Abortion

[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.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

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

The sperm and egg are dead?!?!

 

[Bronzeage]

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

The sperm and egg are dead?!?!

If not actually dead, doomed.

 

[Jarhyn]

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

The sperm and egg are dead?!?!

If not actually dead, doomed.

I don't think that concept applies in the context, really. The sperm and egg are going to fuse. Neither of them die, they just change.

Millions of sperms will die but that one undergoes a metamorphosis, not a death.

 

[Bronzeage]

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

The sperm and egg are dead?!?!

If not actually dead, doomed.

I don't think that concept applies in the context, really. The sperm and egg are going to fuse. Neither of them die, they just change.

Millions of sperms will die but that one undergoes a metamorphosis, not a death.

Never confuse a play on words for an argument. We are not discussing whether something is alive, but whether it has a life.

 

[Bomb#20]

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

The sperm and egg are dead?!?!

If not actually dead, doomed.

We're all doomed.

An ovum outweighs a sperm by about as much as a kid outweighs his measles vaccination -- and he too may be imminently doomed if he doesn't get it. Claiming an ovum isn't alive until a sperm joins it makes about as much sense as claiming the kid isn't alive until he's vaccinated.

 

[steve_bank]

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.

True, humans are violent, so are lions and tigers and chimpanzees. Chimps can be cannibals.

Semantics. Homicide is illegal killing with no justfication such as self defense. Killing in war. Here in Seattle teens are killing each other.

Capitol punishment is killing but not murder.


The obvious problem wt abortion is where the line is drawn. That is why I asked the quetion is there a difference between abortion a day before normal delivery and killing the baby just after delivery and the cord is cut.

Why not allow eutenasia up to 1 year old. Maybe a serious birth defect emerges. Maybe the bby is blind, dumb, or deaf. That is the slippery slope the Pro Lifer argue.

 

[Bronzeage]

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

The sperm and egg are dead?!?!

If not actually dead, doomed.

We're all doomed.

An ovum outweighs a sperm by about as much as a kid outweighs his measles vaccination -- and he too may be imminently doomed if he doesn't get it. Claiming an ovum isn't alive until a sperm joins it makes about as much sense as claiming the kid isn't alive until he's vaccinated.

I had my tonsils removed when I was 7 years old. I don't know what happened to them, but for a short time the cells which constituted my tonsils were alive. No one can seriously claim my tonsils were a life.

I'm not sure what they weighed, but I think I was about 60 pounds, which makes as much sense as claiming eggs over easy is a chicken dinner.

 

[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.

True, humans are violent, so are lions and tigers and chimpanzees. Chimps can be cannibals.

Semantics. Homicide is illegal killing with no justfication such as self defense. Killing in war. Here in Seattle teens are killing each other.

Capitol punishment is killing but not murder.


The obvious problem wt abortion is where the line is drawn. That is why I asked the quetion is there a difference between abortion a day before normal delivery and killing the baby just after delivery and the cord is cut.

Why not allow eutenasia up to 1 year old. Maybe a serious birth defect emerges. Maybe the bby is blind, dumb, or deaf. That is the slippery slope the Pro Lifer argue.

As I said above, whether or not we decide it's okay to kill someone depends only upon the trouble they will cause if we let them live. There's really no philosophy to it.

 

[Bomb#20]

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

The sperm and egg are dead?!?!

If not actually dead, doomed.

We're all doomed.

An ovum outweighs a sperm by about as much as a kid outweighs his measles vaccination -- and he too may be imminently doomed if he doesn't get it. Claiming an ovum isn't alive until a sperm joins it makes about as much sense as claiming the kid isn't alive until he's vaccinated.

I had my tonsils removed when I was 7 years old. I don't know what happened to them, but for a short time the cells which constituted my tonsils were alive. No one can seriously claim my tonsils were a life.

I'd have thought no one can seriously claim a newly fertilized ovum is a life, and yet here we are. If when you were 7 your tonsils had been put in deep-freeze right away, maybe today somebody could thaw them out, clone them, implant them, and grow your identical twin brother out of them. That's every bit as good a case for your tonsils being "a life" as there is for "Life begins at conception and abortion kills someone."

 

[Bronzeage]

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

The sperm and egg are dead?!?!

If not actually dead, doomed.

We're all doomed.

An ovum outweighs a sperm by about as much as a kid outweighs his measles vaccination -- and he too may be imminently doomed if he doesn't get it. Claiming an ovum isn't alive until a sperm joins it makes about as much sense as claiming the kid isn't alive until he's vaccinated.

I had my tonsils removed when I was 7 years old. I don't know what happened to them, but for a short time the cells which constituted my tonsils were alive. No one can seriously claim my tonsils were a life.

I'd have thought no one can seriously claim a newly fertilized ovum is a life, and yet here we are. If when you were 7 your tonsils had been put in deep-freeze right away, maybe today somebody could thaw them out, clone them, implant them, and grow your identical twin brother out of them. That's every bit as good a case for your tonsils being "a life" as there is for "Life begins at conception and abortion kills someone."

There's actually a very little bit of a case for my tonsils becoming my brother.