Abortion

[steve_bank]

A real and substantive current moral issue.

1. The RCC has always been against birth control even condoms. Birth control is morally equivalent to actual abortion. Is birth control immoral?
2. One line of demarcation is presence of a fetal heartbeat. Is it immoral to abort a fetus after a fetal heartbeat is heard but not before?
3. Another line is fetal viability. Is it moral to abort before viability outside the womb but not after?
4. Is it moral to abort a fetus a few days before normal delivery but immoral to kill the baby after delivery and the cord is cut?
5. Is abortion synonymous with killing?

For the above medical issues are not considered and the abortion is a matter of convenience.

 

[Jarhyn]

There are only two elements which I think dictate whether someone aborts, and for the sake of this I will consider the fetus a fully capable, conscious, caring adult with an "normally*" developed sense of morality and ethics:

1. Whether the person who is providing them life support wishes to continue doing so.

2. Whether ceasing life support alone kills the hosted "person".

It is, as far as I have understood, wrong to kill something which you can offer upon "a consenting mercy", except to use it's flesh in some way, or when necessary to protect your freedom from unilateral imposition.

So, if you can birth it and hand it off right now, killing it is not your right.

Otherwise, cutting off dependent life support, as an individual, is your right as a human being.

That's all the consideration that is necessary.

If I have the right to deny "people, actualized adult ethical agents" life support of my flesh, I have the right to deny it to "an innocent little baby", too.

I am personally under no obligation to mercy.

Being "good" just is not something you can reasonably expect people to do. The most you can expect them to do is not be evil.

It is not evil to walk away from donating some part of your biological "life" to someone else.

Denying others the right to offer mercy is on a case by case basis: not every mercy is reasonable nor wanted. But that's a matter for public policy.


*As opposed to "fully".

 

[Jarhyn]

I do, for the sake of such argument, see the person as owned by themselves. They are not the property of the parents, and any hopes they may have for this person are not their right to see to fruition.

The only person who owns this person is, in the end, themselves.

The hopes and dreams of the parents are inconsequential to the rights of the person giving them life support.

Those hopes and dreams are only fulfilled by the mercy of the person themselves, it is theirs to offer or deny as they wish.

Thus the sperm donor gets no say.

The only person who gets a say in whether the person gets to keep using the uterus is the person who owns the uterus.

They have no obligation to the hopes and dreams of any other party, and while they may offer this mercy of the use of their uterus to the other parent, so the person using the uterus may one day give them greater mercy of offering legacy, the owner of the uterus still has no obligation to bestow mercy of their flesh.

 

[steve_bank]

The OP is about the specifics of actually terminating human life at stages of fetal development. Not about rationalizng or justifying.

Abortion is euphemism for killing. Late term abortion involves killing the fetus in the womb and then taking it out. Anybody comfortable with that?

 

[Jarhyn]

The OP is about the specifics of actually terminating human life at stages of fetal development. Not about rationalizng or justifying.

Abortion is euphemism for killing. Late term abortion involves killing the fetus in the womb and then taking it out. Anybody comfortable with that?

I am not comfortable with your attempting to leverage "killing" beyond "ceasing to offer life support". Your attempts to shove words with moral charge into the discussion is noted, and rejected. I also reject your attempt to frame a post about "abortion" in "morals and principles" as "not about the morality of doing it".

If you want another thread that excluded certain things of it, start one with an exclusion in the title.

 

[Rhea]

Abortion is euphemism for killing.

No.
Abortion is a synonym to “stopping” and “desisting” and “interrupting.”

When a rocket launch is “aborted” there was not a rocket killing.
And when a woman has a spontaneous abortion (aka miscarriage) there has been no killing.
When a fighter pilot hears “abort!” from the flight deck, they are not being told to kill someone.


You made up a definition to create emotion around your preferred framing.
But you are wrong.

 

[Rhea]

A real and substantive current moral issue.

1. The RCC has always been against birth control even condoms. Birth control is morally equivalent to actual abortion.

This shows how wacky and insane they are.

Is birth control immoral?

Absolutely not.

2. One line of demarcation is presence of a fetal heartbeat.

And it is a dumb demarcation. We as a society are complety fine with harvesting organs from a being that still has a hearbeat. Because it does not define personhood.

Okay, it’s not a “dumb” demarcation. It’s an authoritarian mysogynistic evil one.

Is it immoral to abort a fetus after a fetal heartbeat is heard but not before?

It is not immoral in either case because a heartbeat does not constitute personhood.

3. Another line is fetal viability. Is it moral to abort before viability outside the womb but not after?

Another false line created to control women as vessels.
Nope, nope all the nope. A person does not lose their rights to another person who wants part of their body. It is immoral to force her to donate organs.

4. Is it moral to abort a fetus a few days before normal delivery but immoral to kill the baby after delivery and the cord is cut?

Yes. Because before the delivery, it relies on the organs of another person, who is not ever required to donate.

Sice it turns out that this practcally never happens, and when it does it is almost always a tragic decisionmade about a very much wanted pregnancy, it turns out to be another one of those evil intended emotional red herrings.

Wmen do not carry to term and then decide to abort on a whim. So trying to use their real tragedies as a way of denying rights to other women is despicable.

5. Is abortion synonymous with killing?

Nope. Only to the people wj want to use emotional lies to control the sexuality of women.

For the above medical issues are not considered and the abortion is a matter of convenience.

Tell you what - we can talk about this AFTER we have completely available and accessible long acting reversible birth control free to the user for the asking, and AFTER we have federally funded research into LARCs for males, and AFTER we have free prenatal care and free post-partum care for the women who ddo not want to abort and free food, shelter and healthcare for the babies.

Once we have removed the unintended pregnancies, and removed the danger and fear of carryying through with an unplanned pregnancy,

THEN we can have an armchair discussion of the morality of forcing humans to donate organs against their will.

 

[steve_bank]

I have not heard of forced organ donation. That would certainly go to the Supreme Court.

Rhea, it is not an armchair debate. Is there a difference between abortion a few days before normal delivery and killing the baby right after delivery? That too is an arbitrary demarcation. I see no moral difference. Late term abortion IMO is killing.

Invoking organ harvesting is a diversion form the issue.

The question is simply this, is there a point from conception to just before delivery where abortion amounts to killing?

Obviously birth control is too restrictive. I oppose late term abortion, it does not sit right with me. The new state laws set an impoosible lower bound of pregnancy detection.

The thread is about the morality of abortion.

If a late term fully formed fetus is a disposable commodity then that defines our culture.

 

[steve_bank]

The OP is about the specifics of actually terminating human life at stages of fetal development. Not about rationalizng or justifying.

Abortion is euphemism for killing. Late term abortion involves killing the fetus in the womb and then taking it out. Anybody comfortable with that?

I am not comfortable with your attempting to leverage "killing" beyond "ceasing to offer life support". Your attempts to shove words with moral charge into the discussion is noted, and rejected. I also reject your attempt to frame a post about "abortion" in "morals and principles" as "not about the morality of doing it".

If you want another thread that excluded certain things of it, start one with an exclusion in the title.

The debate on abortion if you have a moral sense and empathy shud be uncomfortab;e.

Why does the word kiling make you uncomfortable?

Euphemisms serve to make uncomfortable thoughts comfortable. Abortion is a euphemism.

It is not about video games or speculating on the unverse being a simulation. It is a hard issue, which is why it evokes strong public responses. You have to question your own morality.

Is there a moral difference between aborting a healthy fully formed fetus a few days before delivery and killing the delivered baby right after delivery?

Consider the question a transition from video games where nothing is real to hard reality.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

A real and substantive current moral issue.

1. The RCC has always been against birth control even condoms. Birth control is morally equivalent to actual abortion. Is birth control immoral?
2. One line of demarcation is presence of a fetal heartbeat. Is it immoral to abort a fetus after a fetal heartbeat is heard but not before?
3. Another line is fetal viability. Is it moral to abort before viability outside the womb but not after?
4. Is it moral to abort a fetus a few days before normal delivery but immoral to kill the baby after delivery and the cord is cut?
5. Is abortion synonymous with killing?

For the above medical issues are not considered and the abortion is a matter of convenience.

There is the other consideration, the fact a human woman is involved. I'm uncertain why the human woman is always missing from these lines of demarcation. The first question to ask is at what point in time do we tell a woman she has no choice.

Is there a moral difference between aborting a healthy fully formed fetus a few days before delivery and killing the delivered baby right after delivery?

Yes, there is a moral difference. And still, neither are healthy fully formed fetuses a few days from birth getting aborted or people killing babies after delivery without repercussions.

 

[Jarhyn]

The OP is about the specifics of actually terminating human life at stages of fetal development. Not about rationalizng or justifying.

Abortion is euphemism for killing. Late term abortion involves killing the fetus in the womb and then taking it out. Anybody comfortable with that?

I am not comfortable with your attempting to leverage "killing" beyond "ceasing to offer life support". Your attempts to shove words with moral charge into the discussion is noted, and rejected. I also reject your attempt to frame a post about "abortion" in "morals and principles" as "not about the morality of doing it".

If you want another thread that excluded certain things of it, start one with an exclusion in the title.

The debate on abortion if you have a moral sense and empathy shud be uncomfortab;e.

Why does the word kiling make you uncomfortable?

Euphemisms serve to make uncomfortable thoughts comfortable. Abortion is a euphemism.

It is not about video games or speculating on the unverse being a simulation. It is a hard issue, which is why it evokes strong public responses. You have to question your own morality.

Is there a moral difference between aborting a healthy fully formed fetus a few days before delivery and killing the delivered baby right after delivery?

Consider the question a transition from video games where nothing is real to hard reality.

No, it shouldn't necessarily be uncomfortable.

The word "killing" is, like it or not, culturally, and morally charged.

It is not a "killing" letting something die. It is not a "killing" hurrying on something that is inevitably and immediately going to die.

One is just "letting something die" and the other is euthanasia.

You are already dragging your subjective morality into this, and as I have pointed out, my entire ethical structure and philosophy is built on careful investigation and doubt.

That you bring in unrelated topics to this means you are grasping for straws.

It does not matter how I feel about what mercies others bestow. It is my responsibility merely to "get over it", as is it anyone's whose wish would be to bestow mercy in stead of someone else.

It is not their obligation to bestow mercy, especially of their own flesh, nor is it a right to use someone else's flesh to do so against their consent.

It does not matter that it is gross, or that something died, or that someone let it. It was their choice, and ethically they deserve to be the ones to have the right to make it.

It is only ever the choice of the person giving mercy on whether to offer it, and if someone would compel some other human to mercy outside of the set of situations I described as an acceptable compulsion to mercy, then they can pound sand or suck a chest wound for all I care, but either they walk away, or only one of us walks away from the result.

 

[Elixir]

I “killed” a wart on my finger. Living, human cells. No regrets, even though they could possibly have been cultivated into a new human clone of myself.
The methods were cruel and inhumane as well. First, many cells were frozen with liquid nitrogen. Then for months they were repeatedly immersed in a weak chlorine solution for an hour or so at a time. All dead and gone now.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Euphemisms serve to make uncomfortable thoughts comfortable. Abortion is a euphemism.

No, it is not an euphemism, it's the proper term. It's acquired a connotation the word did not originally have.

 

[southernhybrid]

Why is late term abortion being repeatedly mentioned? I've never heard of a medical provider who would perform a late term abortion unless it was either to save the life of the mother, or to remove a nonviable fetus. The only other possibility would be if the fetus is known to have a horrible disorder that would only allow it to live for a very short time, while suffering terribly. If you feel the need to use the term killing in the last case, it would be a mercy killing.

The vast majority of abortions are performed in the first trimester. Most that are done during the second trimester are done for specific reasons. When I worked in a maternity clinic in the early 80s, any woman who was 35 or older was offered a test to see if her fetus had Down's syndrome. If it was positive, she was offered the option of an abortion. Some people are willing to give birth and to raise a child with Down's. But, I wouldn't judge those who opt for abortion. I've had quite a few patients with Downs. Some are fairly happy and they can have decent lives, especially if they. had parents who were willing to make sacrifices for them, and who were well educated in how to raise a person with Down's. Some are almost vegetative, requiring total care, hand feeding, wearing diapers their entire lives etc. And a very small percentage have normal IQs and can live normal lives. I never met one like that, but a physician who specialized in genetics told me that sometimes is the case. But, shouldn't a woman be permitted to make the decision whether or not to give birth to such a child? Raising a child who has Down's is quite a task. I worked with a very nice nurse who chose to give birth to a Down's child. She was anti abortion, but she didn't judge those who disagreed with her. She did an outstanding job of raising her daughter, but not everyone is up to the job of raising a child with both severe cognitive and physical problems Such decisions are difficult and heartbreaking.

I've never known a woman who had an abortion for convenience. That's a very ignorant view. Although my sister never talks about it anymore, I think she told me she had an abortion when she was young and had been raped. I've never had one, but I was elated when I was pregnant in 1970, when NJ had just made abortion legal. It made me happy to know that I had a choice. I chose not to have an abortion. Still, you can't even imagine what this means to most women. Pregnancy is very risky, both physically and emotionally. Women should have choice. Roe V Wade just made abortion safe and legal. Good birth control makes it rare.

Ending Roe v Wade will not stop abortions. Margaret Sanger was an activist who helped inspire the development of OCPs. She talked about women standing in long lines, while waiting for 50 cent abortions, when she was a child during the early 20th Century. During those times, women often had large numbers of children, due to the lack of birth control along with no option for safe, legal abortions. Sanger's own mother died while she was in labor with her 8th child. I'm sorry. It's necessary that a democratic country has safe, legal options for women who choose to have an abortion.

It always bothers me when people, especially men, condemn women who choose abortions. There are far more spontaneous abortions, aka as miscarriages by the lay community, compared to the number of abortions that women choose to have. Why is it okay for nature or god if one is a believer, to abort so many fetuses, but it's wrong for the woman, who is carrying that fetus, to decide to abort for her own personal reasons?

I remember a coworker who chose to abort. She had 3 or 4 children and was married to an abusive alcoholic, who she wanted to divorce. She wasn't mentally or financially able to give birth to another child, so she had a very early first trimester abortion. I was the only one she told because some of the other women we worked with were hateful and judgmental. An embryo is tiny without any resemblance to a live infant during the first trimester. I'll say it again, about 90% of abortions are done during the first trimester.

Late term abortions aren't done due to choice. They are done if the fetus is nonviable, or to save the life of the mother. No provider is going to do a late term abortion without a valid reason. It's just a ploy used by the religious right to try and make it sound as if thousands of women are waiting until the last moment, then rushing off to a clinic to have a doctor to kill a baby. That's propaganda, not reality.

 

[steve_bank]

I'll restate the OP.

Is there any difference between aborting a fetus just before normal birth(late term abortion) and terminating a baby after delivery and the cord is cut?

It is a yes no question. It is not about the majority of abortions or anything else. It is not about the legality of abortion. It is not about the social value of abortion.

It is about what you personally think is right or wrong.

 

[Elixir]

Yes.

 

[bilby]

Is there any difference between aborting a fetus just before normal birth(late term abortion) and terminating a baby after delivery and the cord is cut?

Yes. In the latter case, it's called 'infant mortality', not 'abortion'.

In both cases, such deaths occur only where severe medical complications exist, or when there are insufficient facilities to give the necessary care to sustain life.

Both are tragic but unavoidable events; Nobody is going around killing newborn babies, or late term fetuses, on a whim.

And none of it tells us anything whatsoever about the morality of the vast majority of abortions, which occur far earlier in pregnancy.

This entire question is a massive red herring, that has exactly zero relevance to any real world situation - the anti-abortion lobby would like us to imagine that aborting a four-cell fertilised ovum is indistinguishable from killing a six week old baby, which is obviously nonsense. But they can "prove" that nonsense to be true by salami tactics. A is a long way from Z; But A and B are pretty much the same place, and B and C are pretty much the same place, C and D... Y and Z. Therefore A and Z are (magically) the same.

Rounding a very small difference down to zero is not legitimate when you then multiply by a large number of instances. Nearly the same isn't "the same".

0.0001 is, to any reasonable approximation, 0. Therefore 0.0001 x 100,000 is, to any reasonable approximation, 0 x 100,000, which is also 0.

A newborn baby is, to any reasonable approximation, the same as a fetus the day before it is born. Therefore a fertilised ovum is also, to any reasonable approximation, the same as a newborn baby.

If you understand why the first argument is wrong, then you should also understand that the second is wrong.

 

[Hermit]

Is there any difference between aborting a fetus just before normal birth(late term abortion) and terminating a baby after delivery and the cord is cut?

A real and substantive current moral issue.

No, it is not. As Bilby notes,

This entire question is a massive red herring

QFT

 

[Rhea]

I have not heard of forced organ donation.

Every woman who is forced to give birth agains her will is being forced to donate her uterus, her blood, her immune system and more to the fetus.

You have never heard of a woman being denied an abortion against her will?

That would certainly go to the Supreme Court.

It did, it has. Roe v Wade decided she should not be forced to donate her organs against her will to a fetus.

 

[Rhea]

.
You have been answered clearly many times.

I'll restate the OP.

Is there any difference between aborting a fetus just before normal birth(late term abortion) and terminating a baby after delivery and the cord is cut?

Yes.

It is a yes no question.

Yes

It is not about the majority of abortions or anything else. It is not about the legality of abortion. It is not about the social value of abortion.

It is about what you personally think is right or wrong.

No, it is about whether there is an objective difference.
The answer is YES.
In one case there are the rights of two people involved and they may be in conflict.
In the other case there is only one person involved and there is no conflict.


The RED HERRING is you trying to construct a question where you feel morally permitted to ignore the human rights of a live adult human, and ask for a yes-or-no so that you can avoid admitting that you don’t want to talk about the rights of the live and adult human. Because you somehow feel empowered to deny her rights and that is so trivial to you that you’d like to just hand-wave it away.


YES there is a moral difference between a situation where two humans have conflicting rights and a situation with only one human.

That you choose to pretend that is not the conversation says a lot about how you view women.

 

[Politesse]

Not about rationalizng or justifying.

If the thread does not allow discussion of alternative perspectives, I for one see very little point in it.

 

[TomC]

I'll restate the OP.

Is there any difference between aborting a fetus just before normal birth(late term abortion) and terminating a baby after delivery and the cord is cut?

It is a yes no question. It is not about the majority of abortions or anything else. It is not about the legality of abortion. It is not about the social value of abortion.

It is about what you personally think is right or wrong.

I'm not sure why you'd go back to the second biggest red herring of your OP. Next to nobody thinks that a late term abortion of convenience is moral.

The biggest one was bringing up the RCC. I'm attached to Mother Church, but I don't take the Vatican as a moral authority. Unless they're smart enough to agree with me, which sometimes they are and sometimes not.

I was very disappointed by the OP. I rather wanted to discuss feticide as a moral issue, rather than a political issue. But it doesn't look like that's going to happen, at least not here.
Tom

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I have not heard of forced organ donation.

Every woman who is forced to give birth agains her will is being forced to donate her uterus, her blood, her immune system and more to the fetus.

You have never heard of a woman being denied an abortion against her will?

That would certainly go to the Supreme Court.

It did, it has. Roe v Wade decided she should not be forced to donate her organs against her will to a fetus.

s/donate/loan/

 

[Jarhyn]

Late term abortion is a very interesting area of ethics to consider.

It is, in fact, murder, past viability: they can end the relationship without killing the thing, and place it upon the mercy of another, and there are eager hands to offer this mercy.

It is not ethical to condemn someone to be a premature birth, however.

This creates an interesting juxtaposition where society can then expect someone who let that happen to take it the rest of the way.

The only times where this is not the case are cases of horrible, lethal birth defects and horrible, lethal complications to the pregnancy.

This means that there is an ethical gray area near that point and I suppose this is the foundation of why nobody considers late term abortion ethical.

Before that point, ending the relationship will necessitate and authorize euthanasia, and is as discussed, entirely the right of the host*.

*If the organism could ask to be left out to die, then it wouldn't be ethical to put it down before it dies of being disconnected to the only possible host organism.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I have not heard of forced organ donation.

Every woman who is forced to give birth agains her will is being forced to donate her uterus, her blood, her immune system and more to the fetus.

I hate this argument so much. It sounds so hyper-technical and petty.

A woman (teen?) being forced to endure pregnancy (from rape, incest, consensual intercourse... could be all the same) and birth and etc... isn't being forced to "donate" anything, she is being intimately violated by the state in a way that seems inconceivable, in about the same way as if she were forced by the state to have an abortion. The psychological fear / anxiety from being forced to do this, by the state and quite arbitrarily so, despite all of the consequences it'll have on her is a violation of the very basis of her existence as a woman.

That would certainly go to the Supreme Court.

It did, it has. Roe v Wade decided she should not be forced to donate her organs against her will to a fetus.

And Casey. And other cases as well. And in the end, none of it mattered post mid-2022.

 

[Elixir]

none of it mattered post mid-2022.

Past tense? Mid 2022 isn’t here yet, and neither is the SCOTUS opinion.
You can bet that somewhere a magat is bending the ears of those five justices. They’re saying “look, you’re killin’ us here, can’t you just do something to help?”

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

none of it mattered post mid-2022.

Past tense? Mid 2022 isn’t here yet, and neither is the SCOTUS opinion.
You can bet that somewhere a magat is bending the ears of those five justices. They’re saying “look, you’re killin’ us here, can’t you just do something to help?”

This feels like a project I'm working on at the moment. People are complaining and asking about the latest inadequacy, what to do to prevent it (which has already happened and won't change), meanwhile I'm addressing what we are actually looking at, the next problem staring us in the face.

 

[steve_bank]

Science is part of it but I do not think there is an absolute right or wrong. It ends up being a feeling.

I was wondering how much pro choice supporters have actually thought it through. After thinking it through in the past while I disagree with pro lifers, I unsetrstand and empathize with how they feel. Infants are after all about survival of the species. The udea of a disposable fetus for convenience is repugnant to many. A moral outrage.

For me the line is viability outside the womb. I can not explain it logically.

A relted quetion might be when does the right of the group supersedes the right of their individual?

 

[Jarhyn]

.
You have been answered clearly many times.

I'll restate the OP.

Is there any difference between aborting a fetus just before normal birth(late term abortion) and terminating a baby after delivery and the cord is cut?

Yes.

It is a yes no question.

Yes

It is not about the majority of abortions or anything else. It is not about the legality of abortion. It is not about the social value of abortion.

It is about what you personally think is right or wrong.

No, it is about whether there is an objective difference.
The answer is YES.
In one case there are the rights of two people involved and they may be in conflict.
In the other case there is only one person involved and there is no conflict.


The RED HERRING is you trying to construct a question where you feel morally permitted to ignore the human rights of a live adult human, and ask for a yes-or-no so that you can avoid admitting that you don’t want to talk about the rights of the live and adult human. Because you somehow feel empowered to deny her rights and that is so trivial to you that you’d like to just hand-wave it away.


YES there is a moral difference between a situation where two humans have conflicting rights and a situation with only one human.

That you choose to pretend that is not the conversation says a lot about how you view women.

And to the point of my first post, there are no conflicting rights. It is no person's right to the use of another's body. As their existence depends on that  mercy, all their rights end at the mercy of the person whose organs they are dependent on.

If mercy is above and beyond what they need to survive, if they could go and survive but to force them would be existentially fucked up and is so because you let the situation continue until that point THEN it may be expected to be seen through lest you murder or disfigure someone as a result of your actions.

The result being "third trimester abortions are fucked up unless something is severely wrong with the pregnancy, try to do it as early as possible if that's your decision, and it IS your decision!"

Which is where most people have already ended up.

Except the people who can't understand "no forced organ donations period"

 

[steve_bank]

I would expect even a hard core pro choice supporter who has a sense of humanity would feel something over abortion.

If not then you may be an emotionless cold ideological rock not a human being.

You have a right to destroy yourself in our culture. Drugs, alchohol, onesity.

Based on individaul rights why ban suicide? Why not have suiicde pills off the shelf in drug stores? After all it is yuur body. Weare just a ocllection of inanaimate atoms and molecules. Whar's the big deal?

Does a women have a right to drink and use drugs and not eat properly during pregnancy?

Some things I will see if I can find on the net.

1. If you hit a pregnant woman in the stomach and the fetus dies what is your criminal liability beyond assault of the woman.

2. If a fetus dies or becomes damaged because of the mother's use of drugs or alcohol or any negligence is there criminal liability for the woman?

Personally I do not see a distinction between abortion just before normal delivery and just after.

 

[steve_bank]

What about a woman who keeps getting pregnant and can not afford or has no mental capacity to raise kids?

 

[Jarhyn]

If you hit a pregnant woman in the stomach and the fetus dies what is your criminal liability beyond assault of the woman.

When you kill some thing under the mercy of a other, you are wasting the effort and effects of that mercy. You are stealing from them the donation they have already given of themselves of their organs, robbing them of even the HOPE that mercy will be returned to them in the form of some fulfillment of their dreams of having a child "like themselves".

It is a very different thing choosing to withhold mercy, and choosing to deny someone else the power to offer mercy: it is denying them self-determination of their own body to the same extent as forcing a pregnancy.

Then, I also mentioned, it is ultimately up to the society which mercies it allows. We do not allow someone to take "mercy" on a billion mosquitoes so as to release them in a crowded downtown summer gathering, and it may be judged that there are reasonable limit on the mercies we allow people to extend with regards to producing and raising children.

As it is, my own mother had 3 children she couldn't reasonably care for whom she should have aborted. Child Services ultimately sorted that out.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I would expect even a hard core pro choice supporter who has a sense of humanity would feel something over abortion.

If not then you may be an emotionless cold ideological rock not a human being.

You have a right to destroy yourself in our culture. Drugs, alchohol, onesity.

The problem comes down to what you consider to have value.

Personally, there is only one substantial difference between what we choose to protect (people) and what we don't (animals etc): The mind. Thus, to me something that does not possess at least a somewhat functional mind can't be a person no matter how human-like their appearance. Think very carefully about destroying a person, but if there's no person there it doesn't matter.

Based on individaul rights why ban suicide? Why not have suiicde pills off the shelf in drug stores? After all it is yuur body. Weare just a ocllection of inanaimate atoms and molecules. Whar's the big deal?

It certainly shouldn't be OTC. However, I do support right-to-die laws, including euthanasia. At the end the doctors often can't alleviate the suffering enough to make life superior to death. People should have the right to decide they don't want to suffer anymore.

Personally I do not see a distinction between abortion just before normal delivery and just after.

And abortion just before delivery isn't going to happen in the first place except with a non-viable fetus. At that point if the pregnancy poses a threat to the woman they'll go for delivery/c-section rather than abortion.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Science is part of it but I do not think there is an absolute right or wrong. It ends up being a feeling.

I was wondering how much pro choice supporters have actually thought it through.

I was pro-choice in theory. Then my wife got pregnant and had a child. Then I became pro-choice in fact.

After thinking it through in the past while I disagree with pro lifers, I unsetrstand and empathize with how they feel. Infants are after all about survival of the species. The udea of a disposable fetus for convenience is repugnant to many. A moral outrage.

The trouble is we know that spontaneous abortions happen, and often, they go unnoticed. That means there is a line somewhere regarding what we consider life and not life.

For me the line is viability outside the womb. I can not explain it logically.

So much of our existence in arbitrary. The question for you to answer however, isn't when you think abortions shouldn't be allowed, but why you think you have a say in the matter.

A relted quetion might be when does the right of the group supersedes the right of their individual?

Technically the argument is the right of an unborn something or other (remember "the pill" is being targeted already) and the woman.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

What about a woman who keeps getting pregnant and can not afford or has no mental capacity to raise kids?

Why is that hypothetical relevant to whether you have a say in regarding a woman's private health?

 

[Bomb#20]

Why is late term abortion being repeatedly mentioned? I've never heard of a medical provider who would perform a late term abortion unless it was either to save the life of the mother, or to remove a nonviable fetus.

This is a philosophy forum, where odd questions are supposed to be analyzed with some attempt at rationality. It's clear from their comments that a number of participants here are not interested in doing that, and apparently think this is nothing more than a political forum where odd questions that if pursued might lead to interesting new insights should be answered with character assassination in the service of suppressing dissent.

But you ask a good question, and I take it that unlike the others, you're actually interested in finding out the answer. Here ya go.

Exhibit A:

You have been answered clearly many times.

I'll restate the OP.

Is there any difference between aborting a fetus just before normal birth(late term abortion) and terminating a baby after delivery and the cord is cut?

Yes.

It is not about the majority of abortions or anything else. It is not about the legality of abortion. It is not about the social value of abortion.

It is about what you personally think is right or wrong.

No, it is about whether there is an objective difference.
The answer is YES.
In one case there are the rights of two people involved and they may be in conflict.
In the other case there is only one person involved and there is no conflict.

^^^^ That ^^^^ is why late term abortion is being repeatedly mentioned.

[ Still talking to SoHy here. ]

Nobody approaches the myriad different abortion questions in a theoretical vacuum. We judge each specific abortion question based on our personal moral senses and based on whatever overall moral theories we've settled on in our respective attempts to make our own moral senses make sense to us. The one Rhea proposes here is among the more popular of such theories. She is advancing the theory that a fetus a few days before normal delivery is not a person.

If it is true that a fetus a few days before normal delivery is not a person, then it follows that it would have no right not to be aborted even if there were no medical issues and even if the abortion were a matter of convenience. It follows, therefore, that if it's immoral to abort a viable healthy fetus a few days before normal delivery for the sake of convenience when it's medically unnecessary, then Rhea's moral theory is incorrect. This is a matter of logic; the circumstance that nobody ever does what Steve describes is completely immaterial to the correctness of the argument. What Steve is doing here is subjecting Rhea's moral theory to the intellectual test of whether it gives right answers in "corner cases". That's the normal way we falsify theories. Did we falsify Newton's Theory of Gravity by considering only what we see every day? If we accepted theories based on only the evidence of whether they fit everyday experience we'd have a hundred mutually contradictory theories and no way to settle which is right besides shouting at one other.

If our moral senses tell us a fetus a few days before normal delivery is a person and does have a right not to be aborted for the sake of convenience when there's no medical issue, and we deduce that Rhea's moral theory is wrong, that has an implication for real-world abortion questions far beyond the hypothetical corner case that helped us reach that conclusion. For example, what it implies about aborting a pre-viable five-months-along fetus is that we can dismiss any argument of the form "It's okay to abort because it's not a person until birth." That doesn't mean we can dismiss an argument that says "It's okay to abort because her womb, her choice.". It doesn't even mean we can dismiss an argument that says "It's okay to abort because it's not a person.", but it does mean that replying to the latter argument with "At what point does it become a person?" is a fair question. Steve's question is a good one because it helps us to narrow down the set of arguments we need to take seriously when we're trying to come up with a rational moral theory that won't conflict with our moral senses.

Steve is doing philosophy at its finest. That's what we're all supposed to be here for. Anyone not up for that kind of a discussion can go back to PD, where not having standards of evidence seems to be widely considered a point of honor. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

The RED HERRING is you trying to construct a question where you feel morally permitted to ignore the human rights of a live adult human, and ask for a yes-or-no so that you can avoid admitting that you don’t want to talk about the rights of the live and adult human.

At no point did Steve imply in any way that the mother's rights don't matter. And he already de facto stipulated that the mother's rights matter too when he wrote "The new state laws set an impossible lower bound of pregnancy detection." Rhea is strawmanning him.

Because you somehow feel empowered to deny her rights and that is so trivial to you that you’d like to just hand-wave it away.

YES there is a moral difference between a situation where two humans have conflicting rights and a situation with only one human.

That you choose to pretend that is not the conversation says a lot about how you view women.

That Rhea chooses to treat this as a "Let's slander Steve because he's a heretic." forum says a lot about how she views freethought.

 

[Bomb#20]

A real and substantive current moral issue.

1. The RCC has always been against birth control even condoms. Birth control is morally equivalent to actual abortion. Is birth control immoral?
2. One line of demarcation is presence of a fetal heartbeat. Is it immoral to abort a fetus after a fetal heartbeat is heard but not before?
3. Another line is fetal viability. Is it moral to abort before viability outside the womb but not after?
4. Is it moral to abort a fetus a few days before normal delivery but immoral to kill the baby after delivery and the cord is cut?
5. Is abortion synonymous with killing?

For the above medical issues are not considered and the abortion is a matter of convenience.

Steve, have you read A Defense of Abortion? It's an article that came out just before Roe v Wade; it seems to be pretty much forgotten now but when I was a kid it was the most widely discussed essay in all philosophy. To anybody who hasn't already read it, read it. The part near the end where the author talks about her concept of "The Minimally Decent Samaritan" seems especially relevant to the discussion here.

(Judith Thomson, by the way, was co-inventor of The Trolley Problem.)

 

[TomC]

What about a woman who keeps getting pregnant and can not afford or has no mental capacity to raise kids?

Why did you specify women?
That's a big part of why I find this conversation difficult. People talk about it as though it's strictly a women's issue when it's not.

Every one of those aborted fetal children had a father. Where the hell is he? Why isn't he supporting the mother and his child? If he's incapable of that, he needs to keep it in his pants.

A big part of the problem I have with RvW is the way it gets men off the hook for irresponsible, even abusive, sexual behavior. Whether he thinks it through this far or not, RvW enables him to dismiss the consequences of his choices.

As long as "Well the worst outcome is she needs to get an abortion, I don't even have to be there. It's all on her. Her Choice." of course men are going to behave badly. We always have(as a group, not all of us).

Maybe people who make babies that they aren't willing and able to properly care for ought to get their tubes tied or something. But certainly not just women.
Tom

 

[Jarhyn]

A real and substantive current moral issue.

1. The RCC has always been against birth control even condoms. Birth control is morally equivalent to actual abortion. Is birth control immoral?
2. One line of demarcation is presence of a fetal heartbeat. Is it immoral to abort a fetus after a fetal heartbeat is heard but not before?
3. Another line is fetal viability. Is it moral to abort before viability outside the womb but not after?
4. Is it moral to abort a fetus a few days before normal delivery but immoral to kill the baby after delivery and the cord is cut?
5. Is abortion synonymous with killing?

For the above medical issues are not considered and the abortion is a matter of convenience.

Steve, have you read A Defense of Abortion? It's an article that came out just before Roe v Wade; it seems to be pretty much forgotten now but when I was a kid it was the most widely discussed essay in all philosophy. To anybody who hasn't already read it, read it. The part near the end where the author talks about her concept of "The Minimally Decent Samaritan" seems especially relevant to the discussion here.

(Judith Thomson, by the way, was co-inventor of The Trolley Problem.)

I don't really think it is much forgotten? The line of reasoning that was reached even by the second page is exactly the content of the second post in the thread: that nobody has an ethical right to the use of someone else's body, even for the sake of their own life, except when they have come to the point where their decisions will not kill but maim someone who MUST live with the consequences of someone else deciding to main them.

Hence late term abortions past viability are only acceptable when the trolly problem is in play, and it is again down to the discretion of someone already beyond an ethical horizon forced to decide from two bad options.

Either way, I'm pretty sure it's been covered, especially since I'm pretty sure both Rhea and Toni have also brought this up; they are where this line of reasoning first reached me.

It's a very easy argument to assimilate, and a powerful one.

 

[prideandfall]

Late term abortion involves killing the fetus in the womb and then taking it out. Anybody comfortable with that?

i am.

we kill all kinds of people all the time for a variety of reasons, and every human society has a laundry list of reasons why it's acceptable to kill some people in some circumstances.
i find "it's in your body and you don't want it to be" a completely acceptable reason to kill someone, in the same way i'm utterly sure that steve thinks "they're in your home and you don't want them to be" is a perfectly acceptable reason to shoot someone dead.

 

[prideandfall]

Every one of those aborted fetal children had a father. Where the hell is he?

why does that matter?

Why isn't he supporting the mother and his child? If he's incapable of that, he needs to keep it in his pants.

why does he need to keep it in his pants? there's a perfectly viable option to prevent a negative outcome, so what difference does it make?

A big part of the problem I have with RvW is the way it gets men off the hook for irresponsible, even abusive, sexual behavior. Whether he thinks it through this far or not, RvW enables him to dismiss the consequences of his choices.

i mean not to be too reductive about it, but this argument basically suggests that prior to RvW no man ever exhibited irresponsible, even abusive, sexual behavior.
if that's what you think the history of the human race is like, boy howdy do i have a big shocker for you.

As long as "Well the worst outcome is she needs to get an abortion, I don't even have to be there. It's all on her. Her Choice." of course men are going to behave badly. We always have(as a group, not all of us).

except that this is predicated on the notion that the 'worst outcome' is an abortion, which is most certainly is not.
the 'worst outcome' in any pregnancy is that it results in a child being born, so anything that stops that is a net positive.

Maybe people who make babies that they aren't willing and able to properly care for ought to get their tubes tied or something. But certainly not just women.
Tom

did you know... that most doctors or medical facilities in the US will outright *refuse* to tie a woman's tubes or something if she's under 40 and hasn't had children yet?
there is literally no option for women to ensure sterilization because there is such a ridiculous expectation in our culture that females are ambulatory fetus incubators that an entire medical establishment will you just tell you to go fuck yourself if you try to assert your lack of interest in being one.

 

[TomC]

i mean not to be too reductive about it, but this argument basically suggests that prior to RvW no man ever exhibited irresponsible, even abusive, sexual behavior.

How typical.
Instead of responding to what I post you make up a strawman that's diametrically opposed to it and respond to that.

Bless Your Heart
Tom

 

[prideandfall]

i mean not to be too reductive about it, but this argument basically suggests that prior to RvW no man ever exhibited irresponsible, even abusive, sexual behavior.

How typical.
Instead of responding to what I post you make up a strawman that's diametrically opposed to it and respond to that.

in what way is your suggestion that RvW gives an out for poor behavior from men unrelated to the reality that men exhibit poor behavior regardless?

the very idea you yourself posited only has merit if one can show that men behave worse in a world where abortion is accessible, or at the least have measurably less accountability.

you have not done that, you made what i consider to be a wild assertion that is in opposition to observable reality.

that isn't a strawman, that is your argument sucking.

 

[prideandfall]

A real and substantive current moral issue.

technically i agree, but not for the reasons you think.

1. The RCC has always been against birth control even condoms. Birth control is morally equivalent to actual abortion. Is birth control immoral?

firstly, no it hasn't - for most of the last 2000 years the RCC has been neutral on it.
there have been popes who had a bug up their ass about it throughout the centuries, but the church as a whole pretty much didn't give a single shit about it until the early-to-mid 1900s, when it jumped on family planning as being just one more thing in people's lives it got to control.

secondly, no birth control is not immortal.

2. One line of demarcation is presence of a fetal heartbeat. Is it immoral to abort a fetus after a fetal heartbeat is heard but not before?
3. Another line is fetal viability. Is it moral to abort before viability outside the womb but not after?
4. Is it moral to abort a fetus a few days before normal delivery but immoral to kill the baby after delivery and the cord is cut?

no, it is never immoral to abort a fetus under any circumstances. it is always moral to abort, at any stage of pregnancy.
in fact, abortion is the only true moral choice when it comes to a pregnancy, any other decision other than abortion is the true immorality.

5. Is abortion synonymous with killing?

for the sake of discussion let's just say yes, since quibbling over this is an utterly ridiculous red herring.

for the sake of discussion let's agree that an abortion is exactly the same as killing a fully formed toddler.

it's still completely acceptable at worst, and carries significant moral weight to do so at best.

For the above medical issues are not considered and the abortion is a matter of convenience.

"abortion on demand without explanation or apology" is the only viable moral position to have on the subject.

 

[Bomb#20]

Steve, have you read A Defense of Abortion? It's an article that came out just before Roe v Wade; it seems to be pretty much forgotten now but when I was a kid it was the most widely discussed essay in all philosophy. ..

I don't really think it is much forgotten? The line of reasoning that was reached even by the second page is exactly the content of the second post in the thread: ...

I'm pretty sure a post which gets to "That's all the consideration that is necessary." after six sentences has not quite captured the essence of Ms. Thomson's line of reasoning.

Either way, I'm pretty sure it's been covered, especially since I'm pretty sure both Rhea and Toni have also brought this up; they are where this line of reasoning first reached me.

"In one case there are the rights of two people involved and they may be in conflict. In the other case there is only one person involved and there is no conflict." is the diametrical opposite of Thomson's reasoning.

If Toni has covered Thomson's argument elsewhere, good for her.

 

[Jarhyn]

"In one case there are the rights of two people involved and they may be in conflict. In the other case there is only one person involved and there is no conflict." is the diametrical opposite of Thomson's reasoning.

Rhea and Toni both have covered this among the abortion threads. Just because folks haven't echoed it here doesn't mean that's not a part of their views.

Also, one view does not preclude the other: you can argue "even if it was a person the right to revoke mercy is still theirs, but it's not a person so there is no conflict in the first place." Good arguments, like onions and ogres, have layers, and both are true facts.

 

[steve_bank]

What about a woman who keeps getting pregnant and can not afford or has no mental capacity to raise kids?

Why is that hypothetical relevant to whether you have a say in regarding a woman's private health?

Does the law punish someone for the death of a fetus other than the pregnant woman? If I were arguing a court case it would go weather a fetus has existing legal rights.

Same with a woman using drugs like cocaine or heroin while pregnant, is there any legal penalty?

Ih ave not looked yet.

Anoter quetion. Youh ave 5 or six kids and yiour wife gets pregnant. Do you as the father have a say in wheter or not she keeps the baby.?

 

[steve_bank]

A fetus does have legal status as an individual under federal law with an exemption for abortion.

Unborn Victims of Violence Act - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004 (Public Law 108-212) is a United States law that recognizes an embryo or fetus in utero as a legal victim, if they are injured or killed during the commission of any of over 60 listed federal crimes of violence. The law defines "child in utero" as "a member of the species Homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb."[1]

The law is codified in two sections of the United States Code: Title 18, Chapter 1 (Crimes), §1841 (18 USC 1841) and Title 10, Chapter 22 (Uniform Code of Military Justice) §919a (Article 119a). The law applies only to certain offenses over which the United States government has jurisdiction, including certain crimes committed on federal properties, against certain federal officials and employees, and by members of the military. In addition, it covers certain crimes that are defined by statute as federal offenses wherever they occur, no matter who commits them, such as certain crimes of terrorism. Because of principles of federalism embodied in the United States Constitution, federal criminal law does not apply to crimes prosecuted by the individual U.S. states, although 38 states also recognize the fetus or "unborn child" as a crime victim, at least for purposes of homicide or feticide.[2]

The legislation was both hailed and vilified by various legal observers who interpreted the measure as a step toward granting legal personhood to human fetuses, even though the bill explicitly contained a provision excepting abortion, stating that the bill would not "be construed to permit the prosecution" "of any person for conduct relating to an abortion for which the consent of the pregnant woman, or a person authorized by law to act on her behalf", "of any person for any medical treatment of the pregnant woman or her unborn child" or "of any woman with respect to her unborn child". The reticence of a federal law to authorize federal prosecution of a particular act committed under federal jurisdiction does not prevent states from passing their own laws against the act committed under their jurisdiction. Meanwhile, the definition of all unborn babies as "members of the species homo sapiens" in section (d) says what proposed "personhood" laws say.[3] Sponsors of such proposals say such legal language will trigger the collapse clause in Roe v. Wade, by establishing what they suggest Roe said must be established for legal abortion to end.[4] Several state supreme courts have ruled that sections (a) through (c) are not threatened by Roe,[5] but no court has addressed whether Roe can survive the suggested triggering of its collapse clause by section (d).

The bill contained the alternate title of Laci and Conner's Law after the California mother (Laci Peterson) and fetus (Conner Peterson) whose deaths were widely publicized during the later stages of the congressional debate on the bill in 2003 and 2004. Husband Scott Peterson was convicted of double homicide under California's fetal homicide law.

 

[Bronzeage]

There is one thing thing which can be stated with clarity. Life begins at conception and abortion kills someone.

That said, the next bit of clarity is, so what.

As a society, we kill people all the time. State sanctioned homicide, not related to warfare, has been a part of every human culture since we decided sleeping in the rain was a dumb idea. It's never been consistent from group to group, or even within a group. Consistency has never been a real consideration. The only consistent factor in when we decide to kill someone is how much trouble they cause. This is always a practical consideration and measuring trouble requires double entry book keeping.

The trouble principle applies to abortion and Capitol punishment. It's only in the recent century there has been any debate about state sanctioned homicide and that's mostly because we're not very good at identifying the real trouble makers.

That's not a problem with abortion. The troublemaker is identified and we know exactly where they are. Since we're dealing with humans, there's no reason to expect logic or reason to be applied to this problem.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

A fetus does have legal status as an individual under federal law with an exemption for abortion.

Yeah, after Roe vs Wade the repression crowd kept trying to undermine the heart of the decision--the fact that nowhere did the law consider the fetus of any value. That doesn't make the measures they passed proper.