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

[Perspicuo]

The contention that an embryo is a human subject is contended on the belief in a entity called "soul" which somehow inhabits a body and somehow contains human subjectivity, i.e. a mind.

Such a belief and therefore the contention stemming from it are in unambiguous contradiction with any scientific understanding of human embryology and neuropsychology.

In short, it's bunk.

An embryo is not a human yet, and terminating it is as morally contentious as using a barrier contraceptive method, coitus interruptus or abstinence. No human subjectivity was terminated, therefore no human was harmed in any way. It is, therefore, as ethical as any other common behavior.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

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.

OK, but there's nothing specific to the question of the ethics of abortion and that's the whole point. One can, of course, state that repairing cars is a morally neutral situation, but have a case where the repaired car would be used to drive to a murder and have ethical implications involved in the repairing of cars. If you can, however, just switch out the repairing of the car with buying a sandwich or aborting a fetus or brewing come coffee without altering the example then the specifics of the situation are irrelevant to the moral question. The moral question in those cases is whether you should engage in otherwise morally neutral actions which lead to murder. The actual action taken isn't relevant to that question.

Your question is akin to posting in a thread about a guy trying to decide whether or not to become a mechanic and asking why he wants a job where he might need to be party to murder.

 

[Bronzeage]

The contention that an embryo is a human subject is contended on the belief in a entity called "soul" which somehow inhabits a body and somehow contains human subjectivity, i.e. a mind.

Such a belief and therefore the contention stemming from it are in unambiguous contradiction with any scientific understanding of human embryology and neuropsychology.

In short, it's bunk.

An embryo is not a human yet, and terminating it is as morally contentious as using a barrier contraceptive method, coitus interruptus or abstinence. No human subjectivity was terminated, therefore no human was harmed in any way. It is, therefore, as ethical as any other common behavior.

There is a sign at the gate to the roller coaster which reads, "You must be this tall to ride this attraction." There is another sign, which we can put anywhere between conception and birth which reads, "You must be this big before we feel bad about killing you."

Some people go so far as to think preventing the egg and sperm from bonding to form the embryo is also wrong, but go on to create elaborate rules and rituals to control events leading to it. That's another discussion.

We draw the line where we choose in order to make other choices easier for our conscience. If we hold life dear, it's no problem because there was no life at stake when we made the choice. Anything is easier to do when it does not involve violating a moral precept.

 

[PyramidHead]

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.

I'll agree that all fetuses are living, and even that some may be feeling. But I am not convinced that a fetus can think. Thinking is something that comes quite a bit later, after birth, as far as I understand (I guess it would depend on how you define it).

 

[Bomb#20]

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.

Oh, is that what this was about? No wonder this conversation was so disjointed. Sorry, but you didn't ask if I'd apply moral pressure to the woman; you said you didn't know what I was implying and asked what I was suggesting. So I explained what I'd meant. Sure, of course I'd apply moral pressure too, if I thought she might be susceptible to it, which is highly doubtful; but that's not what I'd been talking about. I'd been talking about the doctor's rights.

 

[Bomb#20]

OK, but there's nothing specific to the question of the ethics of abortion and that's the whole point. One can, of course, state that repairing cars is a morally neutral situation, but have a case where the repaired car would be used to drive to a murder and have ethical implications involved in the repairing of cars.

Hey, arguing this case with you wasn't my idea. This was a throwaway scenario constructed purely for clarification, because AntiChris had misunderstood my earlier post. "It doesn't matter what the rationale behind her choice is" is an overly broad generalization, just as nearly all moral claims are; all I was doing was showing AntiChris how easy it is to construct an exception to yet another vanilla overly broad generalization, so he'd grok that that wasn't what I'd been talking about earlier. The scenario I wanted to argue about with you was the one in post #12. But instead you latched onto the post #22 scenario, as though sweeping generalizations need to be fought for tooth and nail instead of just scaled back to reasonable limits.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

OK, but there's nothing specific to the question of the ethics of abortion and that's the whole point. One can, of course, state that repairing cars is a morally neutral situation, but have a case where the repaired car would be used to drive to a murder and have ethical implications involved in the repairing of cars.

Hey, arguing this case with you wasn't my idea. This was a throwaway scenario constructed purely for clarification, because AntiChris had misunderstood my earlier post. "It doesn't matter what the rationale behind her choice is" is an overly broad generalization, just as nearly all moral claims are; all I was doing was showing AntiChris how easy it is to construct an exception to yet another vanilla overly broad generalization, so he'd grok that that wasn't what I'd been talking about earlier. The scenario I wanted to argue about with you was the one in post #12. But instead you latched onto the post #22 scenario, as though sweeping generalizations need to be fought for tooth and nail instead of just scaled back to reasonable limits.

Oh, OK. That one didn't make enough sense to have a conversation about. Never mind, then.

 

[doubtingt]

The contention that an embryo is a human subject is contended on the belief in a entity called "soul" which somehow inhabits a body and somehow contains human subjectivity, i.e. a mind.

Such a belief and therefore the contention stemming from it are in unambiguous contradiction with any scientific understanding of human embryology and neuropsychology.

In short, it's bunk.

An embryo is not a human yet, and terminating it is as morally contentious as using a barrier contraceptive method, coitus interruptus or abstinence. No human subjectivity was terminated, therefore no human was harmed in any way. It is, therefore, as ethical as any other common behavior.

Sorry, but nothing in your post is valid. In fact, it is just the opposite. The contention that a living organism with the same genetics, biology, and brain magically becomes a human due to nothing but the minute it takes to pass through the birth canal is unscientific mystical bunk without a shred of reasoned philosophy to support it.
Whatever the living thing is that is a fetus, it is essentially the exact same thing when a newborn and a fetus, just in a different physical location. The fact that its location as a fetus is within another person's body is a justification not to grant it full legal rights as an individual person, but not to intellectually, scientifically, or philosophically put it into a different ontological category.

 

[doubtingt]

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.

I'll agree that all fetuses are living, and even that some may be feeling. But I am not convinced that a fetus can think. Thinking is something that comes quite a bit later, after birth, as far as I understand (I guess it would depend on how you define it).

Nothing magical happens to the brain during the minutes spent in the birth canal or the minutes outside it. Thus, late term fetuses are capable of the same cognition that a newborn is.

 

[PyramidHead]

I'll agree that all fetuses are living, and even that some may be feeling. But I am not convinced that a fetus can think. Thinking is something that comes quite a bit later, after birth, as far as I understand (I guess it would depend on how you define it).

Nothing magical happens to the brain during the minutes spent in the birth canal or the minutes outside it. Thus, late term fetuses are capable of the same cognition that a newborn is.

To that extent, it shouldn't (and usually isn't!) called a fetus when the mother is in labor. But I think we generally agree.

 

[Bomb#20]

That one didn't make enough sense to have a conversation about. Never mind, then.

It made perfect sense. I started with your own example,

"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.",
​

merged her with your character who had the racist motivation, and changed her from an amateur to a professional.

 

[Perspicuo]

The contention that an embryo is a human subject is contended on the belief in a entity called "soul" which somehow inhabits a body and somehow contains human subjectivity, i.e. a mind.

Such a belief and therefore the contention stemming from it are in unambiguous contradiction with any scientific understanding of human embryology and neuropsychology.

In short, it's bunk.

An embryo is not a human yet, and terminating it is as morally contentious as using a barrier contraceptive method, coitus interruptus or abstinence. No human subjectivity was terminated, therefore no human was harmed in any way. It is, therefore, as ethical as any other common behavior.

Sorry, but nothing in your post is valid. In fact, it is just the opposite. The contention that a living organism with the same genetics, biology, and brain magically becomes a human due to nothing but the minute it takes to pass through the birth canal is unscientific mystical bunk without a shred of reasoned philosophy to support it.
Whatever the living thing is that is a fetus, it is essentially the exact same thing when a newborn and a fetus, just in a different physical location. The fact that its location as a fetus is within another person's body is a justification not to grant it full legal rights as an individual person, but not to intellectually, scientifically, or philosophically put it into a different ontological category.

Notice how I didn't state anything even remotely similar to what you are saying I did. It makes your contention about it being "without a shred of reasoned [whatever]" basically describing your own post. You have serious reading comprehension issues. So much for "reasoned".

 

[Tom Sawyer]

That one didn't make enough sense to have a conversation about. Never mind, then.

It made perfect sense. I started with your own example,

"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.",
​

merged her with your character who had the racist motivation, and changed her from an amateur to a professional.

What on earth are you talking about?

My position in the other thread was that business people, including legally licenced prostitutes, can't openly flout anti-discrimination laws and keep their business licence. A woman deciding to get pregnant and have an abortion isn't something which requires any kind of government regulatory approval. Can you be more explicit about how you feel that my positions in these two threads are based on the same thing? I don't actually see any relation between them.

 

[doubtingt]

Sorry, but nothing in your post is valid. In fact, it is just the opposite. The contention that a living organism with the same genetics, biology, and brain magically becomes a human due to nothing but the minute it takes to pass through the birth canal is unscientific mystical bunk without a shred of reasoned philosophy to support it.
Whatever the living thing is that is a fetus, it is essentially the exact same thing when a newborn and a fetus, just in a different physical location. The fact that its location as a fetus is within another person's body is a justification not to grant it full legal rights as an individual person, but not to intellectually, scientifically, or philosophically put it into a different ontological category.

Notice how I didn't state anything even remotely similar to what you are saying I did. It makes your contention about it being "without a shred of reasoned [whatever]" basically describing your own post. You have serious reading comprehension issues. So much for "reasoned".

Unless you contend that newborn babies are equally inhuman and lacking any human subjectivity, that cutting off their heads is without any moral implication, then what you claim about fetuses logically presumes a magical, non-biological change to the organism during the seconds of birth that transform something utterly non-human into a human. So, do you think that fetuses are inhuman and without subjectivity, and thus it is of no moral consequence to kill them?
If you do, then all of science is against you, and your definition of human must rest is some immaterial stuff of religion. If you do not, then all of science is still against you for presuming some magical immaterial difference between the brains of an organism depending on what side of the birth canal it is on.

I comprehended your claim just fine. You simply fail to grasp the inherently absurd assumptions that are logically subsumed by your claims. Knowing what you are implicitly claiming by your explicit claims is what it means to have a reasoned position.

 

[PyramidHead]

Notice how I didn't state anything even remotely similar to what you are saying I did. It makes your contention about it being "without a shred of reasoned [whatever]" basically describing your own post. You have serious reading comprehension issues. So much for "reasoned".

Unless you contend that newborn babies are equally inhuman and lacking any human subjectivity, that cutting off their heads is without any moral implication, then what you claim about fetuses logically presumes a magical, non-biological change to the organism during the seconds of birth that transform something utterly non-human into a human. So, do you think that fetuses are inhuman and without subjectivity, and thus it is of no moral consequence to kill them?
If you do, then all of science is against you, and your definition of human must rest is some immaterial stuff of religion. If you do not, then all of science is still against you for presuming some magical immaterial difference between the brains of an organism depending on what side of the birth canal it is on.

I comprehended your claim just fine. You simply fail to grasp the inherently absurd assumptions that are logically subsumed by your claims. Knowing what you are implicitly claiming by your explicit claims is what it means to have a reasoned position.

You do realize that an embryo is by definition not a fetus, right? Perspicuo never said anything about fetuses.

 

[Perspicuo]

Notice how I didn't state anything even remotely similar to what you are saying I did. It makes your contention about it being "without a shred of reasoned [whatever]" basically describing your own post. You have serious reading comprehension issues. So much for "reasoned".

Unless you contend that newborn babies are equally inhuman and lacking any human subjectivity, that cutting off their heads is without any moral implication, then what you claim about fetuses logically presumes a magical, non-biological change to the organism during the seconds of birth that transform something utterly non-human into a human. So, do you think that fetuses are inhuman and without subjectivity, and thus it is of no moral consequence to kill them?
If you do, then all of science is against you, and your definition of human must rest is some immaterial stuff of religion. If you do not, then all of science is still against you for presuming some magical immaterial difference between the brains of an organism depending on what side of the birth canal it is on.

I comprehended your claim just fine. You simply fail to grasp the inherently absurd assumptions that are logically subsumed by your claims. Knowing what you are implicitly claiming by your explicit claims is what it means to have a reasoned position.

Yeah, I noticed.

 

[Bronzeage]

Unless you contend that newborn babies are equally inhuman and lacking any human subjectivity, that cutting off their heads is without any moral implication, then what you claim about fetuses logically presumes a magical, non-biological change to the organism during the seconds of birth that transform something utterly non-human into a human. So, do you think that fetuses are inhuman and without subjectivity, and thus it is of no moral consequence to kill them?
If you do, then all of science is against you, and your definition of human must rest is some immaterial stuff of religion. If you do not, then all of science is still against you for presuming some magical immaterial difference between the brains of an organism depending on what side of the birth canal it is on.

I comprehended your claim just fine. You simply fail to grasp the inherently absurd assumptions that are logically subsumed by your claims. Knowing what you are implicitly claiming by your explicit claims is what it means to have a reasoned position.

You do realize that an embryo is by definition not a fetus, right? Perspicuo never said anything about fetuses.

The definition states, "The embryo is defined as the developing pregnancy from the time of fertilization until the end of the eighth week of gestation, when it becomes known as a fetus," which seems a bit arbitrary. Although an embryo is in a constant state of development from the first cell division, there doesn't seem to be a radical change of state at midnight of seven weeks and seven days.

 

[Bomb#20]

What on earth are you talking about?

My position in the other thread was that business people, including legally licenced prostitutes, can't openly flout anti-discrimination laws and keep their business licence. A woman deciding to get pregnant and have an abortion isn't something which requires any kind of government regulatory approval.

"requires"? You say that as though whether a thing "requires" government regulatory approval is some sort of natural phenomenon we just have to take into account in our moral judgments like the phenomenon that human survival requires food. Prostitution isn't something which requires any government regulatory approval -- if a government bans unlicensed prostitution, that's a choice by that government. A government that can choose to ban unapproved sex can choose to ban unapproved pregnancy and unapproved abortion.

So I made your lady a professional. She's a businesswoman, being paid by her customers to have sex, get pregnant and have abortions. A government that can choose to impose a licensing regime on people who are paid to stick stuff in through their vaginas can choose to impose a licensing regime on people who are paid to take stuff out through their vaginas. So suppose the government observes her having sex, getting pregnant and having abortions for money, tells her that's a business, and orders her to stop unless she buys a business license from the government, so she buys one. Suppose she flouts anti-discrimination laws and the government takes away her business licence. In your view, does she still have the right to have an abortion for the rationale of making money off it?

 

[Bronzeage]

What on earth are you talking about?

My position in the other thread was that business people, including legally licenced prostitutes, can't openly flout anti-discrimination laws and keep their business licence. A woman deciding to get pregnant and have an abortion isn't something which requires any kind of government regulatory approval.

"requires"? You say that as though whether a thing "requires" government regulatory approval is some sort of natural phenomenon we just have to take into account in our moral judgments like the phenomenon that human survival requires food. Prostitution isn't something which requires any government regulatory approval -- if a government bans unlicensed prostitution, that's a choice by that government. A government that can choose to ban unapproved sex can choose to ban unapproved pregnancy and unapproved abortion.

So I made your lady a professional. She's a businesswoman, being paid by her customers to have sex, get pregnant and have abortions. A government that can choose to impose a licensing regime on people who are paid to stick stuff in through their vaginas can choose to impose a licensing regime on people who are paid to take stuff out through their vaginas. So suppose the government observes her having sex, getting pregnant and having abortions for money, tells her that's a business, and orders her to stop unless she buys a business license from the government, so she buys one. Suppose she flouts anti-discrimination laws and the government takes away her business licence. In your view, does she still have the right to have an abortion for the rationale of making money off it?

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.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Do you really think he put that much thought into ... whatever that was?