Are there any ethical implications of aborting for any reason or via any method?

[Bomb#20]

How exactly is income derived from this practice? Is this some kind of spectator sport, or is she selling the aborted fetus? It's an important distinction.

I explained that in post #12, the one Tom never answered. He'd already postulated a serial killer who thinks life begins at conception and wants to experience the psychotic thrill of murdering a baby, so I just took that and ran with it. I figured if there were such a person but he didn't have the balls to do the deed himself, he'd get the same psychotic thrill out of paying somebody else to do it for him, just like every other gutless murderer who hires a hit man in order to get what he wants without having to face doing his own wet work. So, yeah, some kind of spectator sport, if you want to call it that.

 

[Bronzeage]

How exactly is income derived from this practice? Is this some kind of spectator sport, or is she selling the aborted fetus? It's an important distinction.

I explained that in post #12, the one Tom never answered. He'd already postulated a serial killer who thinks life begins at conception and wants to experience the psychotic thrill of murdering a baby, so I just took that and ran with it. I figured if there were such a person but he didn't have the balls to do the deed himself, he'd get the same psychotic thrill out of paying somebody else to do it for him, just like every other gutless murderer who hires a hit man in order to get what he wants without having to face doing his own wet work. So, yeah, some kind of spectator sport, if you want to call it that.

The state has the right and the power to regulate commerce. While the state cannot outlaw a particular reason a woman wants to have an abortion, they can prohibit trade and profit off of the process, in much the same way it is illegal to sell body parts for transplant operations.

 

[Bomb#20]

So, yeah, some kind of spectator sport, if you want to call it that.

The state has the right and the power to regulate commerce.

You use the word "right." Who says so? Who is speaking? Are we to take your word as our command?

While the state cannot outlaw a particular reason a woman wants to have an abortion, they can prohibit trade and profit off of the process,

Nobody was ever talking about the state making it illegal for a woman merely to want a sex-selection abortion. The discussion was about actually getting one. The state can certainly outlaw a particular reason a woman gets to have an abortion. Prohibiting trade and profit off of the process is just another way of saying they've outlawed getting an abortion for the reason that somebody's paying you to. That's every bit as much criminalizing a reason for abortion as if they outlaw aborting Down's kids, or they outlaw aborting a fetus due to its sex or race, or they outlaw aborting because you don't want to carry your rapist's child to term, or they outlaw aborting for any reason except to save the life of the mother.

in much the same way it is illegal to sell body parts for transplant operations.

Which is to say, it's illegal to remove one of your body parts and turn it over to a transplant patient for the reason that he paid you to.

 

[Bronzeage]

The state has the right and the power to regulate commerce.

You use the word "right." Who says so? Who is speaking? Are we to take your word as our command?

While the state cannot outlaw a particular reason a woman wants to have an abortion, they can prohibit trade and profit off of the process,

Nobody was ever talking about the state making it illegal for a woman merely to want a sex-selection abortion. The discussion was about actually getting one. The state can certainly outlaw a particular reason a woman gets to have an abortion. Prohibiting trade and profit off of the process is just another way of saying they've outlawed getting an abortion for the reason that somebody's paying you to. That's every bit as much criminalizing a reason for abortion as if they outlaw aborting Down's kids, or they outlaw aborting a fetus due to its sex or race, or they outlaw aborting because you don't want to carry your rapist's child to term, or they outlaw aborting for any reason except to save the life of the mother.

in much the same way it is illegal to sell body parts for transplant operations.

Which is to say, it's illegal to remove one of your body parts and turn it over to a transplant patient for the reason that he paid you to.

You can quibble over reality as it exists, but it's not much of an argument.

Legal statutes have historically had a problem regulating the thoughts contained in a person's mind and it is thoughts which constitute the reasons we do things, just as thoughts make it possible for you to conceive word play to support your argument.

 

[Bomb#20]

Phase 1. Ignore the objection.

Phase 2. Insult the objection.

Phase 3. Insult the objector.

Prohibiting trade and profit off of the process is just another way of saying they've outlawed getting an abortion for the reason that somebody's paying you to. That's every bit as much criminalizing a reason for abortion as if they outlaw aborting Down's kids, or they outlaw aborting a fetus due to its sex or race, or they outlaw aborting because you don't want to carry your rapist's child to term, or they outlaw aborting for any reason except to save the life of the mother.

You can quibble over reality as it exists, but it's not much of an argument.

Legal statutes have historically had a problem regulating the thoughts contained in a person's mind and it is thoughts which constitute the reasons we do things, just as thoughts make it possible for you to conceive word play to support your argument.

That would be Phase 2. Are you trying to catch up with Tom?

What makes you think it's me and not you who's playing on words? So far no one has produced a principled reason to regard prohibiting the process from interfering with the default 1-to-1 sex ratio as one iota more disrespectful of a woman's bodily autonomy than prohibiting trade and profit off of the process is. As long as no such reason has been produced, labeling the former but not the latter "outlawing a particular reason" is the word game.

"The state has the right and the power to regulate commerce." is not a principled reason. After all, surely Loren figures the state has the right and the power to regulate society's overall sex ratio. Who says which rights and powers the state has? You? Loren? The majority? If we put legality of sex-selection abortion to a popular vote, do you think it would win?

 

[Bronzeage]

Phase 1. Ignore the objection.

Phase 2. Insult the objection.

Phase 3. Insult the objector.

You can quibble over reality as it exists, but it's not much of an argument.

Legal statutes have historically had a problem regulating the thoughts contained in a person's mind and it is thoughts which constitute the reasons we do things, just as thoughts make it possible for you to conceive word play to support your argument.

That would be Phase 2. Are you trying to catch up with Tom?

What makes you think it's me and not you who's playing on words? So far no one has produced a principled reason to regard prohibiting the process from interfering with the default 1-to-1 sex ratio as one iota more disrespectful of a woman's bodily autonomy than prohibiting trade and profit off of the process is. As long as no such reason has been produced, labeling the former but not the latter "outlawing a particular reason" is the word game.

"The state has the right and the power to regulate commerce." is not a principled reason. After all, surely Loren figures the state has the right and the power to regulate society's overall sex ratio. Who says which rights and powers the state has? You? Loren? The majority? If we put legality of sex-selection abortion to a popular vote, do you think it would win?

The principled reason for not restricting abortion performed for the purposes of gender selection is that when women were granted the right to choose to have a safe abortion, we forfeited the right to demand her reasons. It was part of the social contract. It doesn't matter what her reasons might be.
This means that objections will be ignored, until the law is changed. If a general referendum were held, it's hard to predict the outcome. We could, as a society, decide to add to the list of principled objections to abortion. As it stands now the "don't ask, don't care" rule only applies to the first trimester. If we allow the gender selection objection to stand, surely someone else will request other reasons be put on the list. If every "reasonable reason" is allowed, it will be a short period of time before abortions are as restricted as before Roe v. Wade. Some people find any abortion, for any reason to be as repugnant as a gender selection abortion. They see no distinction at all.

On a practical level, how would this principled objection be applied. Would there be some sort of questionnaire? Perhaps, a committee to review abortion requests. We have been through this all before. I am old enough to remember the abortion debate. At that time, it was not possible to determine much at all about a fetus, except it's existence. The main reasons most women wanted an abortion were financial. They simply could not afford a child because of their current situation. They might be unmarried and had no partner to share the burden. They might still be in school and a pregnancy would disrupt their foreseeable future.

It is a little strange to be debating whether a child can be aborted because it is the undesirable gender, when we have already agreed it can be aborted because it might be too expensive.

As for your last question, "Who says which rights and powers the state has?" We all do. That's the way it works and in order to make it work, we give up some things. Demanding reasons for an abortion is one of them.

 

[Bomb#20]

So far no one has produced a principled reason to regard prohibiting the process from interfering with the default 1-to-1 sex ratio as one iota more disrespectful of a woman's bodily autonomy than prohibiting trade and profit off of the process is.

The principled reason for not restricting abortion performed for the purposes of gender selection

Excuse me, need to cut in here. That doesn't actually address what I pointed out nobody had produced a principled reason for.

is that when women were granted the right to choose to have a safe abortion, we forfeited the right to demand her reasons.

Did we? If so, that would include forfeiting the right to check if her reason is commerce, the state's right to regulate commerce notwithstanding.

It was part of the social contract. It doesn't matter what her reasons might be.

That's great, but when you bring the social contract into the argument, you rely on information which is not available to everybody. Why should anyone accept your word for it, when you say society has contracted not to consider her reasons? There doesn't seem to be any test which can validate such a claim. How can we know we followed the contract? I still have to take your word for all of this, because you've somehow obtained the important information. Now I am faced with a dilemma. Should I wait until the social contract reveals itself to me, or listen to some human, whose logical process seems deeply flawed? One of the problems of social agreement morality is that there's always some other guy who says there's a preexisting social agreement to allow the absolute ruler to do whatever he damn well pleases just so that we won't be subject to the state of nature's war of all against all, in which life is nasty, brutal and short. He assures us that society didn't forfeit a bloody thing when women were granted the right to choose to have a safe abortion, what the state giveth the state can take away, and if gender selection squicks the Supreme Wisher as much as filthy lucre does then he can demand her reason and the social contract has sanctioned it all.

As for your last question, "Who says which rights and powers the state has?" We all do. That's the way it works and in order to make it work, we give up some things. Demanding reasons for an abortion is one of them.

Oh, so that's who the Supreme Wisher is. Sorry, make that: if gender selection squicks the Supreme Wisher as much as filthy lucre does then we can demand her reason and the social contract has sanctioned it all.