Peanut Gallery Thread for Discussion of wiploc and thatguysnephew on the morality of abortion

[thatguysnephew]

Hello Rhea,

I hear you. You're not worth so little to me, but so much. I apologize if my discussion with my uncle has in some way conveyed that I value you less than God values you.

Phrasing my care for you in that way may be distasteful. I hope not. If you could come and sit with me and my sweet wife, and my precious little ones, and if we could share a meal I would enjoy giving incarnation to words easily typed.

Please forgive me if I don't engage with your questions directly and at length. Your words are valuable because you are valuable, but my time and energy is finite.

I hope all is well with you. Thank you for rooting for me to have time to converse with my Uncle. Enjoy your wine!

Sincerely,

thatguysnephew

 

[Rhea]

Please note the below is delivered in a friendly tone of conversation. I am often unsuccessful at making my typed words sound as calm and contemplative as my mind is when I write them and I know this about myself, so I give you this explanation. No matter how aggressive the words sound, that is not the emotion of the writer, just so you know. (Sometimes the language seems harsh because the topic is harsh: the sexual enslavement of women. But that’s only harsh to hear if it’s something one is trying to perpetuate but not feel guilty for it)

And you are right, you have limited time and I would enjoy hearing more about your debate, so it is certainly acceptable to decline comment on Peanut Gallery comments and no one is offended. Sometimes people incorporate those points into the formal discussion, sometimes they do not. Both are acceptable. Sometimes people enter the peanut gallery after the conclusion of the formal debate and address topics there and some do not, and again both are acceptable. Such is the nature of a dedicated thread and we are all happy with that.

I apologize if my discussion with my uncle has in some way conveyed that I value you less

“IF”?
Are you, after reading my post, unsure about whether your message conveyed to me (and any woman) that you value us less than men? “If” your discussion conveyed? I thought I was fairly clear that it _did_ convey that. Imagine my emotion when I see you ask “if” everything I wrote was something I meant.

“If”? Let me be clear. It _did_ convey that you do not value the civil rights of women because you did not even consider them when discussing whether women should be forced organ donors, unlike men. Her rights did not cross your mind as you talked about using her body against her will.

than God values you.

Your god does not value women. He punished them all with pain for the sins of one. He allows them to be forced to marry their rapists. He allows scripture to be written by Paul condemning them to second class status. He allows them to be forced in servitude to act as baby carrier for their master. He directs them how to wear their hair, their clothes, their eyes. He subjects them to cruel standards of “purity” that teaches young girls that if raped and unable to marry their rapist, they are worth nothing and are damaged. In all the commandments, not one was “do not rape.”

So, indeed, any man who values women less than your god is likely in jail.

Phrasing my care for you in that way may be distasteful. I hope not.

You are stuck with your bible and everything it says. Your hope cannot change that.

If you could come and sit with me and my sweet wife, and my precious little ones, and if we could share a meal I would enjoy giving incarnation to words easily typed.

I would enjoy that meal, I am sure. As you would enjoy my sweet husband and my precious big ones. And I could give incarnation to my words for you and your family to understand what it’s like to have religionists try to force their religion onto our bodies.

Please forgive me if I don't engage with your questions directly and at length. Your words are valuable because you are valuable, but my time and energy is finite.

No worries. I accept the terms of the formal debate between you and your uncle, I value it and I am enjoying the debate. I would not want to de-rail that.

I hope all is well with you.

All is very well with me. I am a glass half-full kind of person. And not only is the glass half-full, but likely someone is on the way to top it off. For free. And bring snacks. And a band is about to start. And play Freebird.

Thank you for rooting for me to have time to converse with my Uncle.

Looking forward to it.

 

[Rhea]

Number “2)” (To illuminate that happiness is not a strong enough idea/construct to effectively determine what is right and wrong) was my purpose for defining happiness in this way. That said, I don’t know how to build a moral framework on that and I’ll leave that to someone smarter than me.

I’d agree that “happiness” may not be a good measure. Security, safety, and civil rights may be a better measure. Acknowledging that those things often bring happiness, don’t they?

And not so complicated that something couldn’t be decided upon to protect women and to at least agree with european nations that post mid-second trimester abortions should be illegal.

Illegal? Just “illegal” with a big topic ending period? No, “well, unless the women is likely to die from continuing the pregnancy,” no, “well, unless the fetus is almost certain to die upon birth,” no, “well, unless she needs a medication that will cause the fetus to ‘suffer’ horribly and she dies without the medication,” no, “well, unless her family (or her local government) has been hiding her and preventing her from getting an earlier abortion and she has only just escaped?”

You should really spend some time reading the absolutely heartbreaking stories of the tiny percentage of people who seek 3rd tri abortions to find out _why_ they do it. I would hope it would open your heart to learn the stories of these anguished people who almost all _wanted_ their pregnancy to continue but had to make a choice that you have perhaps not contemplated. Why do you suppose most 3rd trimest abortions are performed on people who had wanted the pregnancy? And why do you think you should tell them what to do?

Make note also that european nations mostly make birth control and first trimester abortions easy to access, obviating the need for 3rd trimester abortions that aren’t a reaction to tragedy.

Makke not also that Abortions are not illegal in European nations for reactions to tragedy (i.e. life or health of the woman is at risk, the fetus may suffer serious pain or death if born.).

So, most of us would be happy to follow their model.

 

[Underseer]

https://www.npr.org/2018/07/11/6280...on-evangelical-minister-now-lives-with-regret

Evangelical anti-choice minister changed sides when he realized that his rhetoric contributed to anti-choice terrorist violence.

 

[fromderinside]

Is working from some intellectually pure place really moral?

 

[Wiploc]

"Forcing people to have children is bad; it makes people unhappy." - Wiploc

Some of those people are the children concerned.

(I'm assuming the main discussion is over, so I feel free to post here.)

If somebody doesn't have a child, that child that never existed isn't unhappy about not existing. Or about anything else, for that matter.

 

[Wiploc]

Paraphrasing "What's happy got to do with it"? or better "what]s forcing got to do with it"?

Increasing happiness is the goal of morality.

To criminalize abortion is to require that pregnant people have babies; it is to force them to have babies.

 

[Wiploc]

I skimmed through, but missed the part where the existence of a thing people are calling a "soul" is established as real, and not simply imagined.

It seems a critical point of contention as to the "value" and the "rights" of a clump of undifferentiated cells.

Not sure it matters. I don't believe in souls myself, and Nephew doesn't believe that the embryo's soul is harmed by abortion. It may even be saved by abortion.

And yet we both believe that it's wrong to run around promiscuously killing people.

When does a fertilized egg become something that falls under legal protection? The obvious answer, to me, is "at birth" - a nice clean, clear line that works for every known entity on Earth.

I'm with you.

 

[Wiploc]

I take birth to be our natural notion of what it is to come to this world and become a person. Going beyond that can only result in ideological posturing.

I don't think birth is the starting point of procreation.

Not the starting point, no. You could think of it as the ending point, the point where a reproductive organ turns into an independent person.

 

[fromderinside]

What is morality but about how a person should behave.

Our relations with non-persons are included in that I think. If "it will never viable unless" is a proper place to start and that probably should end with when it is unlikely for natural accidents to end it. So the general range of when life starts should be after attachment to uterine wall to about 12 to 14 weeks after such attachment when normal body chemically generated accidents cease to be a factor in going to term.

Unless it can be shown that no medical treatment is needed for those terminations to take place then I'm all in favor of using the 12 to 14 week termination of abortions as a reasonable starting point for such discussions about shared choice. This is a pretty harsh standard for those who are unlikely to know they are pregnant and for those not in a position to take care of any pregnancy coming to term. So maybe that factor should also enter into the discussion.

Finally, a well to do person should not just arbitrarily choose unless there is a real likelihood that there is some other moral standard being violated by the existence of a pregnancy. Rape, incest, infidelity, brain damage, severe genetic abnormality, and such.

Be clear I'm in favor of a woman having control over her body since she was forced to have it. I'm just saying that the state may have an interest in serving communities of differing beliefs that women choose to live within as a matter of choice.

 

[Wiploc]

What is morality but about how a person should behave.

Our relations with non-persons are included in that I think. If "it will never viable unless" is a proper place to start and that probably should end with when it is unlikely for natural accidents to end it. So the general range of when life starts should be after attachment to uterine wall to about 12 to 14 weeks after such attachment when normal body chemically generated accidents cease to be a factor in going to term.

That's not when life starts. The embryo is alive the whole time, as is the zygote, as are the sperm and egg. If you're looking for when life starts, you have to go back billions of years. Twelve to fourteen weeks after attachment is definitely not it.

Unless it can be shown that no medical treatment is needed for those terminations to take place then I'm all in favor of using the 12 to 14 week termination of abortions as a reasonable starting point for such discussions about shared choice.

What about a person who needs to be in hospital for twelve to fourteen weeks. Is that person terminatable?

I don't see how your test is relevant to the issue you think you're testing.

This is a pretty harsh standard for those who are unlikely to know they are pregnant and for those not in a position to take care of any pregnancy coming to term. So maybe that factor should also enter into the discussion.

Finally, a well to do person should not just arbitrarily choose unless there is a real likelihood that there is some other moral standard being violated by the existence of a pregnancy. Rape, incest, infidelity, brain damage, severe genetic abnormality, and such.

What about a philosophy professor who resulted from rape? Can we terminate her?

Be clear I'm in favor of a woman having control over her body since she was forced to have it. I'm just saying that the state may have an interest in serving communities of differing beliefs that women choose to live within as a matter of choice.

There are a lot of people in the KKK, and those people believe fervently. If the state has an interest in serving communities of differing beliefs, then the KKK ought to get to burn a few crosses on the lawns of black people, don't you think?

--

I suspect that I sound hostile in this post, but I'm not sure what to do about that. So I'll just mention that if the tone seems off, the intention is still good.

I'm trying for concise, not hostile. Efficient. To the point. I'm also in a mental state where I'm not sure how I'm coming across, just took some medicine. So I apologize for seeming hostile (if I do seem hostile) or for seeming overly apologetic (if I don't seem hostile).