I love this. Albeit I believe there needs to be some kind of initiative for achievement outside of the collective good (I don't have that kind of faith in humanity).
Reply to Michael I suppose you could say that. I don't condone childbirth but I don't actively, vehemently oppose it either. Most likely a child born in a first world country will live a decent life but it's still not going to be anything exactly remarkable or worth starting the life in the first place.
There are times though that I really have to question why a person had a child. If you have a bad genetic defect or live in a warzone like Palestine, don't have a kid!
Reply to Michael Not forced, that would contradict my libertarianism even if I believe that my opinion is better. I'm not entirely persuaded by the argument that you are harmed when you are born (non-identity problem and whatnot) so not doing anything about birth is not analogous to me not doing anything about my neighbor being murdered.
That being said, I do support abortion with a certain kind of private enthusiasm.
private property...
but with common/cooperative ownership of the means of production
Pick one.
ArguingWAristotleTiffMarch 01, 2016 at 21:26#90990 likes
I find these questions and answers more relevant, to know about a person, than I have read or been asked in a while. I am all around impressed with your honesty and somewhat ruffled by it 8-)
Surveillance has a long history; everybody does it. I surveil my neighbors all the time. What are they up to today? Three unrelated men and one woman in one house... who's sleeping with whom? Inquiring minds want to know. My neighbors surveil me, as well. "Oh, where have you been?" It's normal.
I assume my government has good reason to practice surveillance. They will tap wires, open letters, put up micro-cameras to keep watch, have people parked across the street with electronic listening gear, and so on. I just don't want one part of the government deciding to do all the surveilling they want without other parts of the government being quite aware of what they are doing, and having the wherewithal to effectively say "NO." There needs to be both legislative authorization, judicial oversight, and citizen awareness.
There also needs to be just cause. Deciding to suck up the entire traffic of the Internet and then sort through it, looking for... something... without telling anybody that this is going on, is a violation of citizens' trust and is flatly inappropriate.
Abortion - The right to bodily autonomy trumps the right to life of those infringing upon it; so permissible so long as birth requires inhabitation of a body, but not otherwise
Reply to Hanover If you believe in ensoulment, perhaps. But I am not one of them. Morally speaking the question hinges on personhood, I would say, and how you approach that topic. Legally speaking, however, people like very precise times for when you should and shouldn't, and birth works by convention.
As for your 8 1/2 month old fetus -- I would put to you that the 8 1/2 month old fetus is not a person, and therefore, is not to be treated in the same manner as the mother who is already clearly a person. That doesn't mean that abortion should be taken on lightly in those circumstances -- morally speaking I am more conservative. But legally speaking I am not. I don't think the question is amenable to the necessary precision we expect of law nor should it be answered by the force of the state.
Morally speaking the question hinges on personhood, I would say, and how you approach that topic.
Then why arbitrarily choose birth as the moment of personhood? It's not like a 1 day old infant can do a whole lot of the things that fully fledged kids can do and they certainly can't do what fully mature adults can do. Morally speaking, though, they may be superior to those who actually believe that 8 1/2 month old fetuses should be killed with impunity.
morally speaking I am more conservative. But legally speaking I am not. I don't think the question is amenable to the necessary precision we expect of law nor should it be answered by the force of the state.
If you're speaking legally, then you'll need to cite to the law that permits the abortion of 8 1/2 month old fetuses. We do in fact have precision in the law when it comes to abortion. It's just a matter of looking it up and reading it. Any highly disputed area of law is going to be subject to some arbitrary decision, whether it be when a person is endowed with rights, to how much emissions are acceptable, to how much privacy I am afforded. The power granted to those to decide isn't arbitrary, but to some extent decisions have to be made. I'd say, though, that the simple fact that it might be disputed whether the government can walk into my open yard and look for me but they can't walk into my open garage, for example, hardly means that it's disputed whether there are some limits I have from government intrusion. The outer parameters are obvious (like 8 1/2 month old fetuses), but at some point we reach a gray zone.
Reply to Hanover I think that you and I simply differ on where said decision should be made, then. Birth works well enough for me because it's far before the gray zone you're referring to. I'd say personhood, in the metaphysical/moral sense, occurs well after birth.
The Great WhateverMarch 02, 2016 at 23:53#91240 likes
I think personhood begins at birth. However, an 8 1/2 month old fetus is a viable infant, probably without any help. Under the circumstances, it would seem like a viable fetus (like 8 1/2 months) is too close to count as a non-person. The closer to the 36th month, the more justification that would be needed to proceed with an abortion. 12 weeks? No justification at all. 28 week viable?? Substantial justification. 34 weeks? If labor can't be induced, do a C-section.
Gun policy: personal responsibility for personal protection, no logging, tracking or licensing unless or until firearm is involved in an illegal incident.
I.e. personal responsibility for public irresponsibility, and no safeguards until it's too late.
Reply to Thorongil We're obviously working with different definitions. Going by the traditional usage of those terms in the literature, having both 'private property with the common/collective ownership of the means of production' is contradictory by definition.
I suspect by 'private property' you mean something like 'personal property' (along the lines of your shelter, computer, television, and so on)?
I think personhood begins at birth. However, an 8 1/2 month old fetus is a viable infant, probably without any help.
Allowing abortion up until "personhood" is a philosophical concept, asserting that only "people" have an inherent right to live. A "person" are those entities endowed with whatever essential qualities other people have. The word "essence" is just a secular word for "soul."
Viability is a legal concept, enshrined by the US Supreme Court in the Roe v. Wade case that asserts that only those human entities that are capable of living outside the womb have the right to life. The inherent problem with that view is that viability changes as medical technology advances. The advantage of the position is that it avoids all this impossible personhood talk.
My point here is simply to point out that you've intermingled the personhood and viability arguments. It would seem that if you had a fetus that was endowed with personhood, it would be wrong to kill it simply because it was still dependent upon the womb (i.e. not viable). On the other hand, it wouldn't seem particularly wrong to abort a non-person even if it were possible to support that entity outside the womb. That is, if we could take a two minute old united sperm and egg and incubate it until it was a fully formed baby, I wouldn't really consider it murder if we instead just poured it down the sink (which is what is commonly done in fertility clinics).
I think that you and I simply differ on where said decision should be made, then. Birth works well enough for me because it's far before the gray zone you're referring to. I'd say personhood, in the metaphysical/moral sense, occurs well after birth.
Yes, but if birth is also clearly before the gray zone, then we should allow parents to drown their kids in the well for some period of time after birth. Well drowning is cheaper and more medically safe than abortion, and it allows the parent to look at the child and see if its worth keeping. It also gives the well water that much desired new baby smell.
Reply to Shevek People are always confusing private property (the basic collection of stuff with which we conduct our domestic affairs--coffee pot, couch, broom, shirts, shoes, etc.) with 'capital' property -- factories, railroads, mines, etc. So naturally they assume their favorite blanket and pillow will be nationalized.
Reply to Shevek Private property, most basically, is property not owned by the state but by an individual or group of individuals and not merely for personal use. There is no contradiction in saying that there can be both private property and cooperative ownership of the means of production. And indeed, this state of affairs exists right now. There are cooperative businesses, factories, etc operating without having abolished private property.
It also gives the well water that much desired new baby smell.
If you can't defeat a position, at least disarm it with absurdity.
I'm just fooling around. It's important to keep a sense of humour, even about topics like abortion and infanticide; after all, if we can't laugh at ourselves, what's the point of forcing women to bear children.
Reply to Hanover Why? I think you're assuming a bit much to perform your reductio. One pretty important aspect of personhood is being a separate entity developing within an environment. One way of parsing that would be birth. I've already noted that birth is simply by convention -- and as you say, decisions must be made, etc. etc. What's the difference, then, between birth, and before birth that is so important when you say decisions must be made on the safer side of things?
If you can't defeat a position, at least disarm it with absurdity.
I'm just fooling around. It's important to keep a sense of humour, even about topics like abortion and infanticide; after all, if we can't laugh at ourselves, what's the point of forcing women to bear children.
What's the difference, then, between birth, and before birth that is so important when you say decisions must be made on the safer side of things?
I buy into the essentialist argument when it comes to what a person is. As one disassembles a ship, at some point it is no longer is a ship. It's never clear which board is the deciding board or if there is any one particular element that stops it from being a ship. It is clear though that a fully formed ship is in fact a ship and that a single board is not a ship. At some point, though, we have a ship and at some point we don't.
I would say the same applies to humans. I can't say when the magical moment of development occurs that makes the fetus a person and when it doesn't. I can only go on generalities, like can it think, feel, perceive, etc. I don't consider the ability to live without assistance on one's own to be an important factor in determining personhood. But, I'd agree, as with deciphering what the critical essential element of any entity is, whether it be a rock, a ship, or a plant, we can never specifically say. It's a mixture of all sorts of ingredients, with no one being necessary, but I do feel comfortable saying that we have the appropriate mixture for a person when we have a newborn child.
The Great WhateverMarch 03, 2016 at 18:52#91520 likes
Reply to Hanover I don't know what the essentialist argument that you are referring to is, but when you say there's no specific moment when a fetus turns into a person I can say I agree with you. So it seems to me that we just draw the line at different times.
I would say, absent religious notions, that we'd have to look at clear examples of persons to draw conclusions about what it takes to be a person. Where there is no question of personhood is in the case of able-bodied adults. That doesn't mean that personhood can't encompass other sorts, but these are the cases where there is no dispute.
I think being separate, having a history, having both a social and physical environment which you develop and interact within are all important parts of being a person. A fetus has none of these things. What's more I could even see the argument that newborns are not persons in the metaphysical/moral sense, but we have a workable convention which prevents any mistakes -- birth. Sometime after birth, so I would say, is when you acquire enough attributes of the norm to be counted. But prior to birth? No, I really don't think so.
The Great WhateverMarch 03, 2016 at 21:44#91590 likes
Reply to discoii So, you think that people are too stupid to drive responsibly, but not too stupid to use guns responsibly?! Give 'em cars and they'll kill each other with cars. Give 'em guns and they'll kill each other with guns.
Mayor of SimpletonMarch 04, 2016 at 18:03#92110 likes
Reply to Sapientia Guns are a good way to distribute power in the event there is a concentration of power in the hands of a state, or if there is a political army that is generally oppressive. Arming people to resist the state or said gang is a much more arduous task if the state itself has all the guns. Look at the Syrians who are unable to fend off ISIS for instance. As for the argument of preventing people from getting guns to stop crazy people, this logic has stopped the event of crazy gun murderers almost zero times. The truth is that if someone really wanted a gun, they will almost always be able to find a way to get a gun.
Guns are a good way to distribute power in the event there is a concentration of power in the hands of a state, or if there is a political army that is generally oppressive. Arming people to resist the state or said gang is a much more arduous task if the state itself has all the guns. Look at the Syrians who are unable to fend off ISIS for instance.
Ok, but given the situation here in the UK, I think that the chance of it getting to a stage in which we'd need to arm revolutionaries is very unlikely, and that the cost of currently giving citizens access to arms - all of the resultant deaths - outweighs the benefit. If there's a workable middle ground in which the citizenry can be armed only in the case of an emergency, then I'm in favour of that.
As for the argument of preventing people from getting guns to stop crazy people, this logic has stopped the event of crazy gun murderers almost zero times. The truth is that if someone really wanted a gun, they will almost always be able to find a way to get a gun.
Upon what evidence are you basing those conclusions? Obviously gun murderers have obtained a gun somehow, so the law wouldn't have prevented them[/I] from doing what they did - I'm not disputing that. But how do you know how many [i]would-be gun murderers have been hindered or prevented because of gun laws? It's relatively hard to get a gun here in the UK, so I'd expect there to be less gun murders, and there are. It's relatively easy to get a gun in the US, so I'd expect there to be more gun murders, and there are. That is telling.
Even if you're right that you can get hold of a gun if you're determined enough, that's a terrible argument for lax gun controls. And if that is the case, then I'm sure there'd be plenty of determined enough people in the case of a tyrannical government to fight against. Let them get hold of a gun that way, rather than arming them in peacetime.
Reply to Moliere In some societies, newborns are not considered "persons" the moment they are born. The reluctance to grant personhood earlier may be a response to high infant mortality. A baby who is 1 year old is more likely to make it. Or, perhaps they see a baby as not having the necessary attributes of person hood -- too unformed. At 1 year, personhood is much more specific and definite.
I'm not recommending this approach, just mentioning it.
It's no odder to wait a year to establish personhood than to establish it the moment a sperm happens to meet an egg, move in, and set up housekeeping together.
I don't approve of this approach, again just mentioning it.
Reply to Sapientia The issue is that if you look at gun homicide rates by country, there is no correlation whatsoever with the gun laws and the related gun homicide deaths. Places where guns are completely illegal or nearly illegal for private citizens can still have incredibly high gun homicide rates, while other places where gun laws are relatively lax have low gun homicide rates, and vice versa. For example, Mexico and Brazil have really restrictive gun laws, and they still have really high homicide rates.
Reply to Sapientia For the record, I am not in support of 'lax gun controls', I do agree there needs to be some agreed upon regulations. But I also think that people should be armed.
@Moliere The only argument for allowing abortions of 8 1/2 month fetuses, seeing as they have fully developed nervous systems, can feel pain, and lack no special cognitive abilities newborns have, would be something like "out of sight, out of mind". In other words, pure laziness of thought with some philosophical blather about person-hood to make it sound respectable. I really think the left in their enthusiasm not to be the right is messed up on this issue. You either value human life or you don't and that goes right across the spectrum. There is no scientific justification for the idea that a fully developed viable fetus is any less human than a new born. The idea that one should be totally expendable and one totally protected on the basis of nothing other than semantics is contemptible.
Reply to Baden What counts as a "fully developed nervous system" (and, for that matter, "feel pain", and cognitive abilities -- what, precisely, are you referring to)? What, in your estimation, is the scientific justification of humanity? We can say "human", or "person" -- I'm just utilizing the language of those who generally advocate against abortion. It's an attempt to meet people on their terms.
Abortion is one of my favorite philosophical topics because it trips across so many basic questions that people take for granted, and it has easily recognizable implications. Anytime people disagree on abortion they tend to believe the other party is contemptible. I am quite familiar with this sort of ire -- but I can assure you that my position is not the result of, as you seem to imply, a desire to express correct left-thinking, but has been reasoned to by way of the philosophical literature. In fact I had been much less pro-choice prior to reading philosophy on the topic and I began to question my own presuppositions and find them to be baseless. I am quite pro-choice not because of my left political orientation, but because of the work of philosophers.
I really think the left in their enthusiasm not to be the right is messed up on this issue.
Oh god, is Moliere's position representative of a significant portion of the left? If so, I'll gladly disassociate myself from this group within the left. My reaction was exactly the same as Hanover's. And I agree with the gist of your post as well. I doubt that any amount of philosophical blather about person-hood would convince me that it's acceptable to alter the law to make it legal to abort 8 1/2 month old foetuses.
Reply to Sapientia I did not set out to persuade you. I was called into question, and am defending my position from the claim that it is absurd. I don't think philosophy is good for persuasion -- it's a self-reflective exercise more than a tool for persuading others. If your mind is made up then I expect you to continue believing as you do. But just because you, and others here, believe as you do that does not then imply that those who believe otherwise are either absurd or simply speaking opinions because they are the correct opinions to expect in certain political circles.
As for whether or not my position is popular -- I rather doubt it. Personhood, as i mentioned to Baden, is the concept put forward by those who want to restrict abortion. Usually those who want to allow abortion focus on autonomy more than personhood.
The issue is that if you look at gun homicide rates by country, there is no correlation whatsoever with the gun laws and the related gun homicide deaths. Places where guns are completely illegal or nearly illegal for private citizens can still have incredibly high gun homicide rates, while other places where gun laws are relatively lax have low gun homicide rates, and vice versa. For example, Mexico and Brazil have really restrictive gun laws, and they still have really high homicide rates.
No correlation whatsoever? So, you believe that if, here in the UK, as of tomorrow, the law enabled practically anyone over a certain age (eighteen or twenty-one, for example) to go out to their local store and purchase a firearm and the ammunition to go with it, that gun crime wouldn't skyrocket? Because I find that hard to believe.
For the record, I am not in support of 'lax gun controls'. I do agree that there needs to be some agreed upon regulations. But I also think that people should be armed.
Ok. I don't think that they should unless and until the need arises. Otherwise my prediction is that gun crime would go up. And the need hasn't arisen over here for a long, long time. There hasn't been a civil war against government forces in hundreds of years. It hasn't been peachy, but the government hasn't been tyrannical enough to provoke violent revolution.
I don't think philosophy is good for persuasion -- it's a self-reflective exercise more than a tool for persuading others. If your mind is made up then I expect you to continue believing as you do. But just because you, and others here, believe as you do that does not then imply that those who believe otherwise are either absurd or simply speaking opinions because they are the correct opinions to expect in certain political circles.
Eh? What did I say to provoke this red herring about persuasion and implications that I haven't made? I think that it's absurd because it [I]is[/I] absurd.
Personhood, as I mentioned to Baden, is the concept put forward by those who want to restrict abortion. Usually those who want to allow abortion focus on autonomy more than personhood.
I don't think that the terminology matters anywhere near as much as what's actually at stake here. This is literally a matter of life and death; and at 8 1/2 months old, that life is sufficiently advanced to rule out abortion as a legal option. I think that the consensus arises from this basis; not that it's right [I]because [/I] there's a consensus. Sorry, but there's no [I]ad populum[/I] fallacy here for you to easily knock down.
I doubt that any amount of philosophical blather about person-hood would convince me that it's acceptable to alter the law to make it legal to abort 8 1/2 month old foetuses.
(I was reacting, in particular, to "would convince")
For the record this is already legal in some states in the U.S. -- http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/06/18/us/politics/abortion-restrictions.html?_r=0
I don't think you're doing a very good a job of it.
I'll note that in my Sapientia-grade-book ;).
I would say that a position with rational justification is not absurd. I think that was presupposed in my reply. So in providing rational justification for my belief I would be defending it from the charge that it is absurd. What is it you mean by "It is absurd"?
I don't think that the terminology matters anywhere near as much as what's actually at stake here. This is literally a matter of life and death; and at 8 1/2 months old, that life is sufficiently advanced to rule out abortion as a legal option.
I disagree with your conclusion, though I agree with you in what's at stake. That's another reason why I don't mind talking in terms of personhood -- because if those who advocate against abortion are correct then there's currently legally justified murder of innocent people. That would be horrific, and worthwhile to stand against.
What makes a 8 1/2 month old fetus "sufficiently advanced"? What is sufficiently advanced life?
I think that the consensus arises from this basis;
I don't think there is a consensus. If you'll take a peak at the link I posted earlier you'll see a chart of 50 states who place the line along different times.
As for my take, I don't think states should be making such decisions. I agree with those who say that abortion is a weighty moral decision, but I don't think it should be prevented prior to birth by the power of the law. I think that it is something which a woman should be able to choose in accordance with their own moral compass and life circumstances (it is a moral choice only if it is a choice, after all).
I doubt that any amount of philosophical blather about person-hood would convince me that it's acceptable to alter the law to make it legal to abort 8 1/2 month old foetuses.
— Sapientia
(I was reacting, in particular, to "would convince")
Ah, I see. Well, regardless of whether or not you set out to persuade me, or whether philosophy itself is good for persuasion, the fact is, you made a controversial claim on a philosophy forum, and naturally this sort of thing attracts attention. But if philosophy isn't good for persuasion, then how did it come to pass that you were persuaded by philosophical literature on this subject? And not only were you persuaded, you were persuaded to adopt a position which is arguably absurd, and is evidently viewed as such by many, so it must have been quite a feat.
I would say that a position with rational justification is not absurd. I think that was presupposed in my reply. So in providing rational justification for my belief I would be defending it from the charge that it is absurd. What is it you mean by "It is absurd"?
I mean that, in light of scientific evidence, and in accordance with humane values, the consequences of enacting such a law are contrary to reason. But I also think that some of the other connotations of the word "absurd" are not too far off: ridiculous, sensless, preposterous, ludicrous.
That's another reason why I don't mind talking in terms of personhood -- because if those who advocate against abortion are correct then there's currently legally justified murder of innocent people. That would be horrific, and worthwhile to stand against.
That argument only applies to a portion of those who advocate against abortion, and not a particularly reasonable portion, and I am not one of them. Either 8 1/2 month old's are not people, or they are, but not in any sense which would fail to legally distinguish between cases of abortion, child destruction, and murder. (Any country which doesn't have a legal framework along those lines is indeed objectionable and worth taking a stand against). Either way, I think that whether or not an 8 1/2 month old is deemed a person is of secondary importance. What really matters is the 8 1/2 month old itself, and it's attributes, and what that entails, given our knowledge and values.
I don't think there is a consensus. If you'll take a peak at the link I posted earlier you'll see a chart of 50 states who place the line along different times.
What are the differences among a 3.5, 4.5, 5.5, 6.5, 7.5, 8.5 month old fetus and a 9 month old fetus?
1. Can they survive outside of the womb...
2. If they can survive outside the womb, are they able to survive with typical at-home care...
1. The closer to full term (39 to 40 weeks) the better the baby's long-term prospects are. The further from full term, the more likely are developmental delays, behavioral problems, learning difficulties, physical abnormalities, and so on. The earlier the prematurity, the more costly the child's survival--with or without difficulties.
Wikipedia
Baby Frieda, born in Fulda, Germany in 2011, at just under 23 weeks, weighing 1 lb, survived, and is apparently more or less normal at 5 years of age, though rather small and fragile. Most babies born this prematurely die. Baby Frieda and one or two other very premature babies are extreme outliers.
2. Late pre-term babies often require some neonatal care -- perhaps for 2 weeks or so, before they are able to be cared for at home without complex technological assists. The larger the number of weeks before full term is reached, the greater the likelihood of developmental problems. About 1/3 of the babies brain-mass is added during the final few weeks of pregnancy, before full term is reached. Most premature children have disabilities, though those resulting from late-preterm birth can be subtle behavioral and learning disabilities.
Home care means that the child can suck, swallow, and breathe normally; bowel, kidney, and bladder functions are normal; the brain has reached full development and will begin immediately getting a handle on "reality"; temperature regulation is present; and so on. Baring disease and injury, the baby will develop into a normal adult.
Reply to Sapientia When the need arises, it will be too late, just like in Syria. As for gun homicides skyrocketing, I'd suspect that they would skyrocket and the other forms of homicide would decrease. So you'd see a similar number of homicides but with guns instead. Anyways, to me that is a necessary trade-off. I guess when robots become more commonplace in national militaries, then having guns at all is probably a waste of time and we'd have to look to more potent forms of protection.
It seems reasonable to assign personhood to a fetus who is very likely to survive if born at such and such week prematurely, though perhaps with disabilities. It seems less reasonable to assign personhood to babies with minimal chances of survival. Baby Frieda was born with very scant chances of survival. Rather than being allowed to die, she was place in an intensive neonatal care unit for 17 weeks. Was she a person or a mass of tissue receiving very expensive care? Presumably, we don't provide very expensive care to tissue masses, regardless of their provenance, for more that 24 hours or so (like a heart on ice flying to its hoped-for successful rendezvous with a heartless body).
Baby Frieda's outlier status is a conundrum. If one baby can survive at 22 or 23 weeks, presumably others can as well. What is the cut off 21 Weeks? 20 Weeks? The last week that survival chances are zero?
I am in favor of women or parents having the right to chose to terminate a pregnancy. Is this principle relative to survival or absolute, such that during the last day of the 38th or 39th week an abortion would be OK? The latter position seems inhumane, insensitive, and rule bound: Not born quite yet? Abortion is still possible. If it is relative to survival, how much do the chances have to be? Salvaging a fetus at 25 weeks, but endowing it with a lifetime of crippling disabilities hardly seems like a "pro-life" position.
Is a chance of survival above 60% without severe disabilities a reasonable requirement for blocking abortion? Chance of survival 95% without severe disabilities? 98%? 99%? Does severe disability matter? (I think severe disability should be avoided, by abortion or being allowed to die, if necessary).
Reply to Bitter Crank I'm not swayed by survivability as a criteria for law. It strikes me as being very similar to potential-personhood arguments, which I similalrly don't think work. Survivability is also variable with both technology and circumstance, so much so that it makes more sense to put said choices in the hands of those who are in the circumstances rather than from afar with the power of law. And, third, survivability doesn't necessarily negate personhood -- sometimes, even if chances are stacked against a person, it would not be good to simply give up. If the fetus is a person, with all the rights and respect which that entails, then we should treat said fetus in the same manner as we do other people -- which often includes trying to help survive what is, statistically at least, unsurvivable.
It would still be a moral failure were the fetus a person, if we just gave up on a person because, eh, chances aren't all that great anyways -- might as well let the person die because chances aren't in our favor.
Ah, I see. Well, regardless of whether or not you set out to persuade me, or whether philosophy itself is good for persuasion, the fact is, you made a controversial claim on a philosophy forum, and naturally this sort of thing attracts attention.
Certainly. There is a difference, though, between defending a position and persuading others to it. No?
But if philosophy isn't good for persuasion, then how did it come to pass that you were persuaded by philosophical literature on this subject?
Because I was reflecting on my own beliefs and questioning them. This is what I think philosophy is good for.
And not only were you persuaded, you were persuaded to adopt a position which is arguably absurd, and is evidently viewed as such by many, so it must have been quite a feat.
You'd have to supploy the evidence to make hte claim that many view what I believe as absurd -- and, I think, you'll find that there is not such widespread agreement as you seem to believe on what counts as a whom.
Reply to Moliere My position is that the pregnant person or parents should make the decision of whether to abort or deliver. It's up to them.
The decision makers need some information, I think, to help them decide. for instance, if labor begins early, it makes a difference whether one rushes to the OB/GYN department to stop labor (and extend the pregnancy to normal length) or just go ahead and deliver. The factors bearing on the decision would be very different at 27 or 37 weeks.
IF parents believe that a fetus who could survive outside the womb is "ensouled" or "impersonated" then they would want to know what the chances of the fetal person making it, or not.
We don't have to decide for them, but it is useful for society to rehearse the practical, medical, and ethical considerations implicit in the decisions it expects individuals to make.
I suspect (don't have proof) that a gynecologist asked to abort a 37 week fetus would probably want a damned good reason for doing so. Even if society could be said to have no stake in the fetus until it is naturally born, it seems like a pregnant woman or parents have a stake in a 37 week old fetus, and way before 37 weeks should have been able to decide whether to continue the pregnancy or not. Maybe circumstances suddenly changes -- a real possibility.
By terminating a fully viable fetus is very close to infanticide. Maybe our society will decide that infanticide is OK (I prefer we not so decide). Most societies officially disapprove of killing babies, even if it happens fairly often (like in India where male babies are strongly preferred).
New medical capabilities will evolve, and therefore the ethical considerations will change too. In an overcrowded world short on resources to solve pressing problems, I am opposed to heroic medical care to enable a 22, 26, or 28 week fetus survive--whatever the severity of prematurity. Cost of survival is also a relevant ethical consideration. I don't think it makes a lot of sense to spend $1,000,000 to enable 1 premature fetus, or 1 senior citizen to survive cancer either. (It's not hard to run up a million dollars in care costs). I would be and am willing to forego elaborate cancer therapy at this point (at 70 years). I don't know how long I will live, of course, but getting to live 10 more years, for instance, is not worth any amount of money. "Whatever it takes" isn't my approach. If I develop a readily treatable cancer with very good survival rates and good quality of life (given age and the staging of the cancer) maybe <$100,000 is worth while -- maybe. If a cancer has, at best, marginal chances of survival and then without good quality of life, it is time to plan for one's death.
Quality of life matters at both ends of life. The children born with the severe brain damage accompanying microcephaly caused by Zika virus are unfortunate victims. Had their condition been detected before birth, it would have made medical, ethical, and practical sense (to me) to abort ASAP--even at 8 1/2 months. Their quality of life will not, can not, be good for those seriously affected. Even a low quality of life will be fairly expensive.
Probably not the best place for an abortion debate. But to be honest, I don't see it is as even debateable when it comes to this case. I mean, if you consider killing a viable eight and a half month old fetus as perfectly moral, you're simply missing a compassion circuit.
I'm more than happy to agree to disagree or wait until a more formal debate, but I am not below trading barbs for barbs either -- keep in mind that if I am correct then your position is no different from the Catholic position, and that my compassion would be well placed whereas yours would be the result of an unexamined squeemishness that then resulted in controlling women for no good reason.
The compassion-sword can cut both ways. ["They are clearly mad for disagreeing with me! A psychopath, clearly"] -- but what I imagine is more appropriate to acknowledge is mere disagreement, rather than something wrong with either your or my character or psychology
If you're going to try a barb, at least get one on target. The Catholic position is no abortion at all even in cases of rape. That's not my position. My position is actually pretty mainstream; somewhere along the lines of Hanover's, I guess. Anyhow, I'm no more interested in your feelings about your character or lack of it than I am about the feelings of people who think it's OK to drop bombs on innocent kids because there might be a terrorist nearby. You don't get to sanction the killing of fetuses that are to all intents and purposes indistinguishable from new born babies and then pretend you're just a normal everyday Joe. If that makes you feel bad, tough.
Bah...I should really add supporters of super late-term abortions to pedophiles and creationists on my list of "Not worth debating" on the grounds that it just ends up degrading my view of humanity. Please excuse the public show of anger TPF people, but there's nothing I despise more than the fucking over of the innocent and the vulnerable (whatever end of the political spectrum it comes from).
The similarity between yours and the Catholic position is more in the above than the exact placement of the line. As far as I'm concerned your placement of the line is the same as defending zygotes -- but Catholics will say that zygotes are persons, and so they will say most of what you say in regards to those who disagree with them.
Couldn't it be the case that we just happen to disagree on the proper placement of the line, rather than a lack of compassion, or a belief that the innocent are not of consequence?
EDIT: I'll also note here that I've already put forward criteria to the question I've asked yourself, @Hanover, and @Sapientia -- only to find no answer from you or Sapientia, and an acknowledgment from Hanover that decisions must be made, and we make our decisions in different places. (Or, at least, no protest there)
So I'd say you're off the mark in lumping me in with creationists or pedophiles. I have provided reasons. I'm still waiting for yours.
For the record this is already legal in some states in the U.S. -- http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/06/18/us/politics/abortion-restrictions.html?_r=0
I clicked on your link which supposedly provided a basis for your argument that abortions in some states were legally permissible for 8 1/2 month fetuses. I didn't go through checking out every state listed, but I just choose Colorado. http://statelaws.findlaw.com/colorado-law/colorado-abortion-laws.html. It was as expected, which is that abortion is illegal in such instances except to save the life of the mother. That is, it's a bit of a misstatement to say that some states openly allow abortions well into the 3rd trimester without pointing out this detail.
In fact, if you look at all the laws in all the states, they all adhere to the trimester framework, offering different levels of protection to the fetus depending upon its level of development. They adhere to that framework because it's the system set out by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade. You'll note that in the link I cited above, Planned Parenthood only performs abortion up to the 19th week.
A few stats for you: 91% of all abortions are performed in the first trimester (first 12 weeks), 9% in the second trimester, and .01% in the third trimester. http://www.foxnews.com/story/2003/06/17/fast-facts-us-abortion-statistics.html. The point being that no one really believes or practices 8 1/2 month abortions, other than probably in some really extreme circumstances, like a true life and death decision has to be made to save one or the other. Quoting Moliere
As for my take, I don't think states should be making such decisions. I agree with those who say that abortion is a weighty moral decision, but I don't think it should be prevented prior to birth by the power of the law. I think that it is something which a woman should be able to choose in accordance with their own moral compass and life circumstances (it is a moral choice only if it is a choice, after all).
And if that is your position, I don't see how you consistently hold that a mother doesn't have the right to kill her child after its birth, as there really isn't anything significantly different between a fetus whose head is crowning at the edge of the cervix and that same baby just a few feet further away, fully outside the birth canal. To call one a citizen entitled to protection and the other the woman's chattel based upon it's physical whereabouts seems arbitrary, considering both are identical down to the cellular level. In fact, the newborn infant is still attached by umbilical cord to its mother for a few moments.
Reply to Moliere So, I checked out that link that you provided. I see that @Hanover has gone above and beyond refuting your argument on it's own terms, although, as I go on to show, that isn't necessary to refute your statistics-based argument that there's a lack of consensus (presumably regarding the appropriate legal status of aborting an 8 1/2 month old foetus, as that's what's relevant here, because that's where we disagree). Your linked statistics actually indicate that there is a consensus in the U.S. that it should be against the law to abort a foetus after 28 weeks. This is evidenced by the fact that, in accordance with the link that you provided, it is against the law in every state in the U.S. except 9. That's 41 states with an estimated population of 281 million vs. 9 states and D.C. with an estimated population of 28 million.
I did intent to look up the science in order to better explain why an 8 1/2 month old foetus is sufficiently advanced to rightly judge it to be (or that it ought to be) illegal to perform such a late-term abortion under the relevant conditions (cf. The Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929, Offences against the Person Act 1861, et al. Over here, it's a statutory offence named child destruction). However, although it would be interesting, I doubt whether it's necessary. The viability point alone seems like good enough grounds for justification.
I clicked on your link which supposedly provided a basis for your argument that abortions in some states were legally permissible for 8 1/2 month fetuses. I didn't go through checking out every state listed, but I just choose Colorado. http://statelaws.findlaw.com/colorado-law/colorado-abortion-laws.html. It was as expected, which is that abortion is illegal in such instances except to save the life of the mother. That is, it's a bit of a misstatement to say that some states openly allow abortions well into the 3rd trimester without pointing out this detail.
*shrugs* I suppose? My point is in showing that 3rd trimester abortions are legal. Up to 8 1/2 weeks. That didn't seem to be understood in this conversation.
Personally, no, I don't care about the qualification -- but others do. And, even with the qualification, that's very different from the absolute that I presumed was being proposed.
In fact, if you look at all the laws in all the states, they all adhere to the trimester framework, offering different levels of protection to the fetus depending upon its level of development. They adhere to that framework because it's the system set out by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade. You'll note that in the link I cited above, Planned Parenthood only performs abortion up to the 19th week.
A few stats for you: 91% of all abortions are performed in the first trimester (first 12 weeks), 9% in the second trimester, and .01% in the third trimester. http://www.foxnews.com/story/2003/06/17/fast-facts-us-abortion-statistics.html. The point being that no one really believes or practices 8 1/2 month abortions, other than probably in some really extreme circumstances, like a true life and death decision has to be made to save one or the other.
I'm aware of the distribution. You'll note that I'm remaining on the side of the law, and stating that 3rd trimester abortions should be legal. There are cases, extreme ones as you mention, where it's more than justified. That doesn't mean it is not a weighty decision, as I've already said,
And if that is your position, I don't see how you consistently hold that a mother doesn't have the right to kill her child after its birth, as there really isn't anything significantly different between a fetus whose head is crowning at the edge of the cervix and that same baby just a few feet further away, fully outside the birth canal. To call one a citizen entitled to protection and the other the woman's chattel based upon it's physical whereabouts seems arbitrary, considering both are identical down to the cellular level. In fact, the newborn infant is still attached by umbilical cord to its mother for a few moments.
I don't think they are identical -- first, I would say that our cellular structure doesn't define who we are. We have both skin grafts, for instance, which are human cells but not human beings. Second, having a separate body is a huge, non-arbitrary difference. In one case you don't even have a body, but in the other you do. Surely you can see how having a body is an important factor in whether or not you count as a citizen?
The brain isn't even fully formed at the time of birth. It is still in development. The cerebral cortex cells don't even differentiate until ~20-22 weeks, and it takes time for them to set into place. And without proper care which occurs outside of the womb, just as there was proper care inside the womb, their will be no growth into a human being.
Lastly, I would say that we already agree that there is no point where the before and after has very large differences. A citizen is a conglomerate of attributes -- there's no magic formula which designates this from that. So I'd hold that your arbitrarity clause holds similarly for times prior to birth -- that if you hold 24 weeks to be acceptable, you should also hold 25 weeks to be acceptable, etc. insofar that the point is an arbitrary point and there is no significant difference between two very close points in time.
Birth is the moment when the body is separated, though. That is more significant than any point you'll find within the uterus, even if the second before and after the umbilical separation is not very different.
So, I checked out that link that you provided. I see that Hanover has gone above and beyond refuting your argument on it's own terms, although, as I go on to show, that isn't necessary to refute your statistics-based argument that there's a lack of consensus (presumably regarding the appropriate legal status of aborting an 8 1/2 month old foetus, as that's what's relevant here, because that's where we disagree). Your linked statistics actually indicate that there is a consensus in the U.S. that it should be against the law to abort a foetus after 28 weeks. This is evidenced by the fact that, in accordance with the link that you provided, it is against the law in every state in the U.S. except 9. That's 41 states with an estimated population of 281 million vs. 9 states and D.C. with an estimated population of 28 million.
I disagree that 8.5 months is the only important point to garner there. My point is to show that the line is drawn at various stages of development. You'll find behind each line-drawing some kind of justification -- heart beating, brain development, "feeling pain", or birth.
Stuff like that.
And, no, there is no consensus. People feel quite differently about the issue, in fact. And how you justify that feeling is what's more important, I'd say. You can't just go about assuming that science has spelled out when humans are human and that happens to coincide with the moment when you feel comfortable while simultaneously claiming to have engaged the topic and have an examined viewpoint.
Where do you draw the line, and what makes that line significant? This is what I'm asking. I've provided my point in time, and my justification. Where is yours?
I did intent to look up the science in order to better explain why an 8 1/2 month old foetus is sufficiently advanced to rightly judge it to be (or that it ought to be) illegal to perform such a late-term abortion under the relevant conditions (cf. The Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929, Offences against the Person Act 1861, et al. Over here, it's a statutory offence named child destruction). However, although it would be interesting, I doubt whether it's necessary. The viability point alone seems like good enough grounds for justification.
I have addressed viability in this thread. Viability changes with both technology and location. In fact, imagine a time in the future where we could just collect sperm and eggs from people and grow humans in a test-tube. Would that, because these are viable, require us to grant the rights of citizenship and the protection of the state to sperm, eggs, zygotes?
Further, I think viability is a cruel standard. There are times when, even if it is not viable, it is good to try and save someone. It's not like as soon as we dip below the 49% chance of survival that we should give up, or even feel like it is permissible to give up on the life of a fellow human. That would be a moral failure. We should strive to preserve human life, even if the chances are against us. As such, even if a fetus were not viable -- say, a 20% chance of surviving -- yet, were human, we should strive to keep said person alive in spite of the low chances of survival simply because they are human. In all cases. This is what we do with humans in the hospital, unless they have a DNR. If the fetus is a human at some point, then shouldn't we do the same in this case?
I disagree that 8.5 months is the only important point to garner there. My point is to show that the line is drawn at various stages of development. You'll find behind each line-drawing some kind of justification -- heart beating, brain development, "feeling pain", or birth.
Stuff like that.
And, no, there is no consensus. People feel quite differently about the issue, in fact.
I never disputed that the line is drawn at various stages of development, nor that the justifications differ. That does not entail that there is no consensus. So, in the context of our disagreement, your point is irrelevant. There is evidently consensus in the most relevant sense in the context of our disagreement, which is about the legal status of abortion at approximately 37 weeks. Your own statistics show that it's illegal in 41 out of 50 states (that's 82%) beyond 28 weeks, let alone 37 weeks! Yet you deny that that in any way reflects a consensus?
And how you justify that feeling is what's more important, I'd say. You can't just go about assuming that science has spelled out when humans are human and that happens to coincide with the moment when you feel comfortable while simultaneously claiming to have engaged the topic and have an examined viewpoint.
You were the one that provided the numbers in an attempt to show that there is no consensus. That failed, so now you've changed tack, and are saying that it's the content and "feeling" behind the numbers that is more important. Well, I don't agree in the context of our initial and primary disagreement, which is over whether or not abortion should be legal right up until birth. The policy representing at least 82% of the U.S. is that abortion is illegal subsequent to 28 weeks. You can't simply sweep that under the rug - especially given that you were the one to have presented these statistics in an attempt to support your own position.
It's entirely up to me whether or not I decide to elaborate on my claims about the science, and I have chosen not to for the time being, in part because, as I said, I doubt whether it's necessary to get into all of that. Perhaps you're not as cautious as I am about pursuing what might be a lengthy digression - albeit quite an interesting one - but that decision is not for you to make.
One thing I have not claimed is that "science has spelled out when humans are human", yet you've nonetheless suggested that that is what I've assumed. How about you stick to what I've actually claimed? I did speak of advanced life, and I did so intentionally with the hope of avoiding this superficial issue of "personhood" or "humanness". I'd rather just avoid such terms if it's going to be problematic. It's a living thing, yes? A foetus of the species [i]homo sapien[/I], aged approximately 37 weeks, and relatively advanced? One thing that science can tell us is whether or not a typical 37 week old foetus is viable, and to what degree.
I have addressed viability in this thread. Viability changes with both technology and location. In fact, imagine a time in the future where we could just collect sperm and eggs from people and grow humans in a test-tube. Would that, because these are viable, require us to grant the rights of citizenship and the protection of the state to sperm, eggs, zygotes?
From a pragmatic standpoint, that doesn't really matter. What matters is how we can best solve the current situation, and we only have access to what we currently know. We can't look into a crystal ball. What would be the point of discussing such a hypothetical future scenario? We're talking about what the law should be, and I don't think that philosophical speculation of the sort that you seem to want to engage in will help matters.
The statistics you cited were about the U.S., and, as far as I'm aware, in the U.S., technology isn't an obstacle for the illegal status of such late-term abortions based on viability. If it becomes problematic along the lines that you suggest, then the legislation could be amended.
Further, I think viability is a cruel standard. There are times when, even if it is not viable, it is good to try and save someone. It's not like as soon as we dip below the 49% chance of survival that we should give up, or even feel like it is permissible to give up on the life of a fellow human. That would be a moral failure. We should strive to preserve human life, even if the chances are against us. As such, even if a fetus were not viable -- say, a 20% chance of surviving -- yet, were human, we should strive to keep said person alive in spite of the low chances of survival simply because they are human. In all cases. This is what we do with humans in the hospital, unless they have a DNR. If the fetus is a human at some point, then shouldn't we do the same in this case?
It is a practical standard, I think. We might have to settle for that in the absence of a better alternative. But if you think you have a better suggestion, I'm all ears. Your proposal would only make things worse, and considerably so. And if you genuinely feel that way, then why on earth are you advocating that abortion should be legal up until birth? That's a performative contradiction if I ever saw one.
I don't think they are identical -- first, I would say that our cellular structure doesn't define who we are.
Being "embodied" - having a unique cellular structure - doesn't define us? No one else has your cellular structure -- (which incorporates your history of experiences), so what else would define you?
Lastly, I would say that we already agree that there is no point where the before and after has very large differences. A citizen is a conglomerate of attributes -- there's no magic formula which designates this from that.
So, how far can we extend this ambiguity indefinitely? "Hey kid, you're 24 years old, you've got a degree: get a job or it's off to the abortion clinic with you."
Further, I think viability is a cruel standard. There are times when, even if it is not viable, it is good to try and save someone.
If a newborn--premature or not--is on the table, or if the person was just fished out of the river, or has a gunshot wound, "viability" just means they have a biological future. If the drowning victim has been in the water too long, life for them is no longer viable. One can try resuscitation all day, but once life has departed, is not viable, it's not coming back. If the lost blood can be replaced quickly, the gun shot victim's life may be quite viable. A premature baby (lets say 28 weeks) is probably viable with very good care. If such care isn't available, then viability does not exist.
*shrugs* I suppose? My point is in showing that 3rd trimester abortions are legal. Up to 8 1/2 weeks. That didn't seem to be understood in this conversation.
Personally, no, I don't care about the qualification -- but others do. And, even with the qualification, that's very different from the absolute that I presumed was being proposed.
Hanover is a lawyer of some sort, if I recall correctly. So I'm guessing he has a pretty good understanding of the law. And as for my part, I was already aware that the law accounts for such instances in which it's deemed necessary in order to save the life of the mother. Isn't that common knowledge? It's reflected in medical dramas all the time. Additionally, I actually referred to the legal Act which was amended precisely for that reason, although that was later on in the discussion.
I never disputed that the line is drawn at various stages of development, nor that the justifications differ. That does not entail that there is no consensus. So, in the context of our disagreement, your point is irrelevant. There is evidently consensus in the most relevant sense in the context of our disagreement, which is about the legal status of abortion at approximately 37 weeks. Your own statistics show that it's illegal in 41 out of 50 states (that's 82%) beyond 28 weeks, let alone 37 weeks! Yet you deny that that in any way reflects a consensus?
Yes, I do.
Suppose you have some topic, and within that topic there are 8 opinions with an even distribution. You might then say that 1 such opinion is certainly outnumbered by all the other opinions. And therefore has a consensus against it.
You were the one that provided the numbers in an attempt to show that there is no consensus. That failed, so now you've changed tack, and are saying that it's the content and "feeling" behind the numbers that is more important. Well, I don't agree in the context of our initial and primary disagreement, which is over whether or not abortion should be legal right up until birth. The policy representing at least 82% of the U.S. is that abortion is illegal subsequent to 28 weeks. You can't simply sweep that under the rug - especially given that you were the one to have presented these statistics in an attempt to support your own position.
The position that there is no consensus, yes. And I'd still stick to that, as per the above argument.
One thing I have not claimed is that "science has spelled out when humans are human", yet you've nonetheless suggested that that is what I've assumed. How about you stick to what I've actually claimed? I did speak of advanced life, and I did so intentionally with the hope of avoiding this superficial issue of "personhood" or "humanness". I'd rather just avoid such terms if it's going to be problematic. It's a living thing, yes? A foetus of the species homo sapien, aged approximately 37 weeks, and relatively advanced? One thing that science can tell us is whether or not a typical 37 week old foetus is viable, and to what degree.
Sorry, this is what Baden was alluding to -- that the science backed him up, and that my position was therefore on par with creationism.
A fetus is living, without a doubt. Metabolism and all. And it is a fetus of the species homo sapien. But what is "relatively advanced"? That's where I'd say disagreement lies.
From a pragmatic standpoint, that doesn't really matter. What matters is how we can best solve the current situation, and we only have access to what we currently know. We can't look into a crystal ball. What would be the point of discussing such a hypothetical future scenario? We're talking about what the law should be, and I don't think that philosophical speculation of the sort that you seem to want to engage in will help matters.
From a pragmatic standpoint it certainly does, because "viability" has already changed drastically within the past century.
The point of the future scenario is to demonstrate how the principle of viability can fall into error. The reason why, so I would say, is that we should try and save humans even if they are not viable. This is the right thing to do.
Take some of the more extreme cases of cancer, for instance, if you want an example that's in the here and now.
It is a practical standard, I think. We might have to settle for that in the absence of a better alternative. But if you think you have a better suggestion, I'm all ears. Your proposal would only make things worse, and considerably so.
Considering how many third-term abortions there are, I rather doubt that. It's not a very common occurance. It's not something entered into lightly, either, at least if the Guttmacher Institute is to be believed.
And if you genuinely feel that way, then why on earth are you advocating that abortion should be legal up until birth? That's a performative contradiction if I ever saw one.
Because I don't believe that third term fetus' should be treated the same as the rest of us who have grown and developed, have a separate body, a history, relationships, and experiences which have formed who we are (so that we even are a who). So to stop an abortion there is, as far as I'm concerned, the same as stopping an abortion in the first trimester -- neither of which should be entered into lightly (it is a moral deliberation), but neither of which should be prevented by the power of law.
Being "embodied" - having a unique cellular structure - doesn't define us? No one else has your cellular structure -- (which incorporates your history of experiences), so what else would define you?
The incorporation of a particular history, of experiences, a physical and social environment are all important aspects of who we are -- but also being physically separate, so I would say.
So, how far can we extend this ambiguity indefinitely? "Hey kid, you're 24 years old, you've got a degree: get a job or it's off to the abortion clinic with you."
I think that's the dilemma anyone faces -- this was the point I was trying to bring up in @Hanover's rebuttal of 3rd trimester abortions. The rebuttal works against any arbitrarily chosen line, because the time before and after doesn't have much difference.
I choose birth because you at least have a separate body at that point. Makes sense that you should be treated as a separate being once you have a separate body.
If a newborn--premature or not--is on the table, or if the person was just fished out of the river, or has a gunshot wound, "viability" just means they have a biological future. If the drowning victim has been in the water too long, life for them is no longer viable. One can try resuscitation all day, but once life has departed, is not viable, it's not coming back. If the lost blood can be replaced quickly, the gun shot victim's life may be quite viable. A premature baby (lets say 28 weeks) is probably viable with very good care. If such care isn't available, then viability does not exist.
Reply to Moliere It is. Common folk aren't dumb enough to expect surgeons to be charged with a crime under such circumstances. Give 'em [I]some[/I] credit.
Reply to Sapientia It's not whether common people are dumb or not, but whether or not they have the information. I mean, seriously -- who could expect someone to know the 50 various differences in the law? I wouldn't know that. I'd have to look it up. (And I am about as common as they come -- when I speak of common people, I include myself. It's not me and them, but us. And, yes, at times we are dumb and uninformed)
EDIT: Take California's statue, for instance -- this pretty clearly states that it's a decision between the doctor and the patient. Would you agree?
Reply to Moliere My point was that they are already aware, otherwise they'd expect surgeons to be charged with a crime under such circumstances. Yet oddly enough, that expectation is uncommon. (Young children and idiots are an exception to the rule). Perhaps they've watched enough television to have gotten used to the idea that medical personnel are given some leeway in the eyes of the law.
And no one said anything about awareness of the 50 various differences in the law. You don't need to be a lawyer to know what I was talking about, for Christ's sake. If you haven't been living under a rock, chances are you'll at least have a layman's understanding of the exceptional circumstances-in-question.
EDIT: To remain clear, so it doesn't seem like a bait or anything -- I read it, and yes it does say viability at the end. In good faith, no less. But there's something very different in this particular law -- one, "life of the mother" isn't an issue. And, two, "viability" is done on good faith.
EDIT: Take California's statue, for instance -- this pretty clearly states that it's a decision between the doctor and the patient. Would you agree?
No, not in the case of a viable foetus. It clearly states that this is soley about the judgement of the physician in regard to the viability of the foetus and the patients health. Quoting Moliere
So, what's your take on California's law then?
EDIT: To remain clear, so it doesn't seem like a bait or anything -- I read it, and yes it does say viability at the end. In good faith, no less. But there's something very different in this particular law -- one, "life of the mother" isn't an issue. And, two, "viability" is done on good faith.
What? The life of the mother [i]is[/I] an issue:
(2) In the good faith medical judgment of the physician,
[b]continuation of the pregnancy posed no risk to life or health of the
pregnant woman[/b].
And I would expect the "good faith" part either explicitly or implicitly. I don't know English law well enough to know off the top of my head whether our law has a specific part like that. I'd have to look it up.
Edit: Unsurprisingly, it does: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1967/87/section/1. And from just a cursory glance, it seems to be more stringent, which is all the better, given that, for example, it requires not one but two registered medical practitioners.
(b) The abortion is performed on a viable fetus, and both of the
following are established:
(1) In the good faith medical judgment of the physician, the fetus
was viable.
(2) In the good faith medical judgment of the physician,
continuation of the pregnancy posed no risk to life or health of the
pregnant woman.
So, even if the fetus is viable, if it poses a threat to the mother you're good -- and even if the continuation of the pregnancy does not pose a threat to the mother's life, if the fetus is not viable (as defined above in the definitions --
"Viability" means the point in a pregnancy when, in the good
faith medical judgment of a physician, on the particular facts of the
case before that physician, there is a reasonable likelihood of the
fetus' sustained survival outside the uterus without the application
of extraordinary medical measures.
),
then the abortion is not illegal.
"Good faith", from my familiarity, just means "on your word" -- so if someone sets up an operation to sting a particular doctor, say, and records the doctor stating "I know that this fetus could live, but we're going to do it anyways!" you'd have a strong case against that particular doctor. But otherwise? You have a hard time proving it, at least. I am only familiar with this term from contract negotiations, though, where management basically just has to show up to the meetings to be counted in good faith.. Maybe it's different, here.
And even if the continuation of the pregnancy does not pose a threat to the mother's life, if the fetus is not viable, then the abortion is not illegal?
That's how it should be unless and until a better basis for judgement than viability is found.
"Good faith", from my familiarity, just means "on your word" -- so if someone sets up an operation to sting a particular doctor, say, and records the doctor stating "I know that this fetus could live, but we're going to do it anyways!" you'd have a strong case against that particular doctor. But otherwise? You have a hard time proving it, at least. I am only familiar with this term from contract negotiations, though, where management basically just has to show up to the meetings to be counted in good faith. Maybe it's different, here.
I don't know enough to say how effective such legislation is or whether anything more can be done to ensure that it's followed, but at least it's there. Requiring two registered medical practitioners, rather than one, is a step in the right direction, it seems.
It seems, then, that you are pinning "sufficiently advanced" on "viability"?
Viability is related, and can act as a sort of guide, although how reliable a guide it is or can be is debatable. But I think that it's better than nothing, and better than your proposed alternative - which seem to amount to the same thing, anyway: do nothing.
I'm not willing to commit to it being the sole or even primary determining factor for being sufficiently advanced, though. I need to do more research and give it more thought. But, as interesting as this topic is, I'm not in any rush, to be honest.
Suppose you have some topic, and within that topic there are 8 opinions with an even distribution. You might then say that 1 such opinion is certainly outnumbered by all the other opinions. And therefore has a consensus against it.
But the devil is in the details, so I would say.
If 7 out of the 8 shared the same conclusion, and the other one opposed it, then, in that respect, there would be a consensus against the other one. That's analogous to the case that we've been discussing, so there is a consensus, whether you acknowledge it or not.
That doesn't mean that the bigger picture, involving full reasoning - premises included - is completely unimportant. But it wasn't necessary to make my point. Fortunately, an overwhelming majority arrived at the right conclusion, namely that it should be illegal to have an abortion after 28 weeks (except those exceptions) - even if the various reasons behind that conclusion aren't all reasons that I'd agree with.
A fetus is living, without a doubt. Metabolism and all. And it is a fetus of the species homo sapien. But what is "relatively advanced"? That's where I'd say disagreement lies.
Well, if you think about a 37-week-old foetus in comparison to a zygote shortly after fertilisation, then it should be clear that it has developed over time relative to that initial stage. I would say that it has developed quite significantly, and in significant ways.
I know that in order to back up those claims, I'll have to elaborate, and provide evidence, but I'm reluctant to do so, because I want to get it right; and, like I said, I need to do some more work.
From a pragmatic standpoint it certainly does, because "viability" has already changed drastically within the past century.
The point of the future scenario is to demonstrate how the principle of viability can fall into error.
Ok, but again, and still from a pragmatic standpoint, if it's the best that we've got, then we should go with it, despite it's fallible nature. We should, however, look to improve our method.
The reason why, so I would say, is that we should try and save humans even if they are not viable. This is the right thing to do.
We should act within reason, or at least use reason as a guide, in these sorts of situations; and there are situations in which it would be unreasonable to try to save the unviable. Bear in mind that we are talking about setting a guideline. Disregarding the guidelines can in some cases lead to good results. For example, it can save lives in certain situations. But it can also result in more death or greater injury. The guidelines are there for a good reason.
I don't agree with your discrimination against those you don't class as human: those unborn members of the human species. The sufficiently advanced ones, at least. (I know, I know. There's that term again which needs to be clarified. But it serves it's purpose).
Considering how many third-term abortions there are, I rather doubt that. It's not a very common occurance. It's not something entered into lightly, either, at least if the Guttmacher Institute is to be believed.
Ideally, there shouldn't be [i]any[/I], though - none that don't satisfy the conditions for exception in the relevant legislation. So, pragmatically, we should take advantage of the political tools at our disposal to try to prevent such cases from occurring. We certainly shouldn't scrap the current legal framework in place in England, California, and other such places, so that we end up going backwards.
Because I don't believe that third term fetus' should be treated the same as the rest of us who have grown and developed, have a separate body, a history, relationships, and experiences which have formed who we are (so that we even are a who).
They've certainly grown and developed, have a history, and perhaps have - and have had - experiences too, but I think that you factor in things which make little sense or aren't as important as you think they are. I don't think that lacking: relationships of the sort that we have; a completely separate body; and an identity that is as fully formed as ours, means that we should therefore be legally entitled to have them killed without very good reason (as per the relevant laws that we've discussed).
In the ideal of all ideals, I'd prefer the question of abortion's legality to be settled by women only. But, I'm not sure how you'd implement that.
That's another statement that I find particularly disagreeable on sexist grounds. Our ideals are clearly opposed in certain respects. The thought that all of my views on this important topic, of which I'm passionate, and with which I have made an effort to be reasonable and conscientious, which effect the whole of society - not just women - would be discounted solely on the basis of my gender... that is a thought that I find highly objectionable.
By "most", what are you thinking here? Just the drugs that don't do too much harm? How are your views on guns (ban private ownership) compatible with your views on drugs (some violent acts have indeed been caused by drugs, alcohol, and the like). It seems as though if you are going to allow drugs then you have to allow guns as well. Both are supererogatory parts of life (well, actually some people depend on guns to survive).
That's another statement that I find particularly disagreeable on sexist grounds. Our ideals are clearly opposed in certain respects. The thought that all of my views on this important topic, of which I'm passionate, and with which I have made an effort to be reasonable and conscientious, which effect the whole of society - not just women - would be discounted solely on the basis of my gender... that is a thought that I find highly objectionable.
Moliere could be saying that only those who get pregnant ought to be empowered to decide whether or not to have an abortion, which seems pretty reasonable to me. To say that women should have the same bodily autonomy as men is precisely anti-sexist.
I think I'm with Moliere on guns too, though I'm undecided.
Reply to darthbarracuda These issues depend on empirical evidence for me. We have evidence that strictly limiting or outright forbidding the private use of arms results in drastically lower rates of mass shootings and homicides. Look at the UK, Japan, and Australia, for example.
In the case of drugs, the opposite is true. We find that decriminalizing drugs results in less addictions, homicides, etc. See Portugal and other European countries for evidence of this, for example.
So for me, I have no principled reasons why we ought to uphold the second amendment or why marijuana, cocaine, etc ought to remain illegal. If I did, I would maintain such principles directly in opposition to the facts at hand.
In the ideal of all ideals, I'd prefer the question of abortion's legality to be settled by women only. But, I'm not sure how you'd implement that.
This doesn't follow. Your prior position was that the pregnant woman alone had the right to choose abortion at any time because it was her body. If that is your position, it makes no more sense to allow a man or another woman to decide what that woman gets to do with her own body. Women don't have a special sisterhood where one gets decide what to do with another's body. If a 15 year old girl is pregnant, you believe Sarah Palin should be given greater rights to decide what she ought to do over Bernie Sanders?
Suppose some women believe that men ought to weigh in on the issue, does the authority they have as women encompass the power to delegate that power to men?
Either you want to make every case subjective where the pregnant woman herself gets to weigh her life circumstances and emotions and decide or you create some objective criteria that you apply across the board. If you're going to look for some objective criteria that allows limitations on abortions, women are no better objective evaluators than men regarding what criteria ought to be used. It's not as if every woman has been pregnant or can be pregnant, and it's not as if no man has any understanding of what human life is.
And, of course, arguing that only women can meaningfully debate the abortion issue somewhat defeats any argument you've presented here regarding abortion, your being male and all.
The similarity between yours and the Catholic position is more in the above than the exact placement of the line. As far as I'm concerned your placement of the line is the same as defending zygotes -- but Catholics will say that zygotes are persons, and so they will say most of what you say in regards to those who disagree with them.
Personhood in so far as it relates to abortion is a heap problem. To the Catholic church one grain of sand is a heap. To the super late abortionist 1 million grains of sand minus 1 is no longer a heap. You are both obviously wrong for obvious reasons.
Moliere could be saying that only those who get pregnant ought to be empowered to decide whether or not to have an abortion, which seems pretty reasonable to me. To say that women should have the same bodily autonomy as men is precisely anti-sexist.
That isn't what he said, although it's possible that that was what he meant. That's a different issue.
I don't think that it's reasonable unconditionally. Like I said, I'm in favour of laws along the lines of the current English laws.
Men don't get pregnant. So it [i]doesn't[/I] make sense to apply the same standard in terms of bodily autonomy. And [i]people[/I] have children - not just women. So it [i]does[/I] make sense not to exclude them from the question of abortion's legality. And in any case, I think that gender is not so relevant in the latter case. What matters is that the right decision is reached, not so much how it's reached, although I suppose a gender-balanced approach would be fair and sensible.
for a woman's right to choose what to do with her body, which includes the fetus.
The woman's body does not include the fetus. It contains the fetus.The fetus is also a body. It has all the basic physical characteristics of a body and at 8 1/2 months is virtually indistinguishable from a new born's body. It being inside the mother and dependent on the mother does not negate that fact. In fact, if it weren't for the placental barrier the mother's body would reject the foreign fetal body. In other words the fetus is obviously not a body part, which it would need to be to give your argument force. Given that there is no general right to do what we want with our bodies if that involves harming others' bodies, there is no justification for allowing women to harm fetuses simply because their bodies contain them.
Reply to Baden It's a matter of debate, not of inarguable empirical facts as you keep implying. I do consider the woman's body to include the fetus, and I do not consider that fetus to be a person. Hence I believe the woman's bodily autonomy comes first.
Reply to jamalrob You can call it what you like but it matters if that's the basis of your argument. Another consequence is that the about-to-be-born baby doesn't have a body of its own, which makes one wonder what the mother pushes out of hers.
You can call it what you like but it matters if that's the basis of your argument.
I am not going to spell things out for you. As I said, what you claim follows from my position only does so given a number of other premises, and I refuse to believe you don't have the imagination to see that, even to see what my own assumptions are. What is a body? What do we mean when we talk of a woman's body, and is this like talking about a fetus's body, or somewhat different? When I talk of the woman's body I am talking about the body of a person. Etc.
Reply to jamalrob Of course, we could argue all day just over personhood and bodyhood etc. and it ends up being more philosophical blather. I made much that point before. But that's all you've got on your side. To me above and beyond all that the more salient point is that your position would allow a woman to inflict grievious harm, pain, distress and/or death on a human being that is physically virtually indistinguishable from a new born child.
Reply to Baden Once again, all you're doing is throwing your opinions at me. You haven't offered any criticism of my position that is not simply saying you disagree. And as far as I can understand your thought experiment, my position would not allow any such thing.
Reply to Baden I agree that it is a heap problem. Perhaps we have some common ground, there.
What I would question on your part is the obviousness of your own beliefs. I can respect the Catholic position because it is consistent. It's a bit a-historical, if we take Aquinas as a measure, but hey, institutions change with political realities, even religious ones. Their position is still consistent, and I understand it, though I disagree with it.
I've also lain out my position, on the other side. I insist that it is consistent, philosophically arrived at, and not absurd. It is rational. That doesn't mean it is singular. But it is rational.
I don't think you, or others, can get away with hand-waving on this particular point while also rejecting people who have put an answer forth. You may reject us, but I think then it is on you to provide a justification.
And we are all dealing with the same heap problem. But, rather than debating whether this or that is in fact a heap of sand, our answer has consequences.
How do you answer? That I know. But why do you answer it? What is your justification?
This doesn't follow. Your prior position was that the pregnant woman alone had the right to choose abortion at any time because it was her body. If that is your position, it makes no more sense to allow a man or another woman to decide what that woman gets to do with her own body. Women don't have a special sisterhood where one gets decide what to do with another's body. If a 15 year old girl is pregnant, you believe Sarah Palin should be given greater rights to decide what she ought to do over Bernie Sanders?
Only in an ideal sense. I recognize the difficulties in real life of implementing something like that. But, in general, I believe that those who are effected/affected by policy should be the ones who have say -- and abortion policy is one of those that clearly effects/affects women more than men.
In particular, non-ideal terms, my answer is that the woman alone should decide.
Suppose some women believe that men ought to weigh in on the issue, does the authority they have as women encompass the power to delegate that power to men?
Not in my ideal of all ideals. I'd separate out the particular decision about abortion from the general decision about policy which regulates abortion.
Either you want to make every case subjective where the pregnant woman herself gets to weigh her life circumstances and emotions and decide or you create some objective criteria that you apply across the board. If you're going to look for some objective criteria that allows limitations on abortions, women are no better objective evaluators than men regarding what criteria ought to be used. It's not as if every woman has been pregnant or can be pregnant, and it's not as if no man has any understanding of what human life is.
In practical terms I think that every case is subjective.
In ideal terms, I think that objective policy should be set by women.
And, of course, arguing that only women can meaningfully debate the abortion issue somewhat defeats any argument you've presented here regarding abortion, your being male and all.
I don't believe that only women can meaningfully debate the abortion issue. I'm stating that in an ideal sense I think that policy should be set by women.
Reply to jamalrob My understanding of your basic position is that a woman has a right to do with her body what she pleases, and that because the fetus is part of her body she has a right to do with the fetus what she pleases with regards to abortion. Is that correct?
Reply to Moliere My major problem with your position is not that it's not rational. My problem with your position is that it's undesirable due to the consequences.
Reply to Baden Doesn't that implicitly assume your belief about when a fetus gets rights and is a person, though? Shouldn't you have to justify that, as both Catholics and I have done?
Reply to Baden It's not relevant to my concerns. Abortion is or should be an ordinary medical procedure carried out by medical professionals. What are you getting at? Are you going to hit me with a gruesome thought experiment here because I really wish you wouldn't.
Not necessarily. I don't believe in torturing animals, for example, and they're not people and should have some rights. We know fetuses feel pain. We know fetuses are human. The next step concerning personhood is unlikely to be settled but the first two facts are enough to make the consequences of harming fetuses (without some concomitant benefit to another human on the other side such as saving the life of a mother) undesirable.
Reply to jamalrob I'm just trying to tease out your position. There are women who commit abortions on themselves without medical help. That's a reality, not just a thought experiment. If your argument is based on the idea that these women may do what they please with their bodies with regard to abortion because they are dealing exclusively with their own bodies, then it seems you shouldn't object to them terminating their own pregnancies as long as they don't harm themselves (or maybe even if they do if they consider it worth the price) irregardless of the harm they do or the pain they inflict on the fetus.
Reply to Moliere So, you think that abortion policy should only be set by women because abortion policy is one of those that clearly effects/affects women more than men? Yet, if we turn the tables, isn't that what feminists frequently object to? The male domination over issues which also effect/affect women? I wonder how they'd feel about the prospect of being excluded on such a basis.
Reply to Baden I'm not sure. The attitude I have to terminating your own pregancy is a bit like my attitude to doing your own brain surgery---but I don't want women to be penalized for self-termination. I think bodily autonomy would again have to be the priority, but I probably wouldn't be making my argument if I didn't also think it would result in a better system in which the removal of stigma and official interference reduced the number of self-terminations.
My major problem with your position is not that it's not rational. My problem with your position is that it's undesirable due to the consequences.
Similarly, my main problem with your position, @Moliere, isn't about internal consistency and rationality. My earlier charge of absurdity was in relation to the consequences, and to that which is external to your position, e.g. values or priorities which you might not share.
Reply to jamalrob What I don't understand is why this idea of bodily autonomy should so outweigh all concerns about harm to the fetus even given the political considerations you've outlined. I can think of thought experiments, and I'm sure you can too, where bodily autonomy could justifiably be compromised to avoid some greater harm. So, even if I granted that the fetus were to be considered part of the woman's body, given that it could suffer terrible pain in circumstances such as I proposed above, how is the absolute maintenance of the principle of bodily autonomy an overwhelming counterbalance to this suffering?
Reply to Baden The locus of morality is the individual person and in the relations between individuals. I think bodily autonomy is basic to a person and to being a free member of society. I think the very idea that anyone else has a say over what a person does with their own body is a denial of this basic element of personhood and renders the subject of such coercion less free than others, renders them less fully a subject in their own right.
Obversely, the idea that a fetus is just a mini-person is a consequence of a vulgar scientism that completely misses how human society works.
Reply to Baden Actually, scratch that. Let's assume fetuses feel pain. Would you have no problem with an abortion of an 8.5 month old fetus being aborted if it were given anesthesia?
The locus of morality is the individual person and in the relations between individuals. I think bodily autonomy is basic to a person and to being a free member of society. I think the very idea that anyone else has a say over what a person does with their own body is a denial of this basic element of personhood and renders the subject of such coercion less free than others.
I think you must start your argument with the prefatory statement Assuming that a fetus is a part of, as opposed to contained within, a woman's body. That statement I think will ferret out enough people that many won't find the rest of your thesis useful. This isn't to say that your qualification isn't arguable; it's just that it doesn't really seem at all realistic (to me at least).
Reply to Hanover As I say, I don't see any substantial difference between part of and contained within in this context. It all comes back to personhood: they probably do differ importantly if we're talking about one person contained inside another.
I mean what I said. I don't know why you find it confusing. If you think that there ought to be women-only authorities over issues which effect mostly women, but also men, then presumably you apply the same reasoning if you swap the gender roles. Do you or don't you? I find your position objectionable either way, but I was focusing on a particular criticism about your presumed feminist values, and whether you apply your reasoning in a fair and consistent manner.
Could you outline those values, then? And support them?
The value of an unborn human. It's a human in that it is a member of the human species, and you are discriminating against it based on the mere fact that he or she is unborn. At 37 weeks of age, it has developed certain qualities that distinguish it from a zygote, and render it similar - more similar, I'd say - to those of a newborn.
I don't know how well I can support these values. It largely depends on your own values and emotions, and I don't know how subject to change they are.
Well, if you think about a 37-week-old foetus in comparison to a zygote shortly after fertilisation, then it should be clear that it has developed over time relative to that initial stage. I would say that it has developed quite significantly, and in significant ways.
I know that in order to back up those claims, I'll have to elaborate, and provide evidence, but I'm reluctant to do so, because I want to get it right; and, like I said, I need to do some more work.
Fetal development was first studied by John Hunter in the mid 18th century. Since Hunter, medicine and biological science has pretty well worked out the development of the fetus -- not in the detail of C. elegans (a 900 cell nematode) but quite thoroughly.
Google search it. This site gives brief week by week descriptions of development.
I mean what I said. I don't know why you find it confusing. If you think that there ought to be women-only authorities over issues which effect mostly women, but also men, then presumably you apply the same reasoning if you swap the gender roles. Do you or don't you? I find your position objectionable either way, but I was focusing on a particular criticism about your presumed feminist values, and whether you apply your reasoning in a fair and consistent manner.
Sure, why not? On the surface I don't see anything wrong with that.
It's worth noting historical context, etc., and even in today's world of supposed equality that men hold more positions which write policy, though.
The value of an unborn human. It's a human in that it is a member of the human species, and you are discriminating against it based on the mere fact that he or she is unborn. At 37 weeks of age, it has developed certain qualities that distinguish it from a zygote, and render it similar - more similar, I'd say - to those of a newborn.
I don't know how well I can support these values. It largely depends on your own values and emotions, and I don't know how subject to change they are.
I agree that the unborn have value. I don't think many believe otherwise. My position is largely in regards to the power of the state, and what it should cover by law. There's a big gulf, in my view, between what ought to be legal, and what ought to be in the moral sense.
Hence why I say that it's not a decision to make lightly -- but it is still a decision that should be available without legal barriers.
It's worth noting historical context, etc., and even in today's world of supposed equality that men hold more positions which write policy, though.
If that's a problem, then we might benefit from more women in such roles, so that it's more gender-balanced. But your position is more extreme. You want to tip the scales to one end, or rather, break off the other end - which is the problem that we already face. You aren't for equality of genders, you're for superiority of one gender over the other - which is not a good point of view with regards to the sorts of issues that we've been discussing, and is far from ideal. It represents unfairness and discrimination.
My position is largely in regards to the power of the state, and what it should cover by law. There's a big gulf, in my view, between what ought to be legal, and what ought to be in the moral sense.
That's where you run into performative contradiction, I suspect. If you think that it's wrong, then you should endorse safeguards.
Hence why I say that it's not a decision to make lightly -- but it is still a decision that should be available without legal barriers.
We're worse off, as a society, without those barriers. It's a worthwhile sacrifice of liberty if it prevents those who take advantage of that liberty to unjustly kill other members of the human species. On what grounds, besides those already covered by law, do you think that anyone would be justified in killing a 37-week-old foetus? The "my body, my decision" to unjustly kill it simply doesn't cut the mustard. It's a selfish, narrow-minded, ill-considered, and damaging view. Nor do these attempts to dehumanise.
The woman's body does not include the fetus. It contains the fetus.
i think this is the right view. The fetus has a genetic make-up that is not the same as the mother's. The fetus makes claims on the mother's body (for nutrition, warmth, disposal of waste, etc.), and sheds it's cells, some of which end up circulating in the mother's blood, and which are identifiable as "not belonging to the mother". Male brain cells have been found in the brains of mothers, decades after delivery. (Fewer male cells in the brain was correlated with an increased incidence of
The fetus has an ambiguous, sort of adversarial, relationship with the mother. The fetus soaks up as much of the mother's substance as it can (to develop) and often causes biological problems for the mother. We don't know exactly what being born is like for the infant, but for the woman it can be quite unpleasant.
The whole reason for the placenta is for the mother and fetus to keep each other at arms length, so neither is over-exposed to the other. However, the placental barrier isn't perfect. There is traffic, at least from the fetus to the mother, and it isn't clear yet what the fetal cells might do for, or to, the mother.
Because it's unfair and discriminatory. Perhaps you're ok with that, but I'm not.
I disagree that this would be unfair and discriminatory.
Suppose you have 3 wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner democratically. They eat different things. They would be effected by said decision differently. It doesn't make sense to apply a rule universally if people are effected differently by said rule.
If that's a problem, then we might benefit from more women in such roles, so that it's more gender-balanced. But your position is more extreme. You want to tip the scales to one end, or rather, break off the other end - which is the problem that we already face. You aren't for equality of genders, you're for superiority of one gender over the other - which is not a good point of view with regards to the sorts of issues that we've been discussing, and is far from ideal. It represents unfairness and discrimination.
It's not superiority, it's acknowledging that people are effected differently -- and assigning say on that basis.
Ideally, of course. In real life, where practical concerns are of importance, I don't know how you'd implement such a rule.
But not enough to legally protect them from being unjustly killed.
That's not true. 1) I don't think killing a fetus is unjust tout court. I think it's something which people have to weigh within their own circumstances, pragmatically. I'd be hesitant to call such an action, prior to birth, unjust without some argument.
That's where you run into performative contradiction, I suspect. If you think that it's wrong, then you should endorse safeguards
I don't think that it's wrong. It's not black and white. And, I disagree with your later point emphatically. It's not the role of the law to make people good.
We're worse off, as a society, without those barriers. It's a worthwhile sacrifice of liberty if it prevents those who take advantage of that liberty to unjustly kill other members of the human species. On what grounds, besides those already covered by law, do you think that anyone would be justified in killing a 37-week-old foetus?
Numerous. In the end, I don't think the fetus counts as a person with rights. It is a clump of cells. Cells which have value, but nowhere near the same value as an actual person -- which the mother clearly is. Your proposal sacrifices the actual rights of citizens for what? The supposed inference that killing a fetus at such and such a time is unjust. But that's what you'd have to back up, I think. I recognize that you wish to take your time -- but then, I don't know if you can also say that an action is unjust when you simply don't know your position.
The "my body, my decision" to unjustly kill it simply doesn't cut the mustard. It's a selfish, narrow-minded, ill-considered, and damaging view. Nor do these attempts to dehumanise.
Your last sentence is right out of the Catholic playbook :D. "Calling a baby a fetus is dehumanizing"
I don't think that my position is selfish, narrow-minded, ill-considered, nor damaging. Which would include allowing women to choose to terminate a pregnancy at 37 weeks for any reason they deem necessary.
I just trust women to make the right decision on such moments, pragmatically, and would rather they make the decision in the circumstances that they know rather than bureaucrats (who are mostly male) making said decision in board rooms far away from said circumstances.
Which would include allowing women to choose to terminate a pregnancy at 37 weeks for any reason they deem necessary.
I find statements like the above pretty shocking.
Anyway, it's been interesting, but I think I've reached the point where arguing with you any further seems pointless. That's not meant as a slur, I just doubt it'll be productive, and I lack the will to persevere.
Reply to Sapientia No worries. I don't mean to be a drain. I only wished to defend my position -- I certainly didn't expect to persuade, as I mentioned.
Let's assume fetuses feel pain. Would you have no problem with an abortion of an 8.5 month old fetus being aborted if it were given anesthesia?
I'd have just as much a problem with that as with an infanticide under anaesthesia. The reason I brought up the pain issue was to test whether those on your side were willing to cede any autonomous rights at all to the unborn. If you cede that the fetus cannot justifiably be subjected to pain without some proportionate counterbalance then the "It's a woman's right to do anything she wants with her own body" stance no longer holds water.
Obversely, the idea that a fetus is just a mini-person is a consequence of a vulgar scientism that completely misses how human society works.
I never claimed the fetus is just a mini-person. I've said time and time again, the "person" debate will get us nowhere. There is no agreed definition of "person" to work with. But it doesn't have to be just a mini person to have some rights. Even animals have rights. The fetus is human; under normal circumstances it will develop into a fully grown person; it can feel pain; it has a brain; it has a nervous system; at 8 1/2 months it is fully viable. It's not just a piece of meat. It's one the most sophisticated organisms on the planet at any stage of its development. To say that we can do what we will with it needs more justification than simply the fact that we want to maintain some woolly idea of autonomy based on the very questionable premise that it's part of the woman's body.
Aside from the 38th and 1/2 week question, there seems to be some agreement among prenatal fetal specialists that a fetus can definitely not feel pain before the 24th week, and probably not until somewhere during the third trimester. Why? The nerves paths that deliver pain messages between the body and the brain haven't been completed. These nerves can't transmit pain until they reach through the length of the spine, from the spinal cord, through the thalamus, and on into the cerebral cortex. Pain requires consciousness. Presumably, by the last couple of weeks the fetus is conscious (they respond to stimuli), and does feel pain.
Very few abortions are performed as late as 24 weeks. If a 6 month old fetus was to be aborted, there are two routes to deal with pain: the first is that a drug can be injected into the amniotic fluid that will stop the heart. The other route is that anesthesia can be given to the mother, which will apply to the baby as well.
It's worth noting, as one surgeon observed, that if anti-abortion advocates are concerned about pain at 20 weeks (or later), why aren't they concerned about pain during child birth -- an experience that we have every reason to suppose is quite painful for the baby. An anti-abortion spokeswoman said, "Well something happens during birth that prevents pain."
What fetuses more certainly experience is stress from events outside the womb (the mother is in an accident, for instance). What is seen in the fetus at such times, and during fetal surgery, is at least a stress response. Narcotics and other drugs are given to reduce stress. Would an unmedicated fetus at 35 weeks experience stress and pain from an abortion? Almost certainly -- and they will experience stress and pain during delivery too.
It seems to me reasonable to say, "a woman has a right to decide--for whatever reason--to abort before a specific stage has been reached. Let's say the end of the second trimester is the deadline. After the 24th week, incrementally higher barriers have to be surmounted.
What sort of things would justify a late term abortion? (out of my depth here) Tumors, possibly? Some women develop uterine tumors during pregnancy--benign fibroid (muscle cell) tumors. They are not malignant, but they can cause serious problems during a pregnancy. Maybe that sort of thing would be a cause for a later term abortion (especially if the fetus was deformed).
Reply to Baden I don't know about others, but I know about myself -- I don't think a fetus has rights. There's nothing "sufficiently advanced", or "most sophisticated" about it, factually speaking. I don't think scientific description works in these terms. I think that there's an additional layer of meaning your imputing to scientific facts. I am doing the same, but I'm also not claiming some kind of scientific priority or knowledge about what fetus' experience as much as I am making a decision on the basis that at least, after birth, a fetus has its own body. Prior to that I find it difficult to to say the fetus has any kind of rights, or a good justification for being imputed rights, or for being considered like some sort of citizen. Well after, perhaps -- and yes, animals do have rights. By all means, I think that that discussion is most relevant here.
But keep in mind that we also kill animals. Not just in some absent minded manner, either -- but we have whole industries set up to maximize the production of animals for the purpose of meat consumption.
I never claimed the fetus is just a mini-person. I've said time and time again, the "person" debate will get us nowhere.
Where do you want us to get to? I certainly don't want to find a middle ground. I think personhood is precisely what matters.
There is no agreed definition of "person" to work with. But it doesn't have to be just a mini person to have some rights. Even animals have rights. The fetus is human; under normal circumstances it will develop into a fully grown person; it can feel pain; it has a brain; it has a nervous system; at 8 1/2 months it is fully viable. It's not just a piece of meat. It's one the most sophisticated organisms on the planet at any stage of its development.
The claim that fetuses feel pain is somewhat controversial, because pain is much more than mere nociception:
The neural circuitry for pain in fetuses is immature. More importantly, the developmental processes necessary for the mindful experience of pain are not yet developed. An absence of pain in the fetus does not resolve the question of whether abortion is morally acceptable or should be legal. Nevertheless, proposals to inform women seeking abortions of the potential for pain in fetuses are not supported by evidence. Legal or clinical mandates for interventions to prevent such pain are scientifically unsound and may expose women to inappropriate interventions, risks, and distress. Avoiding a discussion of fetal pain with women requesting abortions is not misguided paternalism but a sound policy based on good evidence that fetuses cannot experience pain.
—Stuart Derbyshire, Can fetuses feel pain?
The notion of viability seems equally troublesome. And I don't think the existence of a brain and nervous system counts in any way against the right of the woman to terminate. The issue is moral and political, and cannot be decided by biology. In my opinion, the evidence you mention functions in the public debate primarily by encouraging a conception of the fetus as being essentially a newborn baby, thus as a sentimental appeal. If this is uncharitable with respect to your own use of the scientific evidence, even so you are using it in the service of a moral and political view, because it does not speak for itself. I don't treat people morally because they have brains and nervous systems, but because they are people who each have a place as individuals in society.
As for rights, I think the notion of animal rights is nonsense, and I can't see any sense in which fetuses or even newborn babies have rights, though in the latter there is a duty of care (as there is with animals).
To say that we can do what we will with it needs more justification than simply the fact that we want to maintain some woolly idea of autonomy based on the very questionable premise that it's part of the woman's body.
I am saying that abortions should be allowed up to birth, that the interests of the woman must take priority over any interests we attribute to the fetus on the basis of biological development. I am not saying that it's ok for people to do what they want with them.
The principle of bodily autonomy is no more woolly than pain and viability. Extending the principle that nobody should be forced to undergo a medical procedure, no woman should be forced to continue with a pregnancy and undergo childbirth.
I don't treat people morally because they have brains and nervous systems, but because they are people who each have a place as individuals in society.
We treat people morally - unless we're sociopaths - mostly because we're built that way. If we need a philosophy book for much of our moral behaviour, we're in no better a position than those who feel they need a holy book for it. Philosophy is of course useful in very contentious cases on which intuitions vary. And abortion in general fits the bill well. But super-late-term abortion - not so much. There is consensus that it's wrong to kill 8 1/2 month old fetuses because we recognize that these younger versions of ourselves are very like ourselves. And empathy works largely on the principle of similarity. It also works on the principle of avoiding the greater harm which is why this:
no woman should be forced to continue with a pregnancy and undergo childbirth.
doesn't hold much water in these cases where the major harm - the complete destruction of one human being, the fetus, is balanced against the minor harm - the inconvenience of completing the birth. It's only when the latter minor harm becomes a major harm (generally for medical reasons) that the case is even debateable. That's as it should be. But of course If you can argue empathy out of yourself on the basis that this or that human being is not (yet) a person, this line will mean nothing to you just as to someone who does empathize with late term fetuses is not going to be swayed by any of your arguments.
It's only when the latter minor harm becomes a major harm (generally for medical reasons) that the case is even debateable.
Are we going to debate whether it's debateable now? I'm debating it, and lots of other people take my position--though unfortunately less people now than a few decades ago, I think.
That's as it should be. But of course If you can argue empathy out of yourself on the basis that this or that human being is not (yet) a person, this line will mean nothing to you just as to someone who does empathize with late term fetuses is not going to be swayed by any of your arguments.
Obviously I can say something very similar with respect to the freedom and autonomy of the woman. Aside from that, you're right that we won't convince each other, but I don't care about that, as I'm not trying to convince you. That's not what debates are for.
I don't treat people morally because they have brains and nervous systems, but because they are people who each have a place as individuals in society.
We treat people morally - unless we're sociopaths - mostly because we're built that way. If we need a philosophy book for much of our moral behaviour, we're in no better a position than those who feel they need a holy book for it.
Here you seem to misunderstand me, and I'm not surprised, because if you don't know what a moral agent is or understand its significance, and you don't know what personhood is, then it's inevitable that you'll fail to see that treating people morally because they are people "who each have a place as individuals in society" and treating people morally "because we're built that way" are the same thing. My "because" does not imply a process of reasoning.
Reply to jamalrob You're the one misunderstanding things. Maybe go read back over my earlier comments. Or possibly explore my posting history. I haven't suddenly forgotten what moral agency is and as I've said before, personhood is not something we're going to settle today. Anyway if this is all you've got, good luck.
it should be illegal to have an abortion after 28 weeks (except those exceptions)
Can I ask why it should be illegal, and what the exceptions are or should be?
If the answer to the first question has anything to do with the fetus being a human being or person with its independent interests and rights, I don't see how there could be any exceptions. That is, I don't see how such abortions could ever be justified, unless murder is justified in some cases.
It's interesting that there isn't much discussion here of the reasons women have for getting late abortions. In fact there isn't much discussion of the women at all except as temporary vessels (with obligations that trump their own interests).
So here's another angle. Can we all agree, for whatever reasons, that earlier abortions are better than late ones, and that public policy ought to be directed towards reducing the need for late abortions?
Well, there's evidence that restrictions on late abortions are counter-productive:
Most women who seek abortion late do not realise they need to do so earlier. If abortion was made harder to access in later pregnancy than it is currently, the main outcomes would be that women would have abortions later still; would become ‘abortion tourists’ and seek abortion in another country; or would have to continue unwanted pregnancies.
—Late Abortion: A Review of the Evidence [PDF]
Reply to Bitter Crank@jamalrob beat me to the punch, but I'd like to link another paper -- I couldn't find the one I wanted, and jamal's actually covers what I was looking for, but these are interesting too --
The example I like to use is from The Godfather, part II. In it Kate has an abortion. I can't remember all the details, but the main reason is because the father of her child is a gangster and she doesn't want the child to grow up in that environment. It's also something of an assertion of power over her husband, a breaking away. An extraordinary circumstance? I don't believe it's quite as extraordinary as the movie might portray -- looking at the second link you'll see that "having relationship problems/don't want to be single" is the fourth most frequent of the most important reasons given. The top three are -- "Not ready for a(nother) child", "Can't afford a baby now", and "Have completed my childbearing"
Any of those reasons, as far as I am concerned, are adequate for the legal right to obtain an abortion -- and I wouldn't look at it as unjust, either.
I'd liken the fetus more to an organ than to a citizen. We transplant livers. They have different cells in the transplant and before they find their home within someone else. A fetus has different stages of development, one of which actually separates the fetus from their mother. It is an organ whose job is to become a human being who will, scientifically at least, contribute to species fecundity.
Only in an ideal sense. I recognize the difficulties in real life of implementing something like that. But, in general, I believe that those who are effected/affected by policy should be the ones who have say -- and abortion policy is one of those that clearly effects/affects women more than men.
I don't know of any other situations in typical democracies where affected parties are afforded more votes than those not so affected. Take driving under the influence laws, for example. If we're trying to arrive at better laws to deter drinking and driving, I'd certainly wish to hear from those who have been injured or affected by drunk drivers, and I'd like to hear from drunk drivers themselves and the judges who sentenced them. I don't think though that only their views count or that they are necessarily the most enlightened views. If I don't drive at all, I still get a say in how drivers license laws are designed. Quoting Moliere
I don't believe that only women can meaningfully debate the abortion issue. I'm stating that in an ideal sense I think that policy should be set by women.
For the reasons I've already said, I don't think this makes a whole lot of sense, as if women have some advanced sense of right and wrong in these matters and that aborting a fetus or denying an abortion only affects women. And, of course, even if it did only affect women, that hardly means that unaffected women better empathize than men with affected women, especially those women who have never experienced the issue first or second hand.
This whole setting standards of who gets to vote is troubling for thousands of other reasons.
Reply to Hanover Yup. Hence why I said that, pragmatically speaking, I opt for the subjective route. In the world we actually live in I don't know how you'd implement such a policy.
@Hanover and @Moliere, your discussion is rather curious. I originally interpreted @Moliere as saying that only the person who is pregnant should get to decide what to do about it, which in one sense means that only women should be empowered to decide in favour of late abortions. But this is different from saying that only women should be able to debate it or decide on policy. I think both men and women should be able to decide on policy, with the most welcome outcome being that my own position carries the day and they decide to make it the sole business of an individual woman what to do about a pregnancy, with no limitation.
I find the notion that only women can debate abortion or vote on abortion policy to be absurd, patronizing, divisive, counter-productive, and anti-democratic.
I formerly maintained a strict permit abortions position, week 1 - 40. The woman's control over her body always trumps the fetus, and trumps the father's interest in the child.
No personal events changed my thinking, but they have changed to a view that aborting a fetus during the last few weeks of a pregnancy -- because, for reasons of convenience, the woman has decided that she no longer wishes to bear the child -- is just too ghastly to contemplate. Fetal development is too close to completion.
In fact, very very few abortions do occur so late in the pregnancy, and presumably medical necessity precipitated the late-term abortion and not merely a change in plans. But as an option to which the pregnant woman is entitled--whatever the reason--no.
Why do I hold the view that a woman's choice trumps the fetus and/or the father's interest at week 20? Abortion is still a ghastly procedure at week 20 or 24. What about week 1 -20? What's different?
What is different is that the fetus is too far from completion.
This does represent a limitation on the woman's right to abortion during the third trimester for purely personal reasons. So you broke up with the father? So the father turned out to be a mafioso kingpin? So the father just died? So the father left you for a younger, more beautiful non-pregnant, wealthier woman? So you found a wealthier, more handsome, available guy? Maybe you just lost your job? All that is most unfortunate, but you are now obligated to complete the pregnancy for the next few weeks. The late stage of development now trumps your convenience.
Five or six months seems like a long enough time for one to decide whether one wants to be pregnant or not. If abortion is being used as a tool for family planning, (oops, too soon or too late for another one) then waiting 6 months to decide is inexcusable. If the pregnancy occurred because of inattention to birth control or sex was forced and not an option, again -- it shouldn't take 6 months to decide that one doesn't want too be pregnant.
Holding that late term abortions are not acceptable isn't the same as holding that abortions are murder starting with week 1. I don't think a 3 week old fetus is a meaningless blob, but it is much closer to a meaningless blob than a person. A 38 week old fetus is all but born.
So, let's have full access to family planning and fertility control services, including abortion, across the land.
Men and women must have an equal role in defining fertility policy. Only women can become pregnant but no woman has become pregnant without a man. (Ok, Mary, we knew you'd bring that up, so you're the one exception--duly noted. Now go back to the grave, please.)
Men should have an interest in a prospective abortion IF, and only if, they are engaged in forming the family with the woman.
One might say that hit and run fatherhood is too short and small an investment to deserve a say. But suppose sex occurs with the assumption that no baby will result. Must the father then be compelled to support the child if the woman later decides to continue an unexpected pregnancy?
Can I ask why it should be illegal, and what the exceptions are or should be?
It should be illegal as a preventive measure. Baden put it well when he spoke of the cases "where the major harm - the complete destruction of one human being, the fetus, is balanced against the minor harm - the inconvenience of completing the birth".
The exceptions can be found here: [url]http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1967/87/section/1[/URL].
If the answer to the first question has anything to do with the fetus being a human being or person with its independent interests and rights, I don't see how there could be any exceptions.
It is a human, and I believe that it deserves certain rights which should not be violated by the mother or anyone else, and fortunately it has those rights in English law, at least effectively, given that child destruction is a statutory offence.
It's not a contradiction to state that there should be the exceptions to which I've referred. The rights that I mentioned are in accordance with these exceptions and do not extend beyond them.
That is, I don't see how such abortions could ever be justified, unless murder is justified in some cases.
How so? And, as it happens, I don't know whether they'd technically count as murder, but if so, then I do believe that some such cases are justified: that's why I think that laws regarding euthanasia and assisted suicide could benefit from reform.
looking at the second link you'll see that "having relationship problems/don't want to be single" is the fourth most frequent of the most important reasons given. The top three are -- "Not ready for a(nother) child", "Can't afford a baby now", and "Have completed my childbearing"
Any of those reasons, as far as I am concerned, are adequate for the legal right to obtain an abortion -- and I wouldn't look at it as unjust, either.
All terrible reasons to have an abortion. They don't have to keep the baby after giving birth. There are these things that you might have heard of called social services and adoption. If the parent or parents are unfit, the state has the power to intervene.
All terrible reasons to have an abortion. They don't have to keep the baby after giving birth. There's this thing that you might have heard of called adoption.
As the thread's about political affiliation, I thought I'd note that these are very weird words coming from an avowed leftist (or liberal). But I'm all for diversity of thought, so carry on.
These are very weird words coming from an avowed leftist. But I'm all for diversity of thought, so carry on.
I don't think it's that weird, but it was only a generalised label in any case. Being a leftist doesn't entail liberalism in all matters or unfettered liberalism. You specifically mentioned libertarianism. I'm more on the side of state intervention on this one, but not to the extreme of those on the right. I still strongly believe that women should have the legal right to abortion within reason (cf. The Abortion Act 1967).
Reply to Sapientia It was more the judgmental attitude in the post, which is very reminiscent of old-fashioned establishment conservatives. You don't seem to have much of an interest in or clue about the situation of women who get late abortions. If you're interested, try the PDF I linked to: http://www.prochoiceforum.org.uk/pdf/PCF_late_abortion08.pdf
It was more the judgmental attitude in the post, which is very reminiscent of old-fashioned establishment conservatives. You don't seem to have much of an interest in or clue about the situation of women who get late abortions.
There are judgemental attitudes aplenty on both sides of the fence with this one. And, given your reply, you're hardly an exception.
I am not entirely unsympathetic towards all of those who have or desire late-term abortions. But this is a matter of priorities, and of weighing the pros and cons. It's also a matter of concern about setting a worrying precedent. I certainly wouldn't want to rule in any old case, like @Moliere, who thinks that "any reason they deem necessary" ought to be permissible.
[i]I want to lose weight, but I don't wanna wait until this baby's born, so I need an abortion. My body, my decision[/I].
Reply to Sapientia It isn't any old judgmentalism one can see in your comments. It's the judgmentalism of the conservative who worries about the permissive society and the irresponsible behaviour of loose women. Your talk of "setting a worrying precedent" and your "I don't want to put on weight" example are straight out of the conservative script on this issue. But it was just a passing observation and I'm not expecting to win any points by calling you names or recording my superficial impressions.
Reply to jamalrob Well, I am a conservative on this issue, in that I want to conserve the current law against abolishment or radical reform. And I am judging those who are grossly irresponsible and who wish to legally permit such gross irresponsibility. If that sets me aside from the left, then so be it. I think that my position is close to the centre: far-left being for (unrestricted) abortion up until birth, and far-right being against abortion entirely. But, in general, I have much more in common with the left than the right.
Reply to jamalrob It's a bit of a digression at the fault of my own mention, I think. In the world we actually live in, I agree with you -- that is the position I'm advocating. I was mentioning off-handedly how, if there were some way to do so, women should set policy for issues which effect them more on the basis of the principle that I think any issue which only effects a part of the population (or majorly effects a part of the population -- obviously you can always some kind of effect/affect) should be decided by that part of the population rather than by everybody.
A side issue, because I don't know how you would pragmatically implement such a thing -- and so the policy I favor is one where the individual woman decides up until birth.
As a joke in my office we often try to prove how we're more conservative than the other by picking out comments the other one makes that might be interpreted as liberal.
All terrible reasons to have an abortion. They don't have to keep the baby after giving birth. There are these things that you might have heard of called social services and adoption. If the parent or parents are unfit, the state has the power to intervene.
Perhaps in your opinion. But I think all of these are reasonable because I don't think a fetus is a human, but will become a human.
If you have a gall bladder removed, is it a moral crime? Even if you just removed it because it is convenient?
A fetus is not human, but is a human fetus. A liver is not human, but is a human liver. I'd say you are using "human" more or less in the same way that the philosophical literature uses "personhood" here:
It is a human, and I believe that it deserves certain rights which should not be violated by the mother or anyone else, and fortunately it has those rights in English law, at least effectively, given that child destruction is a statutory offence.
I have no problem saying a fetus is human in the biological sense. But to say that a fetus deserves certain rights is basically to accord personhood to a fetus, which I think is still in error -- whether that be called "human", "sufficiently advanced", or so forth.
Reply to Moliere Fair enough. The reason I was so vociferous about it was that such notions are alive and well today. Brendan O'Neill and Tim Stanley were to debate abortion at Oxford in 2014 until it was called off following a student campaign. The students' complaint was that the debaters were men. It didn't matter what their arguments were; all that mattered to the students was the sex of the debaters. It's because I think this kind of thing is stupid and divisive that I made a point of criticizing your digressive comments.
As a joke in my office we often try to prove how we're more conservative than the other by picking out comments the other one makes that might be interpreted as liberal.
Though, to be clear, I don't think debate should be restricted -- even in the event that there were some way that women were the official policy makers, I'd be shooting myself in the foot if I thought men shouldn't speak on the matter. I believe in free speech.
I don't think it's that weird, but it was only a generalised label in any case. Being a leftist doesn't entail liberalism in all matters or unfettered liberalism.
?Sapientia It isn't any old judgmentalism one can see in your comments. It's the judgmentalism of the conservative who worries about the permissive society and the irresponsible behaviour of loose women.
?jamalrob Well, I am a conservative on this issue, in that I want to conserve the current law against abolishment or radical reform. And I am judging those who are grossly irresponsible and who wish to legally permit such gross irresponsibility.
As the great American Transcendentalist Ralph W. Emerson said, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds".
Marching in lock step to the dogmatic drummers on the right or the dogmatic drummers on the left is a real drag. Sapientia is violating no law of physics by holding an opinion that deviates from doctrinaire dogma. And even if he is, tough shit.
It would be contradictory to say that every fertilized egg is a soul, on the one hand, and on the other hand maintain that fetuses can be aborted at 20 weeks without justification. But that isn't what Sapientia was suggesting. What he said was that at some point in the pregnancy (say, 28 weeks, or pick your preferred cut off point) the nature of the decision changes.
A leftist can hold the view that aborting a very late term fetus -- in the 38th and 1/2 week example -- is an appalling act. Yes, women do and ought to have control over their own bodies, but a woman who has accepted a pregnancy long enough for the fetus to survive as a premature baby has waited too long to reject the pregnancy for any but a very grave need.
Yes, people do behave irresponsibly in all sorts of ways that cause real problems for society as a whole. There is nothing in leftish thought that says leftists should just disregard irresponsible behavior as an irrelevancy.
Reply to Bitter Crank I made a passing observation, that's all, and I have no interest in faithfulness to dogma or an agreement with conventional positions for its own sake. But as it happens I could make an argument as to why my position is fundamental to a Leftist, especially Marxist, view on abortion. But that would be boring.
I find the notion that only women can debate abortion or vote on abortion policy to be absurd, patronizing, divisive, counter-productive, and anti-democratic.
I'm glad we have at least [i]some[/I] common ground [I]contra[/I] Moliere's "ideal" world.
This does represent a limitation on the woman's right to abortion during the third trimester for purely personal reasons. So you broke up with the father? So the father turned out to be a mafioso kingpin? So the father just died? So the father left you for a younger, more beautiful non-pregnant, wealthier woman? So you found a wealthier, more handsome, available guy? Maybe you just lost your job? All that is most unfortunate, but you are now obligated to complete the pregnancy for the next few weeks. The late stage of development now trumps your convenience.
Five or six months seems like a long enough time for one to decide whether one wants to be pregnant or not. If abortion is being used as a tool for family planning, (oops, too soon or too late for another one) then waiting 6 months to decide is inexcusable. If the pregnancy occurred because of inattention to birth control or sex was forced and not an option, again -- it shouldn't take 6 months to decide that one doesn't want to be pregnant.
As a joke, in my office we often try to prove how we're more conservative than the other by picking out comments the other one makes that might be interpreted as liberal.
Reply to Bitter Crank Not enough of one to invoke the law, at least. Of course there are differences -- but the fetus is not a person with rights, and shouldn't be considered one if I am correct in considering the fetus an organ.
But I think all of these are reasonable because I don't think a fetus is a human, but will become a human.
Yes, because you apply some special meaning to the word "human" in order to arbitrarily exclude unborn babies. What kind of babies are we talking about again? Wolf babies? Tiger babies? No, [i]human[/I] babies. We don't suddenly become human as soon as we pop out of a vagina.
A fetus is not human, but is a human fetus. A liver is not human, but is a human liver.
A newborn is not human, but is a human newborn. A toddler is not human, but is a human toddler. A child is not human, but is a human child. An adult is not human, but is a human adult.
I'm guessing that you reject those claims, even though they're of exactly the same logical form as yours. Special pleading? Why do you draw the line at birth? Odd.
I have no problem saying a fetus is human in the biological sense. But to say that a fetus deserves certain rights is basically to accord personhood to a fetus, which I think is still in error -- whether that be called "human", "sufficiently advanced", or so forth.
I don't think that you can square that with the claim that newborns [i]do[/I] deserve such rights. Your distinction is superficial.
Of course there are differences -- but the fetus is not a person with rights, and shouldn't be considered one if I am correct in considering the fetus an organ.
You aren't correct. At 38 weeks, it's definitely an organism. It has it's own organs.
At this point, considering that you haven't been able to defend your position and have pleaded ignorance and a desire to take your time in coming to a decision, I think it apt to point out that you are just talking about your opinion -- your unjustified belief.
Special pleading? Why do you draw the line at birth. Odd.
Probably for similar reasons that you seem to want to draw the line further back -- because you have to draw the line somewhere, and birth is safely before we are dealing with a human in the sense you mean the word, and it is directly after a significant event.
Reply to Sapientia Not by my reasoning. The fetus doesn't have anything at all. There is no separation between the fetus and the mother. So it is strange to treat the fetus as if it is a human just waiting inside the mother.
The fetus is more like an organ than a human. I did say that this is an analogy when I introduced the comparison. They are obviously not identical.
At this point, considering that you haven't been able to defend your position and have pleaded ignorance and a desire to take your time in coming to a decision, I think it apt to point out that you are just talking about your opinion -- your unjustified belief.
Fortunately, @Bitter Crank has provided information. He provided a link a few pages back. It can be used to get at least a rough idea of how far along the line counts as developed enough to make abortion a bad idea, and from that, one has a basis for arguing in favour of legal exclusions.
Probably for similar reasons that you seem to want to draw the line further back -- because you have to draw the line somewhere, and birth is safely before we are dealing with a human in the sense you mean the word, and it is directly after a significant event.
Yes, of course you have to draw the line somewhere. But drawing it at birth isn't safely before we are dealing with a human at all - only in your sense where you define being human post-birth. There is a reason why it's against the law here in England, most of the U.S., and elsewhere. Don't you think that that might have something to do with it? To be on the safe side, it makes sense to go further back than birth.
There is no separation between the fetus and the mother.
Doesn't matter. There is if you separate them. They are separable. And at 38 weeks, the foetus is viable, meaning that if you were to separate it, it'd have a good chance of survival, and we both know what happens if it survives long enough. A gall bladder won't grow into a child, and then an adult.
So it is strange to treat the fetus as if it is a human just waiting inside the mother.
It is at that stage. It's more odd to treat the vagina or umbilical cord as if they have the power to grant humanness. I'm not sure which one you think it is, since you've inconsistently switched between birth (which happens by passing through the vagina) and separation (which happens by cutting the umbilical cord).
It's more like a human organism than a human organ. It [I]is[/I] a human organism. The difference between us and him or her (since it has a gender at this stage) is one of degree; not one of kind.
It is at that stage. It's more odd to treat the vagina or umbilical cord as if they have the power to grant humanness. I'm not sure which one you think it is, since you've inconsistently switched between birth (which happens by passing through the vagina) and separation (which happens by cutting the umbilical cord).
This looks like a perverse reduction of childbirth to a mechanistic process, ignoring its human significance. Clearly, birth and separation are part of the same event (or process if you prefer). It's an event in which a new person is initiated into the human world, into society. This is what matters to morality, not any mechanical stipulations or biological facts.
And I think it's quite silly to say that in regarding birth as the basic cut-off point we are being arbitrary. You may not agree that birth is where it's at, but it's hardly arbitrary. Birth is the centrally important, ultimate event of a pregnancy, the moment when a person comes to be, or begins to be, and the moment the mother's months of bodily change, discomfort, and anticipation have all been leading up to. For many it is the most significant, most life-changing moment of their lives.
There is a new person in the world: this is what birth means, what makes it significant in all human cultures. Biological facts and medical procedures are subsumed by or subservient to the social and cultural, particularly when we're talking morality.
Your reasoning is in conflict with scientific literature.
Which scientific literature tells us when something ought to be treated as a bearer of rights?
Last I looked, eyebrows and lashes were not the indicators of whether or not someone has rights. If you shave those off, and you are human, you'd still have rights, yes?
But if you are not human then you are not a "you", and therefore it becomes mighty difficult to possess anything.
From your perspective I'm dehumanizing what is human. From my perspective, though, you are personifying what is not human in the sense that it is a separate organism or person with rights and so forth. All that happens much after birth.
So it is strange to treat the fetus as if it is a human just waiting inside the mother.
How do ordinary people not versed in the fine points of philosophy actually treat their own (and others') fetuses?
They begin by making room for them. They change the spare bedroom into the nursery. If they know the sex of the fetus, they will decorate the room in sex-appropriate colors. (Shame on them for gendering wall paper! The oppressive bastards.) If it is their first fetus, they buy some specific furnishings: the crib or the bassinet, a little sink size bath tub, little blankets. They debate whether to use disposable or cloth diapers. People give the parents, and even the fetus, gifts--like little mobiles that will be suspended over the crib for the future baby to watch, or rattles, in gendered colors of plastic. Parents read books about raising what? Children. They look at long lists of names, and so on.
Why do these things on behalf of a blob of tissue that is indistinguishable from a liver? Would one name one's gall bladder?
They do these things because ordinary people, not versed in the fine points of philosophy, count the fetus as an individual being (unique and discreet, separate from the mother) whose impending presence is already dominating the lives of the parents. Pregnant women proudly complain about how hard their baby is kicking them.
People behave this way because long experience has taught us that when these indifferent blobs become babies who are always unique, unpredictable, and arrive in this world ready to engage us. The continuum on which the nursing baby and the kicking fetus are situated is obvious to nearly everyone (except those versed in the fine points of philosophy, apparently).
How do ordinary people not versed in the fine points of philosophy actually treat their own (and others') fetuses?
I think it would depend on how you define "ordinary people". Not only do they do what you are saying, they also seek out abortions. Yes? And said process is never easy, whether they go through with the birth or the abortion.
The finer points of philosophy -- whatever those might be -- merely allow us to grapple with our own beliefs and question them, if we are so inclined, and justify our beliefs or some other belief if we find our beliefs are unjustifiable. The finer points of philosophy may attempt to answer why it is acceptable to do such and such -- but these ordinary people you speak of, whom I presume are not versed in philosophy, don't just play the role you're setting out for them. They also seek out and obtain abortions.
If the actions of ordinary people justify our beliefs, then it would seem to me that both your belief and my belief are justifiable.
Birth is the centrally important, ultimate event of a pregnancy, the moment when a person comes to be, or begins to be, and the moment the mother's months of bodily change, discomfort, and anticipation have all been leading up to.
I'm not discounting the unpleasantness of pregnancy, but the "mother's months of bodily change, discomfort, and anticipation" aren't what make birth significant. It's the fetus's months of bodily change from fertilized egg to completed newborn that make birth significant. Without a baby, the end of a pregnancy would be just the conclusion to an unpleasant illness.
You are putting too much emphasis on "the woman's pregnancy" and too little on "the future child's pregnancy." Children is why people go out of their way to get pregnant. Otherwise, children are the result of sex, and as such are more and less welcomed. (It is both: more and less welcomed.)
I have previously argued that "a life" and personhood begins at birth, not before. Birth means emergence, and is a logical time to change status. This discussion has led me to change my mind on this, and think that personhood begins to form in the womb. Not at conception -- though one can say "a life" is initiated at conception. Personhood in a fetus isn't nothing and then all. It forms as gradually and as swiftly as a brain forms.
Of course, a brain isn't complete at birth, and actually isn't fully developed for two decades, or so -- rather a long time to delay granting personhood.
I would locate personhood in a complete and functioning brain as part of a functioning body. 12 weeks? No person hood. 20 weeks? No personhood. 28 weeks? No personhood. 38 weeks? Not quite complete personhood. Birth? Not quite completely developed brain and all, but you're on your own now, kid, as both a citizen and a tax deduction.
At the other end of a life, the loss of a functioning brain (brain death or profound irreversible coma) is the end of personhood.
At the other end of a life, the loss of a functioning brain (brain death or profound irreversible coma) is the end of personhood.
Just to make clear, I wouldn't say this. Someone who has lived a life has a separate body, a history, and many relationships, rights, and so forth, even after death. Or if someone is in a coma, for instance, or has brain damage. Since it isn't the state of the brain or cellular structure which defines personhood, under my theory, neither does the deterioration of the brain deny a person their rights, property, and so forth.
If the actions of ordinary people justify our beliefs, then it would seem to me that both your belief and my belief are justifiable.
Yes, they do seek abortions. And I endorse the legitimacy of people aborting fetuses before the third trimester. Our difference seems to be limited to abortion during the last trimester, and the difference the third trimester makes in this decision.
At least two references above demonstrate that almost everyone already practices what we are preaching: abort early or don't abort at all. Whether this pattern is a result of practitioners' refusal to perform abortions after a certain point, or whether people do not seek abortions after a certain point, don't know. Probably some of both.
Yes, they do seek abortions. And I endorse the legitimacy of people aborting fetuses before the third trimester. Our difference seems to be limited to abortion during the last trimester, and the difference the third trimester makes in this decision.
People seek out abortions in the third trimester, though. So, even then, if the actions of those unversed in the finer points of philosophy are justifiers for our beliefs, then my belief is as justified as yours. Both positions are acceptable according to the metric you are proposing.
Reply to jamalrob Reminds me of the Israeli lobby trick - you highlight Israeli war crimes so you must be an anti-semite. In this case, you highlight bad reasons for abortion so you must be anti-woman and anti-left.
It's the judgmentalism of the conservative who worries about the permissive society and the irresponsible behaviour of loose women.
The idea that we should ignore the possibility @Sapientia raised or others like it and thus abrogate our responsibility to the fetus because it might suggest some women are irresponsible is pathetic, frankly.
Reading further, I guess the conversation has moved on. It's not a left vs right issue as far as I'm concerned anyhow, it's a rights vs rights issue.
Reply to Moliere The Supreme Court never enunciated any fetal rights in Roe v Wade or in any abortion case that followed. All analysis dealt with the state's right to regulate versus the woman's right to choose, with the state's rights increasing progressively in each successive trimester. That is, no court has ever declared a fetus is endowed with Constitutional rights.
That is not to say that no law has ever protected the sanctity of the fetus. In particular, there are extensive federal regulations dealing with fetal research and handling fetal tissue. Such rules specifically declare that the fetus has special worth, which one certainly does not see when gall bladders and the like are discussed. That is to say, your position is not at all consistent with law (or common ethical views).
Reply to Hanover There are rules which regulate gall bladders as well. No? I wouldn't know, but I would be surprised if organs had no laws which regulate them.
I don't think they are on par, myself. I would hold a fetus as more special than a gall bladder. But I would also not count a third trimester abortion as some kind of moral wrong, either.
The removal of a gall bladder is a decision made between a patient and a doctor. Abortions, in that sense, should be the same. This doesn't mean that the removal of a gall bladder should carry the same ethical weight as an abortion -- but, likewise, it doesn't mean that an abortion is a moral wrong which the state has an interest in stopping.
I agree with notions of respect towards fetal tissue, by the way. I just don't think the power of law should be involved in the decision to have an abortion prior to birth.
The fetus doesn't have anything at all. There is no separation between the fetus and the mother. So it is strange to treat the fetus as if it is a human just waiting inside the mother.
Oh ffs. The fetus has its own DNA along with a separate brain, nervous and immune system. And there is a specific barrier called the placental membrane separating fetal blood from the mother's blood and their immune systems from each other so the mother's immune defences don't attack and reject the fetus. No bodily organ has different DNA and a different immune system to its host. I can't believe I have to actually point this out. I mean, if you are so totally ignorant of the basic biology of a pregnant woman, then you are in no position to give an opinion on what is and is not part of her body, or to offer any meaningful view on what the implications are.
Dr. Randi Epstein:"From an immunologic point of view, the fetus is an alien....And your body is programmed to mount an assault on foreigners."
Reply to Baden All this only follows if we follow your assertion that our cells make us something which has or owns. You may believe that people are defined by having a unique sequence of DNA, or that having something is constituted by the "immunological point of view", but I don't.
I don't think an organism's unique biological makeup gives them rights, experiences, etc. And I see no reason, then, to not consider the fetus as a part of the mother -- considering that that there is a continuation between the two, and there is no organism placed within a physical and social environment for it to develop in and have experiences.
You reject my answer to the question, "When does a fetus have rights?". I ask for one from you, but get none. Sometime later one of you pipes in about how what I'm saying doesn't make sense, but your critique only follows if you implicitly answer the question, "When does a fetus have rights?" -- which is no better than begging the question, in this context.
Of course if we assume that I'm wrong then I'll be wrong. And if we assume that you are right then you will be right. But, thus far at least, all the reductio's have implicitly believed some kind of answer without proposing one.
Can't we just agree to disagree, rather than presuming that science is on our side, that our beliefs are obviously right, and that those who disagree are obviously without compassion, absurd, strange, outside the norms of morality, etc. etc.?
I don't require you to agree with me. It seems rather strange that you require me to agree with you when you don't even propose a reason for your objections, but rather just assume that it's obvious and normative and moral, and continue to express your strong disagreement with my assertions based on that assumption.
So can we now drop this utter nonsense that the fetus is just part of the woman's body.
More silliness. Do you seriously believe @Moliere and I don't know all that already? There's little point in our debating a rabid fanatic. Calm down and treat your interlocutors with some respect or else go away. We're not taking the piss; we really do believe what we're saying.
And I see no reason, then, to not consider the fetus as a part of the mother -- considering that that there is a continuation between the two
Can't you see the circularity here?
"I see no reason...not to consider the fetus as part of the mother [because] there is a continuation between the two" (i.e. the fetus is part of the mother). Whether or not there is a continuation is the issue under debate. There is a connection obviously through the umbilical cord and across the placental barrier. I've just demonstrated why this is not a bodily continuation because an organism that does not contain your DNA and has a full set of organs of its own and is (in the case of late fetuses) viable on its own is not your body. On your side you have no argument at all. All you are saying is it's part of her body because it's in her body.
More silliness. Do you seriously believe Moliere and I don't know all that already? There's little point in our debating a rabid fanatic. Calm down and treat your interlocutors with some respect or else go away. We're not taking the piss; we really do believe what we're saying.
Moliere didn't know it as far as I can see. You weren't mentioned. The idea that my position represents that of a rabid fanatic [s]because[/s] when I'm presenting the science is ludicrous. And telling me to go away is pathetic. You are not immune to being passionate in your arguments either as is evident from this post and plenty of others.
What you described is really basic stuff. It would help you understand our case--if you actually want to--if you assume we know stuff like that and try to interpret our positions in a better light. If you don't know how to apply the principle of charity you shouldn't be here.
You weren't mentioned.
You mentioned the position that the fetus is part of the woman's body, which I claimed and which you responded to. I'm part of that debate.
The idea that my position represents that of a rabid fanatic because I'm presenting the science is ludicrous.
But that's not what I said. This is simple intellectual dishonesty. I could quote the examples of fanaticism from your posts, but you know exactly what they are so I won't bother. You're not in this for the debate, but because you are raging.
And telling me to go away is pathetic. You are not immune to being passionate in your arguments either as is evident from this post.
But I said you should go away if you don't treat your interlocutors with some respect, not if you get passionate.
EDIT: What it comes down to is that your attitude is pissing me off. You keep wanting to draw a line under things, to say things are settled. You are plainly annoyed that people with views you don't like persist in holding them. That's why I'm attacking you, not because you're passionate.
"I see no reason...not to consider the fetus as part of the mother [because] there is a continuation between the two" (i.e. the fetus is part of the mother). Whether or not there is a continuation is the issue under debate. There is a connection obviously through the umbilical cord and across the placental barrier. I've just demonstrated why this is not a bodily continuation because an organism that does not contain your DNA and has a full set of organs of its own and is (in the case of late fetuses) viable on its own is not your body. On your side you have no argument at all. All you are saying is it's part of her body because it's in her body.
Why is it not your body? Mayhaps because a body, in your view, is defined by cellular characteristics?
You consider these things relevant. I can see that. But I don't. And, besides, if you were consistent than you would move your line back from the third trimester -- considering that the zygote also has a unique set of DNA from the mother, would therefore be alien and, in your view, separate from the mother.
I did? It just isn't even relevant. It does not matter that the fetus has DNA that differs. It does not matter that the immunological perspective treats the fetus as an alien. Because these things don't define what has rights.
But I said you should go away if you don't treat your interlocutors with some respect, not if you get passionate.
If you can't see the hypocrisy in this, have a look through your own post history. As for fanaticism, if it's fanaticism to passionately oppose a view that would give new born babies no more rights than animals or that would consider the killing of 8 1/2 month fetuses who pose no threat to the life of the mother perfectly OK, I plead guilty. If I go too far I'm happy for any of the mods not involved in the conversation to edit my posts. That hasn't happened so far and I doubt it will to be honest.
Now, to be fair, I can understand why you are passionate in your disagreement. If you are right I am basically condoning murder of innocent children for the sake of convenience. Catholics feel the same way. So the conversation is clearly balanced in my favor in terms of remaining light, since I don't believe that this is the result of my conclusion, where you do believe that.
But I would at least encourage you to look into the foundations and history of your beliefs (the whole "killing a fetus is murder" is, historically speaking, very recent -- it has always been serious, but it has rarely been equated to murder until recently). And, of course, I will defend mine if called into question -- especially on a philosophy forum of all places.
But I wanted to extend an olive branch. I do actually enjoy these conversations. Like I said, it's one of my favorite topics in philosophy for the very reason that people really do care about it.
Reply to Baden No, I'm sure you know that's not what I mean by fanaticism. This is really the most important bit from my last post:
EDIT: What it comes down to is that your attitude is pissing me off. You keep wanting to draw a line under things, to say things are settled. You are plainly annoyed that people with views you don't like persist in holding them. That's why I'm attacking you, not because you're passionate.
Honestly Moliere, I don't know why you keep mentioning Catholics with me except as some kind of odd attempt to tar me with religious beliefs I don't have. I only came into this debate to argue about super-late-term abortions. Hanover and Sapientia aren't Catholic either to my knowledge nor are the vast majority of people who oppose your views.
What it comes down to is that your attitude is pissing me off. You keep wanting to draw a line under things, to say things are settled. You are plainly annoyed that people with views you don't like persist in holding them. That's why I'm attacking you, not because you're passionate.
Yes, people do get annoyed on issues like this as they do on terrorism and other life and death stuff. I know you do, so please stop playing the holier than thou. For my part, I'll try to be nicer to @Moliere.
But I would at least encourage you to look into the foundations and history of your beliefs (the whole "killing a fetus is murder" is, historically speaking, very recent -- it has always been serious, but it has rarely been equated to murder until recently). And, of course, I will defend mine if called into question -- especially on a philosophy forum of all places.
I want to make this clear again. I don't think "killing a fetus is murder" necessarily. My objection specifically was to the killing of an about-to-be-born fetus on the grounds that it is human and should be granted some protection and that the harm done to the mother to carry the birth through is unlikely to outweigh the harm done to it except in very exceptional circumstances. Earlier abortions should be considered based on the balance of harm and the less developed the fetus the less harm that can be said to be being done to it.
But I wanted to extend an olive branch. I do actually enjoy these conversations. Like I said, it's one of my favorite topics in philosophy for the very reason that people really do care about it.
I'm not sure how much I enjoy it. I find it disturbing sometimes. But I accept your olive branch and will try to keep my vociferous disagreement with your view on this issue polite for the sake of the debate.
I could sum up my view like this: A world where people are free to treat babies as they do animals and where abortions could be carried out at any time for any reason would be a much less humane and a much less compassionate world than this one is, and this one isn't exactly winning many awards for humanity and compassion as it is.
I would locate personhood in a complete and functioning brain as part of a functioning body.
I certainly would not. To me, personhood has nothing to do with brains except incidentally. I suspect this is the root of the disagreements here. Biological reductionism is culturally mainstream now, and I think this has a lot to do with ethical debates. If a person is defined as a certain configuration of organs and physiological processes, then the concept of a rational moral agent or moral subject, with his or her own reasons for acting in certain ways--and therby the concept of a citizen or rights-bearing member of a community--is rendered irrelevant. I think this is what it comes down to. I'm tempted to say that your own trajectory, from pro-woman to pro-fetus, mirrors an ideological trajectory in Western culture, away from a view of human beings as rational moral agents.
TheWillowOfDarknessMarch 10, 2016 at 11:11#95300 likes
Reply to jamalrob It's really about the ethics of killing foetuses/babies and the ethics of whether women can decide to remove foetuses/babies from their own respective bodies. Most of the attempts to define "personhood" and appeals to biology are indexical pivots to influence someone one way or the other. What is really a debate about the ethics becomes a semantic quagmire, because everyone is throwing out shallow exclamations rather than speaking about the underlying ethical positions they hold.
This looks like a perverse reduction of childbirth to a mechanistic process, ignoring its human significance. Clearly, birth and separation are part of the same event (or process if you prefer). It's an event in which a new person is initiated into the human world, into society. This is what matters to morality, not any mechanical stipulations or biological facts.
I'm not ignoring its significance; I'm saying that your emphasis on it is misplaced. It boils down to symbolism and tradition, and overlooks what's more important, which are indeed related to those biological facts. I say "related" because those facts won't in and of themselves compel one towards a certain view. You must have the right set of values.
And I think it's quite silly to say that in regarding birth as the basic cut-off point we are being arbitrary. You may not agree that birth is where it's at, but it's hardly arbitrary. Birth is the centrally important, ultimate event of a pregnancy, the moment when a person comes to be, or begins to be, and the moment the mother's months of bodily change, discomfort, and anticipation have all been leading up to. For many it is the most significant, most life-changing moment of their lives.
But it [i]is[/I] arbitrary, because the grounds for choosing the moment of birth as the moment when the baby deserves to be granted rights aren't based on reason, but rather on symbolism and tradition. It existed before birth, and where else but the human world? It is human after all, and it necessarily exists in the world. It is not a fully independent member of society either before birth or after birth, but it deserves certain rights nonetheless.
There is a new person in the world: this is what birth means, what makes it significant in all human cultures.
What's perverse here is not my emphasis on biological facts, but your overestimation of symbolism and culture. Culture can be backwards or enlightened. Your defence is similar to the defence of religion when it hinders progress.
Reply to TheWillowOfDarkness Well, maybe. I was suggesting something like the opposite: that the concept of personhood underlies, or at least profoundly influences, our ethical positions.
Which scientific literature tells us when something ought to be treated as a bearer of rights?
You're taking things out of context. You said that your position depends on your being "correct in considering the fetus an organ". That is what I claimed is in conflict with scientific literature. As is the denial that the foetus has organs or "anything at all".
Reply to Sapientia I don't think you see quite what I mean by the social or cultural. Either that or you grossly underestimate it. I'm not talking about any old tradition or custom. I'm talking about what it means to be human and moral. But I admit that I'm only half-heartedly explaining things; to fill in the gaps would take several monster posts. This might give you some idea:
Persons are agentive beings who develop through profound embeddedness in socio-cultural contexts and within inalienable relations to and interactions with others.
—Anna Stetsenko, in The Psychology of Personhood
But it goes back to my reply above to BC. Biological reductionism often seems to be the default position, which I think is why the abortion issue is seeing the reactionary, regressive pressures that you and Baden represent. (Yes, more name-calling, I know)
TheWillowOfDarknessMarch 10, 2016 at 11:39#95350 likes
For sure it influences our ethical positions. Persons get protection from harmful actions. Whether that be an unborn foetus/baby from a mother who wants to kill it to end her pregnancy or a women who gets to choose whether her body continues to carry a baby.
Personhood is an ethical position. It signifies who is important, who matters enough to protect for certain actions .
It is, itself, an ethical position. One is not a person by having a functioning brain. They are (under that argument) a person because this individual, who has a functioning brain, ought to be protected. Personhood is the expression that someone ought to belong to the world; that their interests and presence matter. It is this ethical value which falls by the wayside when abortion is discussed. In effect, people keep what's really driving their position hidden. The squabble over semantics of "personhood" rather than actually stating their (ethical) position on personhood. We get second order claims about what must make a person, rather than proper statements about who has personhood.
But it is arbitrary, because the grounds for choosing the moment of birth as the moment when the baby deserves to be granted rights aren't based on reason, but rather on symbolism and tradition.
But that doesn't make it arbitrary. If you're right, it makes it habitual or conventional at best, irrational at worst. But you're wrong anyway. I am not assigning personhood to a baby on the basis of tradition; I am accurately describing what it means to be a person and how persons come to be, and the significance of childbirth. Moral, social and cultural significance is the primary issue in matters of morality. Note that moral, social and cultural significance is about much more than "symbolism and tradition". It is also about, for example, what it is to feel pain: feeling pain is a subjective experience belonging to an individual, and not mere nociception.
It existed before birth, and where else but the human world? It is human after all, and it necessarily exists in the world. It is not a fully independent member of society either before birth or after birth, but it deserves certain rights nonetheless.
I don't agree. The extent to which a fetus is in the human world--by which I mean the world that a person (the pregnant woman) is socially embedded in but which is external to their body--is the extent to which it has taken on a significance to the mother (and perhaps the father) as a proto-person.
You reject my answer to the question, "When does a fetus have rights?". I ask for one from you, but get none.
That isn't true. The other two can correct me if I'm wrong, but all three of us (four of us, if you include Hanover in addition to Baden, Bitter Crank and myself) have - and have expressed - the belief that a foetus has (or effectively has) rights at some point between it's initial formation and birth, and I have appealed to the Abortion Act 1967 as a guide.
EDIT: I was curious so I searched PF and found this:
[quote=To Mega Therion]To make my implicit argument for the morally unproblematic nature of every kind of abortion explicit, embryos and fetuses are not persons, and they are a part of another person's body. As nonpersons, they can have no rights, and the human person that carries them has a right to dispose of her body as she sees fit, particularly since her actions do not impact other persons.[/quote]
(Y)
One is not a person by having a functioning brain. They are (under that argument) a person because this individual, who has a functioning brain, ought to be protected. Personhood is the expression someone ought to belong the world, that their interests and presence matters.
I understand this, and I agree with it as far as it goes.
It is this ethical value which someone time falls by the wayside when abortion is discussed. In effect, people keep what's really driving their position hidden. The squabble over semantics of "personhood" rather than actually stating their (ethical) position on personhood. We get a second order claims about what must make a person, rather than proper statements about who has personhood.
I don't think you see quite what I mean by the social or cultural. Either that or you grossly underestimate it. I'm not talking about any old tradition or custom. I'm talking about what it means to be human and moral. But I admit that I'm only half-heartedly explaining things; to fill in the gaps would take several monster posts. This might give you some idea:
Persons are agentive beings who develop through profound embeddedness in socio-cultural contexts and within inalienable relations to and interactions with others.
—Anna Stetsenko, in The Psychology of Personhood
But it goes back to my reply above to BC. Biological reductionism often seems to be the default position, which I think is why the abortion issue is seeing the reactionary, regressive pressures that you and Baden represent. (Yes, more name-calling, I know)
I think that there is merit in that description of what it is to be a person. It probably works well in practice in many a situation too. Just not this one, which is problematic. I don't have much of a problem in accepting that definition of personhood, and, by presumed implication, accepting that a foetus cannot be a person at any point prior to birth. But it wouldn't change my stance that a 38-week-old foetus deserves rights or protection or worth or sanctity or however you want to word it.
Reply to Sapientia Fair enough. I can appreciate that. In fact I don't know if I'd say that late abortions are, necessarily, always morally unproblematic, for the reason that they are never morally unproblematic for the mother, for whom it is always a difficult decision. When the fetus has all the characteristics you describe, it can become effectively a proto-person in the mind of the mother (and others), which does make it a moral problem to have an abortion so late. But not all ethical decisions can be determined by law. There is, I'm glad to say, room for ethical manoeuvre outwith the law, and this is one area where I think the law should get out of the way.
But that doesn't make it arbitrary. If you're right, it makes it habitual or conventional at best, irrational at worst.
That's more or less what the word "arbitrary" means, isn't it? Anyway, that's what I meant. There's a contrast between that and reason, as Hume noted with regards to the basis for belief in causality.
But you're wrong anyway. I am not assigning personhood to a baby on the basis of tradition; I am accurately describing what it means to be a person and how persons come to be, and the significance of childbirth. Moral, social and cultural significance is the primary issue in matters of morality. Note that moral, social and cultural significance is about much more than "symbolism and tradition". It is also about, for example, what it is to feel pain: feeling pain is a subjective experience belonging to an individual, and not mere nociception.
Morally, socially, and culturally, we ought to grant a foetus of 38 weeks certain rights in law, and we effectively do here and many other places. As for pain, just as I think it'd be wrong to kill a newborn baby on a whim if no pain were involved, I think that it'd be wrong to kill an unborn baby on a whim if no pain were involved. I say "on a whim" because both you and Moliere have made comments about no legal restrictions, so whims would be legitimate. You can't simply dismiss these counterexamples as conservative rhetoric.
I don't agree. The extent to which a fetus is in the human world--by which I mean the world that a person (the pregnant woman) is socially embedded in but which is external to their body--is the extent to which it has taken on a significance to the mother (and perhaps the father) as a proto-person.
And I don't agree with that. The extent to which it has taken on significance should not be exclusive to the judgement of the parent/s, as that will inevitably be problematic in at least some cases: those cases in which the judgement of the parent/s is poor. The state should step in where necessary.
Persons are agentive beings who develop through profound embeddedness in socio-cultural contexts and within inalienable relations to and interactions with others.
—Anna Stetsenko, in The Psychology of Personhood
But it goes back to my reply above to BC. Biological reductionism often seems to be the default position, which I think is why the abortion issue is seeing the reactionary, regressive pressures that you and Baden represent. (Yes, more name-calling, I know)
I think I've made it clear numerous times that I don't necessarily disagree with this definition. In fact, it seems quite a good one to me. But the latter part of your post betrays your and @Moliere's consistent attempts to stereotype your opponents. I mean if our position is reactionary, you're going to have to come up with some new vocabulary for those who would force a woman who had been raped and is suicidal to carry a pregnancy through its full term, which is another form of cruelty I would oppose as much as you would.
As for pain, just as I think it'd be wrong to kill a newborn baby on a whim if no pain were involved, I think that it'd be wrong to kill an unborn baby on a whim if no pain were involved. I say "on a whim" because both you and Moliere have made comments about no legal restrictions, so whims would be legitimate. You can't simply dismiss these counterexamples as conservative rhetoric.
I think I can dismiss them as conservative rhetoric, because the evidence I've already linked to shows that women do not do it on a whim. But in the end it is up to them, whether it is on a whim or not, and that's what is of prime importance to me: the woman's autonomy and human dignity. Also important to me is that women get the medical attention they need as early as possible, and restrictions on late abortions only hinder that.
I mean if our position is reactionary, you're going to have to come up with some new vocabulary for those who would force a woman who had been raped and is suicidal to carry a pregnancy through its full term, which is another form of cruelty which I would oppose as much as you would.
If this woman only managed to get to the abortion clinic in the third trimester, would you still oppose a law that forced her to go through with the birth? For the sake of argument let's say she's not suicidal or at risk otherwise.
And just because you're not extreme (or should I say consistent?) doesn't make you non-reactionary.
Also important to me is that women get the medical attention they need as early as possible, and restrictions on late abortions only hinder that.
That line of argument is much better than what we've had from the pro-side throughout most of this debate. It's a concern for me too, but my understanding of established medical ethics is that it endorses strongly advising the patient to do what's in the best interest of both the mother and the baby, not just the mother. This is part of a wider problem of people disregarding medical advice. If patient care is your primary concern, then it would make more sense to endorse increased regulation and strengthening the enforcement of regulation to ensure that the patient gets the required medical attention when it's needed, although I doubt whether - or to what extent - it'd be workable in practice.
If this woman only managed to get to the abortion clinic in the third trimester, would you still oppose a law that forced her to go through with the birth? For the sake of argument let's say she's not suicidal or at risk otherwise.
It seems a very unlikely scenario that a woman would need more than 27 weeks to find an abortion clinic after being raped, but I'll answer anyway. First of all, whether I think the abortion would be justified in a case like this would depend on a variety of variables. If the woman concerned was just a week or two before giving birth, most of her suffering would probably have already occurred and be unpreventable, so I would think on balance the greater harm would be to abort the fetus. If she was a month or two before birth and was suffering greatly (even if not suicidal) it might not be. I'm not sure how you would draft a law that would cover the complexities here and if my only choice was to oppose or to not oppose one that would force a mother to go through with a pregnancy after the third trimester in all cases barring a threat to the life of the mother (i.e. including a rape that didn't make the mother suicidal), I would find it very difficult to make a call. I'd just have to think more about it. One very important reason I oppose some abortions, above and beyond the harm to the fetus, is that usually the mother has some responsibility in causing the pregnancy. In the case of rape, there is not only no responsibility, there is a greatly increased risk of psychological suffering being caused by the pregnancy. That obviously carries a lot of weight.
I'd say because the appropriate way of handling its special-ness, with specific reference to whether or not a woman may obtain an abortion, is not and cannot be done by the state -- fines or jail for, in the more humane scenario, the doctor.
Otherwise, I'd be open to hearing what you had in mind. I can see lines being drawn with respect to what may be done with a fetus. I can even see a moral appeal to something different than my proposed line of birth for the law. But I don't think that moral appeal is strong enough to warrant prohibition.
(EDIT: Did some quick edits to make my sentences less ambiguous)
At the other end of a life, the loss of a functioning brain (brain death or profound irreversible coma) is the end of personhood.
— Bitter Crank
Just to make clear, I wouldn't say this. Someone who has lived a life has a separate body, a history, and many relationships, rights, and so forth, even after death. Or if someone is in a coma, for instance, or has brain damage. Since it isn't the state of the brain or cellular structure which defines personhood, under my theory, neither does the deterioration of the brain deny a person their rights, property, and so forth.
This requires some unpacking. You have provided some additional details about this view, but I can't find it. (Spending too much time on philosophy often results in badly scorched gruel.)
If embodiment (having a cellular structure, brain, senses, blood, guts -- all the gory details) doesn't define one's personhood, I am not clear about where you think personhood resides, if it resides anywhere. Granted, legal systems define personhood in various ways; dead people leave estates with their name attached to it (but executors carry out the will of the deceased); memory and the written and printed word, recordings, photographs, etc. give an after-death existence to people, and as long as the texts are in circulation (sometimes for millennia) a 'personhood' can continue to exist. Christians officially think that Jesus still exists, in heaven, quite a-corporeally. Or maybe not. Haven't been there to check it out. Billions of people think they will survive death a-corporeally in heaven.
But... not everybody looks at it that way.
So, where is the person and how is the person constituted?
If embodiment (having a cellular structure, brain, senses, blood, guts -- all the gory details) doesn't define one's personhood, I am not clear about where you think personhood resides
Apart from having senses, which is a form of embodiment shared with other animals, none of the things that you mention constitute embodiment, but rather are prerequisites for the acquisition of embodied capabilities and statuses. Human children acquire most of the forms of embodiment (or come to inhabit those forms) that are characteristically human long after birth (e.g. months or years) -- which doesn't entail that they can't be persons before this, of course. But I would not equate personhood with the acquisition of those capabilities either since the latter is a matter of degree while the former is a categorical distinction.
One of the reasons why there can be rites of passage marking birth (broadly conceived as the acquisition of personhood) or adulthood is because the transition that is thus celebrated is categorical (e.g. one is either a person or isn't, either is an adult with voting rights, etc. or isn't) and not because there is something "objective" and independent of those rites that marks us as persons or adults. Also, when some of the requisite capacities (e.g. "sensori-motor", cognitive, emotional, linguistic, intellectual, etc) aren't yet developed, or fail to develop, the celebrated status that is normally their home usually is nevertheless granted proleptically by mature persons (or adults) both as a form of help ("scaffolding") for the development of the individual being granted this status (and an assistance to the exercises of her incompletely developed capabilities), and as providing a social circumstance that constitutes the fact for that individual having this status. That is, one important dimension of the celebration of birth (or of adulthood) is the fact that it is a performative act, in John Austin's sense, rather than a declarative act.
Finally, I would note that some confusion in these debates, it seems to me, may stem from the inability to distinguish (1) the concept of a human being, which is a sortal concept (or "substance form" concept) that supplies criteria for identifying an individual as being the same one from conception until death, from (2) the concepts of a person, or of an adult, which are "phase sortals" as David Wiggins defines them: concepts that only apply to individuals who are in specific phases of their development -- where "development" can be understood to refer to socially constituted, or socially granted statuses, in many cases. Hence it can make sense, and be consistent, to say that (1) I saw *you* in the womb, when *you* were a fetus (e.g. through ultrasonography), that (2) you are a human being, that (3) killing a human being is categorically wrong (and always constitutes murder), but that (4) had you been aborted at that time this would not have constituted murder. This is a consistent tetrad, in my view. It may be the habitual conflations of a sortal concept (e.g. the concept of a human being) with a phase sortal concept (the concept of a person) that sometimes sustains the judgment that abortion always constitutes murder. (Euthanasia also can be justified in some circumstances, in my view, consistently with the categorical significance of the prohibition of murder, but the reasoning is different since its justification doesn't require the withholding of the status of personhood to the person being euthanized.)
But I would not equate personhood with the acquisition of those capabilities either since the latter is a matter of degree while the former is a categorical distinction.
Is there an argument in favour of viewing personhood as a categorical distinction as opposed to a matter of degree, or are you presupposing that position?
Is there an argument in favour of viewing personhood as a categorical distinction as opposed to a matter of degree, or are you presupposing that position?
I think it is presupposed by society, not by me, rather in the way being married also is a categorical status rather than a measure of the closeness of a relationship between two adults that may or may not have crossed some conventionally defined threshold of commitment or intimacy, say. But it is important to distinguish such categorical social "presupposition" from mere conventional prejudices through recognizing the widespread consequences of the fact that such social recognitions, we had better call them, have performative significance.
One other example could be the value conferred to genuine dollar bills compared with the lack of value of counterfeit dollar bills. It is likewise a collective performative act that constitutes the value of the genuine dollar bill and that marks off any counterfeit specimen has having zero monetary value, quite categorically, (rather than as having a positive value proportional to the likelihood that it could be passed off fraudulently as a real one, say). Yet, it is clear that the exchange practice within which the categorical status is granted to currencies legally issued (and within which counterfeits thereby acquire some parasitic "value") is a prerequisite to their having this categorical status.
Nevertheless, it would be nonsensical to say that whatever suitably resembles a dollar bill has a monetary value that ranges from zero to 1$ in proportion to the degree to which it shares the physical characteristics of a paradigmatic or "genuine" dollar bill -- and that therefore the genuine items themselves owe their value to their high degree of physical conformity with the "standard" or "ideal" dollar bill (in a manner similar to the way some people seek to measure the "personhood" of fetuses by going through a checklist of empirical criteria). This would misconstrue the modal and categorical significance of the genuine/counterfeit ("presupposed") distinction that we are making, that is part and parcel of the practice through which we institute monetary value, and without which this practice would collapse.
Your answer, as well written as it is, only reaffirms the presupposition in the performative significance. If personhood (or marriage) is not presupposed to be categorical then the performative significance is altered but not eliminated.
The counterfeit currency example seemingly relies on a mistaken theory of currency value. In representative currencies, a counterfeit note has no value because the promise of the respresentation is false. The counterfeit note can have value not connected to the representation (e.g., as a work of art), but as a representative currency the value is always nil because the note does not have a corresponding good to ground the value. That owes to the nature of the currency, not the accuracy of the symbol of representation. Other forms of currency, for instance a commodity currency, the value is tied to the characteristics of the genuine article and the counterfeit, and can be non-zero and measured by degree. In fiat currencies, the counterfeit note has value in proportion to the fiat. If the institution that issues the value declaration confers value to a counterfeit note, it becomes legal tender, regardless of the accuracy.
Honestly Moliere, I don't know why you keep mentioning Catholics with me except as some kind of odd attempt to tar me with religious beliefs I don't have. I only came into this debate to argue about super-late-term abortions. Hanover and Sapientia aren't Catholic either to my knowledge nor are the vast majority of people who oppose your views
For myself, at least, your position is hard to distinguish from the Catholic position -- not in its effects, but in its justification. That's why I mention it. It's not a tar. As I noted before I can at least respect the Catholic position because it has a justification -- one which I do not agree with in the slightest, but it is consistent and I believe they hold such beliefs in good faith.
But your latter posts seem to strike out into a new territory that I had not been picking up on.
I want to make this clear again. I don't think "killing a fetus is murder" necessarily. My objection specifically was to the killing of an about-to-be-born fetus on the grounds that it is human and should be granted some protection and that the harm done to the mother to carry the birth through is unlikely to outweigh the harm done to it except in very exceptional circumstances. Earlier abortions should be considered based on the balance of harm and the less developed the fetus the less harm that can be said to be being done to it.
I'm not sure how much I enjoy it. I find it disturbing sometimes. But I accept your olive branch and will try to keep my vociferous disagreement with your view on this issue polite for the sake of the debate.
I could sum up my view like this: A world where people are free to treat babies as they do animals and where abortions could be carried out at any time for any reason would be a much less humane and a much less compassionate world than this one is, and this one isn't exactly winning many awards for humanity and compassion as it is.
I would ask two things here -- the empirical question and then also what your justification might be.
It seems to me that late term abortions are rarely sought out as it is. So I would wonder if, even granting that late term abortions are not compassionate, the world would actually be less compassionate if it were legal in all cases.
I don't think that a fetus is the same as animals. But I'm wondering what sorts of rights you would assign to a fetus, and why they would have rights too? What makes them special enough to prohibit abortion, for instance?
You're taking things out of context. You said that your position depends on your being "correct in considering the fetus an organ". That is what I claimed is in conflict with scientific literature. As is the denial that the foetus has organs or "anything at all".
Ownership is not settled by scientific literature, and I made clear that I introduced the notion of an organ as an analogy. Or, at least -- if I did not, then take this as a sign that I mean this in analogy. I don't think I'm moving the goal post there, but if I am then let's just say I am and pointing to where it is now.
That isn't true. The other two can correct me if I'm wrong, but all three of us (four of us, if you include Hanover in addition to Baden, Bitter Crank and myself) have - and have expressed - the belief that a foetus has (or effectively has) rights at some point between it's initial formation and birth, and I have appealed to the Abortion Act 1967 as a guide.
Where I'm unclear, though, is where you place the line, and why you place the line where you place it. I have given an answer to both questions.
It seems a very unlikely scenario that a woman would need more than 27 weeks to find an abortion clinic after being raped, but I'll answer anyway. First of all, whether I think the abortion would be justified in a case like this would depend on a variety of variables. If the woman concerned was just a week or two before giving birth, most of her suffering would probably have already occurred and be unpreventable, so I would think on balance the greater harm would be to abort the fetus. If she was a month or two before birth and was suffering greatly (even if not suicidal) it might not be. I'm not sure how you would draft a law that would cover the complexities here and if my only choice was to oppose or to not oppose one that would force a mother to go through with a pregnancy after the third trimester in all cases barring a threat to the life of the mother (i.e. including a rape that didn't make the mother suicidal), I would find it very difficult to make a call. I'd just have to think more about it. One very important reason I oppose some abortions, above and beyond the harm to the fetus, is that usually the mother has some responsibility in causing the pregnancy. In the case of rape, there is not only no responsibility, there is a greatly increased risk of psychological suffering being caused by the pregnancy. That obviously carries a lot of weight.
There are two things I wanted to note here.
One, you may be surprised how long someone can go without knowing they are pregnant. I know a person who only gained 5 pounds throughout her pregnancy. It simply did not occur to her that she should check. It wasn't until late in her 2nd trimester that she did, and then you have to actually schedule the abortion -- which can take a long time. It's not like you can just go in and get it done. At that point, it was a third trimester abortion, if not as late as we are discussing here.
This requires some unpacking. You have provided some additional details about this view, but I can't find it. (Spending too much time on philosophy often results in badly scorched gruel.)
What would you recommend, other than philosophy, we discuss said topic with? What is better suited, in your view?
If embodiment (having a cellular structure, brain, senses, blood, guts -- all the gory details) doesn't define one's personhood, I am not clear about where you think personhood resides, if it resides anywhere. Granted, legal systems define personhood in various ways; dead people leave estates with their name attached to it (but executors carry out the will of the deceased); memory and the written and printed word, recordings, photographs, etc. give an after-death existence to people, and as long as the texts are in circulation (sometimes for millennia) a 'personhood' can continue to exist. Christians officially think that Jesus still exists, in heaven, quite a-corporeally. Or maybe not. Haven't been there to check it out. Billions of people think they will survive death a-corporeally in heaven.
But... not everybody looks at it that way.
So, where is the person and how is the person constituted?
I think you have to at least have an environment, both physical and social, in which you can develop the capacity to experience a world separate from yourself. I don't think you have to have a fully formed identity, but, at least as a human being, you do have to be accepted into a social network and raised, taken care of, form beliefs from, learn language from, and so forth.
You have to have a history of some kind, social relationships, beliefs in the permanency of objects, and so forth. It is constituted over time, and there is no one point where everyone actually obtains personhood. It's more likely a gestalt phenomena that varies from person to person.
However, because I think you have to have the capacity to experience, an environment which allows you to form beliefs about yourself being separate from it, a history, a social world being taught to you -- well, it's not just unlikely, but downright impossible for the unborn to be persons. I like the idea of putting the line in the impossible region, however, so birth -- both as a conventionally understood moment of significance, and easily understood -- works for satisfying the proper respect which persons are due while simultaneously remaining conservative and safe.
Since, at least to my view, persons are the sorts of beings which have rights (in our society).
Your answer, as well written as it is, only reaffirms the presupposition in the performative significance. If personhood (or marriage) is not presupposed to be categorical then the performative significance is altered but not eliminated.
The counterfeit currency example seemingly relies on a mistaken theory of currency value. In representative currencies, a counterfeit note has no value because the promise of the respresentation is false. The counterfeit note can have value not connected to the representation (e.g., as a work of art), but as a representative currency the value is always nil because the note does not have a corresponding good to ground the value. That owes to the nature of the currency, not the accuracy of the symbol of representation.
Yes. It is precisely this categorical feature of a representative currency (or of a fiat currency -- the difference is inessential for my purpose) that makes it a suitable example. What you call "the nature of the currency" is conferred, or instituted, by the performative act of its emission. A promise is an archetypal performative act, so is the backing of a currency by a government or financial institution.
A feature of my example that I may not have made clear enough, tough, and which was the main point of the analogy, is the fact that the performative signifiance of the act through which monetary value is conferred has a dual level structure, as it were. On the one hand, a categorical status is conferred and, on the other hand, the complex and multifaceted surrounding practice through which this performative act can be accomplished makes such acts possible in the first place. One can't make a promise (as a performative act) in a social context where the practice of promise-giving and promise-keeping (with all its subtle and tacitly understood expectations, caveats, admissible excuses, etc.) hasn't been instituted. So, what I am claiming to be categorical is the performative act that establishes a banknote as legal tender (such that it thereby acquires some value at all) but not necessarily the amount (or nature) of value thereby conferred. The latter may be pegged to the (variable) value of the gold standard, say (in the case of a representative currency), or to other dynamic features of the surrounding financial practices.
And so is it with personhood, adulthood (or marriage) on the account I am sketching. The performative act through which personhood is conferred to a human being is categorical but doesn't define what it is to be a person anymore that the fiat (or backing) of a financial institution defines what it consists in for the currency it emits to constitute money and to have the sort of value that it thereby acquires. That is rather established by the background practice and economic circumstances. And likewise, what it is to be a person is highly constrained and conditioned by the sorts of social practices, modes of embodiment and specific background circumstances that Bitter Crank, Moliere and Jamalrob have stressed in previous posts.
Hence, if this makes sense, there isn't a contradiction in stressing both the developmental, and hence gradual, character of the actualization of the abilities associated with personhood, and the categorical nature of the performative act through which the status is conferred.
Interestingly enough, while Bitter Crank and Moliere have both stressed the social background that sustains the features associated with the character of personhood (or humanity) that infants or fetuses come to manifest, those considerations have seemed to militate for the categorical attribution of the status of a person being accorded to her both before (Bitter Crank) and after (or no sooner than) she was born (Moliere). That's because one can stress either the concrete social construction of the specific background that serves as a receptive structure which the infant will come to inhabit (as Bitter Crank stressed), or the actual development of her abilities to more fully inhabit her natural and social world (as Moliere stressed).
While it falls short from settling the debate about the time after which abortion is impermissible, I think my suggestion about the dual level structure of the performative act though which personhood is (categorically) conferred to a newborn somewhat alleviates this quasi paradox. Since what is thereby conferred isn't a status that is defined by the performative act, one is thereby free, one the one hand, to recognize personhood as being prefigured, prepared, and partially realized even before the act through which it is conferred, and also, on the other hand to recognize that the characteristic human capabilities associated with personhood can fail to be fully actualized until long after this status has been conferred.
Ownership is not settled by scientific literature, and I made clear that I introduced the notion of an organ as an analogy.
But you can't credibly deny that a foetus at that stage has those features that I mentioned. How else would you word it? You can talk about ownership all you like, but it won't change the facts. I don't understand why you think that the concept of ownership, which you presumably think entails some sort of self-awareness or some other quality which a foetus (at any stage of development) lacks, and then suddenly gains immediately after birth, justifies abortion at such a late stage. I don't think that that makes sense, I don't think that that reflects reality, and I don't think that it'd be good if those in power thought as you do.
I pointed out some serious flaws with your analogy, and in light of them, I don't think that it can be salvaged. It's hardly surprising that you've reached the wrong conclusion when you start with a false premise.
Where I'm unclear, though, is where you place the line, and why you place the line where you place it. I have given an answer to both questions.
So have I and so have the others. I don't need to give an exact answer. Even if the line isn't drawn in the best possible place, a line within the right range is better than no line at all. (I'm talking about prior to birth, obviously). The Abortion Act 1967 seems to be working, given that there is evidence that late-term abortions are rare. But even if it isn't working as well as we might like, that's no good reason to remove the safety net.
It should be clear to you that a foetus at the stage we've discussed is very similar to a newborn, and more so than any organ in the human body. If that isn't clear to you, then I suggest that you read up on the scientific literature on the subject. Perhaps think it over a bit more. Baden has already pointed out some important differences, as have I, and as has Bitter Crank. You yourself have explicitly acknowledged that a foetus is more special than a gall bladder. That's a step in the right direction. I urge you to go further.
I know a person who only gained 5 pounds throughout her pregnancy. It simply did not occur to her that she should check. It wasn't until late in her 2nd trimester that she did, and then you have to actually schedule the abortion -- which can take a long time. It's not like you can just go in and get it done. At that point, it was a third trimester abortion, if not as late as we are discussing here.
It was her responsibility to take sufficient precaution. That it simply did not occur to her is not an excuse. I doubt that she was so uneducated as not to know that this sort of thing can and does happen far too often. I bet she felt guilty afterwards, and rightly so.
What would you recommend, other than philosophy, we discuss said topic with? What is better suited, in your view?
Wisdom. Wisdom leads to the right conclusions. It has lead most of the U.S. to the right conclusion. Any fool can use philosophy and end up with his head up his arse. Or perhaps they were in that situation to begin with and are merely using philosophy as a means to justify their arse-headedness. It's a bit like shaving. Some people are better at it than others. Some people end up with cuts all over their face.
I like the idea of putting the line in the impossible region, however, so birth -- both as a conventionally understood moment of significance, and easily understood -- works for satisfying the proper respect which persons are due while simultaneously remaining conservative and safe.
I find your prioritisation of convention and understandability over actual human life sickening. You aren't giving [i]them[/I] the proper respect they're due, and it certainly isn't safe for the unborn baby that ends up getting killed, is it? But it's alright, because it isn't a person. Just like how a Jew isn't a person. First you dehumanise, then you allow to be killed. I'd rather be a Catholic than a Nazi.
And in anticipation of your denial, you are dehumanising. You're purposefully overlooking or playing down human qualities, and you purposefully exclude from the human category altogether. Unborn babies are appropriately treated as human, as opposed to an organ or body part, in many ways. For example, at the later stage of development, they can hear. People talk to it. It has a gender. People refer to it as "him" or "her". It sometimes has a name which is used in reference to it. People evidently care about it in a significant way, and not in quite the same way as they do a gall bladder.
But you can't credibly deny that a foetus at that stage has those features that I mentioned. How else would you word it?
It's not the wording which I have an issue with as much as how you are conceptualizing the situation. Ownership over property, rights, and the rest all come with designating something in the world as a who.
"The bread has cheese on it" differs from "I have eyebrows" in the sense that I own myself.
So have I. I don't need to give an exact answer. Even if the line isn't drawn in the best possible place, a line within the right range is better than no line at all. (I'm talking about prior to birth, obviously). The Abortion Act 1967 seems to be working, given that there is evidence that late-term abortions are rare. But even if it isn't working as well as we might like, that's no good reason to remove the safety net.
No good reason? Maybe not for yourself, considering how pregnancy will never affect you or me in the same way it affects roughly half the population.
But I would say the good reason is at the social level more than at some personal level. In a broad sense I think that the allowance of action is the default, and it is the prohibition of action which has the burden to prove why something ought to be prohibited. Call this the "Soft Libertarian Principle" -- soft only because I could see harder stances, but this is the sort of libertarianism that I think is broadly agreed upon by most.
So the good reason that you ask for, from my perspective, is on the prohibiter to produce. Implicitly I'd say this is what we have all agreed to: since it is usually understood that the prevention of murder is in the interest of the state the state must enforce the laws against murder. Where we have disagreed is what counts as protected by the law -- or, at least, what should count.
And, furthermore, we even agree on the notion of "safely prior to being a person" it seems. I agree with you there, I only disagree on what that means in terms of when.
Wisdom. Wisdom leads to the right conclusions. It has lead most of the U.S. to the right conclusion. Any fool can use philosophy and end up with his head up his arse. Or perhaps they were in that situation to begin with and are merely using philosophy as a means to justify their arse-headedness. It's a bit like shaving. Some people are better at it than others. Some people end up with cuts all over their face.
:D
Come on, now. That's a bit silly.
Wisdom leads to the right conclusions -- which are obviously mine! I can't help it that you are foolish, Sapientia.
I find your prioritisation of convention and understandability over actual human life sickening. You aren't giving them the proper respect they're due, and it certainly isn't safe for the unborn baby that ends up getting killed, is it?
The difference between yourself and myself should be clear in this question. You believe the fetus is a baby. You believe the fetus is a person. So it is sickening for someone to kill a fetus specifically because said action, from your perspective, is no different than killing a newborn.
I do not believe this. And given that babies at least need an environment before they can be a being I'd still say I'm very safe in my conclusion. As such it seems to me that you are just personifying what is not a person -- like someone protecting a mole or a gall bladder as if it had a personality all of its own.
But it's alright, because it isn't a person. Just like how a Jew isn't a person. First you dehumanise, then you allow to be killed. I'd rather be a Catholic than a Nazi.
Me too. Especially since I said I can respect the Catholic position. It's good to see we are on the same page.
And in anticipation of your denial, you are dehumanising.
Dude. This only follows if you are correct. I am dehumanising if the fetus is a human. I don't deny that. But I would say that you are personifying if the fetus is not a human.
This description of my action only follows if we presuppose your answer to the question.
You're purposefully overlooking or playing down human qualities, and you purposefully exclude from the human category altogether. Unborn babies are appropriately treated as human, as opposed to an organ or body part, in many ways. For example, at the later stage of development, they can hear. People talk to it. It has a gender. People refer to it as "him" or "her". It sometimes has a name which is used in reference to it. People evidently care about it in a significant way, and not in quite the same way as they do a gall bladder.
I'd put it to you that this is only sometimes the case, and not always the case. For an intended pregnancy in a family environment people talk, gender, name, and care for a fetus. But it could be otherwise. In addition I would note that people talk, gender, name, and care about a great many things -- cars, motorcycles, boats, weapons -- but that doesn't afford them rights, per se.
It's not the wording which I have an issue with as much as how you are conceptualizing the situation. Ownership over property, rights, and the rest all come with designating something in the world as a who.
"The bread has cheese on it" differs from "I have eyebrows" in the sense that I own myself.
First of all, it's not just me that designates an unborn baby as a who. It happens all the time, and is the norm. People treat him or her as a who. So you have a problem with society.
I have eyebrows, and so does a foetus at the relevant stage of development. To be frank, I don't much care about your abstractions and philosophical interpretation. I care about the human life that's at stake.
No good reason? Maybe not for yourself, considering how pregnancy will never affect you or me in the same way it affects roughly half the population.
But I would say the good reason is at the social level more than at some personal level.
I thought that it was clear enough that I wasn't speaking personally in that way. If so, I would have been explicit and qualified and worded it differently, but I didn't. Bringing that up is a distraction - whether intentional or otherwise. I simply meant that there is no good reason (to remove the "safety net").
In a broad sense I think that the allowance of action is the default, and it is the prohibition of action which has the burden to prove why something ought to be prohibited. Call this the "Soft Libertarian Principle" -- soft only because I could see harder stances, but this is the sort of libertarianism that I think is broadly agreed upon by most.
So the good reason that you ask for, from my perspective, is on the prohibiter to produce.
No, I don't buy that. Nice try. The burden is shared equally between both sides. You have a burden to attempt to justify your claim that child destruction should be legalised, and I have a burden to attempt to justify my claim that child destruction laws should not be abolished.
And, furthermore, we even agree on the notion of "safely prior to being a person" it seems.
Not in any particularly meaningful way. If you define the word "person" in such a way as to exclude that which is pre-birth, then I agree that in accordance with that definition, that which is pre-birth is not - and cannot be - a person. But that's just trivial logic. I have repeatedly said that the label doesn't matter, or is of secondary importance, or something to that effect: which is why I haven't presented one of my own. If you think that our agreement in this regard is anything other than insignificant, than you have probably misunderstood.
I was very clear that under the circumstances which you'd permit, the unborn baby would not be safe - and I meant that in the sense that you would scrap any legal protection currently granted.
Not only is it clear to me, but I have already acknowledged the similarity.
Point being that your analogy fails. And you seemed to be relying on it. And you have yet to concede, at least explicitly. So your above acknowledgement isn't enough.
Wisdom leads to the right conclusions -- which are obviously mine!
Yes, that's true. What's so funny? :D
Wisdom (a.k.a. Sapientia) leads to the right conclusions, and I am Sapientia. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. ;)
But there was a serious and worthwhile point in there, which, put another way, is that philosophy isn't a holy grail or guiding light. Clearly not for everyone. It can actually make matters worse sometimes and in certain respects, and that's what I argue against. I believe that some issues would benefit from an approach that simplifies more, and gives credence where due to common sense, rather than excessively complicate and abstract and disregard or remove oneself from common sense.
The difference between yourself and myself should be clear in this question. You believe the fetus is a baby. You believe the fetus is a person. So it is sickening for someone to kill a fetus specifically because said action, from your perspective, is no different than killing a newborn.
That's the gist of it, but the details are a bit off.
In common parlance, by the way, it is common to speak of the foetus as a baby, so this use of language is ordinary, and not idiosyncratic or without precedent. We also treat "it" as we would a baby (subsequent to birth) in some important respects.
And given that babies at least need an environment before they can be a being...
But if by that you mean an environment external to the womb, then that's nonsense. That would only be so accordingly and linguistically if you define it that way. But, as others and I have argued, the grounds for rejecting such a narrow definition greatly outweigh the grounds for it's acceptance - at least if it's used to support your agenda.
As such it seems to me that you are just personifying what is not a person -- like someone protecting a mole or a gall bladder as if it had a personality all of its own.
You're still going with these ridiculous analogies, I see. I also see that you're still blinkered towards what is merely a label or a category, and you're using this as cover for your agenda. If I were to fight fire with fire, then I'd say that what you're doing is like permitting the murder of children and others on the grounds that they can't drive a car. Only people can drive cars. Therefore, they're not people.
I'd put it to you that this is only sometimes the case, and not always the case.
Yes, I agree. But it's true of most cases, and there must be hardly any cases in which there is either absolute indifference or nothing of significance beyond that with which we feel towards a gall bladder (or a mole for that matter). So, that doesn't really detract much from my point, nor add much to yours.
In addition, I would note that people talk, gender, name, and care about a great many things -- cars, motorcycles, boats, weapons -- but that doesn't afford them rights, per se.
Hardly in the same way: with the same meaning, the same level of emotional attachment and significance - with the exception of very few. (To be credible, I have to make an allowance for nutters, obsessives, and others who have things wildly out of perspective).
I have eyebrows, and so does a foetus at the relevant stage of development. To be frank, I don't much care about your abstractions and philosophical interpretation. I care about the human life that's at stake.
What's strange to me is that you seem to believe I don't care about the human life at stake. That coupled with the strange allusions to "my agenda" makes it hard to take this very seriously. I propose we play this game from a different angle. Perhaps it would be more illuminating as to what you're really getting at.
Abortion should never be allowed because the the zygote is a human zygote. It has a full set of chromosomes. It will become a human being left unfettered. There are natural causes which can prevent a zygote from becoming a human, but this is different from intentional causes -- so miscarriages or if the separate human cells don't implant in the uturus are not even manslaughter, but intentional human action to destroy human life is at a minimum manslaughter, and at a maximum murder.
We can't make exceptions just for the sake of convenience. A human being is a human being, without qualification, and clearly there is a unique set of chromosomes when the zygote is formed. So, scientifically at least, there is no basis for not including the zygote as part of the species, and for not saying it is alive.
How, then, do you say that the Abortion Act of 1967 is a just law, if it permits the murder of human beings?
How do you justify allowing unjust abortions from taking place?
What's strange to me is that you seem to believe I don't care about the human life at stake.
I believe that you either don't care [i]enough[/I]; or that you do, but the position that you advocate conflicts with what makes sense, given your feelings.
That coupled with the strange allusions to "my agenda" makes it hard to take this very seriously.
How is it strange? Is your agenda not to exclude unborn babies from the legal protection that they're currently granted? Because it seems that way to me.
Abortion should never be allowed because the the zygote is a human zygote. It has a full set of chromosomes. It will become a human being left unfettered. There are natural causes which can prevent a zygote from becoming a human, but this is different from intentional causes -- so miscarriages or if the separate human cells don't implant in the uturus are not even manslaughter, but intentional human action to destroy human life is at a minimum manslaughter, and at a maximum murder.
We can't make exceptions just for the sake of convenience. A human being is a human being, without qualification, and clearly there is a unique set of chromosomes when the zygote is formed. So, scientifically at least, there is no basis for not including the zygote as part of the species, and for not saying it is alive.
How, then, do you say that the Abortion Act of 1967 is a just law, if it permits the murder of human beings?
How do you justify allowing unjust abortions from taking place?
If you want to get technical with terminology, as your objection to my referring to a foetus as an unborn baby suggests, then you can't - for sake of consistency - keep calling murder that which is not murder.
Just because I pointed out that a foetus is human in that it's a member of the human species, and that it's alive, that doesn't mean that I think that that's the be-all and end-all. The level of development also matters, as I've consistently said from the start, and I suspect that you'd agree to an extent. Just as you don't think that a gall bladder should be treated like a newborn, I don't think that a zygote should be treated like a 38-week-old foetus. Our reasons might not be exactly the same, but they're close enough for you to understand why I think as I do. I also spoke of viability, priority of values, and how the costs weigh up in comparison to the benefits. I don't believe that the mother should have [i]no[/I] rights, as the position that you describe would entail if it is to be consistent.
My position, unlike yours, is consistent in terms of ethics in relation to law. I consider child destruction unjust, so I advocate laws against it. You have similarly said something along the lines that you consider it unjust, in terms of morality, but you advocate permitting it nevertheless, and for any reason whatsoever provided it comes from the mother.
So, to be clear, my objection is that your questions are loaded and don't accurately reflect my position.
How is it strange? Is your agenda not to exclude unborn babies from the legal protection that they're currently granted?
Negative. My agenda, in this thread, is to defend my view from the charges made against it, and to understand the why behind what you state you believe.
If you want to get technical with terminology, as your objection to my referring to a foetus as an unborn baby suggests, then you can't - for sake of consistency - keep calling murder that which is not murder.
Just because I pointed out that a foetus is human in that it's a member of the human species, and that it's alive, that doesn't mean that I think that that's the be-all and end-all. The level of development also matters, as I've consistently said from the start, and I suspect that you'd agree to an extent. Just as you don't think that a gall bladder should be treated like a newborn, I don't think that a zygote should be treated like a 38-week-old foetus. Our reasons might not be exactly the same, but they're close enough for you to understand why I think as I do. I also spoke of viability, priority of values, and how the costs weigh up in comparison to the benefits. I don't believe that the mother should have no rights, as the position that you describe would entail if it is to be consistent.
My position, unlike yours, is consistent in terms of ethics in relation to law. I consider child destruction unjust, so I advocate laws against it. You have similarly said something along the lines that you consider it unjust, in terms of morality, but you advocate permitting it nevertheless, and for any reason whatsoever provided it comes from the mother.
So, to be clear, my objection is that your questions are loaded and don't accurately reflect my position.
This is a dodge. Respond to my assertions like you would someone who is advocating for the abolition of the law. This is the purpose of my changing tactics -- I don't think we're getting terribly far by just restating what we already believe.
What's the difference between a zygote and a child? Eyebrows? Are you not dehumanizing what is clearly human? It's alive, it has its own set of chromosomes separate from the mothers, it belongs to the human species. How do you, then, justify allowing its intentional termination?
Then I would say that this is an erroneous belief. If anything my error is to care too much when it comes to politics.
I would say again that our difference is merely where we place the line, and why we place the line there, and nothing more.
That is to ignore the implications. If I were to place the line at 6 months after birth, and say that I care just as much (in the sense of empathy and compassion, as opposed to enthusiasm with regards to politics), are you going to genuinely tell me that there would be no other implications? The difference between our positions isn't as severe as that, but it's there.
Negative. My agenda, in this thread, is to defend my view from the charges made against it, and to understand the why behind what you state you believe.
Ok, then your "view" is or includes the exclusion of unborn babies from the legal protection that they're currently granted.
What's the difference between a zygote and a child? Eyebrows? Are you not dehumanizing what is clearly human? It's alive, it has its own set of chromosomes separate from the mothers, it belongs to the human species. How do you, then, justify allowing its intentional termination?
Your new tactic seems to ignore important things that I've said, and acts like that isn't going to be problematic, when it is. It's a wider issue than the difference between a zygote and a child, but I've already pointed out some of the differences, and yet you choose to focus on the most trivial, while ignoring the others. So, why should the burden be on me to repeat myself rather than on you to structure your attacks in a manner that better reflects my position? I even helped you by pointing out important aspects of which I'd previously spoke. These factor in to the justification.
And no, I'm not dehumanising in the sense that I previously expressed. I have no problem acknowledging that the zygote is a human zygote, but it's not treated in the same way as either a child or a newborn baby or a yet-to-be-born baby for reasons that I'm sure you already understand.
It wasn't until late in her 2nd trimester that she did, and then you have to actually schedule the abortion -- which can take a long time. It's not like you can just go in and get it done.
Is this the consequence of public healthcare? In the US, you can just go get it done. There are additional restrictions with later term abortions, but there aren't time delays - just pay the lady at the window and get in line.
Public vs. private healthcare is consequential in interesting ways. I'm guessing it has something to do with this: [URL]http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/17/nhs-health[/URL].
Reply to Hanover I couldn't tell you why because I didn't inquire further.
Private firms, however, have schedules just like anyone. If I had to hazard a guess it would be because of the supply side of the equation. While 3rd trimester abortions, relative to all abortions, are rare, the raw number of appointments relative to the raw number of demand is small.
That is to ignore the implications. If I were to place the line at 6 months after birth, and say that I care just as much (in the sense of empathy and compassion, as opposed to enthusiasm with regards to politics), are you going to genuinely tell me that there would be no other implications? The difference between our positions isn't as severe as that, but it's there.
These implications only exist if everyone believed as you believe.
So, yes -- I would genuinely say so. It's not an issue of care as much as it is an issue of belief.
Your new tactic seems to ignore important things that I've said, and acts like that isn't going to be problematic, when it is. It's a wider issue than the difference between a zygote and a child, but I've already pointed out some of the differences, and yet you choose to focus on the most trivial, while ignoring the others. So, why should the burden be on me to repeat myself rather than on you to structure your attacks in a manner that better reflects my position? I even helped you by pointing out important aspects of which I'd previously spoke. These factor in to the justification.
And no, I'm not dehumanising in the sense that I previously expressed. I have no problem acknowledging that the zygote is a human zygote, but it's not treated in the same way as either a child or a newborn baby or a yet-to-be-born baby for reasons that I'm sure you already understand.
The only thing you've stated in this regard is viability. Your response to my critique of viability was, more or less, "It's good enough for me for now"
Is that how you'd respond to someone who is claiming that your view allows the murder of unborn babies?
I assure you that the view I'm adopting here is far from unpopular.
These implications only exist if everyone believed as you believe.
So, yes -- I would genuinely say so. It's not an issue of care as much as it is an issue of belief.
Practically everyone does believe, as I do, and rightly so, that to set the line at six months after birth implies either a lack of empathy or a lack of reason - and a severe lack, at that. In fact, it's hard to think of a more pertinent example. If you doubt what I say, then just ask around. The reactions are predictable. Once again, your problem is that you mistake a matter of degree or severity as a categorical matter of all or nothing. If we were arguing over whether the line should be drawn at 22 weeks or at 24 weeks, then I doubt I'd think it a reflection of your character in the way that drawing no line does. It doesn't mean that you don't care; you clearly care about the mother - even up to the point where you think that she is entitled to have the living baby that has been growing inside of her for over six months killed for whatever reason she deems necessary, regardless of whether it's a good reason or an awful reason. No, what I'm saying is that if you care enough about both the mother and the baby, then it would make sense to take a different stance.
The only thing you've stated in this regard is viability. Your response to my critique of viability was, more or less, "It's good enough for me for now"
Is that how you'd respond to someone who is claiming that your view allows the murder of unborn babies?
I assure you that the view I'm adopting here is far from unpopular.
Ok, let's say that you've convinced me that my position allows the "murder" of unborn babies. Is that going to miraculously make your position justified? If anything, it only makes your position worse in the eyes of the one opposing it. Now it's not justified at all, at any stage, whereas your position is the opposite up until birth. Losing the sensible middle ground in this way does you no favours, Moliere.
Ok, let's say that you've convinced me that my position allows the "murder" of unborn babies. Is that going to miraculously make your position justified?
No.
Though I'm just wondering what your response is. I don't expect to persuade you in either direction. I don't believe you'd actively advocate for the murder of babies. But it's certainly the case that many people believe that the laws, as they are written now, allow for the murder of babies.
To them do you say, more or less, as you have said to me? That viability is the measure which is good enough for now, because it's good enough for you and seems practical?
But it's certainly the case that many people believe that the laws, as they are written now, allow for the murder of babies.
To them do you say, more or less, as you have said to me? That viability is the measure which is good enough for now, because it's good enough for you and seems practical?
I'd point out that what it allows is not murder, and that to call a zygote a baby is stretching the definition beyond what is sensible, and that they're probably using these particular words to appeal to emotion. So, I don't need to defend a charge which doesn't apply.
I would say to them what I've said to you: that it's a wider issue than what your narrow, loaded set up takes into consideration, and that the justification accounts for this. But with regards to where the line should be drawn, I'd question what is most important, namely whether they have a better alternative; and we both agree that they do not. So, I could get bogged down in the details about viability, or I could skip that stage and look at how well it works compared to the alternatives. I'd argue that my position is more fair and balanced than the extreme alternatives of all or nothing. My position is appropriately sympathetic towards both mother and baby, whereas the position that abortion ought to be illegal without qualification isn't sympathetic enough towards the mother, and the position that abortion ought to be legal without qualification, or without taking the reason given by the mother into account, isn't sympathetic enough towards the baby. (N.B. you may well be sympathetic enough, but your position isn't representative of this).
Reply to Agustino The labels "liberal" and "conservative" are almost meaningless. Using your own labels as an example, being opposed to the death penalty and in favor of universal health care are positions most on the left espouse.
I find classical liberalism, which seems to fit me best, is now seen as a conservative or rightist position, ironically enough. But this has only come about in the last 50 years or so with the rise of the highly illiberal New Left.
Reply to Agustino Hanover calls himself a common sense conservative. There isn't much sense in your views on those topics - whether common or otherwise. Take abortion, for example. Hanover and I want to conserve only that which it's sensible to conserve, rather than being a reactionary, harkening back to the bad old days of back-alley abortions.
Hanover calls himself a common sense conservative. There isn't much sense in your views on those topics - whether common or otherwise. Take abortion, for example. Hanover and I want to conserve only that which it's sensible to conserve, rather than being a reactionary, harkening back to the bad old days of back-alley abortions.
Always trying to take the moral high ground no? Well let's see if you do have the high moral ground. Is women having no respect for their bodies and fucking around something that the state should spend money on? If they want to bring a child in the world, if they can't be bothered with protection and/or if they wanna risk their life in a back-alley abortion, so be it. They just got to learn that they have to be RESPONSIBLE for their actions. It's their choice and that should be allowed to happen. Is women denying the right of the father to have the child, even after they have had unprotected sex with him, just because they have different plans compared to the father right? No, it's a moral abomination. The child belongs to both parents, and the mother having the choice to kill the child at her whim is simply s-t-u-p-i-d, as it denies the father the equal right he has over having the child. (of course there are exceptions to this such as rape).
The labels "liberal" and "conservative" are almost meaningless. Using your own labels as an example, being opposed to the death penalty and in favor of universal health care are positions most on the left espouse.
I find classical liberalism, which seems to fit me best, is now seen as a conservative or rightist position, ironically enough. But this has only come about in the last 50 years or so with the rise of the highly illiberal New Left.
Can you PM me with some recommended readings from the old Left please :) Thanks!
I find that ironic coming from someone who harps on about virtue, and is probably the most judgemental member of the forum.
As for the abortion issue, perhaps you should actually read (or reread) my part in that discussion. Then perhaps you wouldn't waste time attacking claims that I wouldn't make, and have actually argued against, like the claim that the mother should have the choice to kill the child at her whim.
I find that ironic coming from someone who harps on about virtue, and is probably the most judgemental member of the forum.
Is being judgemental necessarily wrong? Where did you get this from? I think being judgemental is good if your judgement is correct, and bad if your judgement is bad. As Thomas Aquinas proved in the (was it first, can't remember now) chapter of Summa contra Gentilles, the office of the wise man has two purposes: 1. to provide guidance towards the truth, and 2. to refute the false. Thus, likewise, the office of the virtuous man has two purposes: 1. to show what virtue is and how to approach it, and 2. to fight against vice (and hence judge it).
As for the abortion issue, perhaps you should actually read (or reread) my part in that discussion. Then perhaps you wouldn't waste time attacking claims that I wouldn't make, and have actually argued against, like the claim the mother should have the choice to kill the child at her whim.
Do you mean your first post in the original thread (not this one)? Or the posts in this thread (haven't read through those yet!). And I do agree that your views are more sensible on abortion compared to some of the other ones I've read in that thread.
Is being judgemental necessarily wrong? Where did you get this from? I think being judgemental is good if your judgement is correct, and bad if your judgement is bad.
Yes, 'being judgmental' is a bad trait because 'being judgmental' is an idiom meaning "an unconsidered, snap reaction" that will normally be taken as a negative statement. 'Being judgmental' isn't the same thing as 'being reflective and thoughtful'.
In heated conversation snap reactions may predictable happen, but shouldn't occur in written communication.
Reply to Bitter Crank Indeed, but I wasn't referring to being judgemental in that way in my post. By that definition, being judgemental would be to react something like "Ah fuck you, you're an idiot for thinking like that!". But too often being judgemental is used to enforce political correctness today, and that is what I am against. There is nothing wrong with judging (although culturally we have transformed it into a weapon so that we can prevent anyone from ever judging us).
The judgmentalness that constitutes political correctness is another sort of behavior altogether (in my opinion). If I habitually refer to Negros or Blacks or colored people (they have been "properly" called all three at various times) as niggers, I will be accused of using a racist slur. It won't do any good to explain that there are people who are 'niggers', like it or not, a term recognized by Negros, blacks, and colored people as a referent to no-count, disreputable, members of the race. (Hmmm, should "niggers" be capitalized? Colored People? Trailer Trash? White Trash? Honkies? Cocksuckers? Or not?)
The agents who police the boundaries of political correctness are alert to any suggestion that a racial or ethnic group, as it exists in a particular place, may not be completely equal to another racial or ethnic group. The PC police agents need to whitewash glaringly obvious deficiencies among various groups. Therefore, it is racist to remark on how well Asians do in school. What! Does someone suppose that Asians are (gasp) superior? (Which means everybody else is inferior...) Well no, not really.
It is considered racist (and politically incorrect) to associate the culture of specific racial groups with the race or ethnic group that spawned a particular culture. Asians--and Jews--do well in academics because Asian and Jewish parents, and the communities to which they belong place a high priority on academic performance, and expect their children to perform from the get go (not that they all become famous violinists).
Clearly most Blacks/Colored People/Negroes in this country do not, for the most part, place the same priority on academic excellence. They fail to prize academic success because their experience has been that their schools, teaching their children, do not produce academic excellence. Black parents are not in a position to overcome these deficiencies (without strategic exterior input of some kind).
Is being judgemental necessarily wrong? Where did you get this from? I think being judgemental is good if your judgement is correct, and bad if your judgement is bad. As Thomas Aquinas proved in the (was it first, can't remember now) chapter of Summa contra Gentilles, the office of the wise man has two purposes: 1. to provide guidance towards the truth, and 2. to refute the false. Thus, likewise, the office of the virtuous man has two purposes: 1. to show what virtue is and how to approach it, and 2. to fight against vice (and hence judge it).
Bitter Crank is correct to point out the difference between judging and being judgemental, or even the tendency to judge and being judgemental. There is a negative connotation with the latter. It implies a certain attitude, a vice, a tendency towards excessive judgement, unwarranted judgement, judgement with ignorance or prejudice, judgement accompanied with arrogance.
If being judgemental was a good thing, then we'd use it as a praise rather than a criticism. To call someone judgemental is to imply that they're too quick to judge, too severe, judge all too often, or where it is inappropriate, and that they could benefit from toning it down, and from a little more restraint, and a little more empathy. To assume that the judgement is correct, or to assume that judging is the right thing to do in the situation, would be to miss the point. That assumption can be part of the problem.
Do you mean your first post in the original thread (not this one)? Or the posts in this thread (haven't read through those yet!). And I do agree that your views are more sensible on abortion compared to some of the other ones I've read in that thread.
I meant the posts in this thread. Perhaps we should cherish this rare moment of agreement while it lasts. :D
only those who get pregnant ought to be empowered to decide whether or not to have an abortion,
Those who are pregnant do not have to inform any one that they are pregnant, can self terminate an unwanted pregnancy if they so choose, and also not disclose that they have done so. Literally, it is the woman's choice, and literally, there is nothing that can change that fact.
Abortion exists because this happens, and self termination of an unwanted pregnancy can be dangerous for the women that decides this course of action.
All pro-life legislation would accomplish is the prevention of women making that choice from legally seeking healthcare from professionals. So, in essence, the pro-life argument is to deny women any legal right to healthcare for their procreation choice in order that these self proclaimed pro-lifers may pat themselves on the back and delude themselves that they are moral for having done so.
There is no legislation that would be able to prevent a woman's right to choose, only legislation that would prevent women from seeking out medical assistance for her choice.
There is no legislation that would be able to prevent a woman's right to choose, only legislation that would prevent women from seeking out medical assistance for her choice.
You're right that there is no legislation which can prevent women from killing that which is living and growing inside of them, an unborn human, if they're determined enough; just as there is no legislation which can prevent women or anyone else from killing anyone else if they're determined enough. But neither are good things which should be encouraged. It is an unfortunate fact that murders and abortions occur, when in most cases, a better resolution is available.
Just as someone who is contemplating murder should have access to counseling, so should someone contemplating abortion, and that is already the case in the developed world, as far as I'm aware.
You're right that there is no legislation which can prevent women from killing that which is living and growing inside of them, an unborn human, if they're determined enough, just as there is no legislation which can prevent women or anyone else from killing anyone else if they're determined enough. But neither are good things which should be encouraged. It is an unfortunate fact that murders and abortions occur, when in most cases, a better resolution is available. Just as someone who is contemplating murder should have access to counseling, so should someone contemplating abortion, and that is already the case in the developed world, as far as I'm aware.
That is fair enough.
But it is far less difficult to prove that one person has a murdered another in a court than it is to prove that a woman intentionally miscarried.
So when we compare these things we would not say that there is no legislation that will prevent murder because it is less difficult to demonstrate that an intentional killing has taken place.
So even if we agreed that terminating a pregnancy was murder we are left with a far more difficult burden of proof than is the case when this happens to those that have been born.
Also I don't agree that there is necessarily a better resolution in some cases of termination of unwanted pregnancy.
Take the cases where a woman has been raped and it has resulted in pregnancy.
I sternly believe that the woman should have the right to decide if she wants to procreate with a rapists.
And personally, in general, I think that women ought to have that right to decide even if they are not raped and ultimately, as I have pointed out, they do have that right and there is nothing to be done about it in legislative terms.
Mayor of SimpletonAugust 22, 2016 at 14:23#171910 likes
I also respect both sides enough to want to be truthful about the problems I see- so, if you're a Republican, I'll tell you the issues I see w/ Republicans, and if you're a Democrat, then I'll tell you the issues I see w/ Democrats.
Mayor of SimpletonAugust 22, 2016 at 15:11#172030 likes
In my case, politcal parties are like epistemological ideals. I don't hold to any in particular, but I do wish to expose them all for what they are really worth.
But it is far less difficult to prove that one person has a murdered another in a court than it is to prove that a woman intentionally miscarried. So when we compare these things we would not say that there is no legislation that will prevent murder because it is less difficult to demonstrate that an intentional killing has taken place.
But that's after the fact: the killing will have already either taken place or not taken place. My point stands: no amount of legislation can prevent someone determined enough from going out and killing another human, whether that's an adult or a baby inside of themselves.
So even if we agreed that terminating a pregnancy was murder we are left with a far more difficult burden of proof than is the case when this happens to those that have been born.
My point wasn't that terminating a pregnancy is murder. It isn't murder.
Take the cases where a woman has been raped and it has resulted in pregnancy.
I sternly believe that the woman should have the right to decide if she wants to procreate with a rapists.
And personally, in general, I think that women ought to have that right to decide even if they are not raped and ultimately, as I have pointed out, they do have that right and there is nothing to be done about it in legislative terms.
Feel free to go over my part in the previous discussion in order to better understand my position. You've made quite a few big assumptions about my position which are in fact incorrect. Yes, there are exceptional circumstances, and yes, in places like the U.K. where I'm from, it is true that up to a point, pregnant women have a legal right to decide to have an abortion (we've even been over the actual wording and stated conditions in the relevant legislation), and I accept that there can be morally acceptable circumstances - although I would emphasise that they are acceptable, but not desirable or ideal.
But that's after the fact: the killing will have already either taken place or not taken place. My point stands: no amount of legislation can prevent someone determined enough from going out and killing another human, whether that's an adult or a baby inside of themselves.
Yes. Legislation can only be reactionary. There is no way to strictly enforce any law. But there is a way to convict a murderer in a court beyond reasonable doubt. The same does not apply when a woman self induces miscarriage. There is virtually no way to prove a miscarriage was intentional if the accused does not admit that it was.
Feel free to go over my part in the previous discussion in order to better understand it. You've made quite a few big assumptions about my position which are in fact incorrect. Yes, there are exceptional circumstances, and yes, in places like the U.K. where I'm from, it is true that up to a point, pregnant women have a legal right to decide to have an abortion (We've even been over the actual wording and stated conditions in the relevant legislation), and I accept that there can be morally acceptable circumstances, although I would emphasise that they are acceptable, but not desirable or ideal.
I did not set out to misrepresent your position. I only sought to lay out my own. If I did, then I apologise again.
Yes. Legislation can only be reactionary. There is no way to strictly enforce any law. But there is a way to convict a murderer in a court beyond reasonable doubt. The same does not apply when a woman self induces miscarriage. There is virtually no way to prove a miscarriage was intentional if the accused does not admit that it was.
I agree. I just don't see what it has to do with the point that I made. Seems like a tangent.
Reply to anonymous66 That depends. If you tick off Republicans when you talk about social issues and tick off Democrats when you talk about economic issues, like me, then you're a libertarian.
Reply to Harry Hindu I've never even considered that possibility... I found this on wiki
Libertarianism (Latin: liber, "free") is a collection of political philosophies that uphold liberty. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and freedom of choice, emphasizing political freedom, voluntary association, and the primacy of individual judgment.[1][2] Libertarianism has been applied as an umbrella term to a wide range of political ideas through modern history.
And it doesn't look especially appealing.
I have to admit I'm better at commenting on what is bad with politics, then I am at suggesting solutions. It just looks like a necessary evil.
Reply to anonymous66 Well, the only other option is if you tick off Republicans when talking about economic issues and tick off Democrats when talking about social issues, then you're probably a Nazi.
What isn't appealing about maximizing autonomy and freedom of choice? What issues do you tick off both parties with, anyway?
What isn't appealing about maximizing autonomy and freedom of choice? What issues do you tick off both parties with, anyway?
By spotting and pointing out obvious issues. For instance, the Republican party is the party for the wealthy and big business, Democrats don't appear to care much about morality, or personal responsibility
When Republicans point out the immoral Democrats, I point out the immoral Republicans. I can get general (policies) or specific (individual politicians).
Reply to anonymous66 Democrats are as much for the wealthy as Republicans. Being for the wealthy isn't a Republican/Democrat stance anyway. It's a political tactic to help you stay in power by receiving money from all the big donors who don't care who wins the election anyway as all politicians can be bought.
I understand that people see it that way... But, the Democrats do seem to care more about social issues, and the Republicans do seem to care about morality more.
Reply to anonymous66 They're all hypocrites, so it's easy to point out the inconsistencies both parties take. The problem is getting voters to realize that both parties are whack and we need an alternative - like the Libertarian Party.
What isn't appealing about maximizing autonomy and freedom of choice?
Because libertarianism dismisses the meta-ethical discussion on what freedom means and only deals with negative liberty: e.g. the absence of interference to make choices. However, there is no real freedom if there are no real choices, so a government creating (or even maximising) available choices also increases freedom for its citizens at the expense of taxable income. So sometimes a little limitation on negative liberty can in fact create a lot of positive liberty, namely: choices.
What isn't appealing about maximizing autonomy and freedom of choice?
Everything comes at a price. If this is achieved by a reduction of the state, then that can have detrimental consequences. But the devil is in the details.
Reply to Benkei Choices are tied to the amount of resources one has access to and there isn't an infinite amount of it. In order to increase the resources/choices of one individual means you must take resources/choices from another.
Socialists dismiss the consequences of their "solutions". They think that their intentions are all that matter without realizing the consequences of their good intentions. If Socialists had their way, they'd limit the choices and resources of everyone as there isn't enough to go around to every individual. If every citizen on this planet received an equal amount of resources, they'd only get about $16,000 a year, which just brings those making more than that down, while not lifting the poor at all. This will also limit choices. When your resources are limited, so are your choices. In the effort to make everyone equal, you end up limiting everyone's freedoms.
Until the state has complete control of procreation and the raising of children, we will always have inequality.
[quote=Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts]Crude communism is only the culmination of such envy and levelling-down on the basis of a preconceived minimum. How little this abolition of private property represents a genuine appropriation is shown by the abstract negation of the whole world of culture and civilization, and the regression to the unnatural simplicity of the poor and wantless individual who has not only not surpassed private property but has not yet even attained to it. The community is only a community of work and of equality of wages paid out by the communal capital, by the community as universal capitalist. The two sides of the relation are raised to a supposed universality; labor as a condition in which everyone is placed, and capital as the acknowledged universality and power of the community.[/quote]
Socialists dismiss the consequences of their "solutions". They think that their intentions are all that matter without realizing the consequences of their good intentions. If Socialists had their way, they'd limit the choices and resources of everyone as there isn't enough to go around to every individual. If every citizen on this planet received an equal amount of resources, they'd only get about $16,000 a year, which just brings those making more than that down, while not lifting the poor at all. This will also limit choices. When your resources are limited, so are your choices. In the effort to make everyone equal, you end up limiting everyone's freedoms.
First of all, this has no bearing on what I said as I wasn't discussing income redistribution but taxation in order to create opportunies for choice by the government. That doesn't take away inequality but does maximise freedom in a different way than the absence of interference does. If I don't have any choices the fact that the government won't interfere is meaningless. So you neatly demonstrate that like other libertarians you're simply ignoring the meta-ethical discussion on what freedom (or liberty) really is.
Second of all, the numbers are silly because 16,000 USD is obviously barely enough in the US but more than sufficient in Bangladesh. It's also silly because it's not about just dividing GDP by capita either. If we'd do that just for the US, we'd be left with 55,221 USD per capita, but leaving nothing to reinvest and therefore also unsustainable.
EDIT: Actually, 16,000 USD is more than enough also in the US because it includes people not part of the work force. Poverty line for a family of four is about 25,000 USD. So in reality that family has 2.5 times more than the poverty line in the US. So if we'd reinvest 50% of GDP, they'd still be above the poverty line by 28%.
If we take my example, a family of four would have 8.8 times the poverty line and as a family would make 220,884 USD. If we'd reinvest 50% of GDP, they'd have 4.4 times the poverty line with 110,442 USD. Not bad.
So even a total redistribution wouldn't really be an issue, financially speaking. Just saying.
Comments (299)
>:O
(Y)
So sometimes you're left and sometimes you're not right?
;)
I love this. Albeit I believe there needs to be some kind of initiative for achievement outside of the collective good (I don't have that kind of faith in humanity).
There are times though that I really have to question why a person had a child. If you have a bad genetic defect or live in a warzone like Palestine, don't have a kid!
That being said, I do support abortion with a certain kind of private enthusiasm.
Pick one.
Surveillance has a long history; everybody does it. I surveil my neighbors all the time. What are they up to today? Three unrelated men and one woman in one house... who's sleeping with whom? Inquiring minds want to know. My neighbors surveil me, as well. "Oh, where have you been?" It's normal.
I assume my government has good reason to practice surveillance. They will tap wires, open letters, put up micro-cameras to keep watch, have people parked across the street with electronic listening gear, and so on. I just don't want one part of the government deciding to do all the surveilling they want without other parts of the government being quite aware of what they are doing, and having the wherewithal to effectively say "NO." There needs to be both legislative authorization, judicial oversight, and citizen awareness.
There also needs to be just cause. Deciding to suck up the entire traffic of the Internet and then sort through it, looking for... something... without telling anybody that this is going on, is a violation of citizens' trust and is flatly inappropriate.
That's what I meant by 'surveil the surveillors'.
Suppose the fetus is 8 1/2 months old?
As for your 8 1/2 month old fetus -- I would put to you that the 8 1/2 month old fetus is not a person, and therefore, is not to be treated in the same manner as the mother who is already clearly a person. That doesn't mean that abortion should be taken on lightly in those circumstances -- morally speaking I am more conservative. But legally speaking I am not. I don't think the question is amenable to the necessary precision we expect of law nor should it be answered by the force of the state.
8-)
Then why arbitrarily choose birth as the moment of personhood? It's not like a 1 day old infant can do a whole lot of the things that fully fledged kids can do and they certainly can't do what fully mature adults can do. Morally speaking, though, they may be superior to those who actually believe that 8 1/2 month old fetuses should be killed with impunity.
Quoting Moliere
If you're speaking legally, then you'll need to cite to the law that permits the abortion of 8 1/2 month old fetuses. We do in fact have precision in the law when it comes to abortion. It's just a matter of looking it up and reading it. Any highly disputed area of law is going to be subject to some arbitrary decision, whether it be when a person is endowed with rights, to how much emissions are acceptable, to how much privacy I am afforded. The power granted to those to decide isn't arbitrary, but to some extent decisions have to be made. I'd say, though, that the simple fact that it might be disputed whether the government can walk into my open yard and look for me but they can't walk into my open garage, for example, hardly means that it's disputed whether there are some limits I have from government intrusion. The outer parameters are obvious (like 8 1/2 month old fetuses), but at some point we reach a gray zone.
In a showdown, who would win, the Spartans, the Vikings, or the Mongols?
Fair enough.
We're all allowed to contradict ourselves.
We all contain multitudes.
I.e. personal responsibility for public irresponsibility, and no safeguards until it's too late.
I suspect by 'private property' you mean something like 'personal property' (along the lines of your shelter, computer, television, and so on)?
Allowing abortion up until "personhood" is a philosophical concept, asserting that only "people" have an inherent right to live. A "person" are those entities endowed with whatever essential qualities other people have. The word "essence" is just a secular word for "soul."
Viability is a legal concept, enshrined by the US Supreme Court in the Roe v. Wade case that asserts that only those human entities that are capable of living outside the womb have the right to life. The inherent problem with that view is that viability changes as medical technology advances. The advantage of the position is that it avoids all this impossible personhood talk.
My point here is simply to point out that you've intermingled the personhood and viability arguments. It would seem that if you had a fetus that was endowed with personhood, it would be wrong to kill it simply because it was still dependent upon the womb (i.e. not viable). On the other hand, it wouldn't seem particularly wrong to abort a non-person even if it were possible to support that entity outside the womb. That is, if we could take a two minute old united sperm and egg and incubate it until it was a fully formed baby, I wouldn't really consider it murder if we instead just poured it down the sink (which is what is commonly done in fertility clinics).
I don't care if you're 30 years old.
Yes, but if birth is also clearly before the gray zone, then we should allow parents to drown their kids in the well for some period of time after birth. Well drowning is cheaper and more medically safe than abortion, and it allows the parent to look at the child and see if its worth keeping. It also gives the well water that much desired new baby smell.
Sigh.
If you can't defeat a position, at least disarm it with absurdity.
I'm just fooling around. It's important to keep a sense of humour, even about topics like abortion and infanticide; after all, if we can't laugh at ourselves, what's the point of forcing women to bear children.
Yes
I buy into the essentialist argument when it comes to what a person is. As one disassembles a ship, at some point it is no longer is a ship. It's never clear which board is the deciding board or if there is any one particular element that stops it from being a ship. It is clear though that a fully formed ship is in fact a ship and that a single board is not a ship. At some point, though, we have a ship and at some point we don't.
I would say the same applies to humans. I can't say when the magical moment of development occurs that makes the fetus a person and when it doesn't. I can only go on generalities, like can it think, feel, perceive, etc. I don't consider the ability to live without assistance on one's own to be an important factor in determining personhood. But, I'd agree, as with deciphering what the critical essential element of any entity is, whether it be a rock, a ship, or a plant, we can never specifically say. It's a mixture of all sorts of ingredients, with no one being necessary, but I do feel comfortable saying that we have the appropriate mixture for a person when we have a newborn child.
I would say, absent religious notions, that we'd have to look at clear examples of persons to draw conclusions about what it takes to be a person. Where there is no question of personhood is in the case of able-bodied adults. That doesn't mean that personhood can't encompass other sorts, but these are the cases where there is no dispute.
I think being separate, having a history, having both a social and physical environment which you develop and interact within are all important parts of being a person. A fetus has none of these things. What's more I could even see the argument that newborns are not persons in the metaphysical/moral sense, but we have a workable convention which prevents any mistakes -- birth. Sometime after birth, so I would say, is when you acquire enough attributes of the norm to be counted. But prior to birth? No, I really don't think so.
Meow!
GREG
Ok, but given the situation here in the UK, I think that the chance of it getting to a stage in which we'd need to arm revolutionaries is very unlikely, and that the cost of currently giving citizens access to arms - all of the resultant deaths - outweighs the benefit. If there's a workable middle ground in which the citizenry can be armed only in the case of an emergency, then I'm in favour of that.
Quoting discoii
Upon what evidence are you basing those conclusions? Obviously gun murderers have obtained a gun somehow, so the law wouldn't have prevented them[/I] from doing what they did - I'm not disputing that. But how do you know how many [i]would-be gun murderers have been hindered or prevented because of gun laws? It's relatively hard to get a gun here in the UK, so I'd expect there to be less gun murders, and there are. It's relatively easy to get a gun in the US, so I'd expect there to be more gun murders, and there are. That is telling.
Even if you're right that you can get hold of a gun if you're determined enough, that's a terrible argument for lax gun controls. And if that is the case, then I'm sure there'd be plenty of determined enough people in the case of a tyrannical government to fight against. Let them get hold of a gun that way, rather than arming them in peacetime.
I'm not recommending this approach, just mentioning it.
It's no odder to wait a year to establish personhood than to establish it the moment a sperm happens to meet an egg, move in, and set up housekeeping together.
I don't approve of this approach, again just mentioning it.
Abortion is one of my favorite philosophical topics because it trips across so many basic questions that people take for granted, and it has easily recognizable implications. Anytime people disagree on abortion they tend to believe the other party is contemptible. I am quite familiar with this sort of ire -- but I can assure you that my position is not the result of, as you seem to imply, a desire to express correct left-thinking, but has been reasoned to by way of the philosophical literature. In fact I had been much less pro-choice prior to reading philosophy on the topic and I began to question my own presuppositions and find them to be baseless. I am quite pro-choice not because of my left political orientation, but because of the work of philosophers.
Oh god, is Moliere's position representative of a significant portion of the left? If so, I'll gladly disassociate myself from this group within the left. My reaction was exactly the same as Hanover's. And I agree with the gist of your post as well. I doubt that any amount of philosophical blather about person-hood would convince me that it's acceptable to alter the law to make it legal to abort 8 1/2 month old foetuses.
As for whether or not my position is popular -- I rather doubt it. Personhood, as i mentioned to Baden, is the concept put forward by those who want to restrict abortion. Usually those who want to allow abortion focus on autonomy more than personhood.
No correlation whatsoever? So, you believe that if, here in the UK, as of tomorrow, the law enabled practically anyone over a certain age (eighteen or twenty-one, for example) to go out to their local store and purchase a firearm and the ammunition to go with it, that gun crime wouldn't skyrocket? Because I find that hard to believe.
Quoting discoii
Ok. I don't think that they should unless and until the need arises. Otherwise my prediction is that gun crime would go up. And the need hasn't arisen over here for a long, long time. There hasn't been a civil war against government forces in hundreds of years. It hasn't been peachy, but the government hasn't been tyrannical enough to provoke violent revolution.
Eh? What did I say to provoke this red herring about persuasion and implications that I haven't made? I think that it's absurd because it [I]is[/I] absurd.
Quoting Moliere
I don't think you're doing a very good a job of it.
Quoting Moliere
That's somewhat reassuring.
Quoting Moliere
I don't think that the terminology matters anywhere near as much as what's actually at stake here. This is literally a matter of life and death; and at 8 1/2 months old, that life is sufficiently advanced to rule out abortion as a legal option. I think that the consensus arises from this basis; not that it's right [I]because [/I] there's a consensus. Sorry, but there's no [I]ad populum[/I] fallacy here for you to easily knock down.
This is what I was reacting to --
Quoting Sapientia
(I was reacting, in particular, to "would convince")
For the record this is already legal in some states in the U.S. -- http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/06/18/us/politics/abortion-restrictions.html?_r=0
Quoting Sapientia
I'll note that in my Sapientia-grade-book ;).
I would say that a position with rational justification is not absurd. I think that was presupposed in my reply. So in providing rational justification for my belief I would be defending it from the charge that it is absurd. What is it you mean by "It is absurd"?
Quoting Sapientia
I disagree with your conclusion, though I agree with you in what's at stake. That's another reason why I don't mind talking in terms of personhood -- because if those who advocate against abortion are correct then there's currently legally justified murder of innocent people. That would be horrific, and worthwhile to stand against.
What makes a 8 1/2 month old fetus "sufficiently advanced"? What is sufficiently advanced life?
I don't think there is a consensus. If you'll take a peak at the link I posted earlier you'll see a chart of 50 states who place the line along different times.
As for my take, I don't think states should be making such decisions. I agree with those who say that abortion is a weighty moral decision, but I don't think it should be prevented prior to birth by the power of the law. I think that it is something which a woman should be able to choose in accordance with their own moral compass and life circumstances (it is a moral choice only if it is a choice, after all).
Ah, I see. Well, regardless of whether or not you set out to persuade me, or whether philosophy itself is good for persuasion, the fact is, you made a controversial claim on a philosophy forum, and naturally this sort of thing attracts attention. But if philosophy isn't good for persuasion, then how did it come to pass that you were persuaded by philosophical literature on this subject? And not only were you persuaded, you were persuaded to adopt a position which is arguably absurd, and is evidently viewed as such by many, so it must have been quite a feat.
Quoting Moliere
I mean that, in light of scientific evidence, and in accordance with humane values, the consequences of enacting such a law are contrary to reason. But I also think that some of the other connotations of the word "absurd" are not too far off: ridiculous, sensless, preposterous, ludicrous.
Quoting Moliere
That argument only applies to a portion of those who advocate against abortion, and not a particularly reasonable portion, and I am not one of them. Either 8 1/2 month old's are not people, or they are, but not in any sense which would fail to legally distinguish between cases of abortion, child destruction, and murder. (Any country which doesn't have a legal framework along those lines is indeed objectionable and worth taking a stand against). Either way, I think that whether or not an 8 1/2 month old is deemed a person is of secondary importance. What really matters is the 8 1/2 month old itself, and it's attributes, and what that entails, given our knowledge and values.
Quoting Moliere
Good question. I'll get back to you on that one.
Quoting Moliere
I will check it out.
1. Can they survive outside of the womb...
2. If they can survive outside the womb, are they able to survive with typical at-home care...
1. The closer to full term (39 to 40 weeks) the better the baby's long-term prospects are. The further from full term, the more likely are developmental delays, behavioral problems, learning difficulties, physical abnormalities, and so on. The earlier the prematurity, the more costly the child's survival--with or without difficulties.
Wikipedia
Baby Frieda, born in Fulda, Germany in 2011, at just under 23 weeks, weighing 1 lb, survived, and is apparently more or less normal at 5 years of age, though rather small and fragile. Most babies born this prematurely die. Baby Frieda and one or two other very premature babies are extreme outliers.
2. Late pre-term babies often require some neonatal care -- perhaps for 2 weeks or so, before they are able to be cared for at home without complex technological assists. The larger the number of weeks before full term is reached, the greater the likelihood of developmental problems. About 1/3 of the babies brain-mass is added during the final few weeks of pregnancy, before full term is reached. Most premature children have disabilities, though those resulting from late-preterm birth can be subtle behavioral and learning disabilities.
Home care means that the child can suck, swallow, and breathe normally; bowel, kidney, and bladder functions are normal; the brain has reached full development and will begin immediately getting a handle on "reality"; temperature regulation is present; and so on. Baring disease and injury, the baby will develop into a normal adult.
It seems reasonable to assign personhood to a fetus who is very likely to survive if born at such and such week prematurely, though perhaps with disabilities. It seems less reasonable to assign personhood to babies with minimal chances of survival. Baby Frieda was born with very scant chances of survival. Rather than being allowed to die, she was place in an intensive neonatal care unit for 17 weeks. Was she a person or a mass of tissue receiving very expensive care? Presumably, we don't provide very expensive care to tissue masses, regardless of their provenance, for more that 24 hours or so (like a heart on ice flying to its hoped-for successful rendezvous with a heartless body).
Baby Frieda's outlier status is a conundrum. If one baby can survive at 22 or 23 weeks, presumably others can as well. What is the cut off 21 Weeks? 20 Weeks? The last week that survival chances are zero?
I am in favor of women or parents having the right to chose to terminate a pregnancy. Is this principle relative to survival or absolute, such that during the last day of the 38th or 39th week an abortion would be OK? The latter position seems inhumane, insensitive, and rule bound: Not born quite yet? Abortion is still possible. If it is relative to survival, how much do the chances have to be? Salvaging a fetus at 25 weeks, but endowing it with a lifetime of crippling disabilities hardly seems like a "pro-life" position.
Is a chance of survival above 60% without severe disabilities a reasonable requirement for blocking abortion? Chance of survival 95% without severe disabilities? 98%? 99%? Does severe disability matter? (I think severe disability should be avoided, by abortion or being allowed to die, if necessary).
It would still be a moral failure were the fetus a person, if we just gave up on a person because, eh, chances aren't all that great anyways -- might as well let the person die because chances aren't in our favor.
Certainly. There is a difference, though, between defending a position and persuading others to it. No?
Because I was reflecting on my own beliefs and questioning them. This is what I think philosophy is good for.
You'd have to supploy the evidence to make hte claim that many view what I believe as absurd -- and, I think, you'll find that there is not such widespread agreement as you seem to believe on what counts as a whom.
Quoting Sapientia
Could you unpack that, then? I don't know what you mean, if this is different from anything I've said so far.
The decision makers need some information, I think, to help them decide. for instance, if labor begins early, it makes a difference whether one rushes to the OB/GYN department to stop labor (and extend the pregnancy to normal length) or just go ahead and deliver. The factors bearing on the decision would be very different at 27 or 37 weeks.
IF parents believe that a fetus who could survive outside the womb is "ensouled" or "impersonated" then they would want to know what the chances of the fetal person making it, or not.
We don't have to decide for them, but it is useful for society to rehearse the practical, medical, and ethical considerations implicit in the decisions it expects individuals to make.
I suspect (don't have proof) that a gynecologist asked to abort a 37 week fetus would probably want a damned good reason for doing so. Even if society could be said to have no stake in the fetus until it is naturally born, it seems like a pregnant woman or parents have a stake in a 37 week old fetus, and way before 37 weeks should have been able to decide whether to continue the pregnancy or not. Maybe circumstances suddenly changes -- a real possibility.
By terminating a fully viable fetus is very close to infanticide. Maybe our society will decide that infanticide is OK (I prefer we not so decide). Most societies officially disapprove of killing babies, even if it happens fairly often (like in India where male babies are strongly preferred).
New medical capabilities will evolve, and therefore the ethical considerations will change too. In an overcrowded world short on resources to solve pressing problems, I am opposed to heroic medical care to enable a 22, 26, or 28 week fetus survive--whatever the severity of prematurity. Cost of survival is also a relevant ethical consideration. I don't think it makes a lot of sense to spend $1,000,000 to enable 1 premature fetus, or 1 senior citizen to survive cancer either. (It's not hard to run up a million dollars in care costs). I would be and am willing to forego elaborate cancer therapy at this point (at 70 years). I don't know how long I will live, of course, but getting to live 10 more years, for instance, is not worth any amount of money. "Whatever it takes" isn't my approach. If I develop a readily treatable cancer with very good survival rates and good quality of life (given age and the staging of the cancer) maybe <$100,000 is worth while -- maybe. If a cancer has, at best, marginal chances of survival and then without good quality of life, it is time to plan for one's death.
Quality of life matters at both ends of life. The children born with the severe brain damage accompanying microcephaly caused by Zika virus are unfortunate victims. Had their condition been detected before birth, it would have made medical, ethical, and practical sense (to me) to abort ASAP--even at 8 1/2 months. Their quality of life will not, can not, be good for those seriously affected. Even a low quality of life will be fairly expensive.
I'm more than happy to agree to disagree or wait until a more formal debate, but I am not below trading barbs for barbs either -- keep in mind that if I am correct then your position is no different from the Catholic position, and that my compassion would be well placed whereas yours would be the result of an unexamined squeemishness that then resulted in controlling women for no good reason.
The compassion-sword can cut both ways. ["They are clearly mad for disagreeing with me! A psychopath, clearly"] -- but what I imagine is more appropriate to acknowledge is mere disagreement, rather than something wrong with either your or my character or psychology
That may not be true. Our economy has made it easy to get a gun if desired, but we could make it considerably harder if needed.
And there was much gnashing of teeth...
The similarity between yours and the Catholic position is more in the above than the exact placement of the line. As far as I'm concerned your placement of the line is the same as defending zygotes -- but Catholics will say that zygotes are persons, and so they will say most of what you say in regards to those who disagree with them.
Couldn't it be the case that we just happen to disagree on the proper placement of the line, rather than a lack of compassion, or a belief that the innocent are not of consequence?
EDIT: I'll also note here that I've already put forward criteria to the question I've asked yourself, @Hanover, and @Sapientia -- only to find no answer from you or Sapientia, and an acknowledgment from Hanover that decisions must be made, and we make our decisions in different places. (Or, at least, no protest there)
So I'd say you're off the mark in lumping me in with creationists or pedophiles. I have provided reasons. I'm still waiting for yours.
I clicked on your link which supposedly provided a basis for your argument that abortions in some states were legally permissible for 8 1/2 month fetuses. I didn't go through checking out every state listed, but I just choose Colorado. http://statelaws.findlaw.com/colorado-law/colorado-abortion-laws.html. It was as expected, which is that abortion is illegal in such instances except to save the life of the mother. That is, it's a bit of a misstatement to say that some states openly allow abortions well into the 3rd trimester without pointing out this detail.
In fact, if you look at all the laws in all the states, they all adhere to the trimester framework, offering different levels of protection to the fetus depending upon its level of development. They adhere to that framework because it's the system set out by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade. You'll note that in the link I cited above, Planned Parenthood only performs abortion up to the 19th week.
A few stats for you: 91% of all abortions are performed in the first trimester (first 12 weeks), 9% in the second trimester, and .01% in the third trimester. http://www.foxnews.com/story/2003/06/17/fast-facts-us-abortion-statistics.html. The point being that no one really believes or practices 8 1/2 month abortions, other than probably in some really extreme circumstances, like a true life and death decision has to be made to save one or the other.
Quoting Moliere
And if that is your position, I don't see how you consistently hold that a mother doesn't have the right to kill her child after its birth, as there really isn't anything significantly different between a fetus whose head is crowning at the edge of the cervix and that same baby just a few feet further away, fully outside the birth canal. To call one a citizen entitled to protection and the other the woman's chattel based upon it's physical whereabouts seems arbitrary, considering both are identical down to the cellular level. In fact, the newborn infant is still attached by umbilical cord to its mother for a few moments.
I did intent to look up the science in order to better explain why an 8 1/2 month old foetus is sufficiently advanced to rightly judge it to be (or that it ought to be) illegal to perform such a late-term abortion under the relevant conditions (cf. The Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929, Offences against the Person Act 1861, et al. Over here, it's a statutory offence named child destruction). However, although it would be interesting, I doubt whether it's necessary. The viability point alone seems like good enough grounds for justification.
*shrugs* I suppose? My point is in showing that 3rd trimester abortions are legal. Up to 8 1/2 weeks. That didn't seem to be understood in this conversation.
Personally, no, I don't care about the qualification -- but others do. And, even with the qualification, that's very different from the absolute that I presumed was being proposed.
I'm aware of the distribution. You'll note that I'm remaining on the side of the law, and stating that 3rd trimester abortions should be legal. There are cases, extreme ones as you mention, where it's more than justified. That doesn't mean it is not a weighty decision, as I've already said,
Quoting Hanover
I don't think they are identical -- first, I would say that our cellular structure doesn't define who we are. We have both skin grafts, for instance, which are human cells but not human beings. Second, having a separate body is a huge, non-arbitrary difference. In one case you don't even have a body, but in the other you do. Surely you can see how having a body is an important factor in whether or not you count as a citizen?
The brain isn't even fully formed at the time of birth. It is still in development. The cerebral cortex cells don't even differentiate until ~20-22 weeks, and it takes time for them to set into place. And without proper care which occurs outside of the womb, just as there was proper care inside the womb, their will be no growth into a human being.
Lastly, I would say that we already agree that there is no point where the before and after has very large differences. A citizen is a conglomerate of attributes -- there's no magic formula which designates this from that. So I'd hold that your arbitrarity clause holds similarly for times prior to birth -- that if you hold 24 weeks to be acceptable, you should also hold 25 weeks to be acceptable, etc. insofar that the point is an arbitrary point and there is no significant difference between two very close points in time.
Birth is the moment when the body is separated, though. That is more significant than any point you'll find within the uterus, even if the second before and after the umbilical separation is not very different.
I disagree that 8.5 months is the only important point to garner there. My point is to show that the line is drawn at various stages of development. You'll find behind each line-drawing some kind of justification -- heart beating, brain development, "feeling pain", or birth.
Stuff like that.
And, no, there is no consensus. People feel quite differently about the issue, in fact. And how you justify that feeling is what's more important, I'd say. You can't just go about assuming that science has spelled out when humans are human and that happens to coincide with the moment when you feel comfortable while simultaneously claiming to have engaged the topic and have an examined viewpoint.
Where do you draw the line, and what makes that line significant? This is what I'm asking. I've provided my point in time, and my justification. Where is yours?
I have addressed viability in this thread. Viability changes with both technology and location. In fact, imagine a time in the future where we could just collect sperm and eggs from people and grow humans in a test-tube. Would that, because these are viable, require us to grant the rights of citizenship and the protection of the state to sperm, eggs, zygotes?
Further, I think viability is a cruel standard. There are times when, even if it is not viable, it is good to try and save someone. It's not like as soon as we dip below the 49% chance of survival that we should give up, or even feel like it is permissible to give up on the life of a fellow human. That would be a moral failure. We should strive to preserve human life, even if the chances are against us. As such, even if a fetus were not viable -- say, a 20% chance of surviving -- yet, were human, we should strive to keep said person alive in spite of the low chances of survival simply because they are human. In all cases. This is what we do with humans in the hospital, unless they have a DNR. If the fetus is a human at some point, then shouldn't we do the same in this case?
I never disputed that the line is drawn at various stages of development, nor that the justifications differ. That does not entail that there is no consensus. So, in the context of our disagreement, your point is irrelevant. There is evidently consensus in the most relevant sense in the context of our disagreement, which is about the legal status of abortion at approximately 37 weeks. Your own statistics show that it's illegal in 41 out of 50 states (that's 82%) beyond 28 weeks, let alone 37 weeks! Yet you deny that that in any way reflects a consensus?
Quoting Moliere
You were the one that provided the numbers in an attempt to show that there is no consensus. That failed, so now you've changed tack, and are saying that it's the content and "feeling" behind the numbers that is more important. Well, I don't agree in the context of our initial and primary disagreement, which is over whether or not abortion should be legal right up until birth. The policy representing at least 82% of the U.S. is that abortion is illegal subsequent to 28 weeks. You can't simply sweep that under the rug - especially given that you were the one to have presented these statistics in an attempt to support your own position.
It's entirely up to me whether or not I decide to elaborate on my claims about the science, and I have chosen not to for the time being, in part because, as I said, I doubt whether it's necessary to get into all of that. Perhaps you're not as cautious as I am about pursuing what might be a lengthy digression - albeit quite an interesting one - but that decision is not for you to make.
One thing I have not claimed is that "science has spelled out when humans are human", yet you've nonetheless suggested that that is what I've assumed. How about you stick to what I've actually claimed? I did speak of advanced life, and I did so intentionally with the hope of avoiding this superficial issue of "personhood" or "humanness". I'd rather just avoid such terms if it's going to be problematic. It's a living thing, yes? A foetus of the species [i]homo sapien[/I], aged approximately 37 weeks, and relatively advanced? One thing that science can tell us is whether or not a typical 37 week old foetus is viable, and to what degree.
Quoting Moliere
From a pragmatic standpoint, that doesn't really matter. What matters is how we can best solve the current situation, and we only have access to what we currently know. We can't look into a crystal ball. What would be the point of discussing such a hypothetical future scenario? We're talking about what the law should be, and I don't think that philosophical speculation of the sort that you seem to want to engage in will help matters.
The statistics you cited were about the U.S., and, as far as I'm aware, in the U.S., technology isn't an obstacle for the illegal status of such late-term abortions based on viability. If it becomes problematic along the lines that you suggest, then the legislation could be amended.
Quoting Moliere
It is a practical standard, I think. We might have to settle for that in the absence of a better alternative. But if you think you have a better suggestion, I'm all ears. Your proposal would only make things worse, and considerably so. And if you genuinely feel that way, then why on earth are you advocating that abortion should be legal up until birth? That's a performative contradiction if I ever saw one.
Being "embodied" - having a unique cellular structure - doesn't define us? No one else has your cellular structure -- (which incorporates your history of experiences), so what else would define you?
Quoting Moliere
What, if not a body, is a fetus? By 24 weeks it looks pretty much like a baby body.
Quoting Moliere
So, how far can we extend this ambiguity indefinitely? "Hey kid, you're 24 years old, you've got a degree: get a job or it's off to the abortion clinic with you."
Quoting Moliere
If a newborn--premature or not--is on the table, or if the person was just fished out of the river, or has a gunshot wound, "viability" just means they have a biological future. If the drowning victim has been in the water too long, life for them is no longer viable. One can try resuscitation all day, but once life has departed, is not viable, it's not coming back. If the lost blood can be replaced quickly, the gun shot victim's life may be quite viable. A premature baby (lets say 28 weeks) is probably viable with very good care. If such care isn't available, then viability does not exist.
Hanover is a lawyer of some sort, if I recall correctly. So I'm guessing he has a pretty good understanding of the law. And as for my part, I was already aware that the law accounts for such instances in which it's deemed necessary in order to save the life of the mother. Isn't that common knowledge? It's reflected in medical dramas all the time. Additionally, I actually referred to the legal Act which was amended precisely for that reason, although that was later on in the discussion.
Yes, I do.
Suppose you have some topic, and within that topic there are 8 opinions with an even distribution. You might then say that 1 such opinion is certainly outnumbered by all the other opinions. And therefore has a consensus against it.
But the devil is in the details, so I would say.
Quoting Sapientia
The position that there is no consensus, yes. And I'd still stick to that, as per the above argument.
Quoting Sapientia
Sorry, this is what Baden was alluding to -- that the science backed him up, and that my position was therefore on par with creationism.
A fetus is living, without a doubt. Metabolism and all. And it is a fetus of the species homo sapien. But what is "relatively advanced"? That's where I'd say disagreement lies.
Quoting Sapientia
From a pragmatic standpoint it certainly does, because "viability" has already changed drastically within the past century.
The point of the future scenario is to demonstrate how the principle of viability can fall into error. The reason why, so I would say, is that we should try and save humans even if they are not viable. This is the right thing to do.
Take some of the more extreme cases of cancer, for instance, if you want an example that's in the here and now.
Quoting Sapientia
Considering how many third-term abortions there are, I rather doubt that. It's not a very common occurance. It's not something entered into lightly, either, at least if the Guttmacher Institute is to be believed.
Because I don't believe that third term fetus' should be treated the same as the rest of us who have grown and developed, have a separate body, a history, relationships, and experiences which have formed who we are (so that we even are a who). So to stop an abortion there is, as far as I'm concerned, the same as stopping an abortion in the first trimester -- neither of which should be entered into lightly (it is a moral deliberation), but neither of which should be prevented by the power of law.
The incorporation of a particular history, of experiences, a physical and social environment are all important aspects of who we are -- but also being physically separate, so I would say.
Quoting Bitter Crank
A fetus is a fetus. It has the potential to be a body, as you note below, but I wouldn't call it a body in the sense of a body someone owns.
A clump of cells, the same as the first trimester, seems more accurate to me.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I think that's the dilemma anyone faces -- this was the point I was trying to bring up in @Hanover's rebuttal of 3rd trimester abortions. The rebuttal works against any arbitrarily chosen line, because the time before and after doesn't have much difference.
I choose birth because you at least have a separate body at that point. Makes sense that you should be treated as a separate being once you have a separate body.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Yes, I agree.
EDIT: Take California's statue, for instance -- this pretty clearly states that it's a decision between the doctor and the patient. Would you agree?
And no one said anything about awareness of the 50 various differences in the law. You don't need to be a lawyer to know what I was talking about, for Christ's sake. If you haven't been living under a rock, chances are you'll at least have a layman's understanding of the exceptional circumstances-in-question.
So, what's your take on California's law then?
EDIT: To remain clear, so it doesn't seem like a bait or anything -- I read it, and yes it does say viability at the end. In good faith, no less. But there's something very different in this particular law -- one, "life of the mother" isn't an issue. And, two, "viability" is done on good faith.
No, not in the case of a viable foetus. It clearly states that this is soley about the judgement of the physician in regard to the viability of the foetus and the patients health.
Quoting Moliere
What? The life of the mother [i]is[/I] an issue:
And I would expect the "good faith" part either explicitly or implicitly. I don't know English law well enough to know off the top of my head whether our law has a specific part like that. I'd have to look it up.
Edit: Unsurprisingly, it does: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1967/87/section/1. And from just a cursory glance, it seems to be more stringent, which is all the better, given that, for example, it requires not one but two registered medical practitioners.
So, even if the fetus is viable, if it poses a threat to the mother you're good -- and even if the continuation of the pregnancy does not pose a threat to the mother's life, if the fetus is not viable (as defined above in the definitions --
),
then the abortion is not illegal.
"Good faith", from my familiarity, just means "on your word" -- so if someone sets up an operation to sting a particular doctor, say, and records the doctor stating "I know that this fetus could live, but we're going to do it anyways!" you'd have a strong case against that particular doctor. But otherwise? You have a hard time proving it, at least. I am only familiar with this term from contract negotiations, though, where management basically just has to show up to the meetings to be counted in good faith.. Maybe it's different, here.
There should be legislation in place so that there's legal recourse for abortion under such circumstances, yes. But it's no simple matter.
Quoting Moliere
That's how it should be unless and until a better basis for judgement than viability is found.
Quoting Moliere
I don't know enough to say how effective such legislation is or whether anything more can be done to ensure that it's followed, but at least it's there. Requiring two registered medical practitioners, rather than one, is a step in the right direction, it seems.
Birth works as far as I'm concerned. ;)
But, I'm not alone in the world, nor the dictator.
It seems, then, that you are pinning "sufficiently advanced" on "viability"?
Viability is related, and can act as a sort of guide, although how reliable a guide it is or can be is debatable. But I think that it's better than nothing, and better than your proposed alternative - which seem to amount to the same thing, anyway: do nothing.
I'm not willing to commit to it being the sole or even primary determining factor for being sufficiently advanced, though. I need to do more research and give it more thought. But, as interesting as this topic is, I'm not in any rush, to be honest.
And, yes, I don't have something that we should do together now. I just know what I believe, and why I believe it.
In the ideal of all ideals, I'd prefer the question of abortion's legality to be settled by women only. But, I'm not sure how you'd implement that.
If 7 out of the 8 shared the same conclusion, and the other one opposed it, then, in that respect, there would be a consensus against the other one. That's analogous to the case that we've been discussing, so there is a consensus, whether you acknowledge it or not.
That doesn't mean that the bigger picture, involving full reasoning - premises included - is completely unimportant. But it wasn't necessary to make my point. Fortunately, an overwhelming majority arrived at the right conclusion, namely that it should be illegal to have an abortion after 28 weeks (except those exceptions) - even if the various reasons behind that conclusion aren't all reasons that I'd agree with.
Quoting Moliere
Well, if you think about a 37-week-old foetus in comparison to a zygote shortly after fertilisation, then it should be clear that it has developed over time relative to that initial stage. I would say that it has developed quite significantly, and in significant ways.
I know that in order to back up those claims, I'll have to elaborate, and provide evidence, but I'm reluctant to do so, because I want to get it right; and, like I said, I need to do some more work.
Quoting Moliere
Ok, but again, and still from a pragmatic standpoint, if it's the best that we've got, then we should go with it, despite it's fallible nature. We should, however, look to improve our method.
Quoting Moliere
We should act within reason, or at least use reason as a guide, in these sorts of situations; and there are situations in which it would be unreasonable to try to save the unviable. Bear in mind that we are talking about setting a guideline. Disregarding the guidelines can in some cases lead to good results. For example, it can save lives in certain situations. But it can also result in more death or greater injury. The guidelines are there for a good reason.
I don't agree with your discrimination against those you don't class as human: those unborn members of the human species. The sufficiently advanced ones, at least. (I know, I know. There's that term again which needs to be clarified. But it serves it's purpose).
Quoting Moliere
Ideally, there shouldn't be [i]any[/I], though - none that don't satisfy the conditions for exception in the relevant legislation. So, pragmatically, we should take advantage of the political tools at our disposal to try to prevent such cases from occurring. We certainly shouldn't scrap the current legal framework in place in England, California, and other such places, so that we end up going backwards.
Quoting Moliere
They've certainly grown and developed, have a history, and perhaps have - and have had - experiences too, but I think that you factor in things which make little sense or aren't as important as you think they are. I don't think that lacking: relationships of the sort that we have; a completely separate body; and an identity that is as fully formed as ours, means that we should therefore be legally entitled to have them killed without very good reason (as per the relevant laws that we've discussed).
That's another statement that I find particularly disagreeable on sexist grounds. Our ideals are clearly opposed in certain respects. The thought that all of my views on this important topic, of which I'm passionate, and with which I have made an effort to be reasonable and conscientious, which effect the whole of society - not just women - would be discounted solely on the basis of my gender... that is a thought that I find highly objectionable.
By "most", what are you thinking here? Just the drugs that don't do too much harm? How are your views on guns (ban private ownership) compatible with your views on drugs (some violent acts have indeed been caused by drugs, alcohol, and the like). It seems as though if you are going to allow drugs then you have to allow guns as well. Both are supererogatory parts of life (well, actually some people depend on guns to survive).
Quoting Sapientia
Moliere could be saying that only those who get pregnant ought to be empowered to decide whether or not to have an abortion, which seems pretty reasonable to me. To say that women should have the same bodily autonomy as men is precisely anti-sexist.
I think I'm with Moliere on guns too, though I'm undecided.
In the case of drugs, the opposite is true. We find that decriminalizing drugs results in less addictions, homicides, etc. See Portugal and other European countries for evidence of this, for example.
So for me, I have no principled reasons why we ought to uphold the second amendment or why marijuana, cocaine, etc ought to remain illegal. If I did, I would maintain such principles directly in opposition to the facts at hand.
This doesn't follow. Your prior position was that the pregnant woman alone had the right to choose abortion at any time because it was her body. If that is your position, it makes no more sense to allow a man or another woman to decide what that woman gets to do with her own body. Women don't have a special sisterhood where one gets decide what to do with another's body. If a 15 year old girl is pregnant, you believe Sarah Palin should be given greater rights to decide what she ought to do over Bernie Sanders?
Suppose some women believe that men ought to weigh in on the issue, does the authority they have as women encompass the power to delegate that power to men?
Either you want to make every case subjective where the pregnant woman herself gets to weigh her life circumstances and emotions and decide or you create some objective criteria that you apply across the board. If you're going to look for some objective criteria that allows limitations on abortions, women are no better objective evaluators than men regarding what criteria ought to be used. It's not as if every woman has been pregnant or can be pregnant, and it's not as if no man has any understanding of what human life is.
And, of course, arguing that only women can meaningfully debate the abortion issue somewhat defeats any argument you've presented here regarding abortion, your being male and all.
Personhood in so far as it relates to abortion is a heap problem. To the Catholic church one grain of sand is a heap. To the super late abortionist 1 million grains of sand minus 1 is no longer a heap. You are both obviously wrong for obvious reasons.
That isn't what he said, although it's possible that that was what he meant. That's a different issue.
I don't think that it's reasonable unconditionally. Like I said, I'm in favour of laws along the lines of the current English laws.
Men don't get pregnant. So it [i]doesn't[/I] make sense to apply the same standard in terms of bodily autonomy. And [i]people[/I] have children - not just women. So it [i]does[/I] make sense not to exclude them from the question of abortion's legality. And in any case, I think that gender is not so relevant in the latter case. What matters is that the right decision is reached, not so much how it's reached, although I suppose a gender-balanced approach would be fair and sensible.
Quoting jamalrob
I'm not entirely against him, but I err on the side of caution. I want a workable middle ground.
The woman's body does not include the fetus. It contains the fetus.The fetus is also a body. It has all the basic physical characteristics of a body and at 8 1/2 months is virtually indistinguishable from a new born's body. It being inside the mother and dependent on the mother does not negate that fact. In fact, if it weren't for the placental barrier the mother's body would reject the foreign fetal body. In other words the fetus is obviously not a body part, which it would need to be to give your argument force. Given that there is no general right to do what we want with our bodies if that involves harming others' bodies, there is no justification for allowing women to harm fetuses simply because their bodies contain them.
I am not going to spell things out for you. As I said, what you claim follows from my position only does so given a number of other premises, and I refuse to believe you don't have the imagination to see that, even to see what my own assumptions are. What is a body? What do we mean when we talk of a woman's body, and is this like talking about a fetus's body, or somewhat different? When I talk of the woman's body I am talking about the body of a person. Etc.
What I would question on your part is the obviousness of your own beliefs. I can respect the Catholic position because it is consistent. It's a bit a-historical, if we take Aquinas as a measure, but hey, institutions change with political realities, even religious ones. Their position is still consistent, and I understand it, though I disagree with it.
I've also lain out my position, on the other side. I insist that it is consistent, philosophically arrived at, and not absurd. It is rational. That doesn't mean it is singular. But it is rational.
I don't think you, or others, can get away with hand-waving on this particular point while also rejecting people who have put an answer forth. You may reject us, but I think then it is on you to provide a justification.
And we are all dealing with the same heap problem. But, rather than debating whether this or that is in fact a heap of sand, our answer has consequences.
How do you answer? That I know. But why do you answer it? What is your justification?
Only in an ideal sense. I recognize the difficulties in real life of implementing something like that. But, in general, I believe that those who are effected/affected by policy should be the ones who have say -- and abortion policy is one of those that clearly effects/affects women more than men.
In particular, non-ideal terms, my answer is that the woman alone should decide.
Quoting Hanover
Not in my ideal of all ideals. I'd separate out the particular decision about abortion from the general decision about policy which regulates abortion.
In practical terms I think that every case is subjective.
In ideal terms, I think that objective policy should be set by women.
I don't believe that only women can meaningfully debate the abortion issue. I'm stating that in an ideal sense I think that policy should be set by women.
EDIT: Though I see no relevant difference between include and contain in this context.
Similarly, my main problem with your position, @Moliere, isn't about internal consistency and rationality. My earlier charge of absurdity was in relation to the consequences, and to that which is external to your position, e.g. values or priorities which you might not share.
Obversely, the idea that a fetus is just a mini-person is a consequence of a vulgar scientism that completely misses how human society works.
What do you mean?
Could you outline those values, then? And support them?
I think you must start your argument with the prefatory statement Assuming that a fetus is a part of, as opposed to contained within, a woman's body. That statement I think will ferret out enough people that many won't find the rest of your thesis useful. This isn't to say that your qualification isn't arguable; it's just that it doesn't really seem at all realistic (to me at least).
I mean what I said. I don't know why you find it confusing. If you think that there ought to be women-only authorities over issues which effect mostly women, but also men, then presumably you apply the same reasoning if you swap the gender roles. Do you or don't you? I find your position objectionable either way, but I was focusing on a particular criticism about your presumed feminist values, and whether you apply your reasoning in a fair and consistent manner.
Quoting Moliere
The value of an unborn human. It's a human in that it is a member of the human species, and you are discriminating against it based on the mere fact that he or she is unborn. At 37 weeks of age, it has developed certain qualities that distinguish it from a zygote, and render it similar - more similar, I'd say - to those of a newborn.
I don't know how well I can support these values. It largely depends on your own values and emotions, and I don't know how subject to change they are.
Fetal development was first studied by John Hunter in the mid 18th century. Since Hunter, medicine and biological science has pretty well worked out the development of the fetus -- not in the detail of C. elegans (a 900 cell nematode) but quite thoroughly.
Google search it. This site gives brief week by week descriptions of development.
Sure, why not? On the surface I don't see anything wrong with that.
It's worth noting historical context, etc., and even in today's world of supposed equality that men hold more positions which write policy, though.
Quoting Sapientia
I agree that the unborn have value. I don't think many believe otherwise. My position is largely in regards to the power of the state, and what it should cover by law. There's a big gulf, in my view, between what ought to be legal, and what ought to be in the moral sense.
Hence why I say that it's not a decision to make lightly -- but it is still a decision that should be available without legal barriers.
Because it's unfair and discriminatory. Perhaps you're ok with that, but I'm not.
Quoting Moliere
If that's a problem, then we might benefit from more women in such roles, so that it's more gender-balanced. But your position is more extreme. You want to tip the scales to one end, or rather, break off the other end - which is the problem that we already face. You aren't for equality of genders, you're for superiority of one gender over the other - which is not a good point of view with regards to the sorts of issues that we've been discussing, and is far from ideal. It represents unfairness and discrimination.
Quoting Moliere
But not enough to legally protect them from being unjustly killed.
Quoting Moliere
That's where you run into performative contradiction, I suspect. If you think that it's wrong, then you should endorse safeguards.
Quoting Moliere
We're worse off, as a society, without those barriers. It's a worthwhile sacrifice of liberty if it prevents those who take advantage of that liberty to unjustly kill other members of the human species. On what grounds, besides those already covered by law, do you think that anyone would be justified in killing a 37-week-old foetus? The "my body, my decision" to unjustly kill it simply doesn't cut the mustard. It's a selfish, narrow-minded, ill-considered, and damaging view. Nor do these attempts to dehumanise.
i think this is the right view. The fetus has a genetic make-up that is not the same as the mother's. The fetus makes claims on the mother's body (for nutrition, warmth, disposal of waste, etc.), and sheds it's cells, some of which end up circulating in the mother's blood, and which are identifiable as "not belonging to the mother". Male brain cells have been found in the brains of mothers, decades after delivery. (Fewer male cells in the brain was correlated with an increased incidence of
The fetus has an ambiguous, sort of adversarial, relationship with the mother. The fetus soaks up as much of the mother's substance as it can (to develop) and often causes biological problems for the mother. We don't know exactly what being born is like for the infant, but for the woman it can be quite unpleasant.
The whole reason for the placenta is for the mother and fetus to keep each other at arms length, so neither is over-exposed to the other. However, the placental barrier isn't perfect. There is traffic, at least from the fetus to the mother, and it isn't clear yet what the fetal cells might do for, or to, the mother.
I disagree that this would be unfair and discriminatory.
Suppose you have 3 wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner democratically. They eat different things. They would be effected by said decision differently. It doesn't make sense to apply a rule universally if people are effected differently by said rule.
Quoting Sapientia
It's not superiority, it's acknowledging that people are effected differently -- and assigning say on that basis.
Ideally, of course. In real life, where practical concerns are of importance, I don't know how you'd implement such a rule.
Quoting Sapientia
That's not true. 1) I don't think killing a fetus is unjust tout court. I think it's something which people have to weigh within their own circumstances, pragmatically. I'd be hesitant to call such an action, prior to birth, unjust without some argument.
Quoting Sapientia
I don't think that it's wrong. It's not black and white. And, I disagree with your later point emphatically. It's not the role of the law to make people good.
Quoting Sapientia
Numerous. In the end, I don't think the fetus counts as a person with rights. It is a clump of cells. Cells which have value, but nowhere near the same value as an actual person -- which the mother clearly is. Your proposal sacrifices the actual rights of citizens for what? The supposed inference that killing a fetus at such and such a time is unjust. But that's what you'd have to back up, I think. I recognize that you wish to take your time -- but then, I don't know if you can also say that an action is unjust when you simply don't know your position.
Your last sentence is right out of the Catholic playbook :D. "Calling a baby a fetus is dehumanizing"
I don't think that my position is selfish, narrow-minded, ill-considered, nor damaging. Which would include allowing women to choose to terminate a pregnancy at 37 weeks for any reason they deem necessary.
I just trust women to make the right decision on such moments, pragmatically, and would rather they make the decision in the circumstances that they know rather than bureaucrats (who are mostly male) making said decision in board rooms far away from said circumstances.
I find statements like the above pretty shocking.
Anyway, it's been interesting, but I think I've reached the point where arguing with you any further seems pointless. That's not meant as a slur, I just doubt it'll be productive, and I lack the will to persevere.
I'd have just as much a problem with that as with an infanticide under anaesthesia. The reason I brought up the pain issue was to test whether those on your side were willing to cede any autonomous rights at all to the unborn. If you cede that the fetus cannot justifiably be subjected to pain without some proportionate counterbalance then the "It's a woman's right to do anything she wants with her own body" stance no longer holds water.
I never claimed the fetus is just a mini-person. I've said time and time again, the "person" debate will get us nowhere. There is no agreed definition of "person" to work with. But it doesn't have to be just a mini person to have some rights. Even animals have rights. The fetus is human; under normal circumstances it will develop into a fully grown person; it can feel pain; it has a brain; it has a nervous system; at 8 1/2 months it is fully viable. It's not just a piece of meat. It's one the most sophisticated organisms on the planet at any stage of its development. To say that we can do what we will with it needs more justification than simply the fact that we want to maintain some woolly idea of autonomy based on the very questionable premise that it's part of the woman's body.
Very few abortions are performed as late as 24 weeks. If a 6 month old fetus was to be aborted, there are two routes to deal with pain: the first is that a drug can be injected into the amniotic fluid that will stop the heart. The other route is that anesthesia can be given to the mother, which will apply to the baby as well.
It's worth noting, as one surgeon observed, that if anti-abortion advocates are concerned about pain at 20 weeks (or later), why aren't they concerned about pain during child birth -- an experience that we have every reason to suppose is quite painful for the baby. An anti-abortion spokeswoman said, "Well something happens during birth that prevents pain."
What fetuses more certainly experience is stress from events outside the womb (the mother is in an accident, for instance). What is seen in the fetus at such times, and during fetal surgery, is at least a stress response. Narcotics and other drugs are given to reduce stress. Would an unmedicated fetus at 35 weeks experience stress and pain from an abortion? Almost certainly -- and they will experience stress and pain during delivery too.
It seems to me reasonable to say, "a woman has a right to decide--for whatever reason--to abort before a specific stage has been reached. Let's say the end of the second trimester is the deadline. After the 24th week, incrementally higher barriers have to be surmounted.
What sort of things would justify a late term abortion? (out of my depth here) Tumors, possibly? Some women develop uterine tumors during pregnancy--benign fibroid (muscle cell) tumors. They are not malignant, but they can cause serious problems during a pregnancy. Maybe that sort of thing would be a cause for a later term abortion (especially if the fetus was deformed).
But keep in mind that we also kill animals. Not just in some absent minded manner, either -- but we have whole industries set up to maximize the production of animals for the purpose of meat consumption.
Where do you want us to get to? I certainly don't want to find a middle ground. I think personhood is precisely what matters.
The claim that fetuses feel pain is somewhat controversial, because pain is much more than mere nociception:
The notion of viability seems equally troublesome. And I don't think the existence of a brain and nervous system counts in any way against the right of the woman to terminate. The issue is moral and political, and cannot be decided by biology. In my opinion, the evidence you mention functions in the public debate primarily by encouraging a conception of the fetus as being essentially a newborn baby, thus as a sentimental appeal. If this is uncharitable with respect to your own use of the scientific evidence, even so you are using it in the service of a moral and political view, because it does not speak for itself. I don't treat people morally because they have brains and nervous systems, but because they are people who each have a place as individuals in society.
As for rights, I think the notion of animal rights is nonsense, and I can't see any sense in which fetuses or even newborn babies have rights, though in the latter there is a duty of care (as there is with animals).
I am saying that abortions should be allowed up to birth, that the interests of the woman must take priority over any interests we attribute to the fetus on the basis of biological development. I am not saying that it's ok for people to do what they want with them.
The principle of bodily autonomy is no more woolly than pain and viability. Extending the principle that nobody should be forced to undergo a medical procedure, no woman should be forced to continue with a pregnancy and undergo childbirth.
We treat people morally - unless we're sociopaths - mostly because we're built that way. If we need a philosophy book for much of our moral behaviour, we're in no better a position than those who feel they need a holy book for it. Philosophy is of course useful in very contentious cases on which intuitions vary. And abortion in general fits the bill well. But super-late-term abortion - not so much. There is consensus that it's wrong to kill 8 1/2 month old fetuses because we recognize that these younger versions of ourselves are very like ourselves. And empathy works largely on the principle of similarity. It also works on the principle of avoiding the greater harm which is why this:
Quoting jamalrob
doesn't hold much water in these cases where the major harm - the complete destruction of one human being, the fetus, is balanced against the minor harm - the inconvenience of completing the birth. It's only when the latter minor harm becomes a major harm (generally for medical reasons) that the case is even debateable. That's as it should be. But of course If you can argue empathy out of yourself on the basis that this or that human being is not (yet) a person, this line will mean nothing to you just as to someone who does empathize with late term fetuses is not going to be swayed by any of your arguments.
Are we going to debate whether it's debateable now? I'm debating it, and lots of other people take my position--though unfortunately less people now than a few decades ago, I think.
Obviously I can say something very similar with respect to the freedom and autonomy of the woman. Aside from that, you're right that we won't convince each other, but I don't care about that, as I'm not trying to convince you. That's not what debates are for.
I missed this. Obviously it applies to early-stage embryos too, so it doesn't support the special treatment of late-stage fetuses.
Quoting Baden
Here you seem to misunderstand me, and I'm not surprised, because if you don't know what a moral agent is or understand its significance, and you don't know what personhood is, then it's inevitable that you'll fail to see that treating people morally because they are people "who each have a place as individuals in society" and treating people morally "because we're built that way" are the same thing. My "because" does not imply a process of reasoning.
Can I ask why it should be illegal, and what the exceptions are or should be?
If the answer to the first question has anything to do with the fetus being a human being or person with its independent interests and rights, I don't see how there could be any exceptions. That is, I don't see how such abortions could ever be justified, unless murder is justified in some cases.
So here's another angle. Can we all agree, for whatever reasons, that earlier abortions are better than late ones, and that public policy ought to be directed towards reducing the need for late abortions?
Well, there's evidence that restrictions on late abortions are counter-productive:
I don't think any of those are good outcomes.
Reasons Why Women Have Induced Abortions
Reasons Why U.S. Women Have Induced Abortions
The example I like to use is from The Godfather, part II. In it Kate has an abortion. I can't remember all the details, but the main reason is because the father of her child is a gangster and she doesn't want the child to grow up in that environment. It's also something of an assertion of power over her husband, a breaking away. An extraordinary circumstance? I don't believe it's quite as extraordinary as the movie might portray -- looking at the second link you'll see that "having relationship problems/don't want to be single" is the fourth most frequent of the most important reasons given. The top three are -- "Not ready for a(nother) child", "Can't afford a baby now", and "Have completed my childbearing"
Any of those reasons, as far as I am concerned, are adequate for the legal right to obtain an abortion -- and I wouldn't look at it as unjust, either.
I'd liken the fetus more to an organ than to a citizen. We transplant livers. They have different cells in the transplant and before they find their home within someone else. A fetus has different stages of development, one of which actually separates the fetus from their mother. It is an organ whose job is to become a human being who will, scientifically at least, contribute to species fecundity.
I don't know of any other situations in typical democracies where affected parties are afforded more votes than those not so affected. Take driving under the influence laws, for example. If we're trying to arrive at better laws to deter drinking and driving, I'd certainly wish to hear from those who have been injured or affected by drunk drivers, and I'd like to hear from drunk drivers themselves and the judges who sentenced them. I don't think though that only their views count or that they are necessarily the most enlightened views. If I don't drive at all, I still get a say in how drivers license laws are designed.
Quoting MoliereFor the reasons I've already said, I don't think this makes a whole lot of sense, as if women have some advanced sense of right and wrong in these matters and that aborting a fetus or denying an abortion only affects women. And, of course, even if it did only affect women, that hardly means that unaffected women better empathize than men with affected women, especially those women who have never experienced the issue first or second hand.
This whole setting standards of who gets to vote is troubling for thousands of other reasons.
I find the notion that only women can debate abortion or vote on abortion policy to be absurd, patronizing, divisive, counter-productive, and anti-democratic.
No personal events changed my thinking, but they have changed to a view that aborting a fetus during the last few weeks of a pregnancy -- because, for reasons of convenience, the woman has decided that she no longer wishes to bear the child -- is just too ghastly to contemplate. Fetal development is too close to completion.
In fact, very very few abortions do occur so late in the pregnancy, and presumably medical necessity precipitated the late-term abortion and not merely a change in plans. But as an option to which the pregnant woman is entitled--whatever the reason--no.
Why do I hold the view that a woman's choice trumps the fetus and/or the father's interest at week 20? Abortion is still a ghastly procedure at week 20 or 24. What about week 1 -20? What's different?
What is different is that the fetus is too far from completion.
This does represent a limitation on the woman's right to abortion during the third trimester for purely personal reasons. So you broke up with the father? So the father turned out to be a mafioso kingpin? So the father just died? So the father left you for a younger, more beautiful non-pregnant, wealthier woman? So you found a wealthier, more handsome, available guy? Maybe you just lost your job? All that is most unfortunate, but you are now obligated to complete the pregnancy for the next few weeks. The late stage of development now trumps your convenience.
Five or six months seems like a long enough time for one to decide whether one wants to be pregnant or not. If abortion is being used as a tool for family planning, (oops, too soon or too late for another one) then waiting 6 months to decide is inexcusable. If the pregnancy occurred because of inattention to birth control or sex was forced and not an option, again -- it shouldn't take 6 months to decide that one doesn't want too be pregnant.
Holding that late term abortions are not acceptable isn't the same as holding that abortions are murder starting with week 1. I don't think a 3 week old fetus is a meaningless blob, but it is much closer to a meaningless blob than a person. A 38 week old fetus is all but born.
So, let's have full access to family planning and fertility control services, including abortion, across the land.
Men should have an interest in a prospective abortion IF, and only if, they are engaged in forming the family with the woman.
One might say that hit and run fatherhood is too short and small an investment to deserve a say. But suppose sex occurs with the assumption that no baby will result. Must the father then be compelled to support the child if the woman later decides to continue an unexpected pregnancy?
It should be illegal as a preventive measure. Baden put it well when he spoke of the cases "where the major harm - the complete destruction of one human being, the fetus, is balanced against the minor harm - the inconvenience of completing the birth".
The exceptions can be found here: [url]http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1967/87/section/1[/URL].
Quoting jamalrob
It is a human, and I believe that it deserves certain rights which should not be violated by the mother or anyone else, and fortunately it has those rights in English law, at least effectively, given that child destruction is a statutory offence.
It's not a contradiction to state that there should be the exceptions to which I've referred. The rights that I mentioned are in accordance with these exceptions and do not extend beyond them.
Quoting jamalrob
How so? And, as it happens, I don't know whether they'd technically count as murder, but if so, then I do believe that some such cases are justified: that's why I think that laws regarding euthanasia and assisted suicide could benefit from reform.
All terrible reasons to have an abortion. They don't have to keep the baby after giving birth. There are these things that you might have heard of called social services and adoption. If the parent or parents are unfit, the state has the power to intervene.
As the thread's about political affiliation, I thought I'd note that these are very weird words coming from an avowed leftist (or liberal). But I'm all for diversity of thought, so carry on.
I don't think it's that weird, but it was only a generalised label in any case. Being a leftist doesn't entail liberalism in all matters or unfettered liberalism. You specifically mentioned libertarianism. I'm more on the side of state intervention on this one, but not to the extreme of those on the right. I still strongly believe that women should have the legal right to abortion within reason (cf. The Abortion Act 1967).
There are judgemental attitudes aplenty on both sides of the fence with this one. And, given your reply, you're hardly an exception.
I am not entirely unsympathetic towards all of those who have or desire late-term abortions. But this is a matter of priorities, and of weighing the pros and cons. It's also a matter of concern about setting a worrying precedent. I certainly wouldn't want to rule in any old case, like @Moliere, who thinks that "any reason they deem necessary" ought to be permissible.
[i]I want to lose weight, but I don't wanna wait until this baby's born, so I need an abortion. My body, my decision[/I].
A side issue, because I don't know how you would pragmatically implement such a thing -- and so the policy I favor is one where the individual woman decides up until birth.
I see such banter occurs in all circles.
Perhaps in your opinion. But I think all of these are reasonable because I don't think a fetus is a human, but will become a human.
If you have a gall bladder removed, is it a moral crime? Even if you just removed it because it is convenient?
A fetus is not human, but is a human fetus. A liver is not human, but is a human liver. I'd say you are using "human" more or less in the same way that the philosophical literature uses "personhood" here:
Quoting Sapientia
I have no problem saying a fetus is human in the biological sense. But to say that a fetus deserves certain rights is basically to accord personhood to a fetus, which I think is still in error -- whether that be called "human", "sufficiently advanced", or so forth.
It's a conservative-only office?
Though, to be clear, I don't think debate should be restricted -- even in the event that there were some way that women were the official policy makers, I'd be shooting myself in the foot if I thought men shouldn't speak on the matter. I believe in free speech.
Among those I joke around with, yes. I'd also imagine that you might consider our liberals conservative, considering my location and industry.
Quoting jamalrob
Quoting Sapientia
As the great American Transcendentalist Ralph W. Emerson said, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds".
Marching in lock step to the dogmatic drummers on the right or the dogmatic drummers on the left is a real drag. Sapientia is violating no law of physics by holding an opinion that deviates from doctrinaire dogma. And even if he is, tough shit.
It would be contradictory to say that every fertilized egg is a soul, on the one hand, and on the other hand maintain that fetuses can be aborted at 20 weeks without justification. But that isn't what Sapientia was suggesting. What he said was that at some point in the pregnancy (say, 28 weeks, or pick your preferred cut off point) the nature of the decision changes.
A leftist can hold the view that aborting a very late term fetus -- in the 38th and 1/2 week example -- is an appalling act. Yes, women do and ought to have control over their own bodies, but a woman who has accepted a pregnancy long enough for the fetus to survive as a premature baby has waited too long to reject the pregnancy for any but a very grave need.
Yes, people do behave irresponsibly in all sorts of ways that cause real problems for society as a whole. There is nothing in leftish thought that says leftists should just disregard irresponsible behavior as an irrelevancy.
Not seeing much moral difference between gall bladders and fetuses are you?
I'm glad we have at least [i]some[/I] common ground [I]contra[/I] Moliere's "ideal" world.
Quoting Bitter Crank
The voice of reason.
Quoting Hanover
:D
Quoting Moliere
That's like, your opinion, man.
Quoting Moliere
Yes, because you apply some special meaning to the word "human" in order to arbitrarily exclude unborn babies. What kind of babies are we talking about again? Wolf babies? Tiger babies? No, [i]human[/I] babies. We don't suddenly become human as soon as we pop out of a vagina.
Quoting Moliere
I'd find your analogy funny if it didn't have such harmful consequences. That kind of takes the fun out of it.
Quoting Moliere
A newborn is not human, but is a human newborn. A toddler is not human, but is a human toddler. A child is not human, but is a human child. An adult is not human, but is a human adult.
I'm guessing that you reject those claims, even though they're of exactly the same logical form as yours. Special pleading? Why do you draw the line at birth? Odd.
Quoting Moliere
I don't think that you can square that with the claim that newborns [i]do[/I] deserve such rights. Your distinction is superficial.
I hadn't heard that quote before. I like it.
You aren't correct. At 38 weeks, it's definitely an organism. It has it's own organs.
At this point, considering that you haven't been able to defend your position and have pleaded ignorance and a desire to take your time in coming to a decision, I think it apt to point out that you are just talking about your opinion -- your unjustified belief.
Quoting Sapientia
Probably for similar reasons that you seem to want to draw the line further back -- because you have to draw the line somewhere, and birth is safely before we are dealing with a human in the sense you mean the word, and it is directly after a significant event.
The fetus is more like an organ than a human. I did say that this is an analogy when I introduced the comparison. They are obviously not identical.
Fortunately, @Bitter Crank has provided information. He provided a link a few pages back. It can be used to get at least a rough idea of how far along the line counts as developed enough to make abortion a bad idea, and from that, one has a basis for arguing in favour of legal exclusions.
Quoting Moliere
Yes, of course you have to draw the line somewhere. But drawing it at birth isn't safely before we are dealing with a human at all - only in your sense where you define being human post-birth. There is a reason why it's against the law here in England, most of the U.S., and elsewhere. Don't you think that that might have something to do with it? To be on the safe side, it makes sense to go further back than birth.
Your reasoning is in conflict with scientific literature.
Quoting Moliere
That's absurd. At 26 weeks, it even has fully formed eyebrows and eyelashes.
Quoting Moliere
Doesn't matter. There is if you separate them. They are separable. And at 38 weeks, the foetus is viable, meaning that if you were to separate it, it'd have a good chance of survival, and we both know what happens if it survives long enough. A gall bladder won't grow into a child, and then an adult.
Quoting Moliere
It is at that stage. It's more odd to treat the vagina or umbilical cord as if they have the power to grant humanness. I'm not sure which one you think it is, since you've inconsistently switched between birth (which happens by passing through the vagina) and separation (which happens by cutting the umbilical cord).
Quoting Moliere
It's more like a human organism than a human organ. It [I]is[/I] a human organism. The difference between us and him or her (since it has a gender at this stage) is one of degree; not one of kind.
Quoting Moliere
I know that it's an analogy. I'm pointing out it's faults. In light of these faults, it fails to justify your position. Better luck next time. ;)
This looks like a perverse reduction of childbirth to a mechanistic process, ignoring its human significance. Clearly, birth and separation are part of the same event (or process if you prefer). It's an event in which a new person is initiated into the human world, into society. This is what matters to morality, not any mechanical stipulations or biological facts.
And I think it's quite silly to say that in regarding birth as the basic cut-off point we are being arbitrary. You may not agree that birth is where it's at, but it's hardly arbitrary. Birth is the centrally important, ultimate event of a pregnancy, the moment when a person comes to be, or begins to be, and the moment the mother's months of bodily change, discomfort, and anticipation have all been leading up to. For many it is the most significant, most life-changing moment of their lives.
There is a new person in the world: this is what birth means, what makes it significant in all human cultures. Biological facts and medical procedures are subsumed by or subservient to the social and cultural, particularly when we're talking morality.
Which scientific literature tells us when something ought to be treated as a bearer of rights?
Last I looked, eyebrows and lashes were not the indicators of whether or not someone has rights. If you shave those off, and you are human, you'd still have rights, yes?
But if you are not human then you are not a "you", and therefore it becomes mighty difficult to possess anything.
From your perspective I'm dehumanizing what is human. From my perspective, though, you are personifying what is not human in the sense that it is a separate organism or person with rights and so forth. All that happens much after birth.
How do ordinary people not versed in the fine points of philosophy actually treat their own (and others') fetuses?
They begin by making room for them. They change the spare bedroom into the nursery. If they know the sex of the fetus, they will decorate the room in sex-appropriate colors. (Shame on them for gendering wall paper! The oppressive bastards.) If it is their first fetus, they buy some specific furnishings: the crib or the bassinet, a little sink size bath tub, little blankets. They debate whether to use disposable or cloth diapers. People give the parents, and even the fetus, gifts--like little mobiles that will be suspended over the crib for the future baby to watch, or rattles, in gendered colors of plastic. Parents read books about raising what? Children. They look at long lists of names, and so on.
Why do these things on behalf of a blob of tissue that is indistinguishable from a liver? Would one name one's gall bladder?
They do these things because ordinary people, not versed in the fine points of philosophy, count the fetus as an individual being (unique and discreet, separate from the mother) whose impending presence is already dominating the lives of the parents. Pregnant women proudly complain about how hard their baby is kicking them.
People behave this way because long experience has taught us that when these indifferent blobs become babies who are always unique, unpredictable, and arrive in this world ready to engage us. The continuum on which the nursing baby and the kicking fetus are situated is obvious to nearly everyone (except those versed in the fine points of philosophy, apparently).
I think it would depend on how you define "ordinary people". Not only do they do what you are saying, they also seek out abortions. Yes? And said process is never easy, whether they go through with the birth or the abortion.
The finer points of philosophy -- whatever those might be -- merely allow us to grapple with our own beliefs and question them, if we are so inclined, and justify our beliefs or some other belief if we find our beliefs are unjustifiable. The finer points of philosophy may attempt to answer why it is acceptable to do such and such -- but these ordinary people you speak of, whom I presume are not versed in philosophy, don't just play the role you're setting out for them. They also seek out and obtain abortions.
If the actions of ordinary people justify our beliefs, then it would seem to me that both your belief and my belief are justifiable.
I'm not discounting the unpleasantness of pregnancy, but the "mother's months of bodily change, discomfort, and anticipation" aren't what make birth significant. It's the fetus's months of bodily change from fertilized egg to completed newborn that make birth significant. Without a baby, the end of a pregnancy would be just the conclusion to an unpleasant illness.
You are putting too much emphasis on "the woman's pregnancy" and too little on "the future child's pregnancy." Children is why people go out of their way to get pregnant. Otherwise, children are the result of sex, and as such are more and less welcomed. (It is both: more and less welcomed.)
I have previously argued that "a life" and personhood begins at birth, not before. Birth means emergence, and is a logical time to change status. This discussion has led me to change my mind on this, and think that personhood begins to form in the womb. Not at conception -- though one can say "a life" is initiated at conception. Personhood in a fetus isn't nothing and then all. It forms as gradually and as swiftly as a brain forms.
Of course, a brain isn't complete at birth, and actually isn't fully developed for two decades, or so -- rather a long time to delay granting personhood.
I would locate personhood in a complete and functioning brain as part of a functioning body. 12 weeks? No person hood. 20 weeks? No personhood. 28 weeks? No personhood. 38 weeks? Not quite complete personhood. Birth? Not quite completely developed brain and all, but you're on your own now, kid, as both a citizen and a tax deduction.
At the other end of a life, the loss of a functioning brain (brain death or profound irreversible coma) is the end of personhood.
Just to make clear, I wouldn't say this. Someone who has lived a life has a separate body, a history, and many relationships, rights, and so forth, even after death. Or if someone is in a coma, for instance, or has brain damage. Since it isn't the state of the brain or cellular structure which defines personhood, under my theory, neither does the deterioration of the brain deny a person their rights, property, and so forth.
Yes, they do seek abortions. And I endorse the legitimacy of people aborting fetuses before the third trimester. Our difference seems to be limited to abortion during the last trimester, and the difference the third trimester makes in this decision.
At least two references above demonstrate that almost everyone already practices what we are preaching: abort early or don't abort at all. Whether this pattern is a result of practitioners' refusal to perform abortions after a certain point, or whether people do not seek abortions after a certain point, don't know. Probably some of both.
People seek out abortions in the third trimester, though. So, even then, if the actions of those unversed in the finer points of philosophy are justifiers for our beliefs, then my belief is as justified as yours. Both positions are acceptable according to the metric you are proposing.
They will have a hard time exercising their rights after death.
Quoting jamalrob
The idea that we should ignore the possibility @Sapientia raised or others like it and thus abrogate our responsibility to the fetus because it might suggest some women are irresponsible is pathetic, frankly.
Reading further, I guess the conversation has moved on. It's not a left vs right issue as far as I'm concerned anyhow, it's a rights vs rights issue.
That is not to say that no law has ever protected the sanctity of the fetus. In particular, there are extensive federal regulations dealing with fetal research and handling fetal tissue. Such rules specifically declare that the fetus has special worth, which one certainly does not see when gall bladders and the like are discussed. That is to say, your position is not at all consistent with law (or common ethical views).
I don't think they are on par, myself. I would hold a fetus as more special than a gall bladder. But I would also not count a third trimester abortion as some kind of moral wrong, either.
The removal of a gall bladder is a decision made between a patient and a doctor. Abortions, in that sense, should be the same. This doesn't mean that the removal of a gall bladder should carry the same ethical weight as an abortion -- but, likewise, it doesn't mean that an abortion is a moral wrong which the state has an interest in stopping.
I agree with notions of respect towards fetal tissue, by the way. I just don't think the power of law should be involved in the decision to have an abortion prior to birth.
Oh ffs. The fetus has its own DNA along with a separate brain, nervous and immune system. And there is a specific barrier called the placental membrane separating fetal blood from the mother's blood and their immune systems from each other so the mother's immune defences don't attack and reject the fetus. No bodily organ has different DNA and a different immune system to its host. I can't believe I have to actually point this out. I mean, if you are so totally ignorant of the basic biology of a pregnant woman, then you are in no position to give an opinion on what is and is not part of her body, or to offer any meaningful view on what the implications are.
Link
So can we now drop this utter nonsense that the fetus is just part of the woman's body?
I don't think an organism's unique biological makeup gives them rights, experiences, etc. And I see no reason, then, to not consider the fetus as a part of the mother -- considering that that there is a continuation between the two, and there is no organism placed within a physical and social environment for it to develop in and have experiences.
You reject my answer to the question, "When does a fetus have rights?". I ask for one from you, but get none. Sometime later one of you pipes in about how what I'm saying doesn't make sense, but your critique only follows if you implicitly answer the question, "When does a fetus have rights?" -- which is no better than begging the question, in this context.
Of course if we assume that I'm wrong then I'll be wrong. And if we assume that you are right then you will be right. But, thus far at least, all the reductio's have implicitly believed some kind of answer without proposing one.
Can't we just agree to disagree, rather than presuming that science is on our side, that our beliefs are obviously right, and that those who disagree are obviously without compassion, absurd, strange, outside the norms of morality, etc. etc.?
I don't require you to agree with me. It seems rather strange that you require me to agree with you when you don't even propose a reason for your objections, but rather just assume that it's obvious and normative and moral, and continue to express your strong disagreement with my assertions based on that assumption.
More silliness. Do you seriously believe @Moliere and I don't know all that already? There's little point in our debating a rabid fanatic. Calm down and treat your interlocutors with some respect or else go away. We're not taking the piss; we really do believe what we're saying.
Can't you see the circularity here?
"I see no reason...not to consider the fetus as part of the mother [because] there is a continuation between the two" (i.e. the fetus is part of the mother). Whether or not there is a continuation is the issue under debate. There is a connection obviously through the umbilical cord and across the placental barrier. I've just demonstrated why this is not a bodily continuation because an organism that does not contain your DNA and has a full set of organs of its own and is (in the case of late fetuses) viable on its own is not your body. On your side you have no argument at all. All you are saying is it's part of her body because it's in her body.
Quoting Moliere
Which is what you've been doing.
Moliere didn't know it as far as I can see. You weren't mentioned. The idea that my position represents that of a rabid fanatic [s]because[/s] when I'm presenting the science is ludicrous. And telling me to go away is pathetic. You are not immune to being passionate in your arguments either as is evident from this post and plenty of others.
Quoting Baden
What you described is really basic stuff. It would help you understand our case--if you actually want to--if you assume we know stuff like that and try to interpret our positions in a better light. If you don't know how to apply the principle of charity you shouldn't be here.
You mentioned the position that the fetus is part of the woman's body, which I claimed and which you responded to. I'm part of that debate.
But that's not what I said. This is simple intellectual dishonesty. I could quote the examples of fanaticism from your posts, but you know exactly what they are so I won't bother. You're not in this for the debate, but because you are raging.
But I said you should go away if you don't treat your interlocutors with some respect, not if you get passionate.
EDIT: What it comes down to is that your attitude is pissing me off. You keep wanting to draw a line under things, to say things are settled. You are plainly annoyed that people with views you don't like persist in holding them. That's why I'm attacking you, not because you're passionate.
Why is it not your body? Mayhaps because a body, in your view, is defined by cellular characteristics?
You consider these things relevant. I can see that. But I don't. And, besides, if you were consistent than you would move your line back from the third trimester -- considering that the zygote also has a unique set of DNA from the mother, would therefore be alien and, in your view, separate from the mother.
Quoting Baden
I did? It just isn't even relevant. It does not matter that the fetus has DNA that differs. It does not matter that the immunological perspective treats the fetus as an alien. Because these things don't define what has rights.
If you can't see the hypocrisy in this, have a look through your own post history. As for fanaticism, if it's fanaticism to passionately oppose a view that would give new born babies no more rights than animals or that would consider the killing of 8 1/2 month fetuses who pose no threat to the life of the mother perfectly OK, I plead guilty. If I go too far I'm happy for any of the mods not involved in the conversation to edit my posts. That hasn't happened so far and I doubt it will to be honest.
But I would at least encourage you to look into the foundations and history of your beliefs (the whole "killing a fetus is murder" is, historically speaking, very recent -- it has always been serious, but it has rarely been equated to murder until recently). And, of course, I will defend mine if called into question -- especially on a philosophy forum of all places.
But I wanted to extend an olive branch. I do actually enjoy these conversations. Like I said, it's one of my favorite topics in philosophy for the very reason that people really do care about it.
EDIT: What it comes down to is that your attitude is pissing me off. You keep wanting to draw a line under things, to say things are settled. You are plainly annoyed that people with views you don't like persist in holding them. That's why I'm attacking you, not because you're passionate.
Honestly Moliere, I don't know why you keep mentioning Catholics with me except as some kind of odd attempt to tar me with religious beliefs I don't have. I only came into this debate to argue about super-late-term abortions. Hanover and Sapientia aren't Catholic either to my knowledge nor are the vast majority of people who oppose your views.
Yes, people do get annoyed on issues like this as they do on terrorism and other life and death stuff. I know you do, so please stop playing the holier than thou. For my part, I'll try to be nicer to @Moliere.
Except for DNA, which is acidic stuff. ;-)
I want to make this clear again. I don't think "killing a fetus is murder" necessarily. My objection specifically was to the killing of an about-to-be-born fetus on the grounds that it is human and should be granted some protection and that the harm done to the mother to carry the birth through is unlikely to outweigh the harm done to it except in very exceptional circumstances. Earlier abortions should be considered based on the balance of harm and the less developed the fetus the less harm that can be said to be being done to it.
Quoting Moliere
I'm not sure how much I enjoy it. I find it disturbing sometimes. But I accept your olive branch and will try to keep my vociferous disagreement with your view on this issue polite for the sake of the debate.
I could sum up my view like this: A world where people are free to treat babies as they do animals and where abortions could be carried out at any time for any reason would be a much less humane and a much less compassionate world than this one is, and this one isn't exactly winning many awards for humanity and compassion as it is.
I certainly would not. To me, personhood has nothing to do with brains except incidentally. I suspect this is the root of the disagreements here. Biological reductionism is culturally mainstream now, and I think this has a lot to do with ethical debates. If a person is defined as a certain configuration of organs and physiological processes, then the concept of a rational moral agent or moral subject, with his or her own reasons for acting in certain ways--and therby the concept of a citizen or rights-bearing member of a community--is rendered irrelevant. I think this is what it comes down to. I'm tempted to say that your own trajectory, from pro-woman to pro-fetus, mirrors an ideological trajectory in Western culture, away from a view of human beings as rational moral agents.
I'm not ignoring its significance; I'm saying that your emphasis on it is misplaced. It boils down to symbolism and tradition, and overlooks what's more important, which are indeed related to those biological facts. I say "related" because those facts won't in and of themselves compel one towards a certain view. You must have the right set of values.
Quoting jamalrob
But it [i]is[/I] arbitrary, because the grounds for choosing the moment of birth as the moment when the baby deserves to be granted rights aren't based on reason, but rather on symbolism and tradition. It existed before birth, and where else but the human world? It is human after all, and it necessarily exists in the world. It is not a fully independent member of society either before birth or after birth, but it deserves certain rights nonetheless.
Quoting jamalrob
What's perverse here is not my emphasis on biological facts, but your overestimation of symbolism and culture. Culture can be backwards or enlightened. Your defence is similar to the defence of religion when it hinders progress.
Quoting jamalrob
I'm all for the social and cultural, unless it results in barbaric practice.
You're taking things out of context. You said that your position depends on your being "correct in considering the fetus an organ". That is what I claimed is in conflict with scientific literature. As is the denial that the foetus has organs or "anything at all".
But it goes back to my reply above to BC. Biological reductionism often seems to be the default position, which I think is why the abortion issue is seeing the reactionary, regressive pressures that you and Baden represent. (Yes, more name-calling, I know)
For sure it influences our ethical positions. Persons get protection from harmful actions. Whether that be an unborn foetus/baby from a mother who wants to kill it to end her pregnancy or a women who gets to choose whether her body continues to carry a baby.
Personhood is an ethical position. It signifies who is important, who matters enough to protect for certain actions .
It is, itself, an ethical position. One is not a person by having a functioning brain. They are (under that argument) a person because this individual, who has a functioning brain, ought to be protected. Personhood is the expression that someone ought to belong to the world; that their interests and presence matter. It is this ethical value which falls by the wayside when abortion is discussed. In effect, people keep what's really driving their position hidden. The squabble over semantics of "personhood" rather than actually stating their (ethical) position on personhood. We get second order claims about what must make a person, rather than proper statements about who has personhood.
But that doesn't make it arbitrary. If you're right, it makes it habitual or conventional at best, irrational at worst. But you're wrong anyway. I am not assigning personhood to a baby on the basis of tradition; I am accurately describing what it means to be a person and how persons come to be, and the significance of childbirth. Moral, social and cultural significance is the primary issue in matters of morality. Note that moral, social and cultural significance is about much more than "symbolism and tradition". It is also about, for example, what it is to feel pain: feeling pain is a subjective experience belonging to an individual, and not mere nociception.
I don't agree. The extent to which a fetus is in the human world--by which I mean the world that a person (the pregnant woman) is socially embedded in but which is external to their body--is the extent to which it has taken on a significance to the mother (and perhaps the father) as a proto-person.
That isn't true. The other two can correct me if I'm wrong, but all three of us (four of us, if you include Hanover in addition to Baden, Bitter Crank and myself) have - and have expressed - the belief that a foetus has (or effectively has) rights at some point between it's initial formation and birth, and I have appealed to the Abortion Act 1967 as a guide.
EDIT: I was curious so I searched PF and found this:
[quote=To Mega Therion]To make my implicit argument for the morally unproblematic nature of every kind of abortion explicit, embryos and fetuses are not persons, and they are a part of another person's body. As nonpersons, they can have no rights, and the human person that carries them has a right to dispose of her body as she sees fit, particularly since her actions do not impact other persons.[/quote]
(Y)
I understand this, and I agree with it as far as it goes.
But I don't understand this.
I think that there is merit in that description of what it is to be a person. It probably works well in practice in many a situation too. Just not this one, which is problematic. I don't have much of a problem in accepting that definition of personhood, and, by presumed implication, accepting that a foetus cannot be a person at any point prior to birth. But it wouldn't change my stance that a 38-week-old foetus deserves rights or protection or worth or sanctity or however you want to word it.
That's more or less what the word "arbitrary" means, isn't it? Anyway, that's what I meant. There's a contrast between that and reason, as Hume noted with regards to the basis for belief in causality.
Quoting jamalrob
Morally, socially, and culturally, we ought to grant a foetus of 38 weeks certain rights in law, and we effectively do here and many other places. As for pain, just as I think it'd be wrong to kill a newborn baby on a whim if no pain were involved, I think that it'd be wrong to kill an unborn baby on a whim if no pain were involved. I say "on a whim" because both you and Moliere have made comments about no legal restrictions, so whims would be legitimate. You can't simply dismiss these counterexamples as conservative rhetoric.
Quoting jamalrob
And I don't agree with that. The extent to which it has taken on significance should not be exclusive to the judgement of the parent/s, as that will inevitably be problematic in at least some cases: those cases in which the judgement of the parent/s is poor. The state should step in where necessary.
I think I've made it clear numerous times that I don't necessarily disagree with this definition. In fact, it seems quite a good one to me. But the latter part of your post betrays your and @Moliere's consistent attempts to stereotype your opponents. I mean if our position is reactionary, you're going to have to come up with some new vocabulary for those who would force a woman who had been raped and is suicidal to carry a pregnancy through its full term, which is another form of cruelty I would oppose as much as you would.
I think I can dismiss them as conservative rhetoric, because the evidence I've already linked to shows that women do not do it on a whim. But in the end it is up to them, whether it is on a whim or not, and that's what is of prime importance to me: the woman's autonomy and human dignity. Also important to me is that women get the medical attention they need as early as possible, and restrictions on late abortions only hinder that.
If this woman only managed to get to the abortion clinic in the third trimester, would you still oppose a law that forced her to go through with the birth? For the sake of argument let's say she's not suicidal or at risk otherwise.
And just because you're not extreme (or should I say consistent?) doesn't make you non-reactionary.
Pro-Choice Forum. That sounds like an impartial source.
Even if mass shootings were a rare occurrence in the U.S., I'd still be in favour of restrictions as a preventive measure.
Quoting jamalrob
Fortunately, it isn't. At least, not without consequence.
Quoting jamalrob
That line of argument is much better than what we've had from the pro-side throughout most of this debate. It's a concern for me too, but my understanding of established medical ethics is that it endorses strongly advising the patient to do what's in the best interest of both the mother and the baby, not just the mother. This is part of a wider problem of people disregarding medical advice. If patient care is your primary concern, then it would make more sense to endorse increased regulation and strengthening the enforcement of regulation to ensure that the patient gets the required medical attention when it's needed, although I doubt whether - or to what extent - it'd be workable in practice.
It seems a very unlikely scenario that a woman would need more than 27 weeks to find an abortion clinic after being raped, but I'll answer anyway. First of all, whether I think the abortion would be justified in a case like this would depend on a variety of variables. If the woman concerned was just a week or two before giving birth, most of her suffering would probably have already occurred and be unpreventable, so I would think on balance the greater harm would be to abort the fetus. If she was a month or two before birth and was suffering greatly (even if not suicidal) it might not be. I'm not sure how you would draft a law that would cover the complexities here and if my only choice was to oppose or to not oppose one that would force a mother to go through with a pregnancy after the third trimester in all cases barring a threat to the life of the mother (i.e. including a rape that didn't make the mother suicidal), I would find it very difficult to make a call. I'd just have to think more about it. One very important reason I oppose some abortions, above and beyond the harm to the fetus, is that usually the mother has some responsibility in causing the pregnancy. In the case of rape, there is not only no responsibility, there is a greatly increased risk of psychological suffering being caused by the pregnancy. That obviously carries a lot of weight.
Never mind. I'll enjoy the novelty. I doubt I'll get a chance to be called that again in a while.
Quoting Moliere
If a fetus is special, then why can't there be special laws for it?
No! Dismiss it as liberal rhetoric! More dismissal and less discussion is what we need.
I'd say because the appropriate way of handling its special-ness, with specific reference to whether or not a woman may obtain an abortion, is not and cannot be done by the state -- fines or jail for, in the more humane scenario, the doctor.
Otherwise, I'd be open to hearing what you had in mind. I can see lines being drawn with respect to what may be done with a fetus. I can even see a moral appeal to something different than my proposed line of birth for the law. But I don't think that moral appeal is strong enough to warrant prohibition.
(EDIT: Did some quick edits to make my sentences less ambiguous)
This requires some unpacking. You have provided some additional details about this view, but I can't find it. (Spending too much time on philosophy often results in badly scorched gruel.)
If embodiment (having a cellular structure, brain, senses, blood, guts -- all the gory details) doesn't define one's personhood, I am not clear about where you think personhood resides, if it resides anywhere. Granted, legal systems define personhood in various ways; dead people leave estates with their name attached to it (but executors carry out the will of the deceased); memory and the written and printed word, recordings, photographs, etc. give an after-death existence to people, and as long as the texts are in circulation (sometimes for millennia) a 'personhood' can continue to exist. Christians officially think that Jesus still exists, in heaven, quite a-corporeally. Or maybe not. Haven't been there to check it out. Billions of people think they will survive death a-corporeally in heaven.
But... not everybody looks at it that way.
So, where is the person and how is the person constituted?
Apart from having senses, which is a form of embodiment shared with other animals, none of the things that you mention constitute embodiment, but rather are prerequisites for the acquisition of embodied capabilities and statuses. Human children acquire most of the forms of embodiment (or come to inhabit those forms) that are characteristically human long after birth (e.g. months or years) -- which doesn't entail that they can't be persons before this, of course. But I would not equate personhood with the acquisition of those capabilities either since the latter is a matter of degree while the former is a categorical distinction.
One of the reasons why there can be rites of passage marking birth (broadly conceived as the acquisition of personhood) or adulthood is because the transition that is thus celebrated is categorical (e.g. one is either a person or isn't, either is an adult with voting rights, etc. or isn't) and not because there is something "objective" and independent of those rites that marks us as persons or adults. Also, when some of the requisite capacities (e.g. "sensori-motor", cognitive, emotional, linguistic, intellectual, etc) aren't yet developed, or fail to develop, the celebrated status that is normally their home usually is nevertheless granted proleptically by mature persons (or adults) both as a form of help ("scaffolding") for the development of the individual being granted this status (and an assistance to the exercises of her incompletely developed capabilities), and as providing a social circumstance that constitutes the fact for that individual having this status. That is, one important dimension of the celebration of birth (or of adulthood) is the fact that it is a performative act, in John Austin's sense, rather than a declarative act.
Finally, I would note that some confusion in these debates, it seems to me, may stem from the inability to distinguish (1) the concept of a human being, which is a sortal concept (or "substance form" concept) that supplies criteria for identifying an individual as being the same one from conception until death, from (2) the concepts of a person, or of an adult, which are "phase sortals" as David Wiggins defines them: concepts that only apply to individuals who are in specific phases of their development -- where "development" can be understood to refer to socially constituted, or socially granted statuses, in many cases. Hence it can make sense, and be consistent, to say that (1) I saw *you* in the womb, when *you* were a fetus (e.g. through ultrasonography), that (2) you are a human being, that (3) killing a human being is categorically wrong (and always constitutes murder), but that (4) had you been aborted at that time this would not have constituted murder. This is a consistent tetrad, in my view. It may be the habitual conflations of a sortal concept (e.g. the concept of a human being) with a phase sortal concept (the concept of a person) that sometimes sustains the judgment that abortion always constitutes murder. (Euthanasia also can be justified in some circumstances, in my view, consistently with the categorical significance of the prohibition of murder, but the reasoning is different since its justification doesn't require the withholding of the status of personhood to the person being euthanized.)
Is there an argument in favour of viewing personhood as a categorical distinction as opposed to a matter of degree, or are you presupposing that position?
I think it is presupposed by society, not by me, rather in the way being married also is a categorical status rather than a measure of the closeness of a relationship between two adults that may or may not have crossed some conventionally defined threshold of commitment or intimacy, say. But it is important to distinguish such categorical social "presupposition" from mere conventional prejudices through recognizing the widespread consequences of the fact that such social recognitions, we had better call them, have performative significance.
One other example could be the value conferred to genuine dollar bills compared with the lack of value of counterfeit dollar bills. It is likewise a collective performative act that constitutes the value of the genuine dollar bill and that marks off any counterfeit specimen has having zero monetary value, quite categorically, (rather than as having a positive value proportional to the likelihood that it could be passed off fraudulently as a real one, say). Yet, it is clear that the exchange practice within which the categorical status is granted to currencies legally issued (and within which counterfeits thereby acquire some parasitic "value") is a prerequisite to their having this categorical status.
Nevertheless, it would be nonsensical to say that whatever suitably resembles a dollar bill has a monetary value that ranges from zero to 1$ in proportion to the degree to which it shares the physical characteristics of a paradigmatic or "genuine" dollar bill -- and that therefore the genuine items themselves owe their value to their high degree of physical conformity with the "standard" or "ideal" dollar bill (in a manner similar to the way some people seek to measure the "personhood" of fetuses by going through a checklist of empirical criteria). This would misconstrue the modal and categorical significance of the genuine/counterfeit ("presupposed") distinction that we are making, that is part and parcel of the practice through which we institute monetary value, and without which this practice would collapse.
Your answer, as well written as it is, only reaffirms the presupposition in the performative significance. If personhood (or marriage) is not presupposed to be categorical then the performative significance is altered but not eliminated.
The counterfeit currency example seemingly relies on a mistaken theory of currency value. In representative currencies, a counterfeit note has no value because the promise of the respresentation is false. The counterfeit note can have value not connected to the representation (e.g., as a work of art), but as a representative currency the value is always nil because the note does not have a corresponding good to ground the value. That owes to the nature of the currency, not the accuracy of the symbol of representation. Other forms of currency, for instance a commodity currency, the value is tied to the characteristics of the genuine article and the counterfeit, and can be non-zero and measured by degree. In fiat currencies, the counterfeit note has value in proportion to the fiat. If the institution that issues the value declaration confers value to a counterfeit note, it becomes legal tender, regardless of the accuracy.
For myself, at least, your position is hard to distinguish from the Catholic position -- not in its effects, but in its justification. That's why I mention it. It's not a tar. As I noted before I can at least respect the Catholic position because it has a justification -- one which I do not agree with in the slightest, but it is consistent and I believe they hold such beliefs in good faith.
But your latter posts seem to strike out into a new territory that I had not been picking up on.
Quoting Baden
Quoting Baden
I would ask two things here -- the empirical question and then also what your justification might be.
It seems to me that late term abortions are rarely sought out as it is. So I would wonder if, even granting that late term abortions are not compassionate, the world would actually be less compassionate if it were legal in all cases.
I don't think that a fetus is the same as animals. But I'm wondering what sorts of rights you would assign to a fetus, and why they would have rights too? What makes them special enough to prohibit abortion, for instance?
Quoting Sapientia
Ownership is not settled by scientific literature, and I made clear that I introduced the notion of an organ as an analogy. Or, at least -- if I did not, then take this as a sign that I mean this in analogy. I don't think I'm moving the goal post there, but if I am then let's just say I am and pointing to where it is now.
Quoting Sapientia
Where I'm unclear, though, is where you place the line, and why you place the line where you place it. I have given an answer to both questions.
Quoting Baden
There are two things I wanted to note here.
One, you may be surprised how long someone can go without knowing they are pregnant. I know a person who only gained 5 pounds throughout her pregnancy. It simply did not occur to her that she should check. It wasn't until late in her 2nd trimester that she did, and then you have to actually schedule the abortion -- which can take a long time. It's not like you can just go in and get it done. At that point, it was a third trimester abortion, if not as late as we are discussing here.
Quoting Bitter Crank
What would you recommend, other than philosophy, we discuss said topic with? What is better suited, in your view?
I think you have to at least have an environment, both physical and social, in which you can develop the capacity to experience a world separate from yourself. I don't think you have to have a fully formed identity, but, at least as a human being, you do have to be accepted into a social network and raised, taken care of, form beliefs from, learn language from, and so forth.
You have to have a history of some kind, social relationships, beliefs in the permanency of objects, and so forth. It is constituted over time, and there is no one point where everyone actually obtains personhood. It's more likely a gestalt phenomena that varies from person to person.
However, because I think you have to have the capacity to experience, an environment which allows you to form beliefs about yourself being separate from it, a history, a social world being taught to you -- well, it's not just unlikely, but downright impossible for the unborn to be persons. I like the idea of putting the line in the impossible region, however, so birth -- both as a conventionally understood moment of significance, and easily understood -- works for satisfying the proper respect which persons are due while simultaneously remaining conservative and safe.
Since, at least to my view, persons are the sorts of beings which have rights (in our society).
Yes. It is precisely this categorical feature of a representative currency (or of a fiat currency -- the difference is inessential for my purpose) that makes it a suitable example. What you call "the nature of the currency" is conferred, or instituted, by the performative act of its emission. A promise is an archetypal performative act, so is the backing of a currency by a government or financial institution.
A feature of my example that I may not have made clear enough, tough, and which was the main point of the analogy, is the fact that the performative signifiance of the act through which monetary value is conferred has a dual level structure, as it were. On the one hand, a categorical status is conferred and, on the other hand, the complex and multifaceted surrounding practice through which this performative act can be accomplished makes such acts possible in the first place. One can't make a promise (as a performative act) in a social context where the practice of promise-giving and promise-keeping (with all its subtle and tacitly understood expectations, caveats, admissible excuses, etc.) hasn't been instituted. So, what I am claiming to be categorical is the performative act that establishes a banknote as legal tender (such that it thereby acquires some value at all) but not necessarily the amount (or nature) of value thereby conferred. The latter may be pegged to the (variable) value of the gold standard, say (in the case of a representative currency), or to other dynamic features of the surrounding financial practices.
And so is it with personhood, adulthood (or marriage) on the account I am sketching. The performative act through which personhood is conferred to a human being is categorical but doesn't define what it is to be a person anymore that the fiat (or backing) of a financial institution defines what it consists in for the currency it emits to constitute money and to have the sort of value that it thereby acquires. That is rather established by the background practice and economic circumstances. And likewise, what it is to be a person is highly constrained and conditioned by the sorts of social practices, modes of embodiment and specific background circumstances that Bitter Crank, Moliere and Jamalrob have stressed in previous posts.
Hence, if this makes sense, there isn't a contradiction in stressing both the developmental, and hence gradual, character of the actualization of the abilities associated with personhood, and the categorical nature of the performative act through which the status is conferred.
Interestingly enough, while Bitter Crank and Moliere have both stressed the social background that sustains the features associated with the character of personhood (or humanity) that infants or fetuses come to manifest, those considerations have seemed to militate for the categorical attribution of the status of a person being accorded to her both before (Bitter Crank) and after (or no sooner than) she was born (Moliere). That's because one can stress either the concrete social construction of the specific background that serves as a receptive structure which the infant will come to inhabit (as Bitter Crank stressed), or the actual development of her abilities to more fully inhabit her natural and social world (as Moliere stressed).
While it falls short from settling the debate about the time after which abortion is impermissible, I think my suggestion about the dual level structure of the performative act though which personhood is (categorically) conferred to a newborn somewhat alleviates this quasi paradox. Since what is thereby conferred isn't a status that is defined by the performative act, one is thereby free, one the one hand, to recognize personhood as being prefigured, prepared, and partially realized even before the act through which it is conferred, and also, on the other hand to recognize that the characteristic human capabilities associated with personhood can fail to be fully actualized until long after this status has been conferred.
But you can't credibly deny that a foetus at that stage has those features that I mentioned. How else would you word it? You can talk about ownership all you like, but it won't change the facts. I don't understand why you think that the concept of ownership, which you presumably think entails some sort of self-awareness or some other quality which a foetus (at any stage of development) lacks, and then suddenly gains immediately after birth, justifies abortion at such a late stage. I don't think that that makes sense, I don't think that that reflects reality, and I don't think that it'd be good if those in power thought as you do.
I pointed out some serious flaws with your analogy, and in light of them, I don't think that it can be salvaged. It's hardly surprising that you've reached the wrong conclusion when you start with a false premise.
Quoting Moliere
So have I and so have the others. I don't need to give an exact answer. Even if the line isn't drawn in the best possible place, a line within the right range is better than no line at all. (I'm talking about prior to birth, obviously). The Abortion Act 1967 seems to be working, given that there is evidence that late-term abortions are rare. But even if it isn't working as well as we might like, that's no good reason to remove the safety net.
It should be clear to you that a foetus at the stage we've discussed is very similar to a newborn, and more so than any organ in the human body. If that isn't clear to you, then I suggest that you read up on the scientific literature on the subject. Perhaps think it over a bit more. Baden has already pointed out some important differences, as have I, and as has Bitter Crank. You yourself have explicitly acknowledged that a foetus is more special than a gall bladder. That's a step in the right direction. I urge you to go further.
Quoting Moliere
It was her responsibility to take sufficient precaution. That it simply did not occur to her is not an excuse. I doubt that she was so uneducated as not to know that this sort of thing can and does happen far too often. I bet she felt guilty afterwards, and rightly so.
Quoting Moliere
Wisdom. Wisdom leads to the right conclusions. It has lead most of the U.S. to the right conclusion. Any fool can use philosophy and end up with his head up his arse. Or perhaps they were in that situation to begin with and are merely using philosophy as a means to justify their arse-headedness. It's a bit like shaving. Some people are better at it than others. Some people end up with cuts all over their face.
Quoting Moliere
I find your prioritisation of convention and understandability over actual human life sickening. You aren't giving [i]them[/I] the proper respect they're due, and it certainly isn't safe for the unborn baby that ends up getting killed, is it? But it's alright, because it isn't a person. Just like how a Jew isn't a person. First you dehumanise, then you allow to be killed. I'd rather be a Catholic than a Nazi.
And in anticipation of your denial, you are dehumanising. You're purposefully overlooking or playing down human qualities, and you purposefully exclude from the human category altogether. Unborn babies are appropriately treated as human, as opposed to an organ or body part, in many ways. For example, at the later stage of development, they can hear. People talk to it. It has a gender. People refer to it as "him" or "her". It sometimes has a name which is used in reference to it. People evidently care about it in a significant way, and not in quite the same way as they do a gall bladder.
It's not the wording which I have an issue with as much as how you are conceptualizing the situation. Ownership over property, rights, and the rest all come with designating something in the world as a who.
"The bread has cheese on it" differs from "I have eyebrows" in the sense that I own myself.
Quoting Sapientia
No good reason? Maybe not for yourself, considering how pregnancy will never affect you or me in the same way it affects roughly half the population.
But I would say the good reason is at the social level more than at some personal level. In a broad sense I think that the allowance of action is the default, and it is the prohibition of action which has the burden to prove why something ought to be prohibited. Call this the "Soft Libertarian Principle" -- soft only because I could see harder stances, but this is the sort of libertarianism that I think is broadly agreed upon by most.
So the good reason that you ask for, from my perspective, is on the prohibiter to produce. Implicitly I'd say this is what we have all agreed to: since it is usually understood that the prevention of murder is in the interest of the state the state must enforce the laws against murder. Where we have disagreed is what counts as protected by the law -- or, at least, what should count.
And, furthermore, we even agree on the notion of "safely prior to being a person" it seems. I agree with you there, I only disagree on what that means in terms of when.
Quoting Sapientia
Not only is it clear to me, but I have already acknowledged the similarity.
Quoting Sapientia
:D
Come on, now. That's a bit silly.
Wisdom leads to the right conclusions -- which are obviously mine! I can't help it that you are foolish, Sapientia.
That's good for a laugh, at least.
Quoting Sapientia
The difference between yourself and myself should be clear in this question. You believe the fetus is a baby. You believe the fetus is a person. So it is sickening for someone to kill a fetus specifically because said action, from your perspective, is no different than killing a newborn.
I do not believe this. And given that babies at least need an environment before they can be a being I'd still say I'm very safe in my conclusion. As such it seems to me that you are just personifying what is not a person -- like someone protecting a mole or a gall bladder as if it had a personality all of its own.
Me too. Especially since I said I can respect the Catholic position. It's good to see we are on the same page.
Dude. This only follows if you are correct. I am dehumanising if the fetus is a human. I don't deny that. But I would say that you are personifying if the fetus is not a human.
This description of my action only follows if we presuppose your answer to the question.
I'd put it to you that this is only sometimes the case, and not always the case. For an intended pregnancy in a family environment people talk, gender, name, and care for a fetus. But it could be otherwise. In addition I would note that people talk, gender, name, and care about a great many things -- cars, motorcycles, boats, weapons -- but that doesn't afford them rights, per se.
First of all, it's not just me that designates an unborn baby as a who. It happens all the time, and is the norm. People treat him or her as a who. So you have a problem with society.
I have eyebrows, and so does a foetus at the relevant stage of development. To be frank, I don't much care about your abstractions and philosophical interpretation. I care about the human life that's at stake.
Quoting Moliere
I thought that it was clear enough that I wasn't speaking personally in that way. If so, I would have been explicit and qualified and worded it differently, but I didn't. Bringing that up is a distraction - whether intentional or otherwise. I simply meant that there is no good reason (to remove the "safety net").
Quoting Moliere
No, I don't buy that. Nice try. The burden is shared equally between both sides. You have a burden to attempt to justify your claim that child destruction should be legalised, and I have a burden to attempt to justify my claim that child destruction laws should not be abolished.
Quoting Moliere
Not in any particularly meaningful way. If you define the word "person" in such a way as to exclude that which is pre-birth, then I agree that in accordance with that definition, that which is pre-birth is not - and cannot be - a person. But that's just trivial logic. I have repeatedly said that the label doesn't matter, or is of secondary importance, or something to that effect: which is why I haven't presented one of my own. If you think that our agreement in this regard is anything other than insignificant, than you have probably misunderstood.
I was very clear that under the circumstances which you'd permit, the unborn baby would not be safe - and I meant that in the sense that you would scrap any legal protection currently granted.
Quoting Moliere
Point being that your analogy fails. And you seemed to be relying on it. And you have yet to concede, at least explicitly. So your above acknowledgement isn't enough.
Quoting Moliere
Yes, that's true. What's so funny? :D
Wisdom (a.k.a. Sapientia) leads to the right conclusions, and I am Sapientia. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. ;)
But there was a serious and worthwhile point in there, which, put another way, is that philosophy isn't a holy grail or guiding light. Clearly not for everyone. It can actually make matters worse sometimes and in certain respects, and that's what I argue against. I believe that some issues would benefit from an approach that simplifies more, and gives credence where due to common sense, rather than excessively complicate and abstract and disregard or remove oneself from common sense.
Quoting Moliere
That's the gist of it, but the details are a bit off.
In common parlance, by the way, it is common to speak of the foetus as a baby, so this use of language is ordinary, and not idiosyncratic or without precedent. We also treat "it" as we would a baby (subsequent to birth) in some important respects.
Quoting Moliere
But if by that you mean an environment external to the womb, then that's nonsense. That would only be so accordingly and linguistically if you define it that way. But, as others and I have argued, the grounds for rejecting such a narrow definition greatly outweigh the grounds for it's acceptance - at least if it's used to support your agenda.
Quoting Moliere
You're still going with these ridiculous analogies, I see. I also see that you're still blinkered towards what is merely a label or a category, and you're using this as cover for your agenda. If I were to fight fire with fire, then I'd say that what you're doing is like permitting the murder of children and others on the grounds that they can't drive a car. Only people can drive cars. Therefore, they're not people.
Quoting Moliere
Yes, I agree. But it's true of most cases, and there must be hardly any cases in which there is either absolute indifference or nothing of significance beyond that with which we feel towards a gall bladder (or a mole for that matter). So, that doesn't really detract much from my point, nor add much to yours.
Quoting Moliere
Hardly in the same way: with the same meaning, the same level of emotional attachment and significance - with the exception of very few. (To be credible, I have to make an allowance for nutters, obsessives, and others who have things wildly out of perspective).
What's strange to me is that you seem to believe I don't care about the human life at stake. That coupled with the strange allusions to "my agenda" makes it hard to take this very seriously. I propose we play this game from a different angle. Perhaps it would be more illuminating as to what you're really getting at.
Abortion should never be allowed because the the zygote is a human zygote. It has a full set of chromosomes. It will become a human being left unfettered. There are natural causes which can prevent a zygote from becoming a human, but this is different from intentional causes -- so miscarriages or if the separate human cells don't implant in the uturus are not even manslaughter, but intentional human action to destroy human life is at a minimum manslaughter, and at a maximum murder.
We can't make exceptions just for the sake of convenience. A human being is a human being, without qualification, and clearly there is a unique set of chromosomes when the zygote is formed. So, scientifically at least, there is no basis for not including the zygote as part of the species, and for not saying it is alive.
How, then, do you say that the Abortion Act of 1967 is a just law, if it permits the murder of human beings?
How do you justify allowing unjust abortions from taking place?
I believe that you either don't care [i]enough[/I]; or that you do, but the position that you advocate conflicts with what makes sense, given your feelings.
Quoting Moliere
How is it strange? Is your agenda not to exclude unborn babies from the legal protection that they're currently granted? Because it seems that way to me.
Quoting Moliere
If you want to get technical with terminology, as your objection to my referring to a foetus as an unborn baby suggests, then you can't - for sake of consistency - keep calling murder that which is not murder.
Just because I pointed out that a foetus is human in that it's a member of the human species, and that it's alive, that doesn't mean that I think that that's the be-all and end-all. The level of development also matters, as I've consistently said from the start, and I suspect that you'd agree to an extent. Just as you don't think that a gall bladder should be treated like a newborn, I don't think that a zygote should be treated like a 38-week-old foetus. Our reasons might not be exactly the same, but they're close enough for you to understand why I think as I do. I also spoke of viability, priority of values, and how the costs weigh up in comparison to the benefits. I don't believe that the mother should have [i]no[/I] rights, as the position that you describe would entail if it is to be consistent.
My position, unlike yours, is consistent in terms of ethics in relation to law. I consider child destruction unjust, so I advocate laws against it. You have similarly said something along the lines that you consider it unjust, in terms of morality, but you advocate permitting it nevertheless, and for any reason whatsoever provided it comes from the mother.
So, to be clear, my objection is that your questions are loaded and don't accurately reflect my position.
Then I would say that this is an erroneous belief. If anything my error is to care too much when it comes to politics.
I would say again that our difference is merely where we place the line, and why we place the line there, and nothing more.
Quoting Sapientia
Negative. My agenda, in this thread, is to defend my view from the charges made against it, and to understand the why behind what you state you believe.
Quoting Sapientia
This is a dodge. Respond to my assertions like you would someone who is advocating for the abolition of the law. This is the purpose of my changing tactics -- I don't think we're getting terribly far by just restating what we already believe.
What's the difference between a zygote and a child? Eyebrows? Are you not dehumanizing what is clearly human? It's alive, it has its own set of chromosomes separate from the mothers, it belongs to the human species. How do you, then, justify allowing its intentional termination?
That is to ignore the implications. If I were to place the line at 6 months after birth, and say that I care just as much (in the sense of empathy and compassion, as opposed to enthusiasm with regards to politics), are you going to genuinely tell me that there would be no other implications? The difference between our positions isn't as severe as that, but it's there.
Quoting Moliere
Ok, then your "view" is or includes the exclusion of unborn babies from the legal protection that they're currently granted.
Quoting Moliere
Then it's a "dodge" in a similar way to how an innocent husband would "dodge" the question "Have you stopped beating your wife?".
Quoting Moliere
Your new tactic seems to ignore important things that I've said, and acts like that isn't going to be problematic, when it is. It's a wider issue than the difference between a zygote and a child, but I've already pointed out some of the differences, and yet you choose to focus on the most trivial, while ignoring the others. So, why should the burden be on me to repeat myself rather than on you to structure your attacks in a manner that better reflects my position? I even helped you by pointing out important aspects of which I'd previously spoke. These factor in to the justification.
And no, I'm not dehumanising in the sense that I previously expressed. I have no problem acknowledging that the zygote is a human zygote, but it's not treated in the same way as either a child or a newborn baby or a yet-to-be-born baby for reasons that I'm sure you already understand.
Is this the consequence of public healthcare? In the US, you can just go get it done. There are additional restrictions with later term abortions, but there aren't time delays - just pay the lady at the window and get in line.
Public vs. private healthcare is consequential in interesting ways. I'm guessing it has something to do with this: [URL]http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/17/nhs-health[/URL].
Private firms, however, have schedules just like anyone. If I had to hazard a guess it would be because of the supply side of the equation. While 3rd trimester abortions, relative to all abortions, are rare, the raw number of appointments relative to the raw number of demand is small.
But, as I said, this is just a guess.
These implications only exist if everyone believed as you believe.
So, yes -- I would genuinely say so. It's not an issue of care as much as it is an issue of belief.
Quoting Sapientia
The only thing you've stated in this regard is viability. Your response to my critique of viability was, more or less, "It's good enough for me for now"
Is that how you'd respond to someone who is claiming that your view allows the murder of unborn babies?
I assure you that the view I'm adopting here is far from unpopular.
Practically everyone does believe, as I do, and rightly so, that to set the line at six months after birth implies either a lack of empathy or a lack of reason - and a severe lack, at that. In fact, it's hard to think of a more pertinent example. If you doubt what I say, then just ask around. The reactions are predictable. Once again, your problem is that you mistake a matter of degree or severity as a categorical matter of all or nothing. If we were arguing over whether the line should be drawn at 22 weeks or at 24 weeks, then I doubt I'd think it a reflection of your character in the way that drawing no line does. It doesn't mean that you don't care; you clearly care about the mother - even up to the point where you think that she is entitled to have the living baby that has been growing inside of her for over six months killed for whatever reason she deems necessary, regardless of whether it's a good reason or an awful reason. No, what I'm saying is that if you care enough about both the mother and the baby, then it would make sense to take a different stance.
Quoting Moliere
Ok, let's say that you've convinced me that my position allows the "murder" of unborn babies. Is that going to miraculously make your position justified? If anything, it only makes your position worse in the eyes of the one opposing it. Now it's not justified at all, at any stage, whereas your position is the opposite up until birth. Losing the sensible middle ground in this way does you no favours, Moliere.
No.
Though I'm just wondering what your response is. I don't expect to persuade you in either direction. I don't believe you'd actively advocate for the murder of babies. But it's certainly the case that many people believe that the laws, as they are written now, allow for the murder of babies.
To them do you say, more or less, as you have said to me? That viability is the measure which is good enough for now, because it's good enough for you and seems practical?
I'd point out that what it allows is not murder, and that to call a zygote a baby is stretching the definition beyond what is sensible, and that they're probably using these particular words to appeal to emotion. So, I don't need to defend a charge which doesn't apply.
I would say to them what I've said to you: that it's a wider issue than what your narrow, loaded set up takes into consideration, and that the justification accounts for this. But with regards to where the line should be drawn, I'd question what is most important, namely whether they have a better alternative; and we both agree that they do not. So, I could get bogged down in the details about viability, or I could skip that stage and look at how well it works compared to the alternatives. I'd argue that my position is more fair and balanced than the extreme alternatives of all or nothing. My position is appropriately sympathetic towards both mother and baby, whereas the position that abortion ought to be illegal without qualification isn't sympathetic enough towards the mother, and the position that abortion ought to be legal without qualification, or without taking the reason given by the mother into account, isn't sympathetic enough towards the baby. (N.B. you may well be sympathetic enough, but your position isn't representative of this).
Hanover calls himself conservative, but I look at his gay marriage, abortion and drug positions and ummm doesn't sound conservative at all...
It's good training ground for me. As Sinatra says, if I can make it here, I can make it anywhere ;)
I find classical liberalism, which seems to fit me best, is now seen as a conservative or rightist position, ironically enough. But this has only come about in the last 50 years or so with the rise of the highly illiberal New Left.
Always trying to take the moral high ground no? Well let's see if you do have the high moral ground. Is women having no respect for their bodies and fucking around something that the state should spend money on? If they want to bring a child in the world, if they can't be bothered with protection and/or if they wanna risk their life in a back-alley abortion, so be it. They just got to learn that they have to be RESPONSIBLE for their actions. It's their choice and that should be allowed to happen. Is women denying the right of the father to have the child, even after they have had unprotected sex with him, just because they have different plans compared to the father right? No, it's a moral abomination. The child belongs to both parents, and the mother having the choice to kill the child at her whim is simply s-t-u-p-i-d, as it denies the father the equal right he has over having the child. (of course there are exceptions to this such as rape).
Can you PM me with some recommended readings from the old Left please :) Thanks!
I find that ironic coming from someone who harps on about virtue, and is probably the most judgemental member of the forum.
As for the abortion issue, perhaps you should actually read (or reread) my part in that discussion. Then perhaps you wouldn't waste time attacking claims that I wouldn't make, and have actually argued against, like the claim that the mother should have the choice to kill the child at her whim.
Is being judgemental necessarily wrong? Where did you get this from? I think being judgemental is good if your judgement is correct, and bad if your judgement is bad. As Thomas Aquinas proved in the (was it first, can't remember now) chapter of Summa contra Gentilles, the office of the wise man has two purposes: 1. to provide guidance towards the truth, and 2. to refute the false. Thus, likewise, the office of the virtuous man has two purposes: 1. to show what virtue is and how to approach it, and 2. to fight against vice (and hence judge it).
Quoting Sapientia
Do you mean your first post in the original thread (not this one)? Or the posts in this thread (haven't read through those yet!). And I do agree that your views are more sensible on abortion compared to some of the other ones I've read in that thread.
Yes, 'being judgmental' is a bad trait because 'being judgmental' is an idiom meaning "an unconsidered, snap reaction" that will normally be taken as a negative statement. 'Being judgmental' isn't the same thing as 'being reflective and thoughtful'.
In heated conversation snap reactions may predictable happen, but shouldn't occur in written communication.
The judgmentalness that constitutes political correctness is another sort of behavior altogether (in my opinion). If I habitually refer to Negros or Blacks or colored people (they have been "properly" called all three at various times) as niggers, I will be accused of using a racist slur. It won't do any good to explain that there are people who are 'niggers', like it or not, a term recognized by Negros, blacks, and colored people as a referent to no-count, disreputable, members of the race. (Hmmm, should "niggers" be capitalized? Colored People? Trailer Trash? White Trash? Honkies? Cocksuckers? Or not?)
The agents who police the boundaries of political correctness are alert to any suggestion that a racial or ethnic group, as it exists in a particular place, may not be completely equal to another racial or ethnic group. The PC police agents need to whitewash glaringly obvious deficiencies among various groups. Therefore, it is racist to remark on how well Asians do in school. What! Does someone suppose that Asians are (gasp) superior? (Which means everybody else is inferior...) Well no, not really.
It is considered racist (and politically incorrect) to associate the culture of specific racial groups with the race or ethnic group that spawned a particular culture. Asians--and Jews--do well in academics because Asian and Jewish parents, and the communities to which they belong place a high priority on academic performance, and expect their children to perform from the get go (not that they all become famous violinists).
Clearly most Blacks/Colored People/Negroes in this country do not, for the most part, place the same priority on academic excellence. They fail to prize academic success because their experience has been that their schools, teaching their children, do not produce academic excellence. Black parents are not in a position to overcome these deficiencies (without strategic exterior input of some kind).
Bitter Crank is correct to point out the difference between judging and being judgemental, or even the tendency to judge and being judgemental. There is a negative connotation with the latter. It implies a certain attitude, a vice, a tendency towards excessive judgement, unwarranted judgement, judgement with ignorance or prejudice, judgement accompanied with arrogance.
If being judgemental was a good thing, then we'd use it as a praise rather than a criticism. To call someone judgemental is to imply that they're too quick to judge, too severe, judge all too often, or where it is inappropriate, and that they could benefit from toning it down, and from a little more restraint, and a little more empathy. To assume that the judgement is correct, or to assume that judging is the right thing to do in the situation, would be to miss the point. That assumption can be part of the problem.
Quoting Agustino
I meant the posts in this thread. Perhaps we should cherish this rare moment of agreement while it lasts. :D
Those who are pregnant do not have to inform any one that they are pregnant, can self terminate an unwanted pregnancy if they so choose, and also not disclose that they have done so. Literally, it is the woman's choice, and literally, there is nothing that can change that fact.
Abortion exists because this happens, and self termination of an unwanted pregnancy can be dangerous for the women that decides this course of action.
All pro-life legislation would accomplish is the prevention of women making that choice from legally seeking healthcare from professionals. So, in essence, the pro-life argument is to deny women any legal right to healthcare for their procreation choice in order that these self proclaimed pro-lifers may pat themselves on the back and delude themselves that they are moral for having done so.
There is no legislation that would be able to prevent a woman's right to choose, only legislation that would prevent women from seeking out medical assistance for her choice.
middlecrat?
You're right that there is no legislation which can prevent women from killing that which is living and growing inside of them, an unborn human, if they're determined enough; just as there is no legislation which can prevent women or anyone else from killing anyone else if they're determined enough. But neither are good things which should be encouraged. It is an unfortunate fact that murders and abortions occur, when in most cases, a better resolution is available.
Just as someone who is contemplating murder should have access to counseling, so should someone contemplating abortion, and that is already the case in the developed world, as far as I'm aware.
That is fair enough.
But it is far less difficult to prove that one person has a murdered another in a court than it is to prove that a woman intentionally miscarried.
So when we compare these things we would not say that there is no legislation that will prevent murder because it is less difficult to demonstrate that an intentional killing has taken place.
So even if we agreed that terminating a pregnancy was murder we are left with a far more difficult burden of proof than is the case when this happens to those that have been born.
Also I don't agree that there is necessarily a better resolution in some cases of termination of unwanted pregnancy.
Take the cases where a woman has been raped and it has resulted in pregnancy.
I sternly believe that the woman should have the right to decide if she wants to procreate with a rapists.
And personally, in general, I think that women ought to have that right to decide even if they are not raped and ultimately, as I have pointed out, they do have that right and there is nothing to be done about it in legislative terms.
Intelligent.
(or should I say... "Non-Kool-Aid Drinker")
Meow!
GREG
Both sides do have good qualities (come to think of it, that phrase in itself may tick off a lot of people).
... just far fewer good qualities than they themselves believe they possess.
Meow!
GREG
Meow!
GREG
But that's after the fact: the killing will have already either taken place or not taken place. My point stands: no amount of legislation can prevent someone determined enough from going out and killing another human, whether that's an adult or a baby inside of themselves.
Quoting m-theory
My point wasn't that terminating a pregnancy is murder. It isn't murder.
Quoting m-theory
This is another straw man. What I actually said was that in most cases, a better resolution is available, and I stand by that claim.
Quoting m-theory
Feel free to go over my part in the previous discussion in order to better understand my position. You've made quite a few big assumptions about my position which are in fact incorrect. Yes, there are exceptional circumstances, and yes, in places like the U.K. where I'm from, it is true that up to a point, pregnant women have a legal right to decide to have an abortion (we've even been over the actual wording and stated conditions in the relevant legislation), and I accept that there can be morally acceptable circumstances - although I would emphasise that they are acceptable, but not desirable or ideal.
Yes. Legislation can only be reactionary. There is no way to strictly enforce any law. But there is a way to convict a murderer in a court beyond reasonable doubt. The same does not apply when a woman self induces miscarriage. There is virtually no way to prove a miscarriage was intentional if the accused does not admit that it was.
Quoting Sapientia
Sorry I must have misread.
Quoting Sapientia
I did not set out to misrepresent your position. I only sought to lay out my own. If I did, then I apologise again.
I agree. I just don't see what it has to do with the point that I made. Seems like a tangent.
Quoting m-theory
No problem.
What marriage is necessary? :)
Hi Harry!
And it doesn't look especially appealing.
I have to admit I'm better at commenting on what is bad with politics, then I am at suggesting solutions. It just looks like a necessary evil.
What isn't appealing about maximizing autonomy and freedom of choice? What issues do you tick off both parties with, anyway?
By spotting and pointing out obvious issues. For instance, the Republican party is the party for the wealthy and big business, Democrats don't appear to care much about morality, or personal responsibility
Those are broad strokes, I know.
Historically it was a religious sacrament. I don't know the history of how the government got involved.
>:O
No.
Because libertarianism dismisses the meta-ethical discussion on what freedom means and only deals with negative liberty: e.g. the absence of interference to make choices. However, there is no real freedom if there are no real choices, so a government creating (or even maximising) available choices also increases freedom for its citizens at the expense of taxable income. So sometimes a little limitation on negative liberty can in fact create a lot of positive liberty, namely: choices.
Everything comes at a price. If this is achieved by a reduction of the state, then that can have detrimental consequences. But the devil is in the details.
Socialists dismiss the consequences of their "solutions". They think that their intentions are all that matter without realizing the consequences of their good intentions. If Socialists had their way, they'd limit the choices and resources of everyone as there isn't enough to go around to every individual. If every citizen on this planet received an equal amount of resources, they'd only get about $16,000 a year, which just brings those making more than that down, while not lifting the poor at all. This will also limit choices. When your resources are limited, so are your choices. In the effort to make everyone equal, you end up limiting everyone's freedoms.
Until the state has complete control of procreation and the raising of children, we will always have inequality.
[quote=Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts]Crude communism is only the culmination of such envy and levelling-down on the basis of a preconceived minimum. How little this abolition of private property represents a genuine appropriation is shown by the abstract negation of the whole world of culture and civilization, and the regression to the unnatural simplicity of the poor and wantless individual who has not only not surpassed private property but has not yet even attained to it. The community is only a community of work and of equality of wages paid out by the communal capital, by the community as universal capitalist. The two sides of the relation are raised to a supposed universality; labor as a condition in which everyone is placed, and capital as the acknowledged universality and power of the community.[/quote]
First of all, this has no bearing on what I said as I wasn't discussing income redistribution but taxation in order to create opportunies for choice by the government. That doesn't take away inequality but does maximise freedom in a different way than the absence of interference does. If I don't have any choices the fact that the government won't interfere is meaningless. So you neatly demonstrate that like other libertarians you're simply ignoring the meta-ethical discussion on what freedom (or liberty) really is.
Second of all, the numbers are silly because 16,000 USD is obviously barely enough in the US but more than sufficient in Bangladesh. It's also silly because it's not about just dividing GDP by capita either. If we'd do that just for the US, we'd be left with 55,221 USD per capita, but leaving nothing to reinvest and therefore also unsustainable.
EDIT: Actually, 16,000 USD is more than enough also in the US because it includes people not part of the work force. Poverty line for a family of four is about 25,000 USD. So in reality that family has 2.5 times more than the poverty line in the US. So if we'd reinvest 50% of GDP, they'd still be above the poverty line by 28%.
If we take my example, a family of four would have 8.8 times the poverty line and as a family would make 220,884 USD. If we'd reinvest 50% of GDP, they'd have 4.4 times the poverty line with 110,442 USD. Not bad.
So even a total redistribution wouldn't really be an issue, financially speaking. Just saying.