OppyfanJuly 10, 2021 at 12:469650 views92 comments
Does a fetus deserve moral consideration? And when do we give the fetus moral consideration? Better question when do we give anything moral consideration?
Reply to Oppyfan Depends if a soul is present in it. Lumps of meat don't deserve moral consideration. Not normally anyway. Souls do.
Not clear when a soul enters a fetus. It seems obvious that newly born babies have them, so at some point earlier a soul enters. But it seems fairly implausible to think it is there from conception, and equally implausible to think it enters the instant of exit.
So, at some point inbetween those two points, a soul enters.
My view - which I hold with no great confidence - is that when the fetus is just a piece of gristle, you ought to abort it for unless you do it will suck a soul into this realm, and that's bad. So I think early abortions are probably a duty.
But later, when it is more plausible that a soul is present, then they are not a duty. Nevertheless, if their presence in the pregnant person was not the pregnant person's fault, then I think abortion is morally permissible as it is beyond the call of duty to insist someone go through the pains and inconvenience of pregnancy to save a life for which that person has no special responsibility.
But if it was intentional - that is, if the person got pregnant on purpose or had voluntary unprotected sex fully in the knowledge that a pregnancy might result, then i think that person deserves the pains and inconvenience of a pregnancy and has no right to kill a person to avoid them. (They still ought to abort in the early stages, however, as though they have done a wicked thing and deserve to suffer, it is more important to prevent a new soul from being sucked into this realm than it is to give oneself one's just deserts).
So I have a mixed view. Early abortions are morally obligatory for all. But with later ones it all depends on the manner in which the pregnant person got pregnant.
My view reflects my antinatalism. That is, I believe it is wrong - very wrong - knowingly to attempt to force innocent souls into this realm. But if I am wrong about that, then i think most abortions will be morally permissible.
Reply to Bartricks I was thinking along the lines of criteria for personhood since your presupposing a soul it’s hard for me to agree since I don’t believe we have souls,thanks for the reply!
Reply to Oppyfan But you believe in the mind, presumably? A soul is just an immaterial mind. So the same applies if, implausibly, minds are material.
There comes a point where a tangle of foetus meat has a mind. We don't know where that point is exactly. But it is at some point during the fetuses career inside the pregnant person. Same points apply, for the only difference is that one is creating a mind rather than sucking one in. Makes no real difference to the ethics of it all.
I mentioned souls rather than minds partly because that really is what makes the difference (our minds are souls, whether you believe it or not), but also because there is currently a tendency among those who believe in souls to think all abortions are wrong because life begins at conception - a position that is in no way implied by the soul thesis.
We have souls and it is our possession of them that puts our bodies on the moral map. But when our bodies acquire them is no clearer than when our bodies have a mind, if minds are material.
Down The Rabbit HoleJuly 10, 2021 at 15:28#5644210 likes
Does a fetus deserve moral consideration? And when do we give the fetus moral consideration? Better question when do we give anything moral consideration?
In my view, the fetus should get moral consideration at all stages of the pregnancy, as abortion will prevent its future pleasure and suffering. It is either morally right, wrong, or neutral to prevent its future pleasure and suffering.
Does a fetus deserve moral consideration? And when do we give the fetus moral consideration? Better question when do we give anything moral consideration?
I've always felt uncomfortable with the word "deserve". To me, I think that, in order to deserve something, it must be earned. And, to be earned, there must have been agreement. I distinguish deserve from "entitlement." Something/someone can be entitled without having earned, and without deserving. I'll not waste your time going any further into my nuanced understanding of "deserve." I will stick to "entitled."
I think everything (including the absence of things) is entitled to moral consideration. But there is a world of difference between entitlement and receipt. Folks generally don't have the patience to afford consideration to anything, much less moral consideration.
Further, affording moral consideration does not demand a particular result. So, in the case of the fetus, moral consideration can be afforded to the fetus, and to the mother, and to the father, and to me and other entities that have to share the planet with it. One doesn't necessarily trump the other, and we can't logically presuppose what a moral end result of consideration would look like. There are too many angles and entities to consider.
That brings us, in my personal opinion (which I'm trying to not care about), to the conclusion that what a moral result of consideration should look like would be subjective, and personal. A personal example I have considered extensively is the hunt. I think whether a specific killing is moral depends upon what lies in the heart of the killer, before, during and after the kill. One need not feel guilt, remorse, doubt or questions about the kill in order for it to be a righteous or moral kill. But neither can the kill be the result of blood lust, or a vainglorious, sadistic, or proxy act. Their must be respect, and grace, and honor and gratitude.
As much as I do not like what I see in the field, or hear about in the hunting community, I try not to judge because I know the impact the hunt and other interactions with nature can have on the soul; the wonders it can work, and the sometimes inexplicable reverence and sanctity that a clumsy person can feel without sufficient articulation. I hope that the hunt is working it's magic, even on the jerk.
When it comes to the fetus, I likewise think that the moral consideration of it demands no particular result in the treatment thereof. The mother, like a hunter, is left alone, with her own heart, to deal with nature. I personally feel that if we, as a society, would like to find a greater sanctity, and a reverence for the life of a fetus, then we should start by trusting nature to work her magic; we should not second-guess the result, just because we don't like it. Rare is the mother who kills her baby out of blood lust, vainglory, sadism, convenience, as a method of birth control, vengeance or other motivation. I sincerely believe that no one, not even the most heart-felt, empathetic pro-life person on the planet, will give more moral consideration to the act of abortion than the average mother. Sure, there is the exception, but we should not make rules based on exceptions.
We enact laws out of frustration with fucking assholes who lack respect, grace, honor and gratitude. But those laws are really just the state stepping in where we, as people, have failed in virtuous leadership by example. Making fun of, and disrespecting food only happens because "that's how daddy did it." And daddy only did it that way because his daddy did it, etc. That's not the state's fault. That's failure of leadership and virtue that started sometime in the past when honorable men and women were not around mentoring. Abortion is a hell of a long way from such immorality. Abortion receives more moral consideration than most all other life decisions; and that is even without the pro-choice/pro-life debate. Rare is the woman who takes the decision lightly. Leave her the fuck alone and mind your own god damn business.
Does a fetus deserve moral consideration? And when do we give the fetus moral consideration? Better question when do we give anything moral consideration?
Abortion should be legal to age 21 or so. Would solve a lot of parenting problems.
Now for a serious answer, or at least a response if not an answer, I present to you the striking case of Scott Peterson, convicted in 2004 of "... the first-degree murder of his pregnant wife, Laci Peterson, and the second-degree murder of their unborn son, Conner ..."
During the trial, which took place in liberal Redwood City, California, the papers were full of talk of "unborn baby Conner." Now I ask you. Why is "unborn baby Conner" a clump of undifferentiated cells for purposes of the abortion debate, yet deserving of a name and thereby his humanity in a murder trial?
How do you convict a man of the murder of an undifferentiated clump of cells? This case always stands out for me as exemplifying the massive hypocrisy of the pro-choice position. If Laci had aborted the fetus, nobody in the San Francisco bay area would have batted an eye. Yet Scott Peterson sits in jail at this very moment, as I type these lines, for murdering that very same clump of undifferentiated cells. Well he killed his wife too, so he'd be in prison regardless. But I hope you see my point, and I wonder if some of you philosophers can help me understand why "unborn baby Conner" was even deserving of a name, let alone the status of a murder victim, in a strongly pro-choice state like California. You might say it's the mother's choice, but how can that be? If "unborn baby Conner" has human rights and can be murdered, then surely it's cold comfort to the fetus that it was his mom and not his dad who decided to kill him.
RIP unborn baby Conner. Or undifferentiated clump of cells, as the case may be.
Why is "unborn baby Conner" a clump of undifferentiated cells for purposes of the abortion debate, yet deserving of a name and thereby his humanity in a murder trial?
This case always stands out for me as exemplifying the massive hypocrisy of the pro-choice position.
You should not let the case always stand out for you as exemplifying the massive hypocrisy of the pro-choice position. Rather, you should see it as an example of the patent consistence of the pro-choice position.
But I hope you see my point, and I wonder if some of you philosophers can help me understand why "unborn baby Conner" was even deserving of a name, let alone the status of a murder victim, in a strongly pro-choice state like California.
I don't see your point. I see your failure to understand pro-choice. You can take cold comfort in the fact that you are not alone.
You might say it's the mother's choice, but how can that be? If "unborn baby Conner" has human rights and can be murdered, then surely it's cold comfort to the fetus that it was his mom and not his dad who decided to kill him.
I don't "might say." I do say it is the mother's choice. It can be, because it is. It's no comfort, cold or otherwise, to the fetus who happens to kill it (or not). The comfort of the fetus doesn't matter unless the mother says it matters. The mother is the sovereign ruler over all fetus' that reside within her. That is the way it should be. So says me.
I don't "might say." I do say it is the mother's choice. It can be, because it is. It's no comfort, cold or otherwise, to the fetus who happens to kill it (or not). The comfort of the fetus doesn't matter unless the mother says it matters. The mother is the sovereign ruler over all fetus' that reside within her. That is the way it should be. So says me.
I did feel that I addressed this point. It's cold comfort to the fetus that it was the mom and not the dad who killed him. But I already said that. I'll have to say that your post didn't help answer my question, since I had already anticipated that line of argument that the mother can kill the fetus any time she feels like it. That the fetus is an undifferentiated clump if the mother kills it, and "unborn baby Conner" if the father kills it. What is the moral or philosophical principle involved? "Women get special consideration for murder," is the only one I can see here.
Not to change the subject too much, but for sake of clarity: Are you "my body, my choice" with respect to experimental vaccines? Use of illicit substances?
It directly answered your question. Mother's choice; fetus doesn't count. Period. I don't know how much simpler I can make it for you. You might disagree, but that does not mean your question was not answered. It was answered.
Are you "my body, my choice" with respect to experimental vaccines? Use of illicit substances?
Yes. But as in the rest of life, there may be consequences, cancel culture, or ostracization. Thus, your body, your choice with respect to experimental vaccines, but you may not get goods or services from the private sector or the government. And if your use of illicit substances poses a threat to others, you can, for instance, lose your driver's license, etc.
I personally believe life begins at conception, if not before. So yes, abortion is homicide. But it's not murder unless we say it is.
I totally respect that point of view. It's intellectually honest. "Abortion is homicide but not murder."
That's very different than saying a fetus is a clump of cells on the one hand, and capable of being murdered if Scott Peterson does it. That is a logically incoherent position.
I suspect we are in agreement. If the pro-choicers would simply say as you do, that abortion kills a potential human but that it's justified on whatever grounds, that would be logically defensible.
For what it's worth I'm a safe, rare, and legal guy. That used to be a perfectly sensible moderate position. These days it's hopelessly regressive. You're supposed to "shout your abortion" as if it's a great achievement. That, I find morally depraved.
If the pro-choicers would simply say as you do, that abortion kills a potential human but that it's justified on whatever grounds, that would be logically defensible.
I'll go a step further and say it's not a potential human: It's a human. But she can kill it, carte blanche, as far as I'm concerned.
I'll go a step further and say it's not a potential human: It's a human. But she can kill it, carte blanche, as far as I'm concerned.
I respect that moral position. At least it's logical. My objection to the "lump of tissue unless Scott Peterson did it" argument is not the immorality of abortion, but rather the illogic of the position.
Does a fetus deserve moral consideration? And when do we give the fetus moral consideration? Better question when do we give anything moral consideration?
I think it is best to give moral consideration to respecting the medical profession's ability to parse the ethical questions they face. Generalizing decisions of life and death when a gray area is present seems immoral.
I think respective opponents often fail to take their arguments to a logical conclusion and then go for it from there. This leaves them open to ongoing, endless debate, misunderstanding, irrelevant nuance, and culture wars. I was taught in law school to give the other side every thing they want until you find out what that really is, and what it is you simply refuse to give them. Therein lies the nut over which a fight can be launched, or not. Everything else is noise.
Reply to Oppyfan You don't believe we have minds?? So you don't believe in mental states either, for they are states of mind.
Well, your beliefs do not determine what's true. We do have minds, for mental states exist and they couldn't absent a mind to have them. Thus minds exist.
There's a metaphysical question over whether minds are material or immaterial. But there's no question they exist.
There's also no question they are the basis of our intrinsic moral worth. I am morally valuable because I am a mind, rather than because of any of my sensible features. My size and shape and colour and location are all irrelevant to my moral value, for instance. And thus the fact a fetus is very small and not shaped like me and probably a different colour and certainly in an odd location does not affect its moral value. What makes it morally valuable, if or when it is, is its possession of a mind.
I mentioned souls partly because I want to stop those who believe in souls thinking their position on abortion is "it is always wrong" - if our minds are souls the ethics of abortion remains the same as it would be if our minds are material things.
In my understanding: Before 24-26 weeks of gestation, a human foetus lacks intact thalamocortical circutry and therefore isn't sentient (i.e. feels pain as an independent organism with the potential for learning to anticipate pain in other organisms (empathy)) – not a person, so excising it is a lumpectomy, not homicide; after c26 weeks, however, if the mother decides against giving birth, against mothering the unborn in her womb, aborting the fetus is homicide (i.e. self-defense killing) but not murder. Given that ...
Yes, but after 26 weeks (c6 1/2 months) of gestation, not before then.
Better question when do we give anything moral consideration?
As a rule of thumb – if and when dehumanizing, or brutalizing, a suffering (not merely pain-reactive) creature, even to the slightest degree, also dehumanizes, or brutalizes, an agent.
1. If I do something to the fetus then I do something to the baby. (pro-choicers' key statement, the reason why they want abortion)
2. If I can't do something to the baby then I can't do something to the fetus (from 1, contrapositive: doing something to the fetus implies doing something to the baby)
3. I can't do something to the baby (pro-choicers & pro-lifers agree, a baby is a person)
Ergo,
4. I can't do something to the fetus (2, 3 MP)
Then, pro-choicers go on to argue,
5. If the fetus is not a baby then I can do something to the fetus
6. The fetus is not a baby (pro-choicer)
7. I can do something to the fetus (5, 6 MP)
8. I can do something to the fetus and I can't do something to the fetus (4, 7 Conj) [Contradiction: Paradox!]
The pro-choice position is inconsistent! (8 is a contradiction).
2. If I can't do something to the baby then I can't do something to the fetus (from 1, contrapositive: doing something to the fetus implies doing something to the baby)
Reply to TheMadFool Gibberish. Pro-choicers neither make decisions to abort using this method nor give two shits whether or not the decision is formally consistent. They wish to stop their pregancies. Period. These women are moral agents (@ age of consent) and not wards of the state, their husbands or their families.
Gibberish. Pro-choicers neither make decisions to abort using this method nor give two shits whether or not the decision is formally consistent. They wish to stop their pregancies. Period. These women are moral agents (@ age of consent) and not wards of the state, their husbands or their families.
That's a different line of thought. I do respect women, as much as any man can, may be I am one myself. Ergo, I fully support their rights and neither condone nor encourage any actions/policies that hold women at ransom. Women being the sex that carry pregnancies make that harder if not nearly impossible.
My argument is, if you'd like to know, based on the Aristotelian concept of potential.
A fetus is a potential baby. Pro-lifers recognize this fact. Since to do something to the fetus is to utlimately affect a baby and because a baby is a person, pro-lifers believe they shouldn't mess around with the fetus.
Pro-choicers too agree that a fetus is a potential baby, in fact their position doesn't make sense without this belief. They don't want the actual baby and hence they want to get rid of the potential baby (fetus).
However, that means, quite unequivocally, that to do something to the fetus implies doing something to the baby. That's precisely why pro-choicers want abortion. For better or worse, that means if you don't want to do something to the baby, you have to avoid doing things to the fetus (the potential baby). That's that.
Then there's the pro-choicer's reason why abortion is acceptable. A fetus isn't a baby and thus women are under no moral obligation to preserve it, keep it safe as it were.
The woman who wants to abort her pregnancy is then guilty of a contradiction: she wants an abortion because she's worried about the actual baby but she claims that she can terminate her pregnancy because the potential baby (the fetus) isn't an actual baby. The woman is basically flip-flopping between actual baby (she wants abortion) and potential baby (she can have an abortion). She can't do that because she equates the potential baby to an actual baby - that's why she wants an abortion - and in the same breath she claims a potential baby isn't an actual baby - that's why she believes she can have an abortion.
Skynet sends a terminator, T-1000, to kill young John Connor because young John Connor (not the leader) is a potential old John Connor (the leader of the resistance). This is abortion.
The resistance in turn, sends T-800 to protect young John Connor for the exact same reason - young John Connor (not a leader) is a potential old John Connor (the leader of the resistance) This is anti-abortion.
In other words, young John Connor (the fetus) = old John Connor (the baby) for both Skynet (pro-choicers) and the resistance (pro-lifers).
Skynet (pro-choicers) now can't claim to kill young John Connor (the fetus) isn't the same as killing old John Connor (the baby).
Gibberish. Pro-choicers neither make decisions to abort using this method nor give two shits whether or not the decision is formally consistent
:fire: :fire: :fire: You taught me a valuable lesson Sir/Madam, as the case may be!
[quote=Ralph Waldo Emerson]A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.[/quote]
Reply to TheMadFool A seed is not a tree. A sapling is a potential tree. A pre-26th week old unviable fetus is not a person. A viable fetus aka "baby" is a potential person.
Reply to TheMadFool :lol: Nice try. Time travel plots do not work, however, because it makes no sense to go back in time to change an event which has already happened; rather it makes more sense to travel back in time to a specified moment at which an alternative parallel worldline branches off wherein the alternative future is open; therefore, Skynet sends back the T-800 to "abort" alternative John Connor on an alternative worldline created by sending the T-800 back in time, which leaves Skynet's prime worldline (history), which includes prime John Connor, unchanged. Your metaphor collapses under the weight of inconsistent plotting (& speculation) typical of "time travel stories". (It's even worse than that, but I don't need to go there to make my point. Btw, I'm a huge fan of the original Terminator movie.)
Yes but the value of a seed lies in its potential (tree), not in itself.
"Value" to whom – the birds who eat most of the seeds? They're valued in nature as much for food as for germinating. So what? Again, seed are potential saplings and saplings are potential trees; seeds are not potential trees. That's like saying sperm are "potential persons" – then jacking-off is equivalent to mass-murder and swallowing jizz when giving head is cannibalism. :sweat: Better watch that (anachronistic) Aristotleanism ...
A seed is not a tree. A sapling is a potential tree. A pre-26th week old fetus is not a person. A baby is a potential person.
Yes but the value of a seed lies in its potential (tree), not in itself. Likewise, the value of a fetus is in its potential (baby). Pro-choicers and pro-lifers are on the same page on that score because neither makes sense if this weren't true.
The pro-choicer however equivocates between the seed (fetus) being a potential tree (baby) - wants to have an abortion - and not being a potential tree (fetus) - can have an abortion.
It doesn't matter anyway as consistency doesn't seem to be all that important.
[quote=TheMadFool]My, my, the things we do for women.[/quote]
Yes but the value of a seed lies in its potential (tree), not in itself.
But I think 180's point with that analogy is that an actual tree is not the same as a potential tree, and so for instance we would not say that cleansing a garden of scattered seeds should be punished just as harshly as burning an equal amount of fully grown trees, because both are “deforesting”.
But I think 180's point with that analogy is that an actual tree is not the same as a potential tree, and so for instance we would not say that cleaning scattered seeds in a garden should be punished just as harshly as burning an equal amount of fully grown trees, because both are “deforesting”.
1. If you destroy the fetus then you destroy the baby (that's what abortion is - potential)
2. If you can't destroy the baby then you can't destroy the fetus (1 contra)
3. You can't destroy the baby (pro-choicers agree)
Ergo,
4. You can't destroy the fetus (2, 3 MP)
3. If a fetus is not a baby then you can destroy the fetus (pro-choicer)
4. A fetus is not a baby (pro-choicer - ignore potential)
Ergo,
5. You can destroy the fetus
Ergo,
6. You can destroy the fetus (ignore potential, pro-choicers do that) and you can't destroy the fetus (potential, that's why pro-choicers want an abortion) (4, 5 Conj) [Contradiction: Paradox]
Seed analogy,
7. If you destroy the seed then you destroy the tree (potential)
8. If you can't destroy the tree then you can't destroy the seed (7 contra)
9. You can't destroy the tree (can't burn forests)
10. You can't destroy the seed (8, 9 MP)
11. If a seed is not a tree then you can destroy the seed (your claim)
12. A seed is not a tree (ignore potential)
13. You can destroy a seed (11, 12 MP)
14. You can destroy a seed (ignore potential) and you can't destroy a seed (potential) [Contradiction: Paradox]
1. If you destroy the fetus then you destroy the baby (that's what abortion is - potential)
No, you destroy the potential baby (the fetus) (I'm thinking about a 1 year old as an example of a baby, but perhaps you can tell me which age you are thinking of). A potential baby is not a baby, and you can't destroy what doesn't exist.
The potential baby is not a baby in actu, just like a seed is not a tree in actu despite being a potential tree.
But what's your point here? Are you saying people who cleanse their garden of scattered seeds or crush them should be charged with deforestation? (That would be one of the absurd consequences, if arguments from “potentiality” with that logical structure were valid).
11. If a seed is not a tree then you can destroy the seed (your claim)
That's not my claim, my claim is that if an argument with a logical structure such as:
«If I can prove that the fetus must be labeled as a person because it has “personhood”, then killing a fetus has to be punished just like we would punish murdering any other thing labeled as a person».
... were valid, then this other argument, which has exactly the same logical structure, would also be valid:
«If I can prove that the seeds must be labeled as a tree because they have “treehood”, then destroying a seed has to be punished just like we would punish burning the same amount of trees, therefore the person who cleansed their garden of scattered seeds should receive exactly the same punishment as those who burn just as many trees as the seeds he destroyed».
Since nobody seriously considers that the second conclusion is true («therefore the person who cleansed his garden of scattered seeds should receive exactly the same punishment as those who burn just as many trees as the seeds he destroyed»), then we conclude that arguments with such a logical structure are not valid, including the one about the potential baby.
1. If you destroy the fetus then you destroy the baby (that's what abortion is - potential)
— TheMadFool
No, you destroy the potential baby (the fetus) (I'm thinking about a 1 year old as an example of a baby, but perhaps you can tell me which age you are thinking of). A potential baby is not a baby, and you can't destroy what doesn't exist.
What's the reason for destroying the fetus (the potential baby)? Destroying the fetus, destroys the baby, no? Why else have an abortion if this weren't true? Remember, a woman's concern is the actual baby, To do something about the actual baby, the woman does something to [I]the potential baby[/I]. There really is no point arguing about this. It's crystal clear to me as it should be to you.
Not always. Sometimes the baby isn't the issue. In fact, they might love to have the baby. But the fetus is killing them.
Indeed! There's less controversy in those scenarios where the fetus is a danger to the mother's well-being. However, the abortion debate is usually not about such life and death situations but about women just being able to undergo a procedure to expel the fetus from the uterus even if only on a whim.
However, the abortion debate is usually not about such life and death situations but about women just being able to undergo a procedure to expel the fetus from the uterus even if only on a whim.
I was just challenging your unqualified statement.
As to the usual debate, consider the case where the fetus is killing the woman but she wouldn't want the baby, and would abort anyway if she otherwise could. In that case, does big government first ask the women "Hey, do you want the baby?" And then does big government vet the doctor's determination that the fetus is killing the woman? Does big government get to seek a second opinion from another doctor? Who vets the qualifications or objective abilities of that doctor? Big government?
Personally, I think this is all noise but I'm curious how the pro-life crowd would have big government pursue these issues, logistically.
No, that’s like saying that destroying the seed destroys the tree it would have become otherwise. Once again, you can’t destroy or kill what doesn’t exist. Also, nobody would on that ground infer that crushing seeds is the same as deforesting.
Unless you are committing the fallacy of equivocation, in which case I can translate your sentence into one that perhaps makes more sense: if you destroy the fetus, the baby it might have become won’t exist in the future. Well yes, but so what? The burden of proof is on you to show why that implies that it is morally wrong to kill the fetus, because I don’t see how that follows at all.
And if you are going to say that anything that is potentially a baby should be treated just like a baby, then is killing spermatozoa (masturbating) murder as well?
Likewise, I could argue in the same fashion: if you destroy the seed, the tree it might have become won’t exist in the future, therefore crushing seeds or cleansing your garden of scattered seeds is deforesting. Are you willing to accept that? If not, you must agree that arguments with that logical structure are not valid.
So what? It does not follow that a fetus (potential baby) is a baby from that statement, her intentions for killing the fetus are wholly irrelevant to the question whether a fetus is or should be treated like a baby or not.
It’s crystal clear to me that a seed is not a tree, because a potential tree is not a tree in actu.
It’s crystal clear to me that a fetus is not a baby, because a potential baby is not a baby in actu.
The logic is rather simple really. A woman doesn't want the actual baby when she visits a doctor to abort the fetus. In other words,
1. Doing something to the potential baby (fetus) implies doing something to the actual baby.
If 1 were false, destroying the fetus should have no effect on the baby which is just another way of saying you could destroy the fetus and still give birth to the baby. Preposterous!
I was just challenging your unqualified statement.
As to the usual debate, consider the case where the fetus is killing the woman but she wouldn't want the baby, and would abort anyway if she otherwise could. In that case, does big government first ask the women "Hey, do you want the baby?" And then does big government vet the doctor's determination that the fetus is killing the woman? Does big government get to seek a second opinion from another doctor? Who vets the qualifications or objective abilities of that doctor? Big government?
Personally, I think this is all noise but I'm curious how the pro-life crowd would have big government pursue these issues, logistically
These are important questions alright and they will need to be dealt with in the most reasonable manner possible. However, before we go into such detail, we need to get our hands on the bigger picture - let's not miss the woods for the trees. Once that's in the bag, we can discuss the finer points. That's how I feel we should tackle this problem.
However, before we go into such detail, we need to get our hands on the bigger picture -
I've already dealt with the bigger picture, in this thread, yesterday. As stated, this "detail" and "finer points" question is really just noise. Idle curiosity on my part. No big deal if you don't want to opine on it.
which is just another way of saying you could destroy the fetus and still give birth to the baby.
Non sequitur/ straw man, that's not another way of saying that at all.
Obviously, if a woman wants to have a baby, she must not destroy the fetus that she plans on having become a baby (the baby that the fetus will become), but that doesn't mean that destroying the fetus has effects on some non-existent baby.
Anyway, here's a consecuence of your “argument”:
1. Doing something to the potential tree (seed) implies doing something to the actual tree.
2. If 1 were false, destroying the seed should have no effect on the tree, which is just another way of saying that you could destroy the seed and still grow a tree (the tree that the seed would have become if it hadn't been destroyed).
3. Therefore, since 2 is preposterous, cleansing a garden of scattered seeds is deforesting, and should be punished in the same way as burning the same number of trees.
I've already dealt with the bigger picture, in this thread, yesterday. As stated, this "detail" and "finer points" question is really just noise. Idle curiosity on my part. No big deal if you don't want to opine on it.
No, no. I have to admit that the matter is more complex than can be dealt with in a single syllogism like the one I presented. Nevertheless, if the pro-choice position fails to make a stand that's internally consistent, it won't have many takers. Right? The pro-choice movement must first make sense, only then can it hope to gather supporters.
1. You can't do anything to what doesn't exist (the actual baby doesn't exist, only the potential baby does).
Ok. I can't do anything to the actual baby if I have an abortion i.e. if I destroy the fetus. That means an actual baby should be born even if I destroy the fetus. Does that happen? I've never heard of such an incident in my life.
Non sequitur/ straw man, that's not another way of saying that at all.
Obviously, if a woman wants to have a baby, she must not destroy the fetus that she plans on having become a baby (the baby that the fetus will become), but that doesn't mean that destroying the fetus has effects on some non-existent baby.
Anyway, here's a consecuence of your “argument”:
1. Doing something to the potential tree (seed) implies doing something to the actual tree.
2. If 1 were false, destroying the seed should have no effect on the tree, which is just another way of saying that you could destroy the seed and still grow a tree (the tree that the seed would have become if it hadn't been destroyed).
3. Therefore, since 2 is preposterous, cleaning scattered seeds in a garden is deforesting, and should be punished in the same way as burning the same number of trees.
I meant that this:
I can't do anything to the actual baby if I have an abortion i.e. if I destroy the fetus.
— TheMadFool
Does not mean the same as, nor implies:
an actual baby should be born even if I destroy the fetus.
— TheMadFool
It also does not mean:
So, if I destroy the fetus, I destroy the baby. That's what I meant from the get go.
— TheMadFool
Also, I'm still waiting for your response to the argument that cleaning scattered seeds is deforestation
Ok. here's the deal.
There's a woman X with child.
Scenario 1:
X removes a painful tooth. X gives birth to the baby
X did something to her tooth. Nothing happened to the baby
Doing something to her tooth doesn't mean Doing something to the baby.
In other words, X can do something to the tooth & X can have a baby.
Scenario 2
X aborts the fetus. X doesn't give birth to the baby
X did something to the fetus. Something happened to the baby
In other words, it's not possible that X can do something to the fetus & X can have a baby (that's what abortion is all about).
If you say that doing something to the fetus does nothing to the baby then this should be possible: X does something to the fetus & X can have a baby (like X did something to the tooth and X can have a baby). This is impossible.
Ergo, To do something to the fetus implies to do something to the baby.
That means,
Not to do something to the baby implies not to do something to the fetus.
A value of a seed is to be found in its potential - what it is (a seed) is important of course but not as important as what it can be (say, a tree). This value is part of the seed itself - it, in a sense, defines a seed, gives it meaning as it were. We, the "others", recognize this value and this makes the seed valuable to us to the extent we need the seed to achieve an end (plant one in your compound).
Reply to TheMadFool You're not making sense. A seed (1) is a potential sapling (2). An unviable fetus (1) is a potential viable fetus aka "baby" (2). A sapling (3) is a potential tree (4). A viable fetus (3) aka "baby" is a potential person (4). Skipping steps (3, 4) makes no sense.
X aborts the fetus. X doesn't give birth to the baby
X did something to the fetus. Something happened to the baby
Nothing happened to the baby, there is no baby to begin with. It's like if you said the present king of France is sleeping: it's not the case that he is sleeping, because he doesn't exist to begin with.
If you say that doing something to the fetus does nothing to the baby then this should be possible: X does something to the fetus & X can have a baby (like X did something to the tooth and X can have a baby). This is impossible.
No, this is the same non-sequitur/ straw man as before.
Not to do something to the baby implies not to do something to the fetus.
False, that's like saying: not to do something to the tree implies not to do something to the seed. But obviously just because I don't put the tree in my palm (because the tree doesn't exist to begin with), that doesn't mean that I can't put the seed in my palm.
Suppose all this happens when the fetus is, say, 2 weeks old.
Then in scenario 1, if you do nothing to the fetus, then at that moment nothing happened to the actual baby, because there is no actual baby.
In scenario 2, if you abort the fetus, then at that moment nothing happened to the actual baby, because there is no actual baby.
In both scenarios, things happen only to the fetus. That's why the only way to make sense of that argument is to say that the fetus and the baby are the exact same thing, which is to say: that potentiality and actuality are the same thing, which is obviously absurd.
Also, emoticons are not a way to avoid justifying why, according to you, something would happen to the actual baby (which does not exist) in either of those scenarios.
Crying, wet and pouting lips searching for the mother's breast for milk.
In the future, if and only if the woman decides not to abort, not when the fetus is 2 weeks old. But the question is: does anything happen to the actual baby when the fetus is 2 weeks old? Answer: no, because there is no actual baby at that moment.
Fetus aborted. No crying, no wetness, no pouting, in short no actual baby
Again, in the future that's true, if and only if the mother decides to abort, but also when the fetus is 2 weeks old, and the question is: does anything happen to the actual baby when the fetus is 2 weeks old? Answer: no, because there is no actual baby at that moment.
If nothing was done to an actual baby where is the baby?
When the fetus is 2 weeks old, it doesn't have to be anywhere because, like I said, there is no actual baby at that time, regardless of whether you choose to abort the fetus or not.
Now, if the question is: does something happen to the actual baby when he is 1 year old? then the question already assumes that the 2 weeks old fetus wasn't aborted, and in that case obviously many things happen to him, but not those that happened to the fetus in the past (since he is not the fetus, just as he is not the stardust that had the potentiality to become him). If the fetus was aborted, then the question is a loaded question, or one that would have to be answered with: nothing happens to the actual 1 year old baby, because there is no actual 1 year old baby.
The baby is not the fetus. You mean to say: if you do nothing to the fetus, then in the future it will become a baby.
In order for me to choose between doing something to the baby or not, it must already exist, and in that case obviously if I do nothing and he is fortunate, he will continue to live. But it doesn't follow from that, that I should do the same with a 2 week old fetus.
1. If (the fetus has not been destroyed and the baby has not been killed) then the baby exists.
2. If the baby doesn't exist then (the fetus has been destroyed or the baby has been killed) [from 1]
In other words, if I have a woman who I know was pregnant and then one fine day I see her and she doesn't have a baby, there are two possibilities: 1. she destroyed the fetus OR 2. she killed the baby. Both 1 and 2 have the same effect (no baby). I couldn't tell from her status (no baby) whether she killed the baby or she had an abortion. That implies, insofar as the effect (no baby) is the issue, there's no difference between an abortion and killing the baby i.e. abortion = killing the baby.
Does a fetus deserve moral consideration? And when do we give the fetus moral consideration? Better question when do we give anything moral consideration?
1) No.
2) We should not.
3) When it is practical to do so.
Nevertheless, if the pro-choice position fails to make a stand that's internally consistent, it won't have many takers. Right? The pro-choice movement must first make sense, only then can it hope to gather supporters.
I guess I'm having a problem with painting something like "the pro-choice movement" with a single brush. I'm pro-choice as they come and my position is 100% internally consistent. Just because some pro-choice people get sucked down a rabbit hole of noise, arguing about stupid things like "when life begins" etc. doesn't mean that placing choice over life is inconsistent.
I guess I'm having a problem with painting something like "the pro-choice movement" with a single brush. I'm pro-choice as they come and my position is 100% internally consistent. Just because some pro-choice people get sucked down a rabbit hole of noise, arguing about stupid things like "when life begins" etc. doesn't mean that placing choice over life is inconsistent.
Now I see where you're coming from. You're not really concerned about the arguments against abortion whatever they may be - they're all "noise" and "stupid", plus inconsistency isn't something that bothers you all that much. I don't blame you for such an attitude because there's a lot at stake for a woman.
If abortion is made illegal, it limits, some would say severely, a woman's freedom - she's first stuck with the fetus for 9 months, then with the child for another 18 - 20 years. That's a lot of time; even murderers, some of them at least, get a better deal. :chin: A promising lead if one takes the fact that abortion has been equated with homicide into account.
As you already seem to know, I've been hyperfocused on a single inconsistency: wanting to destroy the fetus is to worry about what the fetus can become (a baby) and thinking that we can destroy the fetus is based on what the fetus is/is not (not a baby).
I completely forgot about the welfare of the baby, faer future. It isn't enough that I saved a baby by preventing an abortion. The baby's journey has just begun - it'll need to be fed and fed well, between a child and a young adult it has to be given a decent education, after that a well-paying job, etc. If none of these requirements can be fulfilled, the baby would've been better off dead because the suffering involved would make life pointless. On this view, stopping/prohibiting abortions is to take the baby out of the frying pan only to put it in the fire. Yikes!
Then there's suicide. Some of us wish we didn't exist.
If abortion is made illegal, it limits, some would say severely, a woman's freedom - she's first stuck with the fetus for 9 months, then with the child for another 18 - 20 years.
My position is not concerned with her loss of freedom, the pregnancy, the life of the child after birth. That is all irrelevant noise from my position. My sole concern is her loss of choice.
A promising lead if one takes the fact that abortion has been equated with homicide into account.
I have and will stipulate that it is indeed homicide. I'll not get lost in a debate over whether the fetus is human. I will stipulate that it is human and that all the rights that attach to a full grown person attach to the fetus. Thus, killing it is homicide. Irrelevant to my pro-choice position, which is only about choice.
As you already seem to know, I've been hyperfocused on a single inconsistency: wanting to destroy the fetus is to worry about what the fetus can become (a baby) and thinking that we can destroy the fetus is based on what the fetus is/is not (not a baby).
As I said, that doesn't matter. I will stipulate to your position. There is not inconsistency in my position. I say she can kill it no matter what it is.
I was talking to my son about this today and came up with the following analogy: Let's say Kevin Hart somehow ends up inside of Shaquille O'Neal's body. My position is that Shack can kill Kevin Hart at any time for any reason in any way, and with impunity. There! We have two men, which takes the female/fetus/baby issue (all irrelevant distractions) out of it. The choice is the host's and it supersedes any right to life that the occupant might have.
The powerful get to decide who, if anyone, gets to kill anyone else with impunity. Quite simply, the powerful have power over life and death. The powerful have choice.
Sometimes the powerful will cede choice to the individual. Pro-choice says that a host gets to kill any other person who resides within the host’s body. Host-choice is preeminent over occupant-life. A host then has power of choice over the life of an occupant.
Choice trumps life. Simple, consistent.
Some people like to argue. In their disagreement, they will try to muddy the waters with issues about when life begins, sentience, pain, what the occupant looks like, the Bill of Rights, rape, incest, life of the host, life of others, like the father, blah, blah, blah. And some suckers on the pro-choice side will get sucked down that rabbit hole and start trying to parse shit that needs no parsing, and then the “debate” is on.
But in the end, it’s about the power to choose vs the right to life. I believe the powerful should cede choice to the host. I believe the powerful should stay the fuck out of the doctor’s office and the decision making (choice) process of the host. All those little bits of noise are, or should be entirely within the purview of the host to be dealt with in the privacy of the host’s blood-pumper and brain-housing group.
Whether the choice is easy or extremely difficult for one host or another is nobody’s business but the host.
But in the end, it’s about the power to choose vs the right to life
Pro-choice vs Pro-life.
Do you mind if other people's choices impact you negatively, such sometimes involving the possibility of much suffering and even death?
If "no" then you're advocating a free-for-all, no-holds-barred contest for power which, interestingly, you associate with choice. A very good observation to my reckoning but is that what you want? I'm not so sure but isn't democracy, the "dominant" political system in the world today, the surest sign of humanity's frustration with power? Choice is everything -> Power is a must -> Suffering galore -> Exasperation -> Choice is not everything. You don't have to agree of course and do forgive me if I've strayed off-topic, it just seemed relevant.
If "yes" then choice isn't the be-all-and-end-all. Other things, like life, are equally if not more important. Also, what's choice without life, right? Before one can even begin to think about choice, one needs to be alive and ergo, if choice is that big a deal, life, the sine qua non, must be as/more vital to us. :chin: Another good point, in my humble opinion, against pro-choicers: if every pregnancy were aborted then humanity would die out and choice would be rendered meaningless - Dodos can't choose!
Do you mind if other people's choices impact you negatively, such sometimes involving the possibility of much suffering and even death?
I do mind. But some things are subordinate to others. When it comes to a women's choice regarding that which resides within her body, all other considerations are subordinate to her choice.
If "no" then you're advocating a free-for-all, no-holds-barred contest for power which, interestingly, you associate with choice. A very good observation to my reckoning but is that what you want? I'm not so sure but isn't democracy, the "dominant" political system in the world today, the surest sign of humanity's frustration with power? Choice is everything -> Power is a must -> Suffering galore -> Exasperation -> Choice is not everything. You don't have to agree of course and do forgive me if I've strayed off-topic, it just seemed relevant.
If "yes" then choice isn't the be-all-and-end-all. Other things, like life, are equally if not more important. Also, what's choice without life, right? Before one can even begin to think about choice, one needs to be alive and ergo, if choice is that big a deal, life, the sine qua non, must be as/more vital to us. :chin: Another good point, in my humble opinion, against pro-choicers: if every pregnancy were aborted then humanity would die out and choice would be rendered meaningless - Dodos can't choose!
I don't understand any of what you just said in those paragraphs. I think it is entirely possible that you did not understand anything I said in my paragraph about power. The state (power) gets to decide who can kill who, and under what circumstances it can be done, if at all, with impunity. In the case of a human being living inside the body of another human being, the state can (and I think should) delegate that power to whoever has someone else living inside of them. In that case, choice trumps all else.
My position on abortion is usually the narrow empirical-based ethical one (re: personhood, homicide vs murder, etc). The much broader political position, germaine in the American historical context, with which I also have a strong affinity is this:
The state claims its own interest in, or on behalf of, the fetus just as it claims an interest in protecting the rights of property owners to keep their property and protect it from arbitrary takings.
In this analogy: the state prohibits a woman from terminating her pregnancy by treating a fetus as a property-owner and the womb it's in as the fetus' property, that is confers on a fetus the role of slaveholder and a pregnant woman the role of slave. But slavery is 'officially' outlawed in most modern, secular, nation states, right? And yet state-sanctioned denial of an actual woman's inherent right-to-choose (& think) for herself is overlooked and deemed less repugnant in practice than killing a non-viable fetus with human DNA (possible person) in theory.
It's quite difficult to think of any prospect more morally repugnant than the circumstance that a pregnant woman is equivalent before the law as slave property who's owned (by state enforcement) by her unviable fetus. "Pro-life" in this sense is, in practice, indiscernible from pro-slavery.
So show me where my judgment goes wrong here, Fool (or anyone).
Do you mind if other people's choices impact you negatively, such sometimes involving the possibility of much suffering and even death?
— TheMadFool
I do mind. But some things are subordinate to others. When it comes to a women's choice regarding that which resides within her body, all other considerations are subordinate to her choice
You have a point. Women's choice is important, who could deny that? It's in line with your thoughts that choice trumps life. The question above was meant to bring to the fore what your stance on the abortion issue implies - either you must agree that we should all scramble for power, you made the association between power and choice not me, and that, as history attests to, has been the cause of much misery. You don't want a repeat of events in which countless lives were lost to power struggles do you? This is an implication of your position that choice is all that matters. It's an old trick you'll find in an old book on logic. You should familiarize yourself with it, it's helpful.
I don't understand any of what you just said in those paragraphs. I think it is entirely possible that you did not understand anything I said in my paragraph about power. The state (power) gets to decide who can kill who, and under what circumstances it can be done, if at all, with impunity. In the case of a human being living inside the body of another human being, the state can (and I think should) delegate that power to whoever has someone else living inside of them. In that case, choice trumps all else.
The rest of your ramblings are nonsensical
Then I'm afraid you don't understand yourself - all that I've said are corollaries of your very intriguing statement that "choice trumps life" which essentially means choice is all that matters. Choice and power are chums and you were clearly perceptive enough to notice that. I haven't said anything you wouldn't eventually have said. If it gives you the impression of being "nonsensical" then you've scuttled your own ship. I have nothing more to discuss with you sir/madam. Please rethink your position until it makes sense to you.
It's an old trick you'll find in an old book on logic. You should familiarize yourself with it, it's helpful.
The only trick is your foolish extrapolation from the case in point to a generalization about power and choice. Try to keep your eye on the ball. We are talking about abortion here, not some general principles of power and choice beyond the criteria I laid out for you. You are trying to make a philosophical debate where none exists.
Then I'm afraid you don't understand yourself - all that I've said are corollaries of your very intriguing statement that "choice trumps life" which essentially means choice is all that matters.
I understand my argument just fine. You are trying to say that if I say X then I must also be saying XX. I'm not. I'm saying X. Keep your eye on the ball, fool.
If I were fool, and were to use his illogical extrapolation arguments, I'd say that if the state can mandate a slave must carry her owner to term, then, by logical extension, the state can breed women like cattle and have them be baby factories. I know you are not saying that, but that's the kind of reasoning he is using with the notion that if all women aborted then all people would cease to exist and there would be no choice.
Reply to James Riley Isn't what you're saying (the) premise of The Handmaid's Tale (book)? And yeah, Fool's "intentionally obtuse" (more devil's advocate, methinks, than not).
My position on abortion is usually the narrow empirical-based ethical one (re: personhood, homicide vs murder, etc). The much broader political position, germaine in the American historical context, with which I also have a strong affinity is this:
The state claims its own interest in, or on behalf of, the fetus just as it claims an interest in protect the rights of property owners to keep their property and protect it from arbitrary takings.
In this analogy: the state prohibits a woman from terminating her pregnancy by treating a fetus as a property-owner and the womb it's in as the fetus' property, that is confers on a fetus the role of slaveholder and a pregnant woman the role of slave. But slavery is 'officially' outlawed in most modern, secular, nation states, right? And yet state-sanctioned denial of an actual woman's inherent right-to-choose (& think) for herself is overlooked and deemed less repugnant in practice than killing a non-viable fetus with human DNA (possible person) in theory.
It's quite difficult to think of any prospect more morally repugnant than the circumstance that a pregnant woman is equivalent before the law as slave property who's owned (by state enforcement) by her unviable fetus. "Pro-life" in this sense is, in practice, indiscernible from pro-slavery.
So show me where my judgment goes wrong here, Fool (or anyone).
The inconsistency in the pro-choice position which I reported has to do with what a woman who chooses abortion wants and how she thinks she can get what she wants.
Lemme try and keep this simple:
If I, god forbid, amputate the fetus' toes, the baby will be born toeless. No one will object to the claim that I did something to the actual baby. If I now amputate the fetus' legs, the baby will be born legless. Again, no one will disagree that I did something to the actual baby. I cut off the fetus' hands, the actual baby will be handless. No one will even dream of saying I did nothing to the actual baby. Continue chopping off parts of the fetus and no one in faer right mind will say I did nothing to the actual baby. Yet, this I find puzzling, if I remove the entire fetus (conduct an abortion), people are not sure that I did something to the actual baby and hence the abortion debate.
Either me slicing off parts of the fetus is not to be considered as doing something to the actual baby (preposterous) or abortion destroys an actual baby (more plausible).
A macabre example I know but I had no choice! :chin:
What follows is too obvious to mention.
As for comparing expectant women to slaves and the unborn child as the master, all I can say is women seem to be in a tight spot insofar as this issue is concerned.
What is choice without life and what is life without choice? Both ingredients are essential but, unfortunately, women can't have both. Choices for women:
1. Slave
or
2. Murderer
Now that I made it as clear as crystal, thanks to 180 Proof, I wonder how women will choose?
The only trick is your foolish extrapolation from the case in point to a generalization about power and choice. Try to keep your eye on the ball. We are talking about abortion here, not some general principles of power and choice beyond the criteria I laid out for you. You are trying to make a philosophical debate where none exists.
You made the statement, "choice trumps life" and since nothing is more important than life to pro-lifers, it follows that choice is priority #1. Rest as mentioned in the previous post to you. Please don't take this the wrong way but you need to be more aware of what you're saying/writing and if you can't do that, don't worry I'm in the same boat, at least listen to what others have to say. G'day.
The inconsistency in the pro-choice position which I reported has to do with what a woman who chooses abortion wants and how she thinks she can get what she wants.
And yet, in the real world, this "inconsistency" you're babbling about neither makes any sense nor is relevant to a woman having to make the decision whether to abort or not on the basis of her circumstances living in the real world. You've made a fetish of this specious bit of sophistry, my friend, while ignoring substantive pro-choice arguments of consequence. Ha ha ha, Fool, time to extract that swollen cranium from your pinched sphincter.
And yet, in the real world, this "inconsistency" you're babbling about neither makes any sense nor is relevant to a woman having to make the decision whether to abort or not on the basis of her circumstances living in the real world. You've made a fetish of this specious bit of sophistry, my friend, while ignoring substantive pro-choice arguments of consequence. Ha ha ha, Fool, time to extract that swollen cranium from your pinched sphincter.
:rofl: This gets interesting post by post. The real world then, you mean to say, is messy - there really is no way reasoning the way I did could lead to a decision on this issue or others that would convince people one way or the other. People don't give two shits as you like to put it about logic or its rules - they want something and they'll do whatever they can to get it. I concur but only to the extent that's how it is but I imagine it could be better, right?
This very attitude you're espousing - to hell with logic! - may turn on you one day and you'll have to simply grin and bear it. I'll come up to you, if I can, and say, "the real world, remember."
On your accusation that I'm "...ignoring substantive pro-choice arguments of consequence", mea culpa. :zip:
You made the statement, "choice trumps life" and since nothing is more important than life to pro-lifers, it follows that choice is priority #1.
I made the statement of "choice trumps life" in a simple, well-explained context of abortion. You then made the fundamental mistake of saying that I must be saying that all choice in all cases trumps all life. That is stupid. That is not what I said. That is not the pro-choice position. I keep trying to explain this to you. You simply cannot jump from the specific to the general. Stop doing that. It makes you look stupid.
Please don't take this the wrong way but you need to be more aware of what you're saying/writing and if you can't do that, don't worry I'm in the same boat, at least listen to what others have to say. G'day.
Please take this any way you want, but you need to be more aware of what you're reading and if you can't do that, you are alone here. I've listened to what you have to say and you are wrong to tell me that I am inconsistent in my pro-choice position. I am not. I am 100% consistent. You just can't handle it so you struggle and strain to jump from the specific to the general, or wax on about toes and fingers and legs and other irrelevant noise. I already explained to you, as if I was talking to a child, that I will stipulate to the fetus being a full-blown human being, so your example of parting out whatever the hell you want to call it does not matter. It's called an "even-if" argument. School yourself.
Finally, the devil better get himself a better advocate or he'll end up talking to a hand.
You then made the fundamental mistake of saying that I must be saying that all choice in all cases trumps all life
It was implied by your statement. Either you're pro-choice or you're pro-life. If you're pro-choice then, isn't it obvious?, life doesn't matter. If life doesn't matter, nothing does (except choice)
You're referring to yourself, right? If you're not, you've failed to recognize your own reflection. I'm just like you so, don't fret. I think everyone is like that.
No, it was not implied by my statement. It was implied in your mind. If I say X trumps Y if Z, then I have not said X trumps Y. Only a dummy would think that.
I would've but @James Riley made it crystal clear that I have a choice. :lol:
FrankGSterleJrJuly 02, 2022 at 01:53#7146560 likes
Liberal democracies cannot prevent anyone from bearing children, including those who insist upon procreating regardless of their inability to raise children in a psychologically functional/healthy manner. We can, however, educate all young people for the most important job ever, even those high-schoolers who plan to remain childless. If nothing else, such curriculum could offer students an idea/clue as to whether they’re emotionally suited for the immense responsibility and strains of parenthood.
Yet, owing to the Only If It’s In My Own Back Yard mindset, the prevailing collective attitude (implicit or subconscious) basically follows: ‘Why should I care — my kids are alright?’ or ‘What is in it for me, the taxpayer, if I support programs for other people’s troubled families?’ While some people will justify it as a normal thus moral human evolutionary function, the self-serving OIIIMOBY can debilitate social progress, even when social progress is most needed.
Maybe the health of all children needs to be of real importance to everyone — and not just concern over what other parents’ children might or will cost us as future criminals or costly cases of government care, etcetera — regardless of how well our own developing children are doing?
A physically and mentally sound future should be every child’s fundamental right — along with air, water, food and shelter — especially considering the very troubled world into which they never asked to enter. … Now, if only as much concern was given to the already born and breathing as is given the unborn, some real progress could be made.
Comments (92)
Not clear when a soul enters a fetus. It seems obvious that newly born babies have them, so at some point earlier a soul enters. But it seems fairly implausible to think it is there from conception, and equally implausible to think it enters the instant of exit.
So, at some point inbetween those two points, a soul enters.
My view - which I hold with no great confidence - is that when the fetus is just a piece of gristle, you ought to abort it for unless you do it will suck a soul into this realm, and that's bad. So I think early abortions are probably a duty.
But later, when it is more plausible that a soul is present, then they are not a duty. Nevertheless, if their presence in the pregnant person was not the pregnant person's fault, then I think abortion is morally permissible as it is beyond the call of duty to insist someone go through the pains and inconvenience of pregnancy to save a life for which that person has no special responsibility.
But if it was intentional - that is, if the person got pregnant on purpose or had voluntary unprotected sex fully in the knowledge that a pregnancy might result, then i think that person deserves the pains and inconvenience of a pregnancy and has no right to kill a person to avoid them. (They still ought to abort in the early stages, however, as though they have done a wicked thing and deserve to suffer, it is more important to prevent a new soul from being sucked into this realm than it is to give oneself one's just deserts).
So I have a mixed view. Early abortions are morally obligatory for all. But with later ones it all depends on the manner in which the pregnant person got pregnant.
My view reflects my antinatalism. That is, I believe it is wrong - very wrong - knowingly to attempt to force innocent souls into this realm. But if I am wrong about that, then i think most abortions will be morally permissible.
There comes a point where a tangle of foetus meat has a mind. We don't know where that point is exactly. But it is at some point during the fetuses career inside the pregnant person. Same points apply, for the only difference is that one is creating a mind rather than sucking one in. Makes no real difference to the ethics of it all.
I mentioned souls rather than minds partly because that really is what makes the difference (our minds are souls, whether you believe it or not), but also because there is currently a tendency among those who believe in souls to think all abortions are wrong because life begins at conception - a position that is in no way implied by the soul thesis.
We have souls and it is our possession of them that puts our bodies on the moral map. But when our bodies acquire them is no clearer than when our bodies have a mind, if minds are material.
Quoting Oppyfan
In my view, the fetus should get moral consideration at all stages of the pregnancy, as abortion will prevent its future pleasure and suffering. It is either morally right, wrong, or neutral to prevent its future pleasure and suffering.
I think it does. It’s a stage of life all of us must go through.
I've always felt uncomfortable with the word "deserve". To me, I think that, in order to deserve something, it must be earned. And, to be earned, there must have been agreement. I distinguish deserve from "entitlement." Something/someone can be entitled without having earned, and without deserving. I'll not waste your time going any further into my nuanced understanding of "deserve." I will stick to "entitled."
I think everything (including the absence of things) is entitled to moral consideration. But there is a world of difference between entitlement and receipt. Folks generally don't have the patience to afford consideration to anything, much less moral consideration.
Further, affording moral consideration does not demand a particular result. So, in the case of the fetus, moral consideration can be afforded to the fetus, and to the mother, and to the father, and to me and other entities that have to share the planet with it. One doesn't necessarily trump the other, and we can't logically presuppose what a moral end result of consideration would look like. There are too many angles and entities to consider.
That brings us, in my personal opinion (which I'm trying to not care about), to the conclusion that what a moral result of consideration should look like would be subjective, and personal. A personal example I have considered extensively is the hunt. I think whether a specific killing is moral depends upon what lies in the heart of the killer, before, during and after the kill. One need not feel guilt, remorse, doubt or questions about the kill in order for it to be a righteous or moral kill. But neither can the kill be the result of blood lust, or a vainglorious, sadistic, or proxy act. Their must be respect, and grace, and honor and gratitude.
As much as I do not like what I see in the field, or hear about in the hunting community, I try not to judge because I know the impact the hunt and other interactions with nature can have on the soul; the wonders it can work, and the sometimes inexplicable reverence and sanctity that a clumsy person can feel without sufficient articulation. I hope that the hunt is working it's magic, even on the jerk.
When it comes to the fetus, I likewise think that the moral consideration of it demands no particular result in the treatment thereof. The mother, like a hunter, is left alone, with her own heart, to deal with nature. I personally feel that if we, as a society, would like to find a greater sanctity, and a reverence for the life of a fetus, then we should start by trusting nature to work her magic; we should not second-guess the result, just because we don't like it. Rare is the mother who kills her baby out of blood lust, vainglory, sadism, convenience, as a method of birth control, vengeance or other motivation. I sincerely believe that no one, not even the most heart-felt, empathetic pro-life person on the planet, will give more moral consideration to the act of abortion than the average mother. Sure, there is the exception, but we should not make rules based on exceptions.
We enact laws out of frustration with fucking assholes who lack respect, grace, honor and gratitude. But those laws are really just the state stepping in where we, as people, have failed in virtuous leadership by example. Making fun of, and disrespecting food only happens because "that's how daddy did it." And daddy only did it that way because his daddy did it, etc. That's not the state's fault. That's failure of leadership and virtue that started sometime in the past when honorable men and women were not around mentoring. Abortion is a hell of a long way from such immorality. Abortion receives more moral consideration than most all other life decisions; and that is even without the pro-choice/pro-life debate. Rare is the woman who takes the decision lightly. Leave her the fuck alone and mind your own god damn business.
When it can suffer.
Abortion should be legal to age 21 or so. Would solve a lot of parenting problems.
Now for a serious answer, or at least a response if not an answer, I present to you the striking case of Scott Peterson, convicted in 2004 of "... the first-degree murder of his pregnant wife, Laci Peterson, and the second-degree murder of their unborn son, Conner ..."
During the trial, which took place in liberal Redwood City, California, the papers were full of talk of "unborn baby Conner." Now I ask you. Why is "unborn baby Conner" a clump of undifferentiated cells for purposes of the abortion debate, yet deserving of a name and thereby his humanity in a murder trial?
How do you convict a man of the murder of an undifferentiated clump of cells? This case always stands out for me as exemplifying the massive hypocrisy of the pro-choice position. If Laci had aborted the fetus, nobody in the San Francisco bay area would have batted an eye. Yet Scott Peterson sits in jail at this very moment, as I type these lines, for murdering that very same clump of undifferentiated cells. Well he killed his wife too, so he'd be in prison regardless. But I hope you see my point, and I wonder if some of you philosophers can help me understand why "unborn baby Conner" was even deserving of a name, let alone the status of a murder victim, in a strongly pro-choice state like California. You might say it's the mother's choice, but how can that be? If "unborn baby Conner" has human rights and can be murdered, then surely it's cold comfort to the fetus that it was his mom and not his dad who decided to kill him.
RIP unborn baby Conner. Or undifferentiated clump of cells, as the case may be.
Because the mother was deprived of choice.
Quoting fishfry
Because the mother was deprived of choice.
Quoting fishfry
Because it would have been the mother's choice.
Quoting fishfry
You should not let the case always stand out for you as exemplifying the massive hypocrisy of the pro-choice position. Rather, you should see it as an example of the patent consistence of the pro-choice position.
Quoting fishfry
I don't see your point. I see your failure to understand pro-choice. You can take cold comfort in the fact that you are not alone.
Quoting fishfry
I don't "might say." I do say it is the mother's choice. It can be, because it is. It's no comfort, cold or otherwise, to the fetus who happens to kill it (or not). The comfort of the fetus doesn't matter unless the mother says it matters. The mother is the sovereign ruler over all fetus' that reside within her. That is the way it should be. So says me.
I did feel that I addressed this point. It's cold comfort to the fetus that it was the mom and not the dad who killed him. But I already said that. I'll have to say that your post didn't help answer my question, since I had already anticipated that line of argument that the mother can kill the fetus any time she feels like it. That the fetus is an undifferentiated clump if the mother kills it, and "unborn baby Conner" if the father kills it. What is the moral or philosophical principle involved? "Women get special consideration for murder," is the only one I can see here.
Not to change the subject too much, but for sake of clarity: Are you "my body, my choice" with respect to experimental vaccines? Use of illicit substances?
Yes, you did. And I said the comfort of the fetus, cold or otherwise, does not matter.
Quoting fishfry
It directly answered your question. Mother's choice; fetus doesn't count. Period. I don't know how much simpler I can make it for you. You might disagree, but that does not mean your question was not answered. It was answered.
Quoting fishfry
Mother's choice. Asked and answered. That is the moral principle: Mother's choice. Mother's choice is the moral principle.
Quoting fishfry
It's not murder if it's legal. Homicide, yes, murder, no. Mother's (should) get special consideration for their own fetal homicide.
Quoting fishfry
Yes. But as in the rest of life, there may be consequences, cancel culture, or ostracization. Thus, your body, your choice with respect to experimental vaccines, but you may not get goods or services from the private sector or the government. And if your use of illicit substances poses a threat to others, you can, for instance, lose your driver's license, etc.
Which is exactly why I used the word murder and not homicide. Are you saying abortion is homicide?
I personally believe life begins at conception, if not before. So yes, abortion is homicide. But it's not murder unless we say it is.
I totally respect that point of view. It's intellectually honest. "Abortion is homicide but not murder."
That's very different than saying a fetus is a clump of cells on the one hand, and capable of being murdered if Scott Peterson does it. That is a logically incoherent position.
I suspect we are in agreement. If the pro-choicers would simply say as you do, that abortion kills a potential human but that it's justified on whatever grounds, that would be logically defensible.
For what it's worth I'm a safe, rare, and legal guy. That used to be a perfectly sensible moderate position. These days it's hopelessly regressive. You're supposed to "shout your abortion" as if it's a great achievement. That, I find morally depraved.
I'll go a step further and say it's not a potential human: It's a human. But she can kill it, carte blanche, as far as I'm concerned.
I respect that moral position. At least it's logical. My objection to the "lump of tissue unless Scott Peterson did it" argument is not the immorality of abortion, but rather the illogic of the position.
I think it is best to give moral consideration to respecting the medical profession's ability to parse the ethical questions they face. Generalizing decisions of life and death when a gray area is present seems immoral.
I think respective opponents often fail to take their arguments to a logical conclusion and then go for it from there. This leaves them open to ongoing, endless debate, misunderstanding, irrelevant nuance, and culture wars. I was taught in law school to give the other side every thing they want until you find out what that really is, and what it is you simply refuse to give them. Therein lies the nut over which a fight can be launched, or not. Everything else is noise.
Well, your beliefs do not determine what's true. We do have minds, for mental states exist and they couldn't absent a mind to have them. Thus minds exist.
There's a metaphysical question over whether minds are material or immaterial. But there's no question they exist.
There's also no question they are the basis of our intrinsic moral worth. I am morally valuable because I am a mind, rather than because of any of my sensible features. My size and shape and colour and location are all irrelevant to my moral value, for instance. And thus the fact a fetus is very small and not shaped like me and probably a different colour and certainly in an odd location does not affect its moral value. What makes it morally valuable, if or when it is, is its possession of a mind.
I mentioned souls partly because I want to stop those who believe in souls thinking their position on abortion is "it is always wrong" - if our minds are souls the ethics of abortion remains the same as it would be if our minds are material things.
Quoting Oppyfan
Yes, but after 26 weeks (c6 1/2 months) of gestation, not before then.
As a rule of thumb – if and when dehumanizing, or brutalizing, a suffering (not merely pain-reactive) creature, even to the slightest degree, also dehumanizes, or brutalizes, an agent.
1. If I do something to the fetus then I do something to the baby. (pro-choicers' key statement, the reason why they want abortion)
2. If I can't do something to the baby then I can't do something to the fetus (from 1, contrapositive: doing something to the fetus implies doing something to the baby)
3. I can't do something to the baby (pro-choicers & pro-lifers agree, a baby is a person)
Ergo,
4. I can't do something to the fetus (2, 3 MP)
Then, pro-choicers go on to argue,
5. If the fetus is not a baby then I can do something to the fetus
6. The fetus is not a baby (pro-choicer)
7. I can do something to the fetus (5, 6 MP)
8. I can do something to the fetus and I can't do something to the fetus (4, 7 Conj) [Contradiction: Paradox!]
The pro-choice position is inconsistent! (8 is a contradiction).
I mentioned that point. See :point:
Quoting TheMadFool
The problem with pro-choice is that they agree to this :point:
Quoting TheMadFool
which implies,
Quoting TheMadFool
All of the above leads to,
Quoting TheMadFool
That's a different line of thought. I do respect women, as much as any man can, may be I am one myself. Ergo, I fully support their rights and neither condone nor encourage any actions/policies that hold women at ransom. Women being the sex that carry pregnancies make that harder if not nearly impossible.
My argument is, if you'd like to know, based on the Aristotelian concept of potential.
A fetus is a potential baby. Pro-lifers recognize this fact. Since to do something to the fetus is to utlimately affect a baby and because a baby is a person, pro-lifers believe they shouldn't mess around with the fetus.
Pro-choicers too agree that a fetus is a potential baby, in fact their position doesn't make sense without this belief. They don't want the actual baby and hence they want to get rid of the potential baby (fetus).
However, that means, quite unequivocally, that to do something to the fetus implies doing something to the baby. That's precisely why pro-choicers want abortion. For better or worse, that means if you don't want to do something to the baby, you have to avoid doing things to the fetus (the potential baby). That's that.
Then there's the pro-choicer's reason why abortion is acceptable. A fetus isn't a baby and thus women are under no moral obligation to preserve it, keep it safe as it were.
The woman who wants to abort her pregnancy is then guilty of a contradiction: she wants an abortion because she's worried about the actual baby but she claims that she can terminate her pregnancy because the potential baby (the fetus) isn't an actual baby. The woman is basically flip-flopping between actual baby (she wants abortion) and potential baby (she can have an abortion). She can't do that because she equates the potential baby to an actual baby - that's why she wants an abortion - and in the same breath she claims a potential baby isn't an actual baby - that's why she believes she can have an abortion.
Skynet sends a terminator, T-1000, to kill young John Connor because young John Connor (not the leader) is a potential old John Connor (the leader of the resistance). This is abortion.
The resistance in turn, sends T-800 to protect young John Connor for the exact same reason - young John Connor (not a leader) is a potential old John Connor (the leader of the resistance) This is anti-abortion.
In other words, young John Connor (the fetus) = old John Connor (the baby) for both Skynet (pro-choicers) and the resistance (pro-lifers).
Skynet (pro-choicers) now can't claim to kill young John Connor (the fetus) isn't the same as killing old John Connor (the baby).
:fire: :fire: :fire: You taught me a valuable lesson Sir/Madam, as the case may be!
[quote=Ralph Waldo Emerson]A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.[/quote]
:lol: Nice try. Time travel plots do not work, however, because it makes no sense to go back in time to change an event which has already happened; rather it makes more sense to travel back in time to a specified moment at which an alternative parallel worldline branches off wherein the alternative future is open; therefore, Skynet sends back the T-800 to "abort" alternative John Connor on an alternative worldline created by sending the T-800 back in time, which leaves Skynet's prime worldline (history), which includes prime John Connor, unchanged. Your metaphor collapses under the weight of inconsistent plotting (& speculation) typical of "time travel stories". (It's even worse than that, but I don't need to go there to make my point. Btw, I'm a huge fan of the original Terminator movie.)
Quoting TheMadFool
"Value" to whom – the birds who eat most of the seeds? They're valued in nature as much for food as for germinating. So what? Again, seed are potential saplings and saplings are potential trees; seeds are not potential trees. That's like saying sperm are "potential persons" – then jacking-off is equivalent to mass-murder and swallowing jizz when giving head is cannibalism. :sweat: Better watch that (anachronistic) Aristotleanism ...
Yes but the value of a seed lies in its potential (tree), not in itself. Likewise, the value of a fetus is in its potential (baby). Pro-choicers and pro-lifers are on the same page on that score because neither makes sense if this weren't true.
The pro-choicer however equivocates between the seed (fetus) being a potential tree (baby) - wants to have an abortion - and not being a potential tree (fetus) - can have an abortion.
It doesn't matter anyway as consistency doesn't seem to be all that important.
[quote=TheMadFool]My, my, the things we do for women.[/quote]
But I think 180's point with that analogy is that an actual tree is not the same as a potential tree, and so for instance we would not say that cleansing a garden of scattered seeds should be punished just as harshly as burning an equal amount of fully grown trees, because both are “deforesting”.
1. If you destroy the fetus then you destroy the baby (that's what abortion is - potential)
2. If you can't destroy the baby then you can't destroy the fetus (1 contra)
3. You can't destroy the baby (pro-choicers agree)
Ergo,
4. You can't destroy the fetus (2, 3 MP)
3. If a fetus is not a baby then you can destroy the fetus (pro-choicer)
4. A fetus is not a baby (pro-choicer - ignore potential)
Ergo,
5. You can destroy the fetus
Ergo,
6. You can destroy the fetus (ignore potential, pro-choicers do that) and you can't destroy the fetus (potential, that's why pro-choicers want an abortion) (4, 5 Conj) [Contradiction: Paradox]
Seed analogy,
7. If you destroy the seed then you destroy the tree (potential)
8. If you can't destroy the tree then you can't destroy the seed (7 contra)
9. You can't destroy the tree (can't burn forests)
10. You can't destroy the seed (8, 9 MP)
11. If a seed is not a tree then you can destroy the seed (your claim)
12. A seed is not a tree (ignore potential)
13. You can destroy a seed (11, 12 MP)
14. You can destroy a seed (ignore potential) and you can't destroy a seed (potential) [Contradiction: Paradox]
Quoting TheMadFool
No, you destroy the potential baby (the fetus) (I'm thinking about a 1 year old as an example of a baby, but perhaps you can tell me which age you are thinking of). A potential baby is not a baby, and you can't destroy what doesn't exist.
The potential baby is not a baby in actu, just like a seed is not a tree in actu despite being a potential tree.
But what's your point here? Are you saying people who cleanse their garden of scattered seeds or crush them should be charged with deforestation? (That would be one of the absurd consequences, if arguments from “potentiality” with that logical structure were valid).
Quoting TheMadFool
That's only if 1 is true, which it isn't.
Quoting TheMadFool
False, for the same reason 1 is false.
Quoting TheMadFool
False, for the same reason 2 is false.
Quoting TheMadFool
That's not my claim, my claim is that if an argument with a logical structure such as:
«If I can prove that the fetus must be labeled as a person because it has “personhood”, then killing a fetus has to be punished just like we would punish murdering any other thing labeled as a person».
... were valid, then this other argument, which has exactly the same logical structure, would also be valid:
«If I can prove that the seeds must be labeled as a tree because they have “treehood”, then destroying a seed has to be punished just like we would punish burning the same amount of trees, therefore the person who cleansed their garden of scattered seeds should receive exactly the same punishment as those who burn just as many trees as the seeds he destroyed».
Since nobody seriously considers that the second conclusion is true («therefore the person who cleansed his garden of scattered seeds should receive exactly the same punishment as those who burn just as many trees as the seeds he destroyed»), then we conclude that arguments with such a logical structure are not valid, including the one about the potential baby.
sure.
but you also have to give the pregnant woman moral consideration
and the man who the woman will rape for 20 years of child support lol
Quoting Amalac
What's the reason for destroying the fetus (the potential baby)? Destroying the fetus, destroys the baby, no? Why else have an abortion if this weren't true? Remember, a woman's concern is the actual baby, To do something about the actual baby, the woman does something to [I]the potential baby[/I]. There really is no point arguing about this. It's crystal clear to me as it should be to you.
Not always. Sometimes the baby isn't the issue. In fact, they might love to have the baby. But the fetus is killing them.
Indeed! There's less controversy in those scenarios where the fetus is a danger to the mother's well-being. However, the abortion debate is usually not about such life and death situations but about women just being able to undergo a procedure to expel the fetus from the uterus even if only on a whim.
I was just challenging your unqualified statement.
As to the usual debate, consider the case where the fetus is killing the woman but she wouldn't want the baby, and would abort anyway if she otherwise could. In that case, does big government first ask the women "Hey, do you want the baby?" And then does big government vet the doctor's determination that the fetus is killing the woman? Does big government get to seek a second opinion from another doctor? Who vets the qualifications or objective abilities of that doctor? Big government?
Personally, I think this is all noise but I'm curious how the pro-life crowd would have big government pursue these issues, logistically.
Quoting TheMadFool
No, that’s like saying that destroying the seed destroys the tree it would have become otherwise. Once again, you can’t destroy or kill what doesn’t exist. Also, nobody would on that ground infer that crushing seeds is the same as deforesting.
Unless you are committing the fallacy of equivocation, in which case I can translate your sentence into one that perhaps makes more sense: if you destroy the fetus, the baby it might have become won’t exist in the future. Well yes, but so what? The burden of proof is on you to show why that implies that it is morally wrong to kill the fetus, because I don’t see how that follows at all.
And if you are going to say that anything that is potentially a baby should be treated just like a baby, then is killing spermatozoa (masturbating) murder as well?
Likewise, I could argue in the same fashion: if you destroy the seed, the tree it might have become won’t exist in the future, therefore crushing seeds or cleansing your garden of scattered seeds is deforesting. Are you willing to accept that? If not, you must agree that arguments with that logical structure are not valid.
Quoting TheMadFool
So what? It does not follow that a fetus (potential baby) is a baby from that statement, her intentions for killing the fetus are wholly irrelevant to the question whether a fetus is or should be treated like a baby or not.
Quoting TheMadFool
Again, that does not mean that the potential baby is the same thing as the actual baby. Plus the actual baby doesn’t exist.
Quoting TheMadFool
It’s crystal clear to me that a seed is not a tree, because a potential tree is not a tree in actu.
It’s crystal clear to me that a fetus is not a baby, because a potential baby is not a baby in actu.
The logic is rather simple really. A woman doesn't want the actual baby when she visits a doctor to abort the fetus. In other words,
1. Doing something to the potential baby (fetus) implies doing something to the actual baby.
If 1 were false, destroying the fetus should have no effect on the baby which is just another way of saying you could destroy the fetus and still give birth to the baby. Preposterous!
These are important questions alright and they will need to be dealt with in the most reasonable manner possible. However, before we go into such detail, we need to get our hands on the bigger picture - let's not miss the woods for the trees. Once that's in the bag, we can discuss the finer points. That's how I feel we should tackle this problem.
I've already dealt with the bigger picture, in this thread, yesterday. As stated, this "detail" and "finer points" question is really just noise. Idle curiosity on my part. No big deal if you don't want to opine on it.
Quoting TheMadFool
1. You can't do anything to what doesn't exist (the actual baby doesn't exist, only the potential baby does).
Quoting TheMadFool
Of course, destroying the fetus can have no effect on what doesn't exist, nor can anything else. The baby doesn't exist.
Quoting TheMadFool
Non sequitur/ straw man, that's not another way of saying that at all.
Obviously, if a woman wants to have a baby, she must not destroy the fetus that she plans on having become a baby (the baby that the fetus will become), but that doesn't mean that destroying the fetus has effects on some non-existent baby.
Anyway, here's a consecuence of your “argument”:
1. Doing something to the potential tree (seed) implies doing something to the actual tree.
2. If 1 were false, destroying the seed should have no effect on the tree, which is just another way of saying that you could destroy the seed and still grow a tree (the tree that the seed would have become if it hadn't been destroyed).
3. Therefore, since 2 is preposterous, cleansing a garden of scattered seeds is deforesting, and should be punished in the same way as burning the same number of trees.
No, no. I have to admit that the matter is more complex than can be dealt with in a single syllogism like the one I presented. Nevertheless, if the pro-choice position fails to make a stand that's internally consistent, it won't have many takers. Right? The pro-choice movement must first make sense, only then can it hope to gather supporters.
Ok. I can't do anything to the actual baby if I have an abortion i.e. if I destroy the fetus. That means an actual baby should be born even if I destroy the fetus. Does that happen? I've never heard of such an incident in my life.
Quoting Amalac
No, that doesn't mean that at all (if you mean the same baby that the destroyed fetus would have become).
So, if I destroy the fetus, I destroy the actual baby (the destroyed fetus would have become). That's what I meant from the get go.
Goodness gracious...
I mean that this: Quoting TheMadFool
Does not mean the same as, nor implies:
Quoting TheMadFool
It also does not mean that:
Quoting TheMadFool
Also, I'm still waiting for your response to the argument that cleaning scattered seeds is deforestation.
Quoting TheMadFool
(Okay, I'll go reeeeeeal slow :roll: ) "Value" to whom?
Ok. here's the deal.
There's a woman X with child.
Scenario 1:
X removes a painful tooth. X gives birth to the baby
X did something to her tooth. Nothing happened to the baby
Doing something to her tooth doesn't mean Doing something to the baby.
In other words, X can do something to the tooth & X can have a baby.
Scenario 2
X aborts the fetus. X doesn't give birth to the baby
X did something to the fetus. Something happened to the baby
In other words, it's not possible that X can do something to the fetus & X can have a baby (that's what abortion is all about).
If you say that doing something to the fetus does nothing to the baby then this should be possible: X does something to the fetus & X can have a baby (like X did something to the tooth and X can have a baby). This is impossible.
Ergo, To do something to the fetus implies to do something to the baby.
That means,
Not to do something to the baby implies not to do something to the fetus.
Simple!
Value to itself and others.
"To others?" – to whom?
And what does "value in itself" even mean?
A value of a seed is to be found in its potential - what it is (a seed) is important of course but not as important as what it can be (say, a tree). This value is part of the seed itself - it, in a sense, defines a seed, gives it meaning as it were. We, the "others", recognize this value and this makes the seed valuable to us to the extent we need the seed to achieve an end (plant one in your compound).
You're not making sense. A seed (1) is a potential sapling (2). An unviable fetus (1) is a potential viable fetus aka "baby" (2). A sapling (3) is a potential tree (4). A viable fetus (3) aka "baby" is a potential person (4). Skipping steps (3, 4) makes no sense.
Quoting TheMadFool
Nothing happened to the baby, there is no baby to begin with. It's like if you said the present king of France is sleeping: it's not the case that he is sleeping, because he doesn't exist to begin with.
Quoting TheMadFool
So?
Quoting TheMadFool
No, this is the same non-sequitur/ straw man as before.
Quoting TheMadFool
...and to do something to the seed implies to do something to the tree that the seed could become (do you really not see the problem with this?)
Quoting TheMadFool
False, that's like saying: not to do something to the tree implies not to do something to the seed. But obviously just because I don't put the tree in my palm (because the tree doesn't exist to begin with), that doesn't mean that I can't put the seed in my palm.
Scenario 1:
Fetus. Did nothing. Actual baby born
Scenario 2:
Fetus. Aborted the fetus. No actual baby born
Nothing happened to the actual baby? :chin: :brow:
Suppose all this happens when the fetus is, say, 2 weeks old.
Then in scenario 1, if you do nothing to the fetus, then at that moment nothing happened to the actual baby, because there is no actual baby.
In scenario 2, if you abort the fetus, then at that moment nothing happened to the actual baby, because there is no actual baby.
In both scenarios, things happen only to the fetus. That's why the only way to make sense of that argument is to say that the fetus and the baby are the exact same thing, which is to say: that potentiality and actuality are the same thing, which is obviously absurd.
Also, emoticons are not a way to avoid justifying why, according to you, something would happen to the actual baby (which does not exist) in either of those scenarios.
Scenario 1:
Nothing done to fetus. Crying, wet and pouting lips searching for the mother's breast for milk. In other words, actual baby
Nothing was done to the baby. The baby's right there, you can feel it, smell it, hear it, see it, kiss it and so on.
Scenario 2:
Fetus aborted. No crying, no wetness, no pouting, in short no actual baby
If nothing was done to the actual baby where is the baby?
I did nothing to the cookie implies the cookie is still there.
I threw the cookie in the trash implies the cookie is not there.
Quoting TheMadFool
In the future, if and only if the woman decides not to abort, not when the fetus is 2 weeks old. But the question is: does anything happen to the actual baby when the fetus is 2 weeks old? Answer: no, because there is no actual baby at that moment.
Quoting TheMadFool
Again, in the future that's true, if and only if the mother decides to abort, but also when the fetus is 2 weeks old, and the question is: does anything happen to the actual baby when the fetus is 2 weeks old? Answer: no, because there is no actual baby at that moment.
Quoting TheMadFool
When the fetus is 2 weeks old, it doesn't have to be anywhere because, like I said, there is no actual baby at that time, regardless of whether you choose to abort the fetus or not.
Now, if the question is: does something happen to the actual baby when he is 1 year old? then the question already assumes that the 2 weeks old fetus wasn't aborted, and in that case obviously many things happen to him, but not those that happened to the fetus in the past (since he is not the fetus, just as he is not the stardust that had the potentiality to become him). If the fetus was aborted, then the question is a loaded question, or one that would have to be answered with: nothing happens to the actual 1 year old baby, because there is no actual 1 year old baby.
If you do nothing to the baby, it exists. Ergo, if it doesn't exist, you did something to the baby!
Quoting TheMadFool
The baby is not the fetus. You mean to say: if you do nothing to the fetus, then in the future it will become a baby.
In order for me to choose between doing something to the baby or not, it must already exist, and in that case obviously if I do nothing and he is fortunate, he will continue to live. But it doesn't follow from that, that I should do the same with a 2 week old fetus.
Quoting TheMadFool
No, you can't do anything to what does not and did not exist.
Look,
1. If (the fetus has not been destroyed and the baby has not been killed) then the baby exists.
2. If the baby doesn't exist then (the fetus has been destroyed or the baby has been killed) [from 1]
In other words, if I have a woman who I know was pregnant and then one fine day I see her and she doesn't have a baby, there are two possibilities: 1. she destroyed the fetus OR 2. she killed the baby. Both 1 and 2 have the same effect (no baby). I couldn't tell from her status (no baby) whether she killed the baby or she had an abortion. That implies, insofar as the effect (no baby) is the issue, there's no difference between an abortion and killing the baby i.e. abortion = killing the baby.
1) No.
2) We should not.
3) When it is practical to do so.
I guess I'm having a problem with painting something like "the pro-choice movement" with a single brush. I'm pro-choice as they come and my position is 100% internally consistent. Just because some pro-choice people get sucked down a rabbit hole of noise, arguing about stupid things like "when life begins" etc. doesn't mean that placing choice over life is inconsistent.
Now I see where you're coming from. You're not really concerned about the arguments against abortion whatever they may be - they're all "noise" and "stupid", plus inconsistency isn't something that bothers you all that much. I don't blame you for such an attitude because there's a lot at stake for a woman.
If abortion is made illegal, it limits, some would say severely, a woman's freedom - she's first stuck with the fetus for 9 months, then with the child for another 18 - 20 years. That's a lot of time; even murderers, some of them at least, get a better deal. :chin: A promising lead if one takes the fact that abortion has been equated with homicide into account.
As you already seem to know, I've been hyperfocused on a single inconsistency: wanting to destroy the fetus is to worry about what the fetus can become (a baby) and thinking that we can destroy the fetus is based on what the fetus is/is not (not a baby).
I completely forgot about the welfare of the baby, faer future. It isn't enough that I saved a baby by preventing an abortion. The baby's journey has just begun - it'll need to be fed and fed well, between a child and a young adult it has to be given a decent education, after that a well-paying job, etc. If none of these requirements can be fulfilled, the baby would've been better off dead because the suffering involved would make life pointless. On this view, stopping/prohibiting abortions is to take the baby out of the frying pan only to put it in the fire. Yikes!
Then there's suicide. Some of us wish we didn't exist.
Inconsistency bothers me a great deal. It's just not an issue with my position. The only thing at stake for a woman is her right to choose.
Quoting TheMadFool
My position is not concerned with her loss of freedom, the pregnancy, the life of the child after birth. That is all irrelevant noise from my position. My sole concern is her loss of choice.
Quoting TheMadFool
I have and will stipulate that it is indeed homicide. I'll not get lost in a debate over whether the fetus is human. I will stipulate that it is human and that all the rights that attach to a full grown person attach to the fetus. Thus, killing it is homicide. Irrelevant to my pro-choice position, which is only about choice.
Quoting TheMadFool
As I said, that doesn't matter. I will stipulate to your position. There is not inconsistency in my position. I say she can kill it no matter what it is.
I was talking to my son about this today and came up with the following analogy: Let's say Kevin Hart somehow ends up inside of Shaquille O'Neal's body. My position is that Shack can kill Kevin Hart at any time for any reason in any way, and with impunity. There! We have two men, which takes the female/fetus/baby issue (all irrelevant distractions) out of it. The choice is the host's and it supersedes any right to life that the occupant might have.
The powerful get to decide who, if anyone, gets to kill anyone else with impunity. Quite simply, the powerful have power over life and death. The powerful have choice.
Sometimes the powerful will cede choice to the individual. Pro-choice says that a host gets to kill any other person who resides within the host’s body. Host-choice is preeminent over occupant-life. A host then has power of choice over the life of an occupant.
Choice trumps life. Simple, consistent.
Some people like to argue. In their disagreement, they will try to muddy the waters with issues about when life begins, sentience, pain, what the occupant looks like, the Bill of Rights, rape, incest, life of the host, life of others, like the father, blah, blah, blah. And some suckers on the pro-choice side will get sucked down that rabbit hole and start trying to parse shit that needs no parsing, and then the “debate” is on.
But in the end, it’s about the power to choose vs the right to life. I believe the powerful should cede choice to the host. I believe the powerful should stay the fuck out of the doctor’s office and the decision making (choice) process of the host. All those little bits of noise are, or should be entirely within the purview of the host to be dealt with in the privacy of the host’s blood-pumper and brain-housing group.
Whether the choice is easy or extremely difficult for one host or another is nobody’s business but the host.
Quoting James Riley
Quoting James Riley :up: :ok:
Quoting James Riley
Quoting James Riley
Interesting choice of words. :chin:
Quoting James Riley
You bring up this notion only in relation to choice I suppose.
Quoting James Riley
Pro-choice vs Pro-life.
Do you mind if other people's choices impact you negatively, such sometimes involving the possibility of much suffering and even death?
If "no" then you're advocating a free-for-all, no-holds-barred contest for power which, interestingly, you associate with choice. A very good observation to my reckoning but is that what you want? I'm not so sure but isn't democracy, the "dominant" political system in the world today, the surest sign of humanity's frustration with power? Choice is everything -> Power is a must -> Suffering galore -> Exasperation -> Choice is not everything. You don't have to agree of course and do forgive me if I've strayed off-topic, it just seemed relevant.
If "yes" then choice isn't the be-all-and-end-all. Other things, like life, are equally if not more important. Also, what's choice without life, right? Before one can even begin to think about choice, one needs to be alive and ergo, if choice is that big a deal, life, the sine qua non, must be as/more vital to us. :chin: Another good point, in my humble opinion, against pro-choicers: if every pregnancy were aborted then humanity would die out and choice would be rendered meaningless - Dodos can't choose!
I do mind. But some things are subordinate to others. When it comes to a women's choice regarding that which resides within her body, all other considerations are subordinate to her choice.
Quoting TheMadFool
I don't understand any of what you just said in those paragraphs. I think it is entirely possible that you did not understand anything I said in my paragraph about power. The state (power) gets to decide who can kill who, and under what circumstances it can be done, if at all, with impunity. In the case of a human being living inside the body of another human being, the state can (and I think should) delegate that power to whoever has someone else living inside of them. In that case, choice trumps all else.
The rest of your ramblings are nonsensical.
My position on abortion is usually the narrow empirical-based ethical one (re: personhood, homicide vs murder, etc). The much broader political position, germaine in the American historical context, with which I also have a strong affinity is this:
The state claims its own interest in, or on behalf of, the fetus just as it claims an interest in protecting the rights of property owners to keep their property and protect it from arbitrary takings.
In this analogy: the state prohibits a woman from terminating her pregnancy by treating a fetus as a property-owner and the womb it's in as the fetus' property, that is confers on a fetus the role of slaveholder and a pregnant woman the role of slave. But slavery is 'officially' outlawed in most modern, secular, nation states, right? And yet state-sanctioned denial of an actual woman's inherent right-to-choose (& think) for herself is overlooked and deemed less repugnant in practice than killing a non-viable fetus with human DNA (possible person) in theory.
It's quite difficult to think of any prospect more morally repugnant than the circumstance that a pregnant woman is equivalent before the law as slave property who's owned (by state enforcement) by her unviable fetus. "Pro-life" in this sense is, in practice, indiscernible from pro-slavery.
So show me where my judgment goes wrong here, Fool (or anyone).
You have a point. Women's choice is important, who could deny that? It's in line with your thoughts that choice trumps life. The question above was meant to bring to the fore what your stance on the abortion issue implies - either you must agree that we should all scramble for power, you made the association between power and choice not me, and that, as history attests to, has been the cause of much misery. You don't want a repeat of events in which countless lives were lost to power struggles do you? This is an implication of your position that choice is all that matters. It's an old trick you'll find in an old book on logic. You should familiarize yourself with it, it's helpful.
Quoting James Riley
Then I'm afraid you don't understand yourself - all that I've said are corollaries of your very intriguing statement that "choice trumps life" which essentially means choice is all that matters. Choice and power are chums and you were clearly perceptive enough to notice that. I haven't said anything you wouldn't eventually have said. If it gives you the impression of being "nonsensical" then you've scuttled your own ship. I have nothing more to discuss with you sir/madam. Please rethink your position until it makes sense to you.
The only trick is your foolish extrapolation from the case in point to a generalization about power and choice. Try to keep your eye on the ball. We are talking about abortion here, not some general principles of power and choice beyond the criteria I laid out for you. You are trying to make a philosophical debate where none exists.
Quoting TheMadFool
I understand my argument just fine. You are trying to say that if I say X then I must also be saying XX. I'm not. I'm saying X. Keep your eye on the ball, fool.
:100:
If I were fool, and were to use his illogical extrapolation arguments, I'd say that if the state can mandate a slave must carry her owner to term, then, by logical extension, the state can breed women like cattle and have them be baby factories. I know you are not saying that, but that's the kind of reasoning he is using with the notion that if all women aborted then all people would cease to exist and there would be no choice.
Me thinks he's being intentionally obtuse.
HA! I had to google it (never read it) but yes, that's the idea.
The inconsistency in the pro-choice position which I reported has to do with what a woman who chooses abortion wants and how she thinks she can get what she wants.
Lemme try and keep this simple:
If I, god forbid, amputate the fetus' toes, the baby will be born toeless. No one will object to the claim that I did something to the actual baby. If I now amputate the fetus' legs, the baby will be born legless. Again, no one will disagree that I did something to the actual baby. I cut off the fetus' hands, the actual baby will be handless. No one will even dream of saying I did nothing to the actual baby. Continue chopping off parts of the fetus and no one in faer right mind will say I did nothing to the actual baby. Yet, this I find puzzling, if I remove the entire fetus (conduct an abortion), people are not sure that I did something to the actual baby and hence the abortion debate.
Either me slicing off parts of the fetus is not to be considered as doing something to the actual baby (preposterous) or abortion destroys an actual baby (more plausible).
A macabre example I know but I had no choice! :chin:
What follows is too obvious to mention.
As for comparing expectant women to slaves and the unborn child as the master, all I can say is women seem to be in a tight spot insofar as this issue is concerned.
What is choice without life and what is life without choice? Both ingredients are essential but, unfortunately, women can't have both.
Choices for women:
1. Slave
or
2. Murderer
Now that I made it as clear as crystal, thanks to 180 Proof, I wonder how women will choose?
Quoting James Riley
You made the statement, "choice trumps life" and since nothing is more important than life to pro-lifers, it follows that choice is priority #1. Rest as mentioned in the previous post to you. Please don't take this the wrong way but you need to be more aware of what you're saying/writing and if you can't do that, don't worry I'm in the same boat, at least listen to what others have to say. G'day.
And yet, in the real world, this "inconsistency" you're babbling about neither makes any sense nor is relevant to a woman having to make the decision whether to abort or not on the basis of her circumstances living in the real world. You've made a fetish of this specious bit of sophistry, my friend, while ignoring substantive pro-choice arguments of consequence. Ha ha ha, Fool, time to extract that swollen cranium from your pinched sphincter.
:rofl: This gets interesting post by post. The real world then, you mean to say, is messy - there really is no way reasoning the way I did could lead to a decision on this issue or others that would convince people one way or the other. People don't give two shits as you like to put it about logic or its rules - they want something and they'll do whatever they can to get it. I concur but only to the extent that's how it is but I imagine it could be better, right?
This very attitude you're espousing - to hell with logic! - may turn on you one day and you'll have to simply grin and bear it. I'll come up to you, if I can, and say, "the real world, remember."
On your accusation that I'm "...ignoring substantive pro-choice arguments of consequence", mea culpa. :zip:
Shameless strawman. :yawn:
:lol: Inconsistency doesn't matter. You win, I lose.
:grin:
I made the statement of "choice trumps life" in a simple, well-explained context of abortion. You then made the fundamental mistake of saying that I must be saying that all choice in all cases trumps all life. That is stupid. That is not what I said. That is not the pro-choice position. I keep trying to explain this to you. You simply cannot jump from the specific to the general. Stop doing that. It makes you look stupid.
Quoting TheMadFool
Please take this any way you want, but you need to be more aware of what you're reading and if you can't do that, you are alone here. I've listened to what you have to say and you are wrong to tell me that I am inconsistent in my pro-choice position. I am not. I am 100% consistent. You just can't handle it so you struggle and strain to jump from the specific to the general, or wax on about toes and fingers and legs and other irrelevant noise. I already explained to you, as if I was talking to a child, that I will stipulate to the fetus being a full-blown human being, so your example of parting out whatever the hell you want to call it does not matter. It's called an "even-if" argument. School yourself.
Finally, the devil better get himself a better advocate or he'll end up talking to a hand.
It was implied by your statement. Either you're pro-choice or you're pro-life. If you're pro-choice then, isn't it obvious?, life doesn't matter. If life doesn't matter, nothing does (except choice)
Quoting James Riley
You're referring to yourself, right? If you're not, you've failed to recognize your own reflection. I'm just like you so, don't fret. I think everyone is like that.
Quoting James Riley
Did I say you were inconsistent? You're not. You'll just have to accept the implications of your statement.
Quoting James Riley
[quote=A child murderer]The devil made me do it![/quote]
Doesn't seem relevant but you brought up the devil. Beware, fellow human, speak of the devil and the devil will appear
No, it was not implied by my statement. It was implied in your mind. If I say X trumps Y if Z, then I have not said X trumps Y. Only a dummy would think that.
Quoting TheMadFool
No, you are not.
Quoting TheMadFool
I have and I do.
Quoting TheMadFool
Fuck the devil.
Synthesis, check;
3017amen, check;
Apollodorus, check;
TheMadFool, check.
Buh bye!
You are sorry. It was implied in your statement. You'll just have to accept the implications of your statement. TheMadFool is a sorry person.
:up: :ok:
Man up, Fool. C'mon. @James Riley is :100: :smirk:
I would've but @James Riley made it crystal clear that I have a choice. :lol:
Yet, owing to the Only If It’s In My Own Back Yard mindset, the prevailing collective attitude (implicit or subconscious) basically follows: ‘Why should I care — my kids are alright?’ or ‘What is in it for me, the taxpayer, if I support programs for other people’s troubled families?’ While some people will justify it as a normal thus moral human evolutionary function, the self-serving OIIIMOBY can debilitate social progress, even when social progress is most needed.
Maybe the health of all children needs to be of real importance to everyone — and not just concern over what other parents’ children might or will cost us as future criminals or costly cases of government care, etcetera — regardless of how well our own developing children are doing?
A physically and mentally sound future should be every child’s fundamental right — along with air, water, food and shelter — especially considering the very troubled world into which they never asked to enter. … Now, if only as much concern was given to the already born and breathing as is given the unborn, some real progress could be made.