its face and without examining the facts of the case, suggest that Susan Smith still retained some decisive power over the lives of her children even after they left her womb? Is my model of full personhood acquisition upon separation from the mother flawed from the standpoint of current US law?
But, now I do find it odd that the issue of the personhood of the fetus seems to trump the freedom of the mother in the majority of debates. How morally beholden is a woman to a fetus, and why overlook the mother entirely in the debate?
I wonder if the focus on the fetus comes from the fact that it's mostly men who debate the issue of abortion in public or in legislatures, or shape college curricula, and not women? Again, when you don't have a womb and have no chance of bearing a child yourself, all you can do is abstract and try to figure out baseline principles of justice. This is precisely why abortion laws fashioned by a highly male legislature, influenced by religious and social traditions largely shaped by men, are patently ludicrous. Men should simply not be the deciders of abortion rights, one way or another. It's like the State of Wyoming trying to make law for Timbuktu. Does not compute.
I just found this on Wikipedia, and it makes me ponder:
An argument first presented by Judith Jarvis Thomson states that even if the fetus has a right to life, abortion is morally permissible because a woman has a right to control her own body. The best known variant of this argument draws an analogy between forcing a woman to continue an unwanted pregnancy and forcing a person's body to be used as a dialysis machine for another person suffering from kidney failure. It is argued that just as it would be permissible to "unplug" and thereby cause the death of the person who is using one's kidneys, so it is permissible to abort the fetus (who similarly, it is said, has no right to use one's body against one's will).
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_debate#Bodily_rights
I think this is more what Uboa is going for, and it does significantly re-frame the discussion. The dialysis analogy is sound, because dialysis is a function performed by the mother for the fetus, de facto. If I'm understanding my biology correctly, that is.
I could not bring myself to support forcing people to offer their bodies for kidney dialysis -- this is why we have dialysis machines (*cough*, birth pods! *cough*).
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Just here to say one thing.
Late-term abortions are bullshit.
Thank you.
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Don't screw with me on this issue. I know my facts.
Ooh…very tempting, GenesisOne—the more so because you have no clue what kind of a challenge you just made. I am quite tempted indeed to show you something of “whatever candlestick of a flame” I possess.
As it is, however, I don’t currently have that kind of time to spare on you. Thus I must decline your gracious invitation to screw with you. The field is yours, for now! I will say, in closing, that, if you want to debate like a scholar, you should try bringing some scholastics to our next interview.
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I think this is more what Uboa is going for, and it does significantly re-frame the discussion. I could not bring myself to support forcing people to offer their bodies for kidney dialysis -- this is why we have dialysis machines.
Though to be thorough in the dialysis metaphor, one simply disconnects the offending individual, one does not actively seek that individuals demise, yes? Disconnect and let nature take its course. If they live, they live, if they die, they die.
Thus that metaphor seems to make a good argument for inducing labor to get rid of an undesired creature, rather than abortion itself.
… if you want to debate like a scholar...
Oh come now, let us settle this like academics. Both of you, write up your respective positions and submit them to an academic journal. Whoever gets into the more prestigious journal wins. The looser can then start their own school of thought and hound the victor for the rest of his or her academic career.
It’s either that or you two can race around the world in 80 days.
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Good old Thought...
I owe you an e-mail, don't I? Hrm. Look for it later today!
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Just here to say one thing.
Late-term abortions are bullshit.
Thank you.
I agree Nightmare, moreso with partial-birth abortions than late term ones. Only in severely severe(blah! Solt and Peppor speak) cases should the practice be allowed. There is simply no justification for having an abortion done as the fetus is exiting the womb, unless there are severe medical complications that would kill the mother.
As far as I'm aware, even Tiller "the Baby Killer" didn't perform partial birth abortions.
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I can't find a place to validly watch "Lake of Fire" online for the life of me. The trailer's on Youtube, and it looks really thought provoking.
Here's more on Judith Jarvis Thomson's article I was referencing earlier with the kidney dialysis analogy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Defense_of_Abortion
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Thanks for the links, Faust. It is very interesting and I'll have to see if I can find the whole text of her essay.
Edit: ... which would have been oh so much easier to do if I had actually looked down at the bottom of that wiki page where a link to the full text is provided.
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*cough cough torrents cough cough* Ahem, sorry about that, I had a tickle in my throat.
But yes, if this Lake Of Fire movie is done by the "American History X" guy, then I'm sold.
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what I notice in topics like this is that a lot of times, the opposing sides will scramble through their opponents Arguments, searching for all of their provably false claims, whilst avoiding and dismissing their other claims.
I say that the two sides should submit their arguments in a FORMAL paper format (no lashing, bashing or flaming here, folks) to someone of neutral, or extremely intellectual status (*cough* thought) in which he, and perhaps a group of people, would go through comparing and contrasting each side and argument of each paper...
...this is just building off of Lord J Esq and Thoughts prior conversation and ideas.
… if you want to debate like a scholar...
No offense intended, good sir, however this entire debate is far from scholarly on both sides...
If you're not prepared to get burned, you shouldn't play with fire.
for it to be scholarly, my good sir, there shouldn't be a fire to begin with.
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Genesis, perhaps you can clarify something for me. Earlier you mentioned that many abortions stop a beating heart. I've heard that assertion made by anti-choicers before, usually in the bold (and not completely accurate) "Abortion stops a beating heart." You obviously feel this comment has some merit, as you've used it, so what merit do you think it has? Why do you think that the heart is an important organ in determining the ethics of abortion?
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Well, Radical_Dreamer, the heart, being one of the most vital organs in any person's or creature's body, circulates the blood throughout the body, which in turn provides important nutrients to other major organs in the body such as:
1. The brain (used to initiate any voluntary or reflex action we possess)
2. The central nervous system (used to carry out any voluntary or reflex action we possess)
3. The kidneys (used to clean the blood as it goes through our veins)
As soon as you stop a beating heart during an abortion:
1. The brain shuts down, in which
2. The central nervous system shuts down, in which
3. All other major functions in the body shut down.
Since it hasn't been proven that one can resuscitate a fetus in such a vegetative state, the fetus will naturally die of being unable to sustain its vital statistics. This is especially true with a partial birth abortion, which I abhor to the greatest degree.
All abortions stop a beating heart (it's not just a slogan) and the vast majority kill a fetus that exhibits measurable brain waves. So, yes I believe that ending someone's life in such a manner caries a lot of ethical weight in the abortion debate.
* * * * * *
Truthordeal, sorry if the 30% statistic looks overblown. It was supposed to say "30% of unwanted pregnancies"
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Genesis, it is not true that all abortions stop a beating heart, as the heart only begins to beat after 22ish days, yes? Additionally, the brain doesn't start to produce brain waves until the 42ish day, so even if the heart is beating, stopping it would not always stop a brain. So would it be acceptable to you, then, for an abortion to occur before the 22ish day? Or perhaps even before the 42ish day?
Anywho, point being: not all abortions stop a heart, and not all stopped hearts shut down a brain.
Interestingly, it is estimated that somewhere around 50% of all pregnancies are spontaneously aborted before the woman is even aware that she is pregnant. Even when the spontaneous abortions are clinical rather than subclinical, they tend to occur before the 10th week, which is after both the heart and the brain are functioning. If one argues from nature, then it would seem that a form of abortion is quite common in the first trimester, regardless of brain or heart function. If the body can spontaneously abort quiet easily at that point without creating a moral dilemma for us, why should we not be able to mimic nature in that regard? To note, even current “manual” abortions occur primarily during this period, with abortions in the 2nd trimester being comparatively uncommon and abortions in the 3rd trimester being very rare.
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Thought, it is true that a heart starts to beat around 21-24 days after conception, and brain waves can be measured as early as 6 weeks after conception. However, your question did cause me to pop some of my neurons in pondering:
If the body can spontaneously abort quiet easily at that point without creating a moral dilemma for us, why should we not be able to mimic nature in that regard?
If this is the case, then there's no need to go to a clinic to simulate a "natural abortion." Such an abortion is accidental in nature, which in this case holds no moral weight. Why, you ask? Well, since a natural abortion is beyond the control of either the pregnant woman, the fetus, or any knowledgeable third party, nothing could have really been done to prevent it.
If such a thing happened and nobody's the wiser about it, then it's water under the bridge. There was nothing anyone could have done and that's the course of nature. Besides, mimicking nature has always been the pursuit of science, but rarely does it follow our protocols. There are always consequences to mimicking nature. Even if the intentions are good, it can still backfire without you expecting it.
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Ah, so it is an ethically irrelevant and dishonest statement that adds nothing to the debate. Thought has demonstrated it to be dishonest* and since the only ethically relevant function of the heart is keeping the brain functioning, then even if the assertion was true, mentioning the heart in this context is provides us with no relevant information.
Thank you both for clearing this up for me.
*You, Genesis, even said "virtually all abortions...stop a beating heart" earlier in the thread, thus you clearly know that saying all abortions stop a beating heart is not honest.
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Miscarriages are a type of "natural abortion," Thought, but I doubt you'll find anyone willing to denounce the woman who had a miscarriage as immoral for having it.
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I was having internet trouble yesterday and was also pretty busy, so I'm picking up in non-sequiter fashion here:
I was lucky enough to find Lake of Fire available to watch on Netflix under the "watch instantly" category. I check sites like quicksilverscreen regularly, but I haven't seen it anywhere yet. If I find it I'll post a link.
To the issue currently at hand, which is the personhood, or the life, of the fetus:
The idea that a fetus constitutes a person as is makes me uneasy. In fact, it leaves a strange and uncomforting taste in my mouth to regard personhood, to regard human life, as something so stripped-down. A beating heart and detectable brainwaves -- is that what we are, in essence? Vegetables? Would we trade our current collective existence, with all of its sublime potentialities and its opportunities to understand the world, for one lobotomized and on a mass life-support system, and not be at a loss? Of course not, right? Because, human life is more than the sum of working body parts, more than the worldly necessities of sustaining a body and procreating.
What I find ironic is that this wholly worldly definition of human life is not only embraced by religion, but it is fought for tooth and nail, shouted on street corners, and otherwise... revered? I'm not trying to bring religion to far into this, but I do find that to be more than a tad contradictory with what most religions otherwise hold, or at least should hold, in high regard given their choices of teachers.
Genesis, I lashed out at you in my last post and I apologize, but that was because I found (and still find) it hard to believe that there is such a sinister and terrible truth behind the right to an abortion. I've heard some strange claims here and there. For example, legal abortion is comparable to eugenics, the procedure does irreparable psychological harm to a woman, legal abortion gives men more incentive to neglect birth control and (implied) behave like pigs, and others. When you mentioned the awful truth those conspiracy theories were the first things that came to my mind, and I pre-empted my want to understand what you were getting at with an assumption of what I believed you were getting at. I usually don't let myself do that in debates.
Your focus is on the life of the fetus, so I've picked up there. It's understood that an abortion will terminate the life of a fetus, and as much as I don't find that to be a reason for why abortion should not be kept safe and legal, believe me, I also do not think that act in itself is something to take lightly. Abortions do take a significant emotional toll on the women who have them, and the emotional toll is largely due to the fact that they've given up on their physical and perceived future child. There's no getting around it, we women are maternally wired to at least some extent. We're not made to want to give up on our children, even if our children are mostly dreams to us. But, we are figurative mothers to many other dreams, and we are beholden to more expectations today that simply having and raising children. This is one of the most crucial, pivotal aspects of modern human life and why it is so rich and potent: Our ability to connect with and explore this living dream world which we as a species have spent tens of thousands of years enriching, and to learn from and grow with it just as we learn to survive from the physical world, but also to grow with in in ways that transform us into more high-minded, imaginative, and illuminated selves.
Should an unintentionally expectant mother even temporarily sacrifice her connection to those dreams, which make her life more definitively and meaningfully human than her body or her DNA, for something which does not yet share that capacity to dream in the slightest? Should the father of the would-be child do the same if he had no intention of being a father? Where is the fairness here? Why is it fair that the progress of one or two human lives, real human lives, essentially be halted for something which is not, in any meaningful sense, yet a human life? It's staggering to me that this should happen, and sickening to think that this is what is often perceived as the only right thing to do in the case of unplanned pregnancy. It's demeaning! It's demeaning that in this perception of "morality", our lives are reduced to such a base level that we are no more than beating hearts and brain waves, or at least we are worth no more than that.
I began this post trying to pick up on the conecept of fetal personhood, but whenever I begin that track in this context I always end up wandering over to the subject of human life itself. But this is what the debate here is really about, right? Human life, and what constitutes human life? For me, I find it not only sad but dangerously misleading to want to call outright "human life" that which is so utterly lacking in the capacity to live as a human. To call upon humans to all but prostrate themselves before this bizarre vision of life is more than just a little absurd, don't you agree? Or is it really my ideas about what constitutes life that are misguided and dangerous?
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Exactly! The concept of an abortion as a whole is not what even pro-lifers reject, else they would have to condemn miscarriages as well. It is specifically that they oppose human intervention in the matter.
Let me, for the sake of what I find to be an interesting train of thought, propose an overly loose definition of a disease. One might define a disease as a biological state that is not the norm and which the individual does not desire.
Naturally, a person's body will attempt to fight off the disease and return the body to homeostasis.
Unnaturally, medicine might attempt to mimic the natural occurrence and fight off the disease with external means.
If this disease is, say, cancer, the natural responses tend to be incredibly inefficient and so unnatural responses are needed.
But under this overly loose definition of a disease we might also classify an unwanted pregnancy as a disease. Being pregnant is not the normal biological state of most women in the modern era, and in some cases it is undesired. Like with cancer, the natural mechanisms to fight off disease are not here effective and thus we might suppose that unnatural means are necessary.
Assuming that this very strange definition of a disease was accepted by you, would one still have an objection to unnatural medical intervention that attempts to do what the natural functions would ideally be doing?
Of course the objection still might be that, though perceived as a disease, the woman to a degree chose to engage in behavior that, even with proper precautions, still has a much higher risk of causing pregnancy than most behaviors have of causing cancer. Action and intent thus remove our medical obligation of treating the "disease."
And so allow me to switch the disease from a fetus or cancer to that of an STD. Like the others, it is not a normal biological state for an individual and it is (usually) undesirable. But one contracts an STD like one "contracts" a pregnancy. We find many of the same behaviors, and failures of many of the same precautions, lead to this state. The natural functions of the body are not always (indeed, not usually) able to fight of these diseases and so we find unnatural medical intervention to be called for.
I object to bans on abortion just as I would object to bans on treatment for STDs. While I might not approve of the behavior that leads to the desire for medical intervention, I cannot in good consciousness withhold medical help after the fact. I cannot claim that a man suffering from STDs should be denied an unnatural medical solution to his problem merely because he engaged in behavior that specifically caused his affliction in the first place. Neither can I claim that a woman suffering from pregnancy be denied an unnatural medical solution to her problem merely because she engaged in behavior that specifically caused her affliction in the first place. To withhold help seems downright un-Christian, as it were.
And since for humors sake I have here introduced an aspect of religion, allow me a few sentences more on this topic before once more putting it aside. The Christian might object to abortion based on the perspective that it is wrong. Likewise a Christian might object to robbery based on the perspective that it is wrong, and yet Christian teachings include the belief that if someone takes something from you by force that you should follow it up by giving them something more willingly. Thus it would seem from a Christian’s perspective, even though the Christian might believe that abortion is wrong, it is the moral obligation of the Christian to aid those engaged in abortion. But now enough of that.
Setting aside this absurd definition of a disease, one will most likely balk at the supposition that a pregnancy can be considered a disease. A fetus is human, or at least comprised of human genetic information, an STD is not! Ah, but cancer is comprised of human genetic information as well. A fetus has a heart! Ah, but cancers may well have heart cells in them, and these cells might even be "beating." A fetus, if left not externally treated like a disease, will develop into a child! Not necessarily, the internal processes of the body might well address the issue. The woman engaged in behavior that made her pregnant! As did the man with the STDs.
This is not to say that abortion is "good" and that it would be in an ideal society. Far from it, abortion would not be in an ideal society simply for want of a need or desire for it. However, we are not in an ideal society and so having it as an option is better than not having it at all.
What I find ironic is that this wholly worldly definition of human life is not only embraced by religion, but it is fought for tooth and nail, shouted on street corners, and otherwise... revered. I'm not trying to bring religion to far into this, but I do find that to be more than a tad contradictory with what most religions otherwise hold, or at least should hold, in high regard given their choices of teachers.
You've touched on the concept of ensoulment. When does this guise of biological matter become endowed with that which is eternal? If we are dualists and say that the body is merely a device and we are the controllers in it, then the mind becomes a tantalizing place to define as the cockpit. If the cockpit is functioning, then the soul might well be there. If we are not dualists, we might well claim that the soul develops alongside the physical form. Or we might say that it occurs at birth, other at some other largely arbitrary date.
... for something which does not yet share that capacity to dream in the slightest?
An unimportant curiosity, as this wasn't the sort of dreaming you were referencing, but does anyone know when REM sleep begins?
For me, I find it not only sad but dangerously misleading to want to call outright "human life" that which is so utterly lacking in the capacity to live as a human.
The problem there is that there is little difference between a child that is a day old and a child that is a month till due. Indeed, there is even less difference between a child born a month premature and a child that is two months till due. If a child is outside of the mother and still alive, as a society we say that it is wrong to kill it. So it would seem that there is a line somewhere that on one side of which there is not a human and on the other side there is. Where that line is is difficult to determine. That is one of the very interesting things about the A Defense of Abortion essay Faust was talking about earlier; it takes it as a premise that a fetus is human and has a right to life but then goes on to argue what that doesn't preclude the possibility of an abortion.
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Contrary to what Lord J will have you believe, neither side of the abortion debate is doing what they do because of some sinister ulterior motive. They both fight because they feel a moral imperative to fight; pro-choicers feel the imperative of protecting women's rights, while pro-lifers feel the imperative of protecting the rights of a potential human being. There are some people on both sides who are misguided, and make their "team" want to facepalm every time they so much as open their mouths(the Joe Biden of their team, if you will) but, and this is me being optimistic, those people are few and far between.
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Abortion again? I thought we covered this in Fuck Sexism and, before that, Frustration.
I still love Serge's "You got raped and you're pregnant? Haha, too bad! Your punishment for not being able to defend yourself!" and "You took all precautions yet still got accidentally pregnant? Haha, too bad! Your punishment for random chance and being stupid even though you're not!" arguments.
It's a situational thing. Abortion shouldn't be banned completely as most pro-lifers want it to be, but a woman/man/family/whatever should have a good reason for the abortion. Don't abort because you don't want a boy or because he doesn't have blue eyes, abort because you can't afford to give the child a good life, or for medical reasons, or if you're underage or if you were raped.
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Contrary to what Lord J will have you believe, neither side of the abortion debate is doing what they do because of some sinister ulterior motive. They both fight because they feel a moral imperative to fight; pro-choicers feel the imperative of protecting women's rights, while pro-lifers feel the imperative of protecting the rights of a potential human being. There are some people on both sides who are misguided, and make their "team" want to facepalm every time they so much as open their mouths(the Joe Biden of their team, if you will) but, and this is me being optimistic, those people are few and far between.
And yet, one side is right.
(PROTIP: It's the side whose worldview isn't founded on myth.)
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It's a situational thing. Abortion shouldn't be banned completely as most pro-lifers want it to be, but a woman/man/family/whatever should have a good reason for the abortion. Don't abort because you don't want a boy or because he doesn't have blue eyes, abort because you can't afford to give the child a good life, or for medical reasons, or if you're underage or if you were raped.
I could not have said it better myself, Zephira.
And yet, one side is right.
I don't believe either side is completely right, especially the side that says that killing a baby as it's coming out of the womb without any complications is A-OK.
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whose rights are more important? a being that could very well die before being born or grow up to be a criminal? or a being that is already well defined in this life and can do something other than kick and squirm and poo?
i gotta say im leaning towards the woman in that case.
zephiras words are quite true, perhaps the truest ive ever seen.
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whose rights are more important? a being that could very well die before being born or grow up to be a criminal? or a being that is already well defined in this life and can do something other than kick and squirm and poo?
Bucky, I'm a bit confused. Are you making the argument that a grown woman has more of a right to live than a baby? Or that since baby's have a potential to become criminals they have no rights?
If its the latter, then does that mean that women who are criminals shouldn't be allowed to have an abortion, even if it threatens their life?
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what im saying is that the rights of a woman should be more than the rights of an unborn child, who may or may not even make it outside the womb for natural causes. theyre potential life. should we value the potential over the actual? thats the question.
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Well not many people would say that even if the mother's life is at risk she still shouldn't have an abortion. If we are directly comparing rights to life, most people will side on the mother's side. But the majority of the debate comes when the mother's life is not in danger. That is what A Defense of Abortion that faust linked to primarily discussed. It is right to life v right to control one's body, a different issue.
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what im saying is that the rights of a woman should be more than the rights of an unborn child, who may or may not even make it outside the womb for natural causes. theyre potential life. should we value the potential over the actual? thats the question.
I'm probably on your side of this, but what the hell, I'll play Devil's Advocate and ask why shouldn't we keep both?
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What I find ironic is that this wholly worldly definition of human life is not only embraced by religion, but it is fought for tooth and nail, shouted on street corners, and otherwise... revered. I'm not trying to bring religion to far into this, but I do find that to be more than a tad contradictory with what most religions otherwise hold, or at least should hold, in high regard given their choices of teachers.
You've touched on the concept of ensoulment. When does this guise of biological matter become endowed with that which is eternal? If we are dualists and say that the body is merely a device and we are the controllers in it, then the mind becomes a tantalizing place to define as the cockpit. If the cockpit is functioning, then the soul might well be there. If we are not dualists, we might well claim that the soul develops alongside the physical form. Or we might say that it occurs at birth, other at some other largely arbitrary date.
If we are not dualists, we might claim that the soul develops alongside the physical form... hmm... Doesn't that still imply a dual existence? And how much sense does dualism make anyway? How does it work out that at some point or another a soul is tacked on to the body, or that a soul develops over time to accompany the body? For what purpose does this soul develop with the body? And how does it develop? And... what is it?
At any rate, this "ensoulment" event seems to me to be merely the acquisition of the soul that will screw you over if you ever do something one of any number of large institutions which shall remain nameless don't appreciate.
For me, I find it not only sad but dangerously misleading to want to call outright "human life" that which is so utterly lacking in the capacity to live as a human.
The problem there is that there is little difference between a child that is a day old and a child that is a month till due. Indeed, there is even less difference between a child born a month premature and a child that is two months till due. If a child is outside of the mother and still alive, as a society we say that it is wrong to kill it. So it would seem that there is a line somewhere that on one side of which there is not a human and on the other side there is. Where that line is is difficult to determine. That is one of the very interesting things about the A Defense of Abortion essay Faust was talking about earlier; it takes it as a premise that a fetus is human and has a right to life but then goes on to argue what that doesn't preclude the possibility of an abortion.
Admittedly I need to read that essay. I've been putting it off all day because of school, and work. I also need to think over my position on mid-late term abortions. What I was addressing in that post were the early term abortions in which the fetus nonetheless had a beating heart and showed some brain activity.
If I hit an impasse in coding I'll take some time out to read the essay.
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Uboa, I like your mentioning of mind/body dualism on this social issue. As for those questions, let's see if we can't open up some room for answers to them.
As you might know, dualism is a minority view amongst secular scientists. Scientifically speaking, if the soul was a tangible element, then it would be located in the brain. This leads to the question:
Is the mind purely a function of the brain?
Dualism proposes that human beings are more than just a physical entity, but possess a soul.
Naturalism proposes that humans are purely physical beings and that all manifestations of human beings are a function of an advanced brain—i.e. the mind is the brain.
If the mind is completely a product of the material function of the brain (courtesy of Dr. Steve Novella) then:
- There will be no mental phenomena without brain function.
- As brain function is altered, the mind will be altered.
- If the brain is damaged, then mental function will be damaged.
- Brain development will correlate with mental development.
- We will be able to correlate brain activity with mental activity – no matter how we choose to look at it.
Check out this article for the full gist of it:
http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=189 (http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=189)
On the other hand, if the mind is partly a product of the material function of the brain, then:
- There will be some mental phenomena without brain function.
- As brain function is altered, the mind will not necessarily be altered.
- If the brain is damaged, then mental function will not necessarily be damaged.
- Brain development will not necessarily correlate with mental development.
- We will not always be able to correlate brain activity with mental activity – no matter how we choose to look at it.
Note the similarities and the differences in the predictions. Dualism and materialism both predict that mental function will often correlate with brain function. Strict materialism takes it a step further; mental function will always correlate with brain function, because mental function is brain function. Dualism predicts that mental function and brain function won’t always correlate, because mental function isn’t the same thing as brain function.
What do you think? Personally, my money's on dualism.
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Doesn't that still imply a dual existence?
Not necessarily, though it could. A dualist would say that the element that makes us human (often defined modernly as a mind, though traditionally as a soul, but not necessarily with the religious connotations; even atheists might be dualists) is separate from the material world (and thus in turn body). We ride around in our bodies as our bodies might ride around in a car.
But instead of saying that the two are separate, we might claim that both exists and are closely interconnected. The soul or mind is not separate from the material world and might be understood to be essentially the same. The soul might develop alongside the body, just as a hand develops along with the arm. They are separate things, yet the same.
To give a little history (I will try to be short so as not to bore too much) some individuals actually believed that a person had three souls. First there was the animus soul, that which gives an object the ability to live. Even plants (and bacteria, if they had known of it) had these. Then there was a locomotive soul, which animals had but plants did not. This allows movement. And finally there was a "logical" soul, that which only humans have and gives us our comparatively unique abilities. Because of this, there were some individuals who argued that the fetus only had the animus soul, an infant had the locomotive soul, and the final aspect was added later in life.
But history and even mechanics aside, even though people might not know the terminology, people still believe in some form of "ensoulment;" that is, most people believe that humans are different than animals in that we have unique rights. We afford all adults humans the right to vote, but not all dolphins, or even some, for example. Even if we discard the concept of a soul or the dualistic perception of the mind, we are still left with what we might call "enrightment," to attempt something more palatable to the non-religious among us. When does it become wrong to kill a person, for example? A dualist might say that enrightment occurs at some arbitrary point; but the "monist" would generally say that enrightment occurs as the body is developing and is inseparable from that body.
On a side note, there are a few experiments that are in the very early stages that are trying to test for a “soul” through the use of near death experiences. Many individuals who claim to have such experiences describe looking down at themselves and the medical practitioners around them. These experiments will place images in operating rooms that can only be seen from above; neither the patient on the table nor the surgeons will be able to see it. If anyone has a near death experience in such an environment and can successfully describe the image, that would imply that they indeed had a point of view different from any physical being in the room.
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A simple cut-off is that once a baby's born or outside of the body, its dependency on the female host is terminated and it's afforded full human rights. Until then, the baby is a mass of unawakened cells allowed to grow with the permission and grace of its parents. There is no identity; there are no memories. When I was a religious idiot, even I wondered why God didn't simply sort out the entire soul problem by waiting until birth to inject a soul into a baby. Problem solved.
Anyway, it's much simpler to say "we aren't sure, but it seems to be a synergistic effect of constituent brain parts" about consciousness than postulate the existence of a soul, which we're only really talking about because it was an ancient convenience for explanation of certain phenomena and the establishment of religions. Really, now.
I'll take this moment to plug Wang Chung, my favorite Chinese philosopher who shares the name with my favorite 80s group:
He was equally scathing about the popular belief in ghosts. Why should only human beings have ghosts, he asked, not other animals? We are all living creatures, animated by the same vital principle. Besides, so many people have died that their ghosts would vastly outnumber living people; the world would be swamped by them.
People say that spirits are the souls of dead men. That being the case, spirits should always appear naked, for surely it is not contended that clothes have souls as well as men. (Lunheng)
Wang was just as rational and uncompromising about knowledge. Beliefs require evidence, just as actions require results. Anyone can prattle nonsense, and they'll always be able to find people to believe it, especially if they can dress it up in superstitious flummery. Careful reasoning and experience of the world are needed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Chong
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While that might indeed be a simple cut-off -- and perhaps even a proper one -- it is also rather arbitrary. If we are being arbitrary, why say that enrightment occurs at birth and not a month later, or a year later? Etc.
J.J. Thomson's stance is quite similar to yours, in end result but not in support, so it would be advisable to seriously consider it. She has the advantage of not necessitating the arbitrary and external bestowment of rights. Under her arguments, rights remain "inalienable." She grants the fetus full human status, but notes that the fetus' right to life does not constitute an obligation on the woman's part to allow her body to be used by it. Even though a fetus has the right to life, an abortion does not constitute an infringement upon that right. To say that rights are magically sprinkled on the child as it leaves the female body is BS.
But to specifically address the reasons you provided as justification for your arbitrary cut-off, that an unborn child lacks an identity does not significantly distinguish it from a born child. As noted previously, there is no mechanism involved in the birthing process that bestows identity. A day old baby is largely identical to itself from two days prior. The primary difference is location, not identity. Thus there is no rational explanation as to why the biological functions of one can be legally terminated and not so with the other.
Regarding memory, it should be noted that infant memory is still a very poorly understood field, as illustrated by the concept of childhood amnesia. Certainly, most two month old infants are incapable of forming autobiographical memories. They can "remember" things, but at this point it would be imprudent to label this as the result of "memories" in the vernacular sense of the word. Self-defining memories are lacking, all that is there is relatively impartial information storage.
Which is all just to say, a child that is a month old is just as devoid of a personality, identity, and memories as a fetus that is a month til due. Those are not valid criteria for justifying any stance on rights at the time of birth.
More relevant is the supposition that rights might be dependent on the fetus' parasitical nature towards the female host. Without nourishment from the mother's body, the fetus could not independently "live." Remove a child from the mother's body through non-abortion processes and that dependency ceases, allowing for rights to become manifest. However, a child is still greatly dependent on the mother's (and in general, parent’s) physical body for survival through the form of food (often breast milk, in developing countries).
If society can maintain that a child outside the womb has a right to life and yet is still dependent on a parental figure, then denying it to a child inside the womb because it is dependent on a parental host is again an issue of location.
Can simple location determine the rights of any individual? Does a woman's body somehow emanate a metaphysical field that suppresses the development of the rights of others? Without a logical and reasonable explanation of this, it must be rejected by any individual looking for a rational solution.
Which leaves us with Thomson’s stance: A Defense of Abortion (http://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.htm)
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http://community.livejournal.com/ontd_political/5575775.html
Fuck them. An unborn baby is a fucking template biomass. There are no memories; there is no identity; and there certainly isn't a fucking "soul". I fucking hate it when an "unborn child" is sentimentalized into a person. They aren't; they're just a potential, with non-existent sentience and the privileged chance to come into the world at the discretion of the parents. That is fucking it.
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Query: At what point and through what mechanism does this "template biomass" obtain personhood?
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Birth. In certain criminal acts, it may be advantageous for harsher sentencing to make personhood a legal fiction before birth, but this fiction should only be limited to those situations.
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And what is the mechanism through which this occurs? Surely this isn't just an arbitrary point that you've selected because it happens to mesh with your pre-established world-view, right? I’m sure you’ll soon lay down an irrefutable logical argument, based in science, as to why birth is when a person, well, becomes a person.
Stand back everyone. Zeality’s next post will be epic, in his customary fashion, no doubt.
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What's this? Crossing into trolling?
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The key distinction, Thought, is that birth is the point at which a baby passes from the care of the mother to the care of the society. Those are two different worlds.
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Exactly, Josh. Personhood has nothing to do with it; it is a red herring. There is no difference between Zeality pretending that personhood magically starts at birth than those pro-lifers who say it starts at conception. This is particularly disappointing as this topic has come up before and Faustwolf (in response to some excellent insight by Uboa) provided a link to a very informative article arguing why a discussion of personhood is pointless. Concede the point and two things happen: 1) the pro-choice side gets bonus points for not engaging in wishful thinking, 2) pro-choice is actually stronger because then we are allowed to define the arguments and we can define them as something valid, rather than the fallacy of personhood.
Though Z's intentions might have been good, every time he posts something so ridiculous he is damaging the rights of women everywhere. He is pinning their rights on the state of the child/biomass template. He is divorcing a woman's rights from the woman herself and placing it in that which she caries. The pro-lifers have half the victory right there!
Conceding personhood does not harm the pro-choice movement in the least, while holding such ground as this is harmful.
But, now I do find it odd that the issue of the personhood of the fetus seems to trump the freedom of the mother in the majority of debates. How morally beholden is a woman to a fetus, and why overlook the mother entirely in the debate?
I wonder if the focus on the fetus comes from the fact that it's mostly men who debate the issue of abortion in public or in legislatures, or shape college curricula, and not women? Again, when you don't have a womb and have no chance of bearing a child yourself, all you can do is abstract and try to figure out baseline principles of justice. This is precisely why abortion laws fashioned by a highly male legislature, influenced by religious and social traditions largely shaped by men, are patently ludicrous. Men should simply not be the deciders of abortion rights, one way or another. It's like the State of Wyoming trying to make law for Timbuktu. Does not compute.
I just found this on Wikipedia, and it makes me ponder:
An argument first presented by Judith Jarvis Thomson states that even if the fetus has a right to life, abortion is morally permissible because a woman has a right to control her own body. The best known variant of this argument draws an analogy between forcing a woman to continue an unwanted pregnancy and forcing a person's body to be used as a dialysis machine for another person suffering from kidney failure. It is argued that just as it would be permissible to "unplug" and thereby cause the death of the person who is using one's kidneys, so it is permissible to abort the fetus (who similarly, it is said, has no right to use one's body against one's will).
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_debate#Bodily_rights
Here is a link to Dr. Thompson’s article itself: http://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.htm
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I am sympathetic to the point you are trying to make, Thought, which is why I myself divide my support for reproductive rights into two categories, but your attempt to completely discredit the validity of one of those categories, the nature of the unborn child, is thoroughly unconvincing. The nature of the unborn child is important. If, in some artistic swoop of the cosmos, humans were possessed of a sentient will and the crux of an identity while still within the womb, it would complicate the ethics of abortion. But that's not how humans are; human babies even after they are born will not develop and exhibit many of the cognitive qualities by which we commonly perceive personhood, for months to come! And the fact that it's this way rather than that way, simplifies the ethics. Does it justify abortion all by itself? Yes, in the complete absence of the pillar of reproductive rights belonging to the mother, I do judge that this alone would justify abortion (at least in humans and all the sapient species I know). But, as it is, the question of the mother's rights also justifies abortion, all by itself and quite easily, thus relieving this concept of the nature of the unborn child from having to bear the full weight of the justification. However, the nature of the unborn child still greatly supports abortion, because it identifies a whole area of potential ethical murk as empty. If there were an alternate species where this point were the other way around, and babies were quoting Shakespeare in the womb, then supporting unrestricted reproductive rights would be that much more troublesome (though far from impossible and perhaps not even significantly more difficult than now, depending on what weight is assigned to the mother's rights). It is therefore significant that identity comes into operation after birth and not before it, and your idea that this whole thing should be ceded is pointless. It certainly doesn't hurt the case for choice, as you claim, unless you are also willing to go to the length of claiming that no individual or group has the right to set the rights of anyone but themselves, in which case you would have uphill battles to fight on practically every issue in politics.
You also should take care not to speak with such pointed concern for the success of "the pro-choice movement" unless you yourself are a member of that movement, because, while I would accept it on your word that for you this issue is little more than an academic curiosity, you've already got ZeaLitY suspicious that you are trolling him, and if a respectable exchange with him is really your goal, then you are undermining yourself with that language. Many other pro-choicers would see it exactly the same way, and I would sympathize with their suspicion. In politics, concern trolling is a huge problem.
Lastly: If Z did not mention the rights of the mother, that does not imply that he doesn't justify reproductive rights on those grounds as well as on these of the status of the child. Z was talking about legal personhood, which is by no means a trivial issue, and which as a binary can only exist or not exist; grays are impossible without serious social consequences the likes of which you know so well. Legal personhood is a control status whose only relation to a human being's physical condition is arbitrary. It makes sense to base the onset of this status upon the transition from "not born" to "born" not because of the baby itself but because of the baby's context, as it is more straightforward to speak of the legal standing of someone whose life does not, absent outside medical intervention, require the immediate and constant physical sustenance of its mother, and whose body and mind cannot receive direct succor from the instruments of society without having passed through the mother first, notwithstanding the occasional Beethoven recording.
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As you noted, Josh, many of the characteristics that we'd define as personhood come months after the child is born. Surely you can see the problem this presents? If we can terminate a biomass's (and I do like that word) existence because it is not yet a person, then why not a child that is not yet a person? Do we not do this because it is closer to developing a personhood? If so, then a child born premature should surely be allowed to be terminated, yes?
Of course not. I doubt any prochoice individual would argue such an interpretation. But you and Z are engaging in what is essentially a "god of the gaps" argument (only, you know, not about god). We don't currently know when a person becomes "human" and so you are saying we should claim this is at birth. Give it ten, twenty, maybe even fifty or a hundred years, and we'll have a better idea of when humans become humans. Given the data we have now, this is likely to be well after birth. The peg on which the argument hangs is removed and thus the argument falls. If abortion is acceptable because the biomass becomes human at birth, but it is then discovered that humanity is developed well after birth, and presuming people aren't willing to apply the same logic to infants between birth and humanity, then the justification for allowing abortion is gone. In such a scenario, abortion could no longer rest on saying that the biomass isn't human because such justification wouldn't be good enough anymore.
I object to the argument as well because the very act of making it is detrimental to the health of the prochoice movement. As noted, there is no objective reason for labeling birth as the point at which a biomass becomes human. I have searched for such a reason and found none, but perhaps I merely missed it? I have asked Z for this, twice, and it has yet to be provided. Do you have such an answer?
The problem of this seems so obvious that I am reluctant to state it: claiming that personhood is bestowed at birth, in the absent of a mechanism to explain this, is against logic and reason. Such a statement comes not from a search for truth but from a pre-held position. You cannot reach it from a null position. As such it will convince no one except those who already agree with the position. Unfortunately these are not reliable individuals; they are prochoice by a random roll of the dice. When next the die is rolled, fortune can just as easily set them up against the prochoice movement. It is those few earnest seekers, then, that one aught court, as they will remain despite fortune's fickle favor. While there are many good arguments for being prochoice, if this is what such an individual first sees, it will not leave a desirable impression. To propagate such sentiment, then, works against the staying power of the movement.
Perhaps this is indeed “concern trolling;” as I suspect you know by now, I care greatly about not just correct conclusions but also correct processes. If in this case my sentiments crossed over the line, I am both amused and also sorry. Indeed, I will offer a formal apology to Zeality, assuming that is the case.
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I think JJ Thompson ("JJ" standing for Judith Jarvis, cool-style) made an ingenious proposal when she wrote that the fetus does have a right to development and life, yet that right does not trump the mother's right to control over her own person and destiny, and I have to thank Uboa for referring to Thompson's essays (and Thought, for reproducing them above). Jarvis' proposal might seem like a huge gamble at first, but it should, after all, appeal to the "moderate" stance that welcomes choice in cases of rape and certain other circumstances. Moderates on the issue, as I was for quite awhile, are already stratifying the worth of different fetuses according to whether the mother wants to lend her body to its further development. I crossed over to full support for abortion rights once I became uncomfortable with supporting the prospective mother's right to self-determination in some cases but not others. I may be imagining it, but I think I'm seeing a growing trend where people are also crossing over to just the opposite side -- wishing that society would force the mother to lend her body to the fetus' development and birth even in cases of rape, incest, etc.
In the end, I think we all just have to step back and place our trust in the prospective mother (or father, if men ever succeed in reengineering their bodies so that they, too, can experience maternity). I know I sure ain't donating my body to host another person's fetus, so I would feel most awkward making a decision in the stead of the person who currently holds that fetus.
I can see no other way to fairly approach the issue. When we have birth pods (http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51YHC8H7KZL._SL500_AA280_.jpg), now, that will be something. When that day comes, a prospective mother really could place a blastocyst in a Catholic Priest's hands and say, "You can keep it."
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I understand what you are saying, Thought (for I have encountered almost every argument there is on the subject), but your objection is easily answered by a distinction which is simple and accessible to all: Birth is the best place to assign personhood to a human, because that is when the onus of the child's life passes from mother to society. Not at conception; not six months after delivery. Birth. That is not a null position; that is a physical condition. Prior to being born, the child is a "denizen of the mother," where the mother-as-animal directly provides for the entire development of the child. Whatever society may exist, if any at all, can express itself to the baby only through the mother. The society is not necessary, but the mother is. After being born, the equation flips. The mother is no longer necessary, but the society is. The child is now a "denizen of society." Even the mother herself counts as part of "society" after her baby is born, except where she breastfeeds and warms it--animal tasks that can be delegated to others and thus are the society's responsibility above the mother's--if indeed such a responsibility can even be said to apply to the mother, which I doubt--for a society that concerns itself with the welfare of its constituents must place its obligations above those of individuals. (Or in other words society exists to serve us and not the other way' round.) Personhood in the scope of this discussion is a legal idea and, for the reason above, its lower limit is arbitrarily but plausibly and with good reason defined by the status of being born or unborn. There is no better place on the timeline to mark it. You are welcome to try.
It probably would make sense to allow for terminating extremely ill or handicapped babies, after birth, if it is clear that their lives will be significantly shortened, pain-ridden, or handicapped, with the meaning of "significantly" a legitimate matter for debate. However, that act of social welfare would fall under the ethical framework of euthanasia, and is a different issue than the one of abortion. Like the imaginary solution to a quadratic equation, it would be theoretically possible to talk about "euthanasia of the unborn," but in reality it would be a gibberish notion, because the reality of "the denizen of society" would not yet have been established for the child. This invokes Faust's comment, written as I was writing mine, where he said that it can be said that society acknowledges the right to life of practically all humans, but also acknowledges the right to self-determination on the part of persons. An unborn baby is not able to exercise self-determination. Not "not allowed." Not able. But this is not for lack of ability to communicate desire. This is for lack of desire itself. But this lack of desire comes not from a condition of neutrality. It comes from emptiness stemming from inherent inability. But it is not that there is no desire present. It is that there can be no desire present. There is no suppression here, except of potential. (That's why a word like "murder" is inapplicable, to the wrath of many a lifer, to abortion, just as animals and plants and mushrooms cannot be "murdered.") Society, in its ignorance, can concern itself with the right of pseudo-persons who have physical form but not the mental qualities which justify personhood, and thus can feel obliged to protect the life of some or all of the unborn, yet, even then, it must respect the supercession of the right to self-determination by pregnant mothers.
You also overlooked, for a second time, the fact that I, certainly, and in all likelihood others, do not justify abortion solely on the nature of the unborn child, but on the right to self-determination of the mother too--a right which is given perspective in part by the fact that an unborn baby has no such constitution to be self-determining!
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I think there's also an emotional component involved when one considers the birth of a child as the entry into personhood. We, as adults who have desires and ambitions and sentience, see a crying baby. We see eyes and fingers and toes, and so we think, "Oh, well, that's a little person, just like us!" As it's already been discussed here, this probably isn't the case since many attributes we'd give to a person don't yet exist in a newborn. But I personally believe the "birth distinction" stems from our own emotional connection to a baby. "Oh look, it's crying. It eats and sleeps. It's just like us. How cute!" We are the ones who add the distinction of personhood through our own emotional attachments. And thus, society does as well. After all, we have birthday celebrations, don't we?
So where does sentience begin? I don't pretend to know. Science has not yet provided a definitive answer. But to me, as long as the baby is in a woman, it's a part of that woman. It is not yet an independent person--it is simply a part of the mother's body. And women should have the right to do whatever we wish with our own bodies. To me, the personhood debate is pointless at any time before birth. It's not yet a person. It's only a part of another person.
And also, Thought, if you were looking for real debate with ZeaLitY, you should have kept the condescending tone out of your reply to him. It made you seem disingenuous, and for a while there I thought you were trolling, myself (though I suppose that's part of the whole worry about "concern trolls"). Academic curiousity or no, such a tone never adds to a debate, and can be the quickest way to kill any real exchange. Many people will either clam up and refuse to participate, or others will get angry and the insults start flying. (Thankfully, the Compendium is populated by a lot of spirited people who neither run for the hills, nor froth at the mouth in rage, but still...)
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Reading through this last page, I was a little surprised to see my name being mentioned so much, as I do not know how much of what you guys are attributing to me is actually attributable to me. At any rate, perhaps I can raise a point or two worth considering here...
For the time being I do not have a whole lot that I would like to add, save that I want to briefly segue back to where this emergent debate began. That is, with Z's remarks about a potential legal fiction being scripted with regard to the personhood of a fetus, in such cases where the undesired death of an unborn child causes great pain and suffering to other persons. From what little I've read about legal fictions, creation of one which bestows personhood upon a fetus would be quite a dangerous maneuver where the protection of the right to an abortion is concerned. I pulled the following definition of "legal fiction" from this (http://duhaime.org/LegalDictionary/L/LegalFiction.aspx) seemingly trustworthy web site:
A legal fiction ... is an assumption of a possible thing as a fact, which is not literally true, for the advancement of justice, and which the law will not allow to be disproved, as far as concerns the purpose for which the assumption is made.
It would probably be better to instate laws which would allow simply for ridiculously tough sentencing in cases of unwanted termination of pregnancy, with the spirit of such laws being, clearly, solely for the benefit of the mother and any other potential immediate family of the unborn child. Of course, I do not know how one would staunchly define the "spirit" of any law, and I would be worried about even laws like these being potentially twisted in unfavorable ways. If we could create a legal environment where it is given that all laws concerning abortion rights, and "wrongs" for that matter, are to benefit the potential mothers, primarily, and other family members secondarily, then I would feel safe in instating such laws.
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Birth is the best place to assign personhood to a human, because that is when the onus of the child's life passes from mother to society.
While I agree that this is a fine point to assign personhood, I must still contend that there is no objective justification for it. It is a useful convenience, not an absolute. You point to the bio-mass's dependency on the host as justification, so I will note that other than processing its own oxygen, the biomass is equally dependent (both physically and legally) on the host. It cannot move effectively, it cannot maintain its own body temperature, it cannot sleep for extended periods of time for lack of energy stores. You say that an unborn baby is unable to exercise self-determination for want of basic abilities, so I will note that the same is true of a born biomass.
This is the problem with attempting to base any argument on such a specific time point. The only significant difference between a biomass an hour to birth and one that is an hour past is: location. This villainizes the pro-choice stance, as the only thing keeping the biomass from obtaining personhood is an abortion doctor blocking the way. That will play very nicely with the pro-life crowd. And to what gain is there? The majority of abortions occur in the first 13 weeks of pregnancy; if personhood was granted at the beginning of the start of the third trimester (which is around when the biomass becomes viable enough to live outside the host), it would not hinder a single one of those abortions. Is there a need to keep a biomass from having personhood at, say 35 weeks? 34? As long as there are considerations for the health and safety of the mother, there is a "grace period" of perhaps three or four weeks in this matter; personhood could be conferred at any time during that and I'd be amazed if even two abortions were prevented. The disadvantages of basing any pro-choice argument on the specific time point of birth are great, while the advantages are few. As far as defensive positions go, "personhood at birth" is more of a sand castle than a Bastille.
Again, I agree that this is a very useful marker for legal purposes. As far as convenience and practical use, there is no better time. But even a wiff of it as a justification for abortion is detrimental.
However, perhaps you see a value to this as an argument (separate from its value as a general conception, on which we seem to agree and which you have well illustrated) against the anti-abortion stance that I am missing?
You also overlooked, for a second time, the fact that I, certainly, and in all likelihood others, do not justify abortion solely on the nature of the unborn child...
Not at all; I did not overlook but rather ignored. I have not claimed that you, or anyone else, has justified abortion solely on the nature of the unborn child. The thrust of my argument is that any justification of abortion partially based on the nature of the unborn child is undesirable, ineffective, and ultimately harmful. Truly, it is even harmful if it appears that one is making such an argument (even if one is in fact not). It is certainly nice that you and others have more arguments than just this, but how does having three perfectly good tires relate to someone pointing out that you have a flat fourth one? Am I missing some significance of this? Is there some particular point of this that you think I need to address in order to strengthen (or undermine) my argument that personhood at birth is a faulty position?
So where does sentience begin? I don't pretend to know. Science has not yet provided a definitive answer. But to me, as long as the baby is in a woman, it's a part of that woman. It is not yet an independent person--it is simply a part of the mother's body. And women should have the right to do whatever we wish with our own bodies. To me, the personhood debate is pointless at any time before birth. It's not yet a person. It's only a part of another person.
Exactly!
Imagine if the debate was so organized. Currently the pro-life side hides behind the claim that a biomass is a person deserving of life. This defensive line is then assaulted by the pro-choice side claiming that the biomass is not a person deserving of life until birth. It is effectively World War I and we're stuck in immovable trenches.
By denying the personhood of a biomass, pro-choicers are allowing that to be the point where pro-lifers are defending. It is giving them something to hide behind and it allows them to ignore the matter of a woman's rights. But if that is no longer the battlefield, what can pro-lifers hide behind?
One of the great criticisms of the pro-life side is that it is sexist. While this might be true in effect, it is much more clouded in practice. That is, it is very possible for a pro-lifer to focus on the "saving lives" aspect even if they might be horrified of the prospect of engaging in sexist behavior. But if that distraction disappears?
And also, Thought, if you were looking for real debate with ZeaLitY, you should have kept the condescending tone out of your reply to him. It made you seem disingenuous, and for a while there I thought you were trolling, myself (though I suppose that's part of the whole worry about "concern trolls"). Academic curiousity or no, such a tone never adds to a debate, and can be the quickest way to kill any real exchange. Many people will either clam up and refuse to participate, or others will get angry and the insults start flying. (Thankfully, the Compendium is populated by a lot of spirited people who neither run for the hills, nor froth at the mouth in rage, but still...)
Well then allow me to extend my apology to you as well as Zeality (and of course to any who were so displeasured by my "trollish" words). I had attempted to grandstand a little to help draw attention to the importance of the mechanism of personhood (since it seemed I had underplayed it before), but clearly that was not the way to go. Thank you for your concern and again, my apologies.
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It seems like a lot of this disagreement is semantic...
While I agree that this is a fine point to assign personhood, I must still contend that there is no objective justification for it. It is a useful convenience, not an absolute. You point to the bio-mass's dependency on the host as justification, so I will note that other than processing its own oxygen, the biomass is equally dependent (both physically and legally) on the host. It cannot move effectively, it cannot maintain its own body temperature, it cannot sleep for extended periods of time for lack of energy stores. You say that an unborn baby is unable to exercise self-determination for want of basic abilities, so I will note that the same is true of a born biomass.
I think that what has been meant is that the nature of a foetus and the nature of the hose, taken together, are sufficient to justify killing the creature, since the will (in the most general sense) of the host trumps that of the foetus--the nature of the will being decided by the nature of the being. With what they are concerned is not just the one or just the other, but the difference in value between the will of the host and the will of the foetus. (Again, this is will in the generalized sense.) This is why 'personhood' is mentioned so much--because it determines the value placed upon the foetus's will and thus is paramount to deciding upon whether or not abortion is permissible.
Now, when the creature is born, the will of the host is no longer a factor, and there is no-one (whose opinion is of legal concern) who can say that the creature should be killed. (I trust it obvious that the host qua the host's wish for it to be killed is of legal concern.) It is assumed that the state is then responsible for ensuring the child's upbringing.
I think that better explains the pro-choice positions in this thread thus far.
That will play very nicely with the pro-life crowd. And to what gain is there?
If you can provide a superior alternative, your objection will be vindicated. Otherwise, it's just quibbling over how many grains of sand make a heap.
The majority of abortions occur in the first 13 weeks of pregnancy; if personhood was granted at the beginning of the start of the third trimester (which is around when the biomass becomes viable enough to live outside the host), it would not hinder a single one of those abortions. Is there a need to keep a biomass from having personhood at, say 35 weeks? 34? As long as there are considerations for the health and safety of the mother, there is a "grace period" of perhaps three or four weeks in this matter; personhood could be conferred at any time during that and I'd be amazed if even two abortions were prevented.
Now, see, this is an inferior alternative. There is a qualitative difference between the situations of a foetus and a newborn, as I and the others have explained. What you suggest here is a quantitative difference that doesn't actually agree with the pro-choice positions in this discussion thus far. So, such a cut-off point (for a formal, comprehensive overview of cut-off points, refer to Curb Your Enthusiasm, David et al., 2000 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIC9O0M0Hzw)) for abortion would be not only extremely tenuous but also inconsistent with many pro-abortion arguments. This would give anti-abortionists much more leverage than using birth does.
Your concern that pro-choicers don't appreciate the deeper questions is a good one, and you'd be right if you said that many haven't done the philosophical work to have a strong pro-full-term abortion position or that the prevailing pro-choice arguments are incomplete. However, the way you seem to be going about conveying these things is, ironically, overshadowing that message.
The disadvantages of basing any pro-choice argument on the specific time point of birth are great, while the advantages are few.
But you still haven't provided a better alternative.
As far as defensive positions go, "personhood at birth" is more of a sand castle than a Bastille.
Again: Our (to whomever 'our' may refer) concern is not with finding a 'perfect' solution, but with finding the best from an infinity of choices. Sand castle or not, the best proposal I've heard is birth, so that is with what I go.
But even a wiff of it as a justification for abortion is detrimental.
I don't understand you here, but it sounds like you might be here thinking that we see no qualitative difference between postnatal termination and abortion. If that's the case, you're thinkin' wrong.
The thrust of my argument is that any justification of abortion partially based on the nature of the unborn child is undesirable, ineffective, and ultimately harmful.
Can you provide a superior alternative method for determining the validity of abortion to the ones that refer to the nature of the foetus? The method I explained above that is concerned with the relative wills of the host and foetus and which I think pretty much represents the others' position is pretty strong.
But to me, as long as the baby is in a woman, it's a part of that woman. It is not yet an independent person--it is simply a part of the mother's body. And women should have the right to do whatever we wish with our own bodies. To me, the personhood debate is pointless at any time before birth. It's not yet a person. It's only a part of another person.
You seem to presume that the foetus being in the host means that it is 'part of the host' and therefore just like a nail or a hair or something. But later on, the foetus is so much more than any of those things and might even survive outside the host. Certainly it is inside the host, but it has a body of its own and, later on, is a separate organism by any vaguely sensible notion of 'organism' of which I know.
This is part of why I use words like 'host' and (though I haven't here) 'parasite'; they are more general, precise and accurate. For example, the foetus being (like) a 'parasite' shows how the host and the foetus are different organisms and much besides that we do well to remember in abortion arguments.
By denying the personhood of a biomass, pro-choicers are allowing that to be the point where pro-lifers are defending. It is giving them something to hide behind and it allows them to ignore the matter of a woman's rights. But if that is no longer the battlefield, what can pro-lifers hide behind?
The notion of personhood is important here as a way for the masses to approximate the idea of the differences between the host's will and the foetus's will. Similarly, the legal notion of personhood at birth is much more accessible than a comprehensive nuanced legal framework that accommodates full-term abortion.
It's like how one wouldn't have expected the early feminists to have used the relatively advanced feminist theory that has since developed to justify female suffrage; the basic notion of male-female voting equality was enough, and advanced theory actually would have been less productive. Or it would be like trying to introduce Quantum Mechanics to the Stone Ages; you wouldn't be able to make the people then see or understand your theory, and you'd be better off teaching them Classical Mechanics or so forth. (Note also in these analogies that the more powerful theories were built upon the earlier ones. There's something to be learned from that.)
One of the great criticisms of the pro-life side is that it is sexist. While this might be true in effect, it is much more clouded in practice. That is, it is very possible for a pro-lifer to focus on the "saving lives" aspect even if they might be horrified of the prospect of engaging in sexist behavior. But if that distraction disappears?
Yes. This is something that the pro-choice movement would do very well to observe more. The right have shifted the terms of much of the debate so that the pro-abortion side is defending itself from accusations of murder and so forth. Whereas, the terms of debate should be more in terms of the anti-abortion side putting the survival of a few stem cells (simplification but you get the idea) or a parasitic creature of instinct over the developed will of a definite person. If this horrific and horrifying view were seen, we could finally move on from scrapping for abortion rights.
But that tangent aside:
ˇHell yeah 'soon'-to-be Motherfucking Mr. Doctor Thought! :franky
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I'd like to contribute to this discussion, but before we go any further...
Please move this discussion to a new thread.
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Just post and your post will be moved too.
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That will play very nicely with the pro-life crowd. And to what gain is there?
If you can provide a superior alternative, your objection will be vindicated. Otherwise, it's just quibbling over how many grains of sand make a heap.
Well as Josh noted, there are many arrows in the pro-choice quiver, and I am only arguing that this one ought be discarded due to flaws. To offer an analogy, since I am a theist I also would argue that there are many arrows in a theist's quiver. A Young-Earth Creationist Arrow, however, is flawed and aught be discarded. It is not an argument that a theist should make, as it reduces the likelihood that the theist will hit the intended target.
However, that caveat being given, the alternate argument that I find to be far more useful than personhood at birth is as follows: http://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.htm
But to attempt to sum it up: If we assume that the biomass has full personhood at conception, rather than birth, this assumption does not significantly or aversely influence the stance of the "pro-choice" movement. If I might be so bold as to use a personal pronoun in regards to this (bold because, as Josh noted, not all pro-choicers would be well pleased to count me among their numbers), "we" would not be questioning the personhood of the biomass nor disagreeing with the "pro-lifers" that a such a being has a right to life. This would be accepted by both sides and thus will fall out of public attention for want of conflict (disagreements, not agreements, make news). However, "we" would maintain that though the biomass has a right to life, the woman also has rights (the right to control her body) that must likewise be respected. "We" mean no ill will to the biomass, which has found itself (if such personal verbs can be applied to it) in an unfortunately environment due to no action of its own. However, it is trespassing. While it has a right to life, it does not have a right to the woman's body.
Here we might turn to the anti-abortionists (as they can then be rightly called, since both pro-and-anti-abortionists would qualify for the literal definition of “pro-life”) and with earnest sincerity confirm that they do not mean to imply that a woman ought be a slave to another person in any circumstance. It is certainly fine and admirable if the woman chooses to support the biomass, but it cannot be required. To be so beholden is to be even worse than a slave. I have two kidneys; if you need one, it would indeed be fine of me to offer it, but to be required by law to relinquish it? By granting the biomass personhood, we are allowed to extrapolate other interpersonal interactions to that biomass as well. This is not an issue of the right to life of the biomass, rather it is an issue of a right to self-preservation and self-determination of the woman. Society can no more reasonably require her to donate her body to the biomass, though we accept it as a person, than we can require an individual to give up a spare kidney against their will.
Having granted the biomass personhood at conception, we have also moved the onus of caring for it from the woman to society in general; if the woman chooses to carry it, then society gives her stewardship. If the woman chooses not to carry it, then it is up to society to figure out what to do. The biomass would have to be removed. Again, no ill will is directed towards it, and while we do not wish it death, we cannot tolerate its imposition on an unwilling individual. If it can live, let it live. If it cannot, then that is sad, just as it is sad if a person dies for want of a kidney transplant, but no individual can be held to blame.
At this point I expect an anti-abortionist would object with a claim to the affect that the woman has obligated herself to the child through becoming pregnant in the first place (why do I expect this? Because I used to be anti-abortion and that's what I would have done). Perhaps, perhaps, but we are talking about full persons here. Both sides agree that a woman who gives birth to a child is obligated to care for that child. If such a woman cannot care for the child, it is agreed that alternate accommodations must be made. That child is immediately given into the care of the state and it is now the state's responsibility. But if the state says no, it won’t take it? If the woman tries but is purposefully and intentionally blocked? As long as a person willingly accepts the responsibility for a child, we hold them accountable for the wellbeing of that child. But the moment that person petitions the state to relinquish that responsibility we can no longer hold them accountable.
So, such a cut-off point... for abortion would be not only extremely tenuous but also inconsistent with many pro-abortion arguments.
Ah, that is a very valid point that I had utterly failed to consider. My arguments were entirely focused on this one point being flawed, and not on the larger ramifications of fixing it. I suppose to use my own analogy of the tires, it does little good to fix the one flat one if in the process one also ruins the other three. This definitely isn't the time for a haphazard theoretical overhaul of the pro-abortion movement. I will definitely need to look into other arguments more to see how I might reconcile them.
As such, I must formally withdraw my arguments! Until I can reconcile the whole host of pro-abortion arguments with conception-personhood, these sentiments of mine have as much (if not more) potential for harm as the argument I was railing against.
Thank you.
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Thank you.
And thank you for your honesty. (Mostly for your honesty to yourself.)
But erm, did that withdrawal include your counterarguments in your most recent post, or 'just' the preceding ones? 'Cause if the latter...
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Mostly those specifically against the personhoodification of the biomass at birth. The points in my last post were regarding the alternative that you had requested. But if you want to comment, please do.
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Whew! This was quite a read to go over. Here are some opinions I gleaned from the arguments presented thus far:
- The unborn is not a person but a template biomass. (ZeaLitY)
- Determining personhood is fallacious and pointless. (Thought)
- Birth is the best place to assign personhood. (Lord J)
- The fetus is part of the mother's body. (rushingwind)
I will start with the first argument that stuck out the most.
Determining personhood is fallacious and pointless.
I disagree. By saying that an unborn child isn’t a person, this would technically make it a human non-person. Does such a life form even exist? Who should be in charge of determining which characteristics of personality constitute personhood? The mother? A doctor? A panel of experts? The Supreme Court? In the past, numerous human beings have been defined as non-persons (e.g. African slaves, Chinese slaves). Should we begin a new list of human beings who aren't really persons? Defining personhood is one of the most important concepts to the whole abortion debate. True, there are some fallacious arguments to defining personhood (I’ll show you some further down), but it is certainly not pointless. Here are some definitions that aren’t up to snuff in the definition of personhood:
The lack of certain personality traits used to define personhood would remove many humans who are currently considered to be persons from the status of personhood. This kind of definition of personhood would make into non-persons those who are in a coma, the elderly with degenerative disorders (such as Alzheimer's), and those who are mentally deficient. Is it fair to consider these human beings as non-persons? If so, then you can kill them anytime you wanted to without suffering any moral ramifications or personal guilt from your fictional misdeed against a “non-person”.
If one defines personhood on the basis of those who consciously performing personal acts, those who are asleep would be classified as non-persons and could be killed during a nap. If one defines personhood on the basis of those who have a present capacity to perform personal acts, those who are in a coma could be killed at any point during their coma.
If one defines personhood on the basis of those who have a history of performing personal acts, those who have been in a coma from birth would be classified as non-persons and could be killed at any point after birth. If one defines personhood on the basis of those who have a future capacity to perform personal acts, those who are dying would be classified as non-persons and could be killed at any point.
Human newborns are among the least capable mammals in their ability to perform both physically and mentally. Personhood based upon the ability to perform certain personal functions could be used to define newborns as non-persons. If this were the case, then they are susceptible to possible infanticide.
Defining personhood on the basis of personality results in several problems. Personality is a function of the body, and is programmed at least partially by the DNA. Any attempt to distinguish a separate existence of the mind from the brain results in a mind/body dualism paradigm that is not accepted by the vast majority of secular scientists.
Defining personhood on the basis of self-consciousness and an interest in one's own continued existence allows for infanticide. However, most people are unwilling to accept such a definition of personhood, since they are able to see exactly what is being killed when the individual is a newborn. What most people don't know is that the fetus looks markedly like a newborn, only smaller, after the first three months of gestation.
Pursuing the definition of personhood is not pointless by any stretch of the imagination. Quite the contrary, from what I have just shown you, defining personhood is of the utmost importance to the whole abortion debate. In addition, defining personhood isn’t cakewalk. If you don’t believe me on either of these notions, then name me one reputable doctor/expert who agrees with you. Prove to me that defining personhood is pointless.
More to come…
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Should we append the recent line of discussion to the sexism thread, which I believe started from earlier abortion debate from this very thread last summer? It would certainly be interesting to do a before-and-after comparison and see how the participants in the discussion have evolved since then.
I wanted to return to what Sajainta wrote above, because it highlights (what I personally believe to be) the importance of letting the issue rest entirely and completely with the prospective mother, and with no authority outside of herself -- even if that authority be something as widely esteemed as science or a deity. Perhaps a fetus is like the Masamune: the hopes and dreams of the bearer, imbued within the fetus, are what transform him or her qualitatively and differentiate him or her from most other living beings capable of perceiving and reacting to stimuli (taking development into account).
Sajainta, I apologize in advance because I know that this description can't possibly accurately portray your relationship with your daughter; perhaps no words can, but that doesn't get me off the hook because I'm still treading awfully close to the wording of "sentimentality." What I hope to do is empower that word; after all, in the abortion debate, why should the sentiments of a prospective mother not reign supreme? I feel this is a useful perspective from which a pro-choicer may approach the subject and tie together some inconsistencies.
Maybe this point of view can even help us discover common ground with pro-lifers. For example, I feel such a definition of the beginning and source of humanity bridges pro-choice sentiments with the desire to punish criminals for the destruction of fetuses. In a perfectly pro-choice world, ongoing development within the mother's body can be taken as evidence that she continues to lend the fetus humanity, and therefore that it possesses humanity; if the mother decides to eject the fetus from her body and it cannot continue developing without such assistance, this can be taken as evidence that the fetus has not been imbued, or is no longer imbued, with humanity. The difference between an abortion provider and Scott Peterson, then, is that Scott Peterson murdered a child that possessed humanity by virtue of Laci Peterson's decision to continue the child's development, and by extension, the child's life. The abortion provider has committed no murder because the will of the mother no longer grants the fetus humanity.
Is it imperfect that one human being have full reign to decide what is human and what is not? Sure. But I would much rather let that determination reside with the person who is closest to all the facts surrounding the pregnancy, and that person is undoubtedly the prospective mother. The father, of course, does not have experiential access to certain facts like what it costs in terms of personal bodily resources to maintain the child's life support, and therefore his judgment is more imperfect than that of the mother. We men will simply have to deal with it; again, there's nothing saying that men won't bear children some day themselves. When that happens, then they will have full reign to decide whether a fetus residing in their bodies has full humanity.
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I am sure this was not intentional in any way, but this profoundly, profoundly hurt me. You are free to your opinions, but I think there could have been a better way to speak your mind about this, particularly because you know what happened to me and yes, I have "sentimentalized" my daughter into a person. You can disagree with me all you want, but saying you "fucking hate it" is blatantly insensitive. I think it would be wise, in the future, for you to choose your words more carefully if you know that someone you have considered to be a friend in the past might be hurt by your words.
I don't like it when people are misled by omission for emotional effect, especially when it's going to result in sadness and empathetic suffering on their side. The world's a difficult enough place to bear without unduly maximizing the impact of empathetic sadness in people. Sentimentalization is also an insidiously effective tactic used by the anti-choice crowd to guilt pregnant women to carrying their babies to term, and I'm probably going to have to observe with it when volunteering at an abortion clinic soon. No one should have to feel bad over that.
http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/bbotl/the_new_buddhist_atheism/
Ugh. Man, so many of these "Buddhism is a set of philosophies, not a religion" posts.
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@FaustWolf: Help me make sense of the Scott Peterson case you referenced.
Since Scott Peterson murdered both his wife and eight-month-old fetus, he was charged with double-homicide. However, killing a fetus in the third trimester is the equivalent to an abortion (which, by the way, is killing a potential human being). Seeing how abortion is legal in my homestate of California, shouldn't Peterson have been charged with just one homicide instead of two? If that was murder, then any time a late-term fetus is aborted, they could call it murder.
Personally, I am rather shocked to find that the very liberal state of California considers the intentional killing of a fetus to be murder. What says you?
@Z:
I don't like it when people are misled by omission for emotional effect, especially when it's going to result in sadness and empathetic suffering on their side. The world's a difficult enough place to bear without unduly maximizing the impact of empathetic sadness in people. Sentimentalization is also an insidiously effective tactic used by the anti-choice crowd to guilt pregnant women to carrying their babies to term, and I'm probably going to have to observe with it when volunteering at an abortion clinic soon. No one should have to feel bad over that.
Sentimentalization being used as the guilt card? As someone who is against abortion, I've never used an appeal to emotion to make my arguments against abortion known to the opposite side.
As for having to carry the baby for full term, the mother can easily utilize the Safe Havens law (now active an all 50 states) to leave the newborn at an emergency room or firehouse within 72 hours and alleviate her of any further responsibility.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_haven_law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_haven_law)
Adoption is always an option for those women who don't feel that they can take care of a child at that time in their lives. Many couples, however, have to wait for years to adopt because abortion has drastically reduced the number of children available for adoption.
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It's the entire crux of the anti-abortion argument in most cases. A fetus = a person, thus abortion = murder, heinous, immoral, and everything else. Utah just passed a bill to outlaw induced miscarriages and provide jail fines, based on the idea that it's "murdering" the unborn child. It's nasty territory.
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@FaustWolf: Help me make sense of the Scott Peterson case you referenced.
Since Scott Peterson murdered both his wife and eight-month-old fetus, he was charged with double-homicide. However, killing a fetus in the third trimester is the equivalent to an abortion (which, by the way, is killing a potential human being). Seeing how abortion is legal in my homestate of California, shouldn't Peterson have been charged with just one homicide instead of two? If that was murder, then any time a late-term fetus is aborted, they could call it murder.
Personally, I am rather shocked to find that the very liberal state of California considers the intentional killing of a fetus to be murder. What says you?
The way I'm approaching this issue, the key distinguishing factor is the desire of the prospective mother. It's true that we don't know with 100% certainty whether Laci still intended to birth the child when she was murdered, but I'm taking the fact that she knowingly kept the fetus in her body up to the last moment anyone spoke to her as prima facie evidence that she did intend to do so. Because she imbued the fetus with an expectation of life, it was a human life and should have been fully valued, from the angle I'm taking this. Under this rationale I find it fair that Scott Peterson was found to have committed a double homicide.
Now I'll contrast the Peterson murders with the work of Dr. Tiller. Before Dr. Tiller began an abortion, presumably every patient from which he extracted a fetus wanted the fetus removed and its development halted. Because the prospective mothers who were Tiller's patients decided that they no longer wanted to lend their bodies to the development of the fetuses before undergoing the procedure, the fetuses did not possess humanity, and therefore their destruction did not constitute murder.
If we move backward in time a thousand years, the reasoning still holds: slip a pregnant woman an abortifacent herb without her knowing what it is, and one has committed murder; give a pregnant woman an abortifacent after she has requested it fully knowing what it is, and no crime has been committed.
At least, this is my way of thinking on the issue nowadays.
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All replies from #5042 through #5069 (as well as this reply) should be merged into one of the dedicated abortion threads:
http://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php/topic,1725.0.html
http://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php/topic,7945.0.html
Mods or Admins, if you would please.
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It's the entire crux of the anti-abortion argument in most cases. A fetus = a person, thus abortion = murder, heinous, immoral, and everything else. Utah just passed a bill to outlaw induced miscarriages and provide jail fines, based on the idea that it's "murdering" the unborn child. It's nasty territory.
Well whether or not it's a person is really what it does come down to. Probably most people here would give the same answer of whether or not they would kill their newborn, and or Toddler just because they don't want them. So it ultimately comes down to whether or not the fetus is a person or not. Only problem is at least to my knowledge there isn't really a way to completely prove it either way.
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Genesis, unfortunately you have misidentified my stance. I did not claim that determining personhood is fallacious and pointless; rather that basing a pro-choice stance on personhood being conferred at birth is such. This is because pro-choice is still a perfectly valid stance to take even if personhood were granted at conception instead. While personhood is a useful and interesting debate, it actually doesn't relate.
How can personhood be granted to a biomass and yet abortion still be a valid option? Let me, for the third time, provide this link: http://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.htm
(http://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.htm)
If we grant that even at conception a fetus has a right to life, that right to life does not negate an individual's right of self determination. JJ Thomson, in that article, uses the analogy of waking up one morning and finding that you have been hooked up to a world famous violinist. His kidneys have failed and he is hooked up to you so that your kidneys can keep you both alive. This is not a permanent situation, it will only last nine months. Does the violinist's right to life mean that you have no choice in this matter? If you disconnect yourself, the violinist will die. While it can be agreed that it would be a very fine and noble thing if you decided to suffer through the next nine months, can you be legally required to?
Or let us take this a step further. The violinist isn't connected to you, but rather just needs to take one of your kidneys. Without it he will die, but this time you only need to undergo the discomfort of your kidneys being removed. Can you be forced, by law, to surrender your kidney? The violinist still has the right to life, but does that right to life come with a right to use your body as is necessary to support that right to life?
And let us take it even a step further. The violinist doesn't need your kidney, just your blood. It will be a fairly painless procedure, of minimal inconvenience to you. Without an infusion of your blood, the violinist will die. Can you be legally required to donate your blood against your will? Again, it is a very fine thing to do if you are willing to give your blood to him, but can you be so legally required?
Now let us consider this from a different perspective entirely; the violinist is starving and needs food. You have food. Can you be legally required to give the violinist your food? Again, without the food he will die, and again he has a right to life, but does his right to life trump your own rights? And again, we can say that it is a fine thing to do to give up what you have to help another creature live, but on what grounds can we say that this much be required, that the right of life of one individual conquers the rights of another individual?
Perhaps you now see why your objections don't apply? I am not claiming that abortion is acceptable because a biomass is not a person, rather I am claiming that abortion can be acceptable even if the biomass is a person. That is why I find the discussion of personhood pointless and fallacious; it is a variable that does not affect the outcome. It is sort of like debating if a "theater" provides a more cultured experience than a "theatre."
Defining personhood is indeed a cakewalk. A zygote is a person! Poof, I have done it with ease, and yet the above remains. Being a person does not give the fetus the rights to the mother's body.
If that was murder, then any time a late-term fetus is aborted, they could call it murder.
Not at all, under your own perceptions, that would be closer to manslaughter than murder (and even that isn't quite correct). After all, it is not like the abortion doctors out there are plotting, with a sinister twist of their handlebar mustache, how to kill fetuses ("feti"?). While I would still object to manslaughter, at least I can understand a perspective that would so label abortion. But labeling it murder? No, that has no basis and must be rejected by any sane, reasonable anti-abortionist.
Many couples, however, have to wait for years to adopt because abortion has drastically reduced the number of children available for adoption.
I will admit that I have no personal experience in this, but having talked to a good number of individuals who have adopted, the wait has to do with the adoption process and not the supply of children up for adoption. Indeed, this is confirmed by the children in the system currently. If it were a problem with supply, then there would never be a child in the foster care system for more than a month.
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I should've insisted in the first place: The legal notion and treatment of personhood and the philosophical one are different. Try to indicate which y'all mean.
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Thought, I have read that article by JJ Thomson before for one of my philosophy classes. I especially concentrated on the violinist scenario. It sounds very reasonable, but it suffers from some critical flaws:
- The scenario turns the mother/child union into a host/predator relationship.
- The mother's womb is the baby's natural environment. S/he's not trespassing; it's where s/he belongs.
- Unlike the violinist scenario, abortion isn't "letting someone die". It's actively killing someone.
- Unlike the violinist, the biomass (as you call it) is not artificially attached to the mother. S/he is being is being produced by the mother's own body by a natural process.
- The violinist bears responsibility for allowing himself to be hooked up to the stranger. The unborn child neither consents to being conceived nor to being aborted. This would be the equivalent of capturing someone, placing him on an airplane, and then shoving him out without a parachute in mid-flight.
Thompson's scenario suggests that a mother has no more responsibility for the welfare of her child than she has to a total stranger. Blood relationships are never based on choice, yet they entail moral obligations. If it is morally acceptable for a mother to deny her child the necessities of life (through abortion) before it is born, how can she be obligated to provide the same necessities after s/he's born? Thompson admits that the fetus is a person from the moment of conception. If her argument works to justify abortion, it works just as well to justify killing any dependent child. After all, a two-year-old makes a much greater demand on a woman than a developing unborn. Thompson is mistaken in presuming that pregnancy is the thing that sequesters a woman's liberty. Motherhood does that, and motherhood doesn't end with the birth of the child. Unlike the woman connected to the violinist, a mother is not released in nine months. Her burden has just begun.
Thompson is basically arguing that abortion, though it is deplorable, should nonetheless be lawful. Even if Thompson's argument wasn't flawed, then by her definition, no child (inside or outside the womb) is safe from a mother who wants her liberty.
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- The mother's womb is the baby's natural environment. S/he's not trespassing; it's where s/he belongs.
S/he is indeed trespassing as it was not given permission to reside there, (often) reasonable precautions were taken to prevent it from entering, and the owner of that environment (the woman) does not want it there. How else might one define trespassing?
"Natural environment" is a nonsensical statement; a bear's "natural environment" is forest, yet if I happen to own property that is also a forest, I am within my rights to take reasonable precautions to keep a bear out and, if a bear gets in, I am within my rights to call animal control to remove it.
If the womb is the natural environment of a fetus, and by being the natural environment the fetus has a legal claim, then logically a woman could be captured and implanted with a fetus as need dictates. After all, she is nothing more than a plot of land when a fetus is part of the equation.
- Unlike the violinist scenario, abortion isn't "letting someone die". It's actively killing someone.
Ah, so if the fetus was just removed from the mother, but not specifically injured, you'd be fine with abortion. So it isn't the abortion that you oppose but the means in which it is conducted.
- Unlike the violinist, the biomass (as you call it) is not artificially attached to the mother. S/he is being is being produced by the mother's own body by a natural process.
The biomass is being nourished by the mother, yes, but it is not being produced by the mother. The mother's main roll is to provide nourishment and waste processing.
But as for artificial v natural, let us assume that Faust's artificial wombs become a reality. Presumably since this is an artificial process, you would not be against a fetus being aborted from that? Also, are you then against invitro fertilization, as that is not natural, and would you be willing to allow abortion in these non-natural cases?
- The violinist bears responsibility for allowing himself to be hooked up to the stranger.
Not at all! No one ever said he was even aware of this or that he approved. Since you are so concerned, let us say that he was put into this situation against his will as well. Does that then obligate you to remain attached?
If it is morally acceptable for a mother to deny her child the necessities of life (through abortion) before it is born, how can she be obligated to provide the same necessities after s/he's born?
A mother can free herself from the obligation of caring for a child after it is born. She has recourse, both legal and moral. She can contact the state and the state will take the child. The moment she officially expresses an intent to be free of that responsibility, it becomes a problem of the state. But let us assume that this mother cannot support the child, contacts society to give up the child, but is denied. Again she contacts society, and again she is denied. When the child dies for want of care, can society then turn around and wage its finger at the woman, reprimanding her for something she had no choice in? NO! Responsibility can only come into play when one has choice. If one lacks choice, one lacks moral responsibility.
That is the state of the woman seeking an abortion. Usually reasonable steps have been taken to prevent this situation, and cruel fate, not society, has closed off all her options but one. Now you would close off that option as well. That is intolerable. You rid the woman of choice, and thus rid her of responsibility, but yet demand she still be punished if that responsibility is not fulfilled to your satisfaction.
Thompson admits that the fetus is a person from the moment of conception. If her argument works to justify abortion, it works just as well to justify killing any dependent child.
It does not justify killing but rather it justifies separation from, which is indeed socially, legally, and morally acceptable.
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I've been following the Oklahoma actions on abortion the past few days, and of course ZeaLitY has had a few things to say about it too. This seems like a good opportunity to point out one of the essential fallacies in American right-wing rhetoric: Amid conservatism's call for small government in domestic affairs, there are these powerful demands for obscenely intrusive and oppressive government on specific social issues. In Oklahoma, doctors will now be able, with impunity, to withhold telling pregnant patients that their unborn children have developmental or "birth" defects. Birth defects are an important justification, to many people, for having an abortion. Conservatives have cloaked their sexist initiatives in the language of "informing" a person before she can have an abortion, which is revealed in its full dishonesty here.
Makes me sick. Oklahoma is a perfect example of why we can never allow the South to secede again, despite all the trouble they cause us. To do so would be to condone a human tragedy within the new Confederacy. All we can do is try to get people to care more about these issues, and then force our will on these savage places through the institution of democratic governance. Lucky for the Oklahoma conservatives they're not in the Joshalonian Empire; I wouldn't be so forgiving. I see these new laws, especially the one protecting doctors who lie, as crimes against humanity.
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At the very least, this story gives me great respect for Governor Brad Henry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Henry#Abortion_Override), who had the sense -- and more importantly, the bravery -- to veto this thing not once, but twice. (http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=16&articleid=20100424_16_A1_OKLAHO106880)
The Founders did a wise thing with checks and balances, I think. What we have here is one branch of government steadfastly opposed to another, and the matter is to be decided by the third. You guys think this'll make Supreme Court?
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I agree with you, J, that not informing the patient of the fetus' birth defects is not only unethical, but goes against this part of the Hippocratic Oath, which reads (modern version, mind you):
I will apply dietic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice.
However, there is also this part of the same oath (original translation):
I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and similarly I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion.
Since the legalization of abortion in many countries, the inclusion of this anti-abortion sentence of the Oath has been a source of contention. The question I have is, How do you think both parts of the Oath I've just displayed play into the whole Oklahoma bill fiasco?
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To answer your question, I do not expect that the Hippocratic Oath or philosophy in general were foremost in the minds of the Oklahoma legislators who passed this abominable legislation. To the extent it might have been mentioned at all, which is doubtful but not implausible, it would have been in rhetoric only.
As for the provision against abortion in the original version of the Hippocratic Oath, which you brought up without precursor, I would say your respect for authority betrays you once again. The Hippocratic Oath is not inherently inviolable simply because it is "The Hippocratic Oath."
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This is the first good news I've read in months about the state of abortion care in America.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/magazine/18abortion-t.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all
Be warned, it's good news within the context of bad news. And it's a magazine-length article.
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I think that Abortion is one of those grey area issues that alot of people try to make it into a black and white area issue.
I myself am pro-choice, and think that a woman should the right to decide if she wants the baby.
A friend of mine knows a person who had a child, when they shouldn't have had one. This person has a history of mental illness, and can barely take care of herself, let alone take care of a child.
Some people just shouldn't have kids.
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Abortion is not a "grey area" issue. It's pretty unambiguous. The anti camp says that abortion is murder and should be outlawed except in very narrow circumstances. The pro camp says that abortion is self-determination and should be fully accessible except in very narrow circumstances. Most of the people who try to stake out a compromise position end up betraying their own convictions and advocating an illogical policy.
You would be correct that abortion is a gray area rather than a binary if the pro camp were saying that abortions should be mandatory in nearly all cases. That's the true counterpart of the anti-choice camp. But the pro-choice camp doesn't advocate mandatory abortions. We advocate the right to abortion and the access to abortion care. There's your "grey area." It's called choice.
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I tried to write a paper about abortion for an essay in one of my high school English courses. I got a bad grade and my teacher told me that I "wasn't allowed to have an opinion on it, because I'm a male, and males don't have to worry about or go through the process of an abortion."