After-Birth Abortion: Is Infanticide Wrong?

[LordKiran]

I fail to see why emotional reactions necessarily preclude rational objections. You are disdainful of emotions, yet you expect me to believe that you 'care' about the people you claim to be championing.

My point is a good decision is a good decision, regardless who makes it. You say the dead make no decisions. That is what I call a trivial truth. The fact is that the decisions made by people now dead continue to affect events, and it is utterly foolish to pretend otherwise. Understanding this requires no belief in supernatural agency. It does, however, require one to adopt a wider worldview than allowed by obsessing over whatever your -ism of the week.

You ask why a doctor's moral judgement is better than yours? Simple, a doctor has a professional obligation to act in the best interest of the patient. That is an oath he or she takes. You, random internet commentator, has no professional code of ethics, or obligations. You also have no AMA looking over your shoulder. Literally no one would prefer you to their own doctor. Yet you claim that you are just as good. When people talk to me about health issues, I always ask, 'have you seen a doctor?' I don't imagine that I am better to comment on either medical practice, or medical ethics.

My position is purely pragmatic and eminently rational. I trust people to make their own decisions, and trust families to make decisions regarding their loved ones, and trust professionals more than non-professionals and random internet commentators and ideological crusaders. I have seen too much of the world to trust people who want to radically transform society, upending norms that have been arrived at by consensus for the sake of their utopian ideals. This is the position of democracy. The fact that you focused on nitpicking my general statements on law and so forth, while entirely ignoring my main theme, which is one of freedom and self autonomy. Authoritarian utopias always fail. And every authoritarian utopia begins with people usurping the power and autonomy of others, believing they can do better. Thus you would intrude upon families, women's bodies, the doctor/patient relationship, and so on.

I think the world would be a better place if people were to mind their own business.

A point of interest is how the overemphasis on 'freedom and self-autonomy' of the individual can just as easily lead to a dystopian nightmare as anything else can.

The balance between individual and collective interests is important and needs to be maintained. While we can bicker over the details, I'd say it's difficult to find anyone here would propose any kind of governing system based upon Anarchic or Randian principles anymore than you would find someone who is absolutely in favor of any kind of authoritarianism.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

But what you really mean is that I weigh the unborn's life against the woman's desire to choose and don't see the woman's desire to choose as necessarily paramount.

And what you really mean is that I don't presume that a child merely by birth right has any ethical claim to the property of their parents, whereas you apparently do.

You appear to be contending that a fetus has a moral claim over their mother's body and biological processes, the most fundamental thing that the mother owns, whilst saying that whatever child/person that fetus may grow up to be lacks such a moral claim to their parents' property and that neither should be contingent upon the known wishes of the parents in question (i.e. The fetus has a moral claim whether the mother likes it or not and the child lacks a moral claim whether the parents like it or not).

Am I correct in understanding this?

I think you are, yes. Moral claims to different things though of course. The unborn child; a moral claim to life, and the adult child; a moral non-claim to property/inheritance. The adult child also has the moral claim to life, and the unborn child also has the moral non-claim to property/inheritance, so this isn't an inconsistent view.

 

[Sarpedon]

A point of interest is how the overemphasis on 'freedom and self-autonomy' of the individual can just as easily lead to a dystopian nightmare as anything else can.

The balance between individual and collective interests is important and needs to be maintained. While we can bicker over the details, I'd say it's difficult to find anyone here would propose any kind of governing system based upon Anarchic or Randian principles anymore than you would find someone who is absolutely in favor of any kind of authoritarianism.

Oh quite right. I am entirely in favor of rules set by democratic processes. I have nothing but contempt for people who wish to meddle in people's lives without a strong mandate, as is this case. Most americans are in favor of some sort of rights to abortion. I have no objection at all if a majority of people want to change the inheritance laws. (they seem not to)

A number of my posts mock modern american libertarians. I am in favor of a great deal of personal autonomy, but frankly I don't think that's what that particular group is about. What I can't abide are all these people who are in favor of personal autonomy EXCEPT for certain key issues where they disregard the autonomy of others. I don't regard democracy to be an infringement on autonomy, because every individual can be part of the process.