Abortion

[pood]

There's really nothing reasonable about killing something which given time will be a person, and claiming you have not killed the person it would eventually be.

Why have you lumped justifiable homicide for self defense, assisted suicide, and abortion in the same category? What do they have in common?

A zygote, embryo or first-trimester fetus are indeed potential persons. A potential person is not a person.

I have not lumped homicide for self defense, assisted suicice, and abortion in the same category. Just the opposite. Self-defense homicides and assisted sucide are examples of killing someone, i.e., a person. My point is that abortion is not taking the life of someone, i.e., a person, so manifestly I have not lumped abortion in the same category as the other two.

There is no such thing as causing harm to a potential person (via abortion, in this case). You can’t harm a nonexistent person.

It is you who has created the category of potential person and promptly removed them from the protected species category. It's a convenient bit of sophistry which relieves you advocating unjustifiable homicide.

The common element our midnight attacker, elderly friend, and not yet a person share, is if they make enough trouble, the normal protection for sacred life is forfeit. There is no need for the fiction they are not a life, which might one day have blue eyes, smoke cigars and have this conversation.

As for the billions of half-not yet a persons lost down the drain everyday, if you opened your pantry to see the flour missing, you would not say, "What happened to my cake?" anymore than finding the oven open and empty would elicit, "What happened to my batter?"

Let’s back up a bit.

It was you who posed the question, “when is it OK to kill someone?” Now just lay your cards on the table: According to you, is a zygote someone? An embryo? A first-trimester fetus? Are they also “someones?” If you think so, prove it.

A “someone” is a person.

I said it’s OK to kill in self-defense and maybe assisted suicide, depending on the circumstances. However, since I do not believe that a zygote, embryo or first-trimester fetus is a someone, I obviously do not thinking that abortion is taking the life of someone.

But now, according to you, abortion is not just killing someone, it’s unjustifiable homicide, no less! Homicide, unjustifiable or not, can only be committed against a person. So you think zygotes, embryos and first-trimester fetuses are persons? What about spermatozoa, are they people too? Is masturbation or using a rubber during sex examples of mass unjustifiable homicide? If not, why not, under the terms that you yourself have set up?

Please refrain from slurring those of us who don’t share your religious hallucinations that in advocating the right of a woman to have an abortion we are condoning or supporting “unjustifiable homicide.” That delusion is entirely your own.

I also love how the pro-forced birth crowed loves to bombinate about Life, O Sacred Life! — yet the vast majority of themn don’t give a shit about the life of the woman whom they would force to bear a child, nor do they give a shit about the life of the child that they would force her to bear.

Let's go forward a bit. I don't have to prove anything. I point out the inconsistencies in your statements for my own amusement. I have never had the intention of changing your mind.

My original statement was that abortion ends a life, but it's not a big deal, since we end lives all the time. I expected to hear arguments about when life begins, ignoring any discussion about why we kill people and I find that very amusing.

What inconsistencies in my statements? Point them out.

You said I lumped abortion in with killing someone in self-defense or assisting someone terminally ill and in pain to commit suicide. I did no such thing. If I kill someone in self-defense, I am killing someone. If I help a terminally ill patient die, I am helping someone to die. If I abort a first-trimester fetus, I am not killing someone, because a first-trimester fetus, or embryo or zygote, cannot, IMO, be reasonably categorized as someone; i.e., is not a person.

So where, pray, is the inconsitency?

Now, as I said, if you think that a first-trimester fetus IS a “someone,” which apparently is what you do think, the burden is on you to support this claim. If you can support it, I may change my mind on abortion. So support away.

 

[pood]

I notice you avoided the question. Is a zygote, embryo, or first-trimester fetus ”someone” (a person) in your view? You certainly seem to imply it, but when asked directly, you dodge the question by saying that you don’t have to prove anything. I find that disingenuous.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Yes and no. The trouble is, the anti-abortion arguments are typically not about the fetus. It is about the sex.

Yup. I have encountered a few truly pro-life people over the decades. A very, very few.

 

[pood]

Here is a philosophical discussion of the status of an early-term fetus with respect to personhood.

 

[pood]

Note that the vast majority of abortions take place in the first trimester, so that is the proper focus of discussion.

 

[pood]

Yes and no. The trouble is, the anti-abortion arguments are typically not about the fetus. It is about the sex.

Yup. I have encountered a few truly pro-life people over the decades. A very, very few.

It’s not about life at all. The pro-forced birth crowd for the most part doens’t give a shit about the post-natal child. It’s really about controlling women’s personhood and sexuality and assuring that they remain appliances for men.

 

[Rhea]

No, by that standard we recognize exactly that no human EVER gets to take the tissues of another beyond their consent.

Non-replaceable tissues.

We don't have a problem with mandated blood draws for DUI suspects.

That blood is not being given to someone else.
But note that we *DO* have laws that prevent it from being used to save someone else’s life, and no blood may be drawn from the drunk to benefit their victim without the drunk’s consent.

 

[Rhea]

If help is needed by the mother after birth then it should be available. Whether it be medical, help with supplies, be shown what to do, mentoring etc. This is where the father has his role to play.
We haven't really been discussing that. Far more attention, or inattention, has been given to pre-birth rather than post-birth.

Indeed that is exactly true. Pro-forced-birthers do NOT discuss that. They make no discernable effort to solve the need for abortion. Indeed, we notice that they never start threads here to discuss ways to reduce abortions by obviating them. ANd they never have marches to promote post-birth assistance so that abortions arene’t a better choice. And they never get behind legislation that would take the fear, the burden and the risk of birth to a lower level so people don’t choose abortion.


You’ve put your finger right on it, Tigers!


Now you know what the pro-forced-birthers can do to be something other than pro-forced-birthers.

And as soon as you accomplish that goal - for which you will have the complete support and energy of almost all pro-choicers!) then you will find that abortions are magically diminished within 3 months of you achieving that post-birth support.


The fact that pro-forced-birthers do NOT do this…. Is very telling, isn’t it.
It’s almost as if it’s not actually about reducing abortions, since they are declining to participate in a path that would reduce abortions, but instead it’s about keeping sex as risky as possible to control… the sexuality of women.

The difference, as ever, between what you say and what you do - is what you do.

Pro-choicers publicly and actively promote post-birth support for all people, especially the poor. Pro-forced-birthers, do not.

 

[Jarhyn]

No, by that standard we recognize exactly that no human EVER gets to take the tissues of another beyond their consent.

Non-replaceable tissues.

We don't have a problem with mandated blood draws for DUI suspects.

That blood is not being given to someone else.
But note that we *DO* have laws that prevent it from being used to save someone else’s life, and no blood may be drawn from the drunk to benefit their victim without the drunk’s consent.

I mean, it's quite literally the literary case that there are countless books as non-fictional as the Bible itself that are written as horror stories unto the prevention of breaking this taboo, of discussing how much of an abomination it is, usually using as a metaphor some fictional abomination that devours the living.

If there is not a clear message in all that, in the imprecation against the vampire, the ghoul, the devourer of flesh, I don't know what else to say other than "you will devour my sword before you devour my flesh".

 

[Rhea]

=============

It is you who has created the category of potential person and promptly removed them from the protected species category. It's a convenient bit of sophistry which relieves you advocating unjustifiable homicide.

Flip side: It is you who have lumped some not-yet-people with the category "people". Why do zygotes count but not ova?

For the same reason flour is not a cake.

Batter is also not cake.

 

[Jarhyn]

If help is needed by the mother after birth then it should be available. Whether it be medical, help with supplies, be shown what to do, mentoring etc. This is where the father has his role to play.
We haven't really been discussing that. Far more attention, or inattention, has been given to pre-birth rather than post-birth.

Indeed that is exactly true. Pro-forced-birthers do NOT discuss that. They make no discernable effort to solve the need for abortion. Indeed, we notice that they never start threads here to discuss ways to reduce abortions by obviating them. ANd they never have marches to promote post-birth assistance so that abortions arene’t a better choice. And they never get behind legislation that would take the fear, the burden and the risk of birth to a lower level so people don’t choose abortion.


You’ve put your finger right on it, Tigers!


Now you know what the pro-forced-birthers can do to be something other than pro-forced-birthers.

And as soon as you accomplish that goal - for which you will have the complete support and energy of almost all pro-choicers!) then you will find that abortions are magically diminished within 3 months of you achieving that post-birth support.


The fact that pro-forced-birthers do NOT do this…. Is very telling, isn’t it.
It’s almost as if it’s not actually about reducing abortions, since they are declining to participate in a path that would reduce abortions, but instead it’s about keeping sex as risky as possible to control… the sexuality of women.

The difference, as ever, between what you say and what you do - is what you do.

Pro-choicers publicly and actively promote post-birth support for all people, especially the poor. Pro-forced-birthers, do not.

If help is needed by the mother after birth then it should be available. Whether it be medical, help with supplies, be shown what to do, mentoring etc. This is where the father has his role to play.
We haven't really been discussing that. Far more attention, or inattention, has been given to pre-birth rather than post-birth.

Indeed that is exactly true. Pro-forced-birthers do NOT discuss that. They make no discernable effort to solve the need for abortion. Indeed, we notice that they never start threads here to discuss ways to reduce abortions by obviating them. ANd they never have marches to promote post-birth assistance so that abortions arene’t a better choice. And they never get behind legislation that would take the fear, the burden and the risk of birth to a lower level so people don’t choose abortion.


You’ve put your finger right on it, Tigers!


Now you know what the pro-forced-birthers can do to be something other than pro-forced-birthers.

And as soon as you accomplish that goal - for which you will have the complete support and energy of almost all pro-choicers!) then you will find that abortions are magically diminished within 3 months of you achieving that post-birth support.


The fact that pro-forced-birthers do NOT do this…. Is very telling, isn’t it.
It’s almost as if it’s not actually about reducing abortions, since they are declining to participate in a path that would reduce abortions, but instead it’s about keeping sex as risky as possible to control… the sexuality of women.

The difference, as ever, between what you say and what you do - is what you do.

Pro-choicers publicly and actively promote post-birth support for all people, especially the poor. Pro-forced-birthers, do not.

I brought up this line of reasoning when someone at work lead into the discussion (and I was sweating bullets the whole time on it) of single issue voting, this being the issue.

I would like to think I pulled someone across the aisle with the issue? I hope I did?

It was some time before I brought it up here, but then I am sure parts of it or perhaps most of it has been floating around and I'm not sure where I got it at this point.

Namely:

"if you are pro life, look at this list of things that we can walk together with in reducing abortions. No pro-choice person will fight you on any of it and it will reduce abortions much more sharply in the short and medium and long term without increasing illegal-abortion related deaths.

Why not walk together to reduce the fears and dangers of pregnancy and parenthood first? We can run together hand in hand towards those goals and you get reduction in abortions and we get better lives for those children.

Once we have made abortion rare through education and preemptive birth control, death in and surrounding childbirth unheard of, immediate concern for the pregnant person's health a matter of course, then we could have this discussion again."

In the discussion, it was made clear that the path that is being asked today, to step to "pro-forced-birth" has momentum even now in the opposite direction.

 

[Rhea]

My original statement was that abortion ends a life, but it's not a big deal, since we end lives all the time. I expected to hear arguments about when life begins, ignoring any discussion about why we kill people and I find that very amusing.

Assuming I understand your question correctly, let me offer an answer.

Note: This is unrelated to abortion since abortion is about the bodily autonomy of the pregnant woman. But for philosophy’s sake…

It is okay to “kill,” or, more accurately “remove or withhold life-sustaining assistance” from beings that
1. Have not had cognition before
Or
2. Will not have cognition again

In other words, live human beings are not “persons” with rights if there is no cognition. We agree as a society that it is okay to “kill” a human who is brain dead (cognition not returning). It is even okay to kill them slowly and grusomely by systematically removing their organs and tissue to give to other humans who do have cognition. (Organ donation). Likewise it is okay to kill a human that has never had cognition, because it has not yet become a “person” nor accrued any civil rights until it becomes a person.

 

[Bronzeage]

I notice you avoided the question. Is a zygote, embryo, or first-trimester fetus ”someone” (a person) in your view? You certainly seem to imply it, but when asked directly, you dodge the question by saying that you don’t have to prove anything. I find that disingenuous.

Does the statement "life begins at conception" contain some ambiguity? We've been through this already.

The "clump of cells" has long been used to relieve the guilt of those who feel bad about killing someone. It's a whatever gets you through the night kind of thing.

If you want to claim no person's future ceases to exist because they weren't a person yet, that's your reasoning. If you point at a zygote and say, "I don't see a person."

All I can offer is say, Just wait. They'll be here soon, provided you don't destroy that clump of cells.

Also, why do you think I care about your views on abortion?

 

[Bomb#20]

My original statement was that abortion ends a life, but it's not a big deal, since we end lives all the time. I expected to hear arguments about when life begins, ignoring any discussion about why we kill people and I find that very amusing.

Once upon a time back in the Bronze age there was a fortress surrounded by a besieging army. Most of the warriors inside the fortress were on the outer battlements, shooting arrows and dumping boiling oil into the enemy ranks. But there's always one guy. This guy was shoveling away at the base of the outer wall, digging a hole under it that the enemy could sneak through. When he was spotted and tackled, he explained...

"It's not a big deal. This fortress has an inner keep! Look how much higher and thicker the wall of the inner keep is! The sensible thing for us all to do is abandon the outer wall and retreat behind the inner. Let the enemy have a useless empty field between the two walls, and much good may it do them -- we can hold out forever in the inner keep. But look at you all, wasting your efforts on trying to stop me from digging this meaningless hole in the ground, exactly as I expected you would, when you should be packing up all our weaponry and moving it into the keep. I find that very amusing."​

Hesiod's account cuts off there. If the text ever had another page detailing the subsequent consequences to the clown, it is lost to history; but they were presumably very amusing.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It is okay to “kill,” or, more accurately “remove or withhold life-sustaining assistance” from beings that
1. Have not had cognition before
Or
2. Will not have cognition again

In other words, live human beings are not “persons” with rights if there is no cognition. We agree as a society that it is okay to “kill” a human who is brain dead (cognition not returning). It is even okay to kill them slowly and grusomely by systematically removing their organs and tissue to give to other humans who do have cognition. (Organ donation). Likewise it is okay to kill a human that has never had cognition, because it has not yet become a “person” nor accrued any civil rights until it becomes a person.

Which is where I stand, also.

The only thing that sets us apart from the animals is our cognition. Thus something that does not possess that is at most an animal, not a person. Personhood extends at most from first consciousness to last consciousness. (Although, admittedly, both have measurement issues.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I notice you avoided the question. Is a zygote, embryo, or first-trimester fetus ”someone” (a person) in your view? You certainly seem to imply it, but when asked directly, you dodge the question by saying that you don’t have to prove anything. I find that disingenuous.

Does the statement "life begins at conception" contain some ambiguity? We've been through this already.

It most certainly is ambiguous in the context you are using it.

Identical twins--one life, two people. Chimeras--two lives, one person.

Besides, neither the sperm nor ovum are dead.

The "clump of cells" has long been used to relieve the guilt of those who feel bad about killing someone. It's a whatever gets you through the night kind of thing.

If you want to claim no person's future ceases to exist because they weren't a person yet, that's your reasoning. If you point at a zygote and say, "I don't see a person."

All I can offer is say, Just wait. They'll be here soon, provided you don't destroy that clump of cells.

Also, why do you think I care about your views on abortion?

If you have to wait for something to appear that means it isn't currently present.

 

[bilby]

No, by that standard we recognize exactly that no human EVER gets to take the tissues of another beyond their consent.

Non-replaceable tissues.

We don't have a problem with mandated blood draws for DUI suspects.

You might not.

I do, and so does the law, at least around here - you can always refuse to give a blood sample. The law will assume you to be guilty if you refuse, but nobody will hold you down and take your blood without your consent.

If some US jurisdictions have hugely unethical behaviour enshrined in law, such as taking a blood sample from a person who has said “no”, then that doesn’t surprise me in the least, but would make me even more disdainful of the ethical position of law enforcement in the US.

 

[bilby]

Does the statement "life begins at conception" contain some ambiguity?

Yes. It depends on the entirely ambiguous definition of ‘life’ that has not yet been detailed, but which from context must define a fertilised ovum as ‘life’, but exclude an unfertilised ovum from the same definition.

The only way I can see to achieve this without having a definition of ‘life’ thousands of pages long and agreed upon by nobody, is to make a circular argument - we define conception as the beginning of life because we define life as beginning at conception.

Which is self-evidently fallacious.

 

[Elixir]

I have yet in my life to regard anything that is barely visible, that could get stuck under a fingernail or whatever, as a "person". Nor has any such thing EVER (to my knowledge) tried to reach out to me for help of any kind. Can't say the same about the woman within whom such a thing was growing.

I don't think a zygote is a "cake". Not even a sprinkle.

 

[Rhea]

The "clump of cells" has long been used to relieve the guilt of those who feel bad about killing someone. It's a whatever gets you through the night kind of thing.

I don’t think this is supported at all.

The “clump of cells” is a very real, very accurate definition for many people. We do not assign personhood to it, it is not a matter of “killing.”


To give a very narrow but extraordinarily common and populous example, you can consider how many women have had miscarriages of wanted prenancies without ever grieving a “death.”

The women who carry these pregnancies will have experiences that show you “clump of cells” is not some equivocation we cling to to assuage guilt, it is our actual feelings on the matter.

I do know a couple of people I consider to be whackadoodles who perform Last Rights over their tampons in case there was a fertilized fetus embedded in one. But honestly, they are whackadoodles and that is not a normal response to either a menstrual cycle or a miscarriage.


”Clump of cells” is a reality that tens of millions of women every year expel into a toilet (and in actuality, it is more like hundreds of millions a year), and it’s not some lie we’re telling ourselves, Bronze.