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

[Bronzeage]

Huh? What's strange about that? "Sanctity of life" is a make-believe reason; it's superstition. An embryo isn't a person. Quality of life of people in the future is a real reason; it's utilitarianism.

"Reasonable" requires a reason. You just put the future contentment of men on the list of reasons to prohibit abortions.

He really didn't. You can't suppress sex-selection abortions by prohibiting them -- people who want one will just lie about their reasons. What you can do to suppress sex-selection abortions is prohibit medical clinics from telling parents whether they're going to have boys or girls. So actually he put the future contentment of men on the list of reasons to restrict information flow.

If that works for you, fine. It's simple to drawn the line around the definition of a person to not include embryos. A line is just a line and it can be put anywhere one pleases. This allows people who are otherwise opposed to killing to accept the idea of abortion and still feel philosophically consistent.

One would assume gender selection abortions would only take place once the gender of the non-person embryo is determined. It still comes down to a reason to deny a woman a choice in the matter, and that reason is, as Loren states, "Whereas the large numbers of men who can't find wives cause very real social problems."

So, we have an reason for having an abortion which is not ethical, because men have a right to a fair shot at sexual happiness. If there is another way to say, let me hear you.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

A woman's freedom to choose means that she has freedom to choose. It doesn't mean that she has freedom to choose as long as she has good reasons for her choice. If she thinks that men are superior and prefers a son, she can abort a female fetus without any issue. If she got drunk and unintentionally had sex with a black man and got knocked up, she can abort on the justification that she thinks there are already too many niggers in the world. If she's a serial killer who thinks that life begins at conception, she can constantly get pregnant solely to experience the psychotic thrill of murdering a baby.

There's nothing unethical about any of that. She's doing what she wants with her own body and there's no victim.

So, then you feel the same way about someone killing puppies or chimps for the simple thrill of it?

If not, then you must recognize that "a victim" doesn't require legal personhood. Puppies, chimps, and fetuses are all living things, but chimps and puppies are no more (in fact, much less) closer to having legal personhood than a fetus. So, it is irrational an inconsistent to consider it unethical to kill chimps but not a fetus for the mere thrill of it.

Nope.

 

[doubtingt]

So, then you feel the same way about someone killing puppies or chimps for the simple thrill of it?

If not, then you must recognize that "a victim" doesn't require legal personhood. Puppies, chimps, and fetuses are all living things, but chimps and puppies are no more (in fact, much less) closer to having legal personhood than a fetus. So, it is irrational an inconsistent to consider it unethical to kill chimps but not a fetus for the mere thrill of it.

Nope.

So, you have zero rational basis for your feelings and they are rooted in no ethical principles. You just decree that X is ethical and Y is unethical in the same way you might say A flavor of ice cream taste good and B does not.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

"Reasonable" requires a reason. You just put the future contentment of men on the list of reasons to prohibit abortions.

A reason to prohibit sex-selection abortions, not all abortions.

Is it really that big a problem to have a child of the other gender?

Whereas the large numbers of men who can't find wives cause very real social problems.

Why is that a problem? Simply have the government force the remaining women at gunpoint to have children with multiple men. Since their bodies are the property of society at large and not themselves as individuals, this would be a simple and easy solution.

- - - Updated - - -

Nope.

So, you have zero rational basis for your feelings and they are rooted in no ethical principles. You just decree that X is ethical and Y is unethical in the same way you might say A flavor of ice cream taste good and B does not.

Nope.

 

[Toni]

For evidence of a problem with gender-selective abortion look at China and India. Both are cultures that place a strong emphasis on sons, the result has been enough gender selection that tens of millions of men will never find wives. That's what I'm saying the state should prevent. So long as the number of gender selective abortions remains low this isn't an issue and no action should be taken.
...
A reason to prohibit sex-selection abortions, not all abortions.

Is it really that big a problem to have a child of the other gender?

Whereas the large numbers of men who can't find wives cause very real social problems.

In India, yes, it really is that big a problem to have a child of the other gender. The reason there are so many sex-selection abortions is because having girls causes a very real social problem. For a lot of families living on the margin of poverty, having a son means getting social security and having a daughter is an economic catastrophe. Not only do you not get a son who'll consider it his duty to take care of you in your old age, you're expected to somehow save enough for a socially acceptable dowry and then give it away to the family your daughter will be taking care of in their old age. Suppressing sex-selection abortion solves the imbalance problem at the cost of leaving a lot more families destitute. What India needs to do to solve the imbalance problem is abolish dowries, enact real social security, and stop thinking of a wife as the property of her husband's parents.

I thought that dowries were already (legally) abolished in India.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

But are there any motives or methods of abortions that cross an ethical line, even if for pragmatic reasons you don't want such considerations in any way limiting maternal power over the decision to abort?

Certainly there are. Bomb#20 already provided one scenario in which motives cross an ethical line: aborting a fetus in order to get one's father murdered just because one hates him is immoral.

That really doesn't relate to the question of the morality of abortion, though. One could just as well say that if a mechanic fixes a woman's car, she's going to drive her brother over to kill their father, so therefore there are cases where fixing someone's car is immoral.

The immorality in those situations has to do with abetting the murder of an innocent, not with the ethically neutral action taken in doing so.

 

[doubtingt]

A reason to prohibit sex-selection abortions, not all abortions.

Is it really that big a problem to have a child of the other gender?

Whereas the large numbers of men who can't find wives cause very real social problems.

Why is that a problem? Simply have the government force the remaining women at gunpoint to have children with multiple men. Since their bodies are the property of society at large and not themselves as individuals, this would be a simple and easy solution.

- - - Updated - - -

Nope.

So, you have zero rational basis for your feelings and they are rooted in no ethical principles. You just decree that X is ethical and Y is unethical in the same way you might say A flavor of ice cream taste good and B does not.

Nope.

Well "It is ethical to kill chimps for fun, because there are no victims" is as objectively true a statement as your claim about killing a fetus, so your distinction cannot be based upon anything but purely arbitrary preference.

 

[Bronzeage]

Why is that a problem? Simply have the government force the remaining women at gunpoint to have children with multiple men. Since their bodies are the property of society at large and not themselves as individuals, this would be a simple and easy solution.

- - - Updated - - -

Nope.

So, you have zero rational basis for your feelings and they are rooted in no ethical principles. You just decree that X is ethical and Y is unethical in the same way you might say A flavor of ice cream taste good and B does not.

Nope.

Well "It is ethical to kill chimps for fun, because there are no victims" is as objectively true a statement as your claim about killing a fetus, so your distinction cannot be based upon anything but purely arbitrary preference.

This maybe the time to throw the Trouble Rule into the mix. There is a very old moral principle about socially sanctioned death. It is very simple in statement and application. The Trouble Rule is stated as, "If you cause enough trouble, we will kill you." The Trouble Rule is so wonderful because it is so flexible. It can be used to justify killing anyone, at any time, for any reason. All we have to do is determine how much trouble they will cause. The designated soon to be dead person(or non-person embryo) doesn't actually have to have done anything. Circumstances can simply stack up against them. If a female baby is conceived in a culture where male babies are preferred, that's trouble. If someone happens to live on the third floor and Al Qaeda is holding a meeting on the first floor, that's trouble. This is how we justify abortion, capital punishment, and collateral damage.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

For evidence of a problem with gender-selective abortion look at China and India. Both are cultures that place a strong emphasis on sons, the result has been enough gender selection that tens of millions of men will never find wives. That's what I'm saying the state should prevent. So long as the number of gender selective abortions remains low this isn't an issue and no action should be taken.
...
A reason to prohibit sex-selection abortions, not all abortions.

Is it really that big a problem to have a child of the other gender?

Whereas the large numbers of men who can't find wives cause very real social problems.

In India, yes, it really is that big a problem to have a child of the other gender. The reason there are so many sex-selection abortions is because having girls causes a very real social problem. For a lot of families living on the margin of poverty, having a son means getting social security and having a daughter is an economic catastrophe. Not only do you not get a son who'll consider it his duty to take care of you in your old age, you're expected to somehow save enough for a socially acceptable dowry and then give it away to the family your daughter will be taking care of in their old age. Suppressing sex-selection abortion solves the imbalance problem at the cost of leaving a lot more families destitute. What India needs to do to solve the imbalance problem is abolish dowries, enact real social security, and stop thinking of a wife as the property of her husband's parents.

What makes no sense is dowries persisting in the era of a shortage of women.

And in that kind of economic situation sons are unlikely to be able to afford to take care of their parents anyway.

 

[PyramidHead]

Well "It is ethical to kill chimps for fun, because there are no victims" is as objectively true a statement as your claim about killing a fetus, so your distinction cannot be based upon anything but purely arbitrary preference.

In the end, it comes back to preferences. While they are not objective truths about the universe, neither need they be arbitrary.

Legally, non-human animals do not enjoy the same protected status as humans. However, there is no clear reason to think they should automatically be relegated to a lower status morally. If an adult chimp has more well-developed cognitive and emotional faculties than a newborn baby, and those are the features that proportionally make a being vulnerable to harm, the species of the newborn does not by itself constitute a compelling argument that the baby should be favored in moral conflicts.

 

[Bomb#20]

I'm not sure what you're implying here.

Are you suggesting that in such a case, moral pressure should be brought to bear on the woman not to abort and to have a child she doesn't want?

No,

You say "No", but...

You say 'You say "No", but...', but your continuation doesn't offer any reason to think my answer is "Yes". Denying a woman an abortion is not an example of bringing moral pressure on her not to abort.

what I'm implying is that morally the doctor has every right "to impose his own moral choices on the patient and limit care" because he does not agree to participate in the woman's attempt to bring about her father's murder.

The upshot is exactly the same - a woman would be denied an abortion and effectively forced to have a child she doesn't want.

And we're back to la-la land. No, you choosing not to sell me a service I want is not you forcing me to do anything. If you don't get a choice when I want to buy, that's me forcing you to do something. There's a middle ground between you forcing me and me forcing you, where nobody forces anybody and the exchange is voluntary for both parties. Or are you in agreement with St. Athanasius, who felt that Christians had a right to burn down synagogues because "The toleration of the Jewish religion is the persecution of the Christian religion."?

It seems to me that if the doctor genuinely believed that there was a strong possibility that the abortion would result in the brother murdering his father (the mind boggles!) the doctor's duty is to go to the police with his suspicions and not to deny the woman a termination.

Well of course the doctor goes to the police with his suspicions. And if only the doctor had had the foresight to have a turned-on recording device in hand when he accidentally overheard the patient telling her friend how she planned to manipulate her murderous brother, then the police would have probable cause to take action against the brother instead of just an uncorroborated tip they have no authority to act on, other than to maybe pay the brother a visit and give him a talking to and stern warning not to kill the man and a heads-up that he'll need to be extra careful not to leave any evidence that could implicate him.

 

[The AntiChris]

I'm not sure what you're implying here.

Are you suggesting that in such a case, moral pressure should be brought to bear on the woman not to abort and to have a child she doesn't want?

No,

You say "No", but...

You say 'You say "No", but...', but your continuation doesn't offer any reason to think my answer is "Yes". Denying a woman an abortion is not an example of bringing moral pressure on her not to abort.

I'm afraid you've lost me.

You said: "what I'm implying is that morally the doctor has every right 'to impose his own moral choices on the patient and limit care'". I'm struggling to see this as anything other than your endorsement of moral pressure in the form of a withdrawal of services.

The only way it makes sense to me is if you're saying, regardless of the woman's reasons for wanting an abortion, that any doctor has the right to refuse to provide abortion services (i.e. you're defending the freedom of a service-provider to withhold services for whatever reason). But this doesn't make sense given the context of this thread.

I suspect we're talking at cross purposes.

 

[doubtingt]

Well "It is ethical to kill chimps for fun, because there are no victims" is as objectively true a statement as your claim about killing a fetus, so your distinction cannot be based upon anything but purely arbitrary preference.

In the end, it comes back to preferences. While they are not objective truths about the universe, neither need they be arbitrary.

Legally, non-human animals do not enjoy the same protected status as humans. However, there is no clear reason to think they should automatically be relegated to a lower status morally. If an adult chimp has more well-developed cognitive and emotional faculties than a newborn baby, and those are the features that proportionally make a being vulnerable to harm, the species of the newborn does not by itself constitute a compelling argument that the baby should be favored in moral conflicts.

I agree that preferences don't need to be arbitrary but they can be and Tom Sawyer's clearly are since he's incapable of providing any basis for them.
If you want to grant more moral status to a chimp than a human baby (fetus or born), that can be done on the basis you describe. If you want to grant zero moral status to all living things that are not legal persons, that is also non-arbitrary. But to grant moral status to both newborn babies and to chimps but treat a living, thinking, feeling fetus like its an inanimate object is arbitrary. There is no principled system of categorizes these objects that would justify this differences in treatment, thus one must arbitrarily treat members of the same category differently.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Certainly there are. Bomb#20 already provided one scenario in which motives cross an ethical line: aborting a fetus in order to get one's father murdered just because one hates him is immoral.

That really doesn't relate to the question of the morality of abortion, though. One could just as well say that if a mechanic fixes a woman's car, she's going to drive her brother over to kill their father, so therefore there are cases where fixing someone's car is immoral.

The immorality in those situations has to do with abetting the murder of an innocent, not with the ethically neutral action taken in doing so.

The "one might as well say" suggests the cases are relevantly similar. They are not. Bomb#20's example does answer the OP question.

As for the mechanic, how would that be immoral, or similar? You would need to stipulate that the mechanic fixes it knowing that she's going to do that, and specifically she fixes the car so that she does that. Provided the mechanic has no justification for wanting the other guy dead, of course it's immoral.
So, yes, sometimes it's immoral to fix a car.

Also, there is no single question of the morality of abortion; there are questions about whether abortion for such-and-such reasons, and in such-and-such contexts, are immoral. Some people believe that abortions are always immorals, regardless of motives, circumstances, etc., and they are mistaken. Some others might claim that they're never immoral, but that's probably (maybe not in all cases, though; someone might be more mistaken than usual) because they've not considered cases like the one Bomb#20 came up with, or they are mistaken about what the questions are.

 

[Bomb#20]

You say 'You say "No", but...', but your continuation doesn't offer any reason to think my answer is "Yes". Denying a woman an abortion is not an example of bringing moral pressure on her not to abort.

I'm afraid you've lost me.

You said: "what I'm implying is that morally the doctor has every right 'to impose his own moral choices on the patient and limit care'". I'm struggling to see this as anything other than your endorsement of moral pressure in the form of a withdrawal of services.

Apparently I don't understand what you mean by "moral pressure". I thought the phrase meant criticism, remonstrance, shaming, appeal to the villain's conscience, attempts to adjust her thinking, etc. What do you mean by it?

The only way it makes sense to me is if you're saying, regardless of the woman's reasons for wanting an abortion, that any doctor has the right to refuse to provide abortion services (i.e. you're defending the freedom of a service-provider to withhold services for whatever reason). But this doesn't make sense given the context of this thread.

Wow. I'm at a loss as to how you could possibly infer that. It's as though I expressed disapproval of the 17th-century Japanese genocide against Christians, and you replied that the only way what I'm saying makes sense to you is if I was saying a papal theocracy should have been installed by Spanish conquistadors. Why would you have a problem, for example, with entertaining the concept of a service provider being allowed to withhold services because the client is trying to get somebody killed but not being allowed to withhold services because the client is black?

 

[Bomb#20]

In the other thread you were very explicit that your entire point was that it absolutely does matter what the rationale behind the choice is, if she's a prostitute. Then she can do anything she bloody well pleases with her own vagina provided her rationale for her choices isn't on society's list of unacceptable rationales.

That's because there is somebody who is not her that is affected by her decision. In the case of an abortion, there's not.

Um, yes, there are a variety of other people affected by her decision. The brother who stands to gain or lose an inheritance over it. The doctor who stands to spend the rest of his life wracked with guilt over having aided and abetted a murder. And of course the father, to whom it's a matter of life and death. Likewise in other scenarios -- some future man won't find a wife because of a sex-selection abortion, some infertile couple won't be able to adopt because of a generic abortion, and so forth. If you're saying the prostitution example is totally different because some john is affected by not get laid that night, then you're special-pleading.

Your example is akin to having a situation where some guy will kill his father if his sister gets a mole removed and thinking that this example is somehow related to the moral question of whether or not one should remove moles.

You say that as though one has to either remove all moles or else remove no moles. Of course your example is related to the moral question of whether or not one should remove that particular mole. If some guy will kill his father if his sister gets a mole removed, and the dermatologist knows it, society should not be in the business of ordering the dermatologist to remove the mole and cause the death, on pain of being forced never to remove another mole. It's neither a crime against humanity nor a crime against logic to remove some moles and not others.

The whole point of this thread is to discuss which reasons for aborting raise ethical implications, rather than take it for granted that we have to choose a one-size-fits-all policy.

There's really not a relation between the stances in the two threads.

No, of course there isn't. This thread is about first-class citizens; the other thread is about whores.

 

[Bomb#20]

I think Tom is operating under the idea that health care is a basic resource that all should have access to. If a person chooses a profession in supplying such a basic resource, then they forfeit certain rights in deciding how they perform that task, other than the right to stop serving that role entirely. It is like the utility companies. Should the CEO of a utility company be able to say that they will not send electricity to the homes of people they find morally objectionable? What if he decides to cut off the electricity for homes that use it to watch legal porn? The same goes for cops, and firemen, etc..
Basically, some service sectors are treated as providing things to people to which they have a basic and equal right, and the employee has the right not to do that as their job, but if they agree to do it, then they forfeit the right to personally decide for whom and under what conditions they do it.

Yes, of course that's the idea he's operating under. Our rulers, with the support of a majority of our fellow citizens, have decided some members of our society are a basic resource and how they are deployed is up to society to decide, not up to them. This is familiar to all of us; and we can all debate endlessly around the edges: which professions should be in this category and which should not. What's also familiar is that whenever Alice says provision of X is that sort of basic resource and provision of Y is not, while Bob says it's the other way around, it's a foregone conclusion that Alice will claim that provision of Y can't be treated that way because freedom to choose means freedom to choose and Y-providers own their bodies and they don't need good reasons for their choices, or Bob will say the same about X-providers, or both will say it. Everybody's pro-freedom just as long as it's the freedom of the people he cares about to do the things he approves of. The special-pleading, it burns.

What principled moral stance implies that it's okay for the state to make doctors help scoundrels get their enemies killed, but it's not okay for the state to make parents help men get brides?

 

[Bomb#20]

If that works for you, fine. It's simple to drawn the line around the definition of a person to not include embryos. A line is just a line and it can be put anywhere one pleases. This allows people who are otherwise opposed to killing to accept the idea of abortion and still feel philosophically consistent.

Where one draws lines can be fact-based, and it can be superstition-based.

One would assume gender selection abortions would only take place once the gender of the non-person embryo is determined. It still comes down to a reason to deny a woman a choice in the matter, and that reason is, as Loren states, "Whereas the large numbers of men who can't find wives cause very real social problems."

So, we have an reason for having an abortion which is not ethical, because men have a right to a fair shot at sexual happiness. If there is another way to say, let me hear you.

No, that's a fine way to say it. I'm not endorsing Loren's policy, just correcting the description. As far as I'm concerned sex-selection abortion is fine; we just need to change the culture to prefer girls. It would be a good thing for everyone to become rich. But the average rich woman only wants to have about 1.5 babies. That will become a problem once the population declines enough, as long as replacement fertility stays at 2.0. But if 67% of babies were female then replacement fertility would drop to 1.5. Problem solved.

 

[Bomb#20]

I thought that dowries were already (legally) abolished in India.

Yes. But they're still very common.

 

[The AntiChris]

Apparently I don't understand what you mean by "moral pressure". I thought the phrase meant criticism, remonstrance, shaming, appeal to the villain's conscience, attempts to adjust her thinking, etc. What do you mean by it?

It appears that I use the term in a broader sense than you - I include indirect influences on behaviour (not solely direct engagement). In my view, openly encouraging doctors (by giving overt moral approval) to withhold their services contributes to "moral pressure".

Wow. I'm at a loss as to how you could possibly infer that.

It's a story I made up in an attempt to make sense of what you appeared to be saying. The problem I have is that given the scenario you presented, you would morally approve of the denial of an abortion but would not apply direct "moral pressure" to her not to abort. I was just attempting to reconcile these seemingly inconsistent views.