Abortion and premature state of life

Reply to EpicTyrant epic, small aside Are you familiar with Don Marquis argument on future of value? Below if not.

http://web.csulb.edu/~cwallis/382/readings/160/marquis.html

Reply to Rank Amateur

Yes i've now read some of it. It made me embark upon a journey questioning wether we really are in control of our own bodies. Our bodies are mostly autonomus and control themselves, we merely use these different functions to interact with the physical world around us. However, we posses some kind of control since we can choose what happens to it. In the same way the pro abortion woman in the article states that she has full control over her body which she has not. Her desire for pleasure has sparkled a chain of events that leads to the creation of life and thus placing another body in her responsibility. She no longer only has control over her own body, but she has the power over another body aswell. Who has the right to choose between existance and non existance? Can we really consider ourselves as moral beings when we have such power in our hands. I get it now that morality is in some cases more about damage control than actually something pure. Some of our hardest decisions in life is wether we choose between what's more egoistically comfortable for us or what is questionable considered as the "right" path to take.

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Reply to EpicTyrant read it all, we are on the same team. He is just outlining the case he will argue against.

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Reply to tim wood

All objects are equal to time and hence must pass through it. A premature existing lifeform is a life form not yet fully wandered through the passage of time to be considered a "mature" life form, but it will be, unless denied by the actions of the Carrier

Quoting tim wood

If a person doesn't like terminating pregnancies, then they need merely either not get pregnant, and if they do, not have an abortion. Anything else is minding someone else's business.

If a person doesn’t like murder, then they need merely either not murder, and if they do, own up to it. Anything else is minding someone else’s business.

Reply to tim wood is this better

https://rintintin.colorado.edu/~vancecd/phil215/Marquis.pdf

Reply to tim wood are you familiar with prof marquis argument?

I can summarize it quickly if you are not.

Prior to around 23 weeks, the fetus is non-viable (cannot survive outside the womb), and lacks developed cortical functions which are the prerequisite to conscious perception (which also means that it cannot feel pain). This typically develops around 29 weeks of gestation. Doesn't seem reasonable to me that a non-viable, non-perceptive form of life is a 'person' with rights that outweigh the rights of the Mother.

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Reply to tim wood the first one I grabbed in the search. Said by don marquis in the title. Mea culpa- I am familiar with the argument was just looking for a link to share , grabbed the wrong one

I think Christians and Jews have a problem when opposing abortion.
Because if a child dies then they will go straight to heaven and be better off and not be exposed to sin and suffering.

If you believe in a heavenly eternity and that children won't go to hell then they are better off dying prematurely.

Then look at what Ecclesiastes says:

"A man may father a hundred children and live for many years; yet no matter how long he lives, if he is unsatisfied with his prosperity and does not even receive a proper burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he." Ecclesiastes 6:3

and

But most fortunate of all are those who are not yet born. For they have not seen all the evil that is done under the sun. Ecclesiastes 6:3

Quoting tim wood

The essay seems to have weight even beyond this seeming fatal flaw - that's why I'll read it. But if this is Don Marquis, then what was the other article?

You are missing what the assumption is. It is not an assumption about the nature of the fetus itself. Just that the whether or not abortion is morally permissible is a function of the nature of the fetus. Either the fetus is such a thing that would make abortion immoral, or if the fetus is such a think that would not make abortion immoral

Reply to tim wood

I was making the point that the “don’t like abortions, then don’t have one” argument is fatuous, even if you assert that it isn’t, because it doesn’t take seriously the moral issue that is the basis for opposing it.

Abortion is very clearly a terrible thing. One denies a potential human being the chance to live. Perhaps the only chance they ever had. It is pointless arguing whether it is bad, because the statistics speak for themselves. According to this article, abortions are the cause of PTSD (19%), 25% see a psychiatrist after their abortion, sleep disorders (36%), anxiety (44%). Suicidality in women who suffer from such complications is a whopping 60% (with 28% attempting suicide). Risk of alcohol abuse doubles. 30 to 50% suffers from short and long-term sexual dysfunction and the list goes on.

Clearly, there is something terribly, terribly wrong with abortion. No matter how hard one tries to justify it, one can only lie to their own psyche for so long and it will inevitably return with a vengeance.

With that said, the problem is that there are no real alternatives. So while everything should be done to minimize the amount of unwanted pregnancies, abortions are a necessary evil when they do inevitably happen.

Quoting Tzeentch

Clearly, there is something terribly, terribly wrong with abortion

No there isn't and the non academic fundamentalist website you link to discredits you.

Any mental problems health suffered after abortion can be easily explained by the stigma on having abortion.

Reply to Andrew4Handel Ah yes, non academic. I assume you have not even looked at the references then, have you?

Quoting Tzeentch

Abortion is very clearly a terrible thing. One denies a potential human being the chance to live.

Presumably you have created hundreds of children then? If not then why are you denying them the chance to live?

Why are you denying them the chance to live in poverty? Why are you denying them the chance to commit suicide like a million+ humans do every year? Why are you denying them the chance to experience cancer or war?

Reply to Tzeentch Anyone can uses references whilst misrepresenting the findings of studies and selecting a few studies out of thousands.

I hope you are not coming from a Christian standpoint because I have just cited the scripture on related issues and can provide a lot more quotes.

The one quote I mentioned is that it is better to be still born than have a poor quality life.
Being a live is not a gift if you have a poor quality of life.

The bible contradicts itself on whether killing is wrong but it does not condemn abortion.

Reply to Andrew4Handel

Your first quote omits an important line:

Ecclesiastes 6.3:If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he.

It’s also worth noting that the despairing nature of Ecclesiastes is a dissent from the rest of the Old Testament.

Quoting Andrew4Handel

I think Christians and Jews have a problem when opposing abortion.
Because if a child dies then they will go straight to heaven and be better off and not be exposed to sin and suffering.

By the same token you could justify arbitrarily murdering people, which would of course be absurd thing for a Christian or Jew to justify to themselves.

Reply to Tzeentch Pretty skeptical about this article as the author is a notable anti-abortion activist. A major methodological issue with such studies is that they often lack strong controls groups (e.g. if women who participated in the study had a pre-existing history of depression, etc.). The famous Turnaway Study, which was conducted from 2008-2010 with nearly 1000 subjects and was designed explicitly to avoid the methodological pitfalls of previous studies. It found, as have other studies conducted since then, that "women who have an abortion are not more likely...to have depression, anxiety, or suicidal ideation," or other "detrimental effects on women’s health".

In fact, 95% of the women who participated in the study reported later that abortion was "the right decision".

Additionally, the study also found that women who were denied an abortion were:

• More likely to experience serious complications from the end of pregnancy including eclampsia and death
• More likely to stay tethered to abusive partners
• More likely to suffer anxiety and loss of self-esteem in the short term after being denied abortion
• Less likely to have aspirational life plans for the coming year

Reply to Andrew4Handel Of course. The old "I don't like your opinion so your academic findings must be forgeries."

And no, I am not a Christian. By your angry and irrational response I had actually almost taken you for a religious fundamentalist. I suppose following such rhetoric we should start killing babies in the ghetto then?

Reply to Maw Could you provide a link to the actual study?

Quoting AJJ

Your first quote omits an important line:

No. I quoted one translation of the bible you are quoting another.

Quoting AJJ

By the same token you could justify arbitrarily murdering people

No because this only applies to children who are not at the age to be damned to hell. But it is true that killing someone may spare them suffering. Personally I was happier as a child despite having lots of problems and had I died then I would have died happier and also I was a Christian and believed in heaven.

The other Ecclesiastes quotes points out that a human will witness a lot of evil and suffering and may have been better not existing. Which is a reasonable point because there is a lot of evil and suffering and life is not Disneyland.

I think from a non theological standpoint that creating a child creates far more suffering than terminating a pregnancy or being childless. From a theological standpoint it is hard to justify creating a child who will be sinful, experience evil and may be condemned to hell.

Reply to Tzeentch I am angry because you quoted a clearly questionable website quoting disputed sources and without presenting an argument cited it as if infallible.

It would not logically follow that if a woman suffers from mental illness after abortion that abortion is wrong (especially considering most woman do not suffer these problems)

But also as I pointed out the source of the mental health issues could be societal stigma as well as many other thing such hormonal changes.

If people used contraceptives to prevent pregnancy that would be ideal.

Quoting Andrew4Handel

No. I quoted one translation of the bible you are quoting another.

Your translation omitted an important line.

Quoting Andrew4Handel

No because this only applies to children who are not at the age to be damned to hell.

So it could be used to justify arbitrarily killing only holy people, then, which is also absurd.

Quoting Andrew4Handel

I think from a non theological standpoint that creating a child creates far more suffering than terminating a pregnancy or being childless. From a theological standpoint it is hard to justify creating a child who will be sinful, experience evil and may be condemned to hell.

This is an argument for not having children, not conceiving and then killing them.

Reply to Tzeentch

Here

Quoting AJJ

This is an argument for not having children, not conceiving and then killing them.

I agree. But it is an argument against the idea that killing a fetus prevents someone having a fulfilling life because a fulfilling is not guaranteed. It opposes the claim someone is always robbed of something good by dying.

Quoting AJJ

So it could be used to justify arbitrarily killing only holy people, then, which is also absurd.

It is not a justification for killing someone it is pointing out that if you believe in heaven then killing someone is giving them a better life. Many Christians believe they are going onto something much better. And they and other religions value martyrdom also.

Quoting AJJ

Your translation omitted an important line.

The important thing about the quote is that being still born maybe better than living in some circumstances. I think you could undermine any interpretation of the bible by referring to another one.

The denial of potential life is not a valid argument against abortion. The denial of life would happen at every opportunity at procreation, which makes no sense when you follow it through. Masterbation for men, denial of life. Not impregnating any female who makes herself available, you denied some baby the potential for life. Taken to the extreme, if denial of potential life is murder, isnt murder a greater crime than rape? Should the potential for life take precedence over a womens ability to consent? No, the potential for life justifies nothing, and merely masquerades as a rational argument. Its an emotional appeal, the cut off point of when the potential for life attains some sort of trump status is arbitrary and emotionally based.

I don't think that killing is obviously wrong.

The idea we are being deprived of something by being killed, makes death itself problematic because death will always deprive people of a lot of potential. But a dead person cannot be deprived of anything if they have ceased to exist.

Being alive causes deprivation anyway because there are a lot of things we would like to do but can't do when we are alive. I have never been to Disney World. I am not a poly-linguist, I can't play the Oboe, I have not been in love etc.

To me the harm of being killed is the physical suffering, if it is a painful death, the suffering of friends and relatives and the fear of death whilst facing it. But these are all things attached with being alive which involves a lot of suffering, deprivation, loss and fear.

Quoting Andrew4Handel

I agree. But it is an argument against the idea that killing a fetus prevents someone having a fulfilling life because a fulfilling is not guaranteed. It opposes the claim someone is always robbed of something good by dying.

And this could be used as a justification for killing anyone you saw as living a sad life.

Quoting Andrew4Handel

It is not a justification for killing someone it is pointing out that if you believe in heaven then killing someone is giving them a better life. Many Christians believe they are going onto something much better. And they and other religions value martyrdom also.

Yeah, again, this is all justification for killing people, which is obviously not very Christian.

Quoting Andrew4Handel

I think you could undermine any interpretation of the bible by referring to another one.

Well that scuppers your Biblical argument then.

Quoting Andrew4Handel

I don't think that killing is obviously wrong.

Well if we all make ourselves Godless self-appointed gods about the matter then I think that will be problematic for wider society.

Quoting AJJ

And this could be used as a justification for killing anyone you saw as living a sad life.

It is not a justification for anything it is just a refutation of the idea that life is an automatic good and valuable.

If life is not an automatic good then you have to come up with a different argument against abortion. It is only an argument against one reason to oppose abortion.

Nevertheless the status of the fetus is not the same as the status of someone who is much older and where you are not talking about hypothetical outcomes. Adults can choose to kill themselves having decided whether or not life is desirable for them. Some people can see ways to improve their life.

This is all diverging from the biblical stance any way which is based on what the bible claims about the quality of this life. Anyone that believes in a better afterlife has a problem justifying this quality of life.

Quoting AJJ

Well that scuppers your Biblical argument then.

No it doesn't it scuppers your complain against me. You can't claim I am using the wrong interpretation of the bible. I am arguing based on what several translations of the bible say and I don't think the but you claimed was missing changes my point anyway.

I am not using the bible as an authority by any stretch of the imagination I am saying that Christians cannot coherently use the bible to justify an anti abortion stance. But also Ecclesiastes offers a sentiment far different from the idea life is desirable and a gift etc.

Quoting Andrew4Handel

If life is not an automatic good then you have to come up with a different argument against abortion. It is only an argument against one reason to oppose abortion.

How about that life isn’t automatically bad?

Quoting Andrew4Handel

Nevertheless the status of the fetus is not the same as the status of someone who is much older and where you are not talking about hypothetical outcomes. Adults can choose to kill themselves having decided whether or not life is desirable for them. Some people can see ways to improve their life.

But as for unborn children, we’re allowed to decide for them?

Quoting Andrew4Handel

Anyone that believes in a better afterlife has a problem justifying this quality of life.

My understanding is that suffering in Christianity is intrinsically meaningless, and so can’t be used to justify ending a life. Our purpose is simply to live according to God’s will, happily or not.

Quoting Andrew4Handel

I am not using the bible as an authority by any stretch of the imagination I am saying that Christians cannot coherently use the bible to justify an anti abortion stance.

Can’t they? “Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.” Killing unborn children is in stark opposition to that, for a start.

Quoting AJJ

But as for unborn children, we’re allowed to decide for them?

When someone commits suicide it is because they have suffered or are suffering immensely or predict future suffering.

A fetus has none of these statuses.

We are not deciding for them because they have no desires or knowledge (except maybe knowledge of their womb experience). There is just no comparison.

If you want to argue that a fetuses desires can be thwarted you have to show they have these long term goals.

I think that imagining what a child in the womb feels is just fantasy or speculation.

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Quoting Andrew4Handel

We are not deciding for them because they have no desires or knowledge (except maybe knowledge of their womb experience). There is just no comparison.

If you want to argue that a fetuses desires can be thwarted you have to show they have these long term goals.

I’m not arguing that. I agree that unborn children are incapable of deciding whether they would like to live or not, and asking does that make it appropriate for us to kill them as we see fit?

Let me try and make the argument for a valuable future- there is a link above to the whole argument

1. It is immoral, without justification, to kill people like us. ( can we avoid a rabbit hole about justified here please, it is not important to the argument)

2. What one loses, when one is killed is all the experience, joys, relationships, etc that is in ones future. Let's call this a human future of value. FOV

3. Killing someone is immoral because it denies them their FOV

4. After the process of conception is completed, a new and unique organism exists

5. This organism is 100% human, and 100% alive

6. This unique, human organism is in complete possession of a fully human and unique FOV

7. It is immoral to deny a FOV

8. It is immoral to deny these organisms their unique FOV therefore abortion is immoral

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Quoting tim wood

From time immemorial among the most serious of possible crimes. But who are the "people like us" that are being killed?

Like you, me human beings.

Quoting tim wood

When "one" is killed? The error in #1 has leaked to #2. And you don't lose what you never had, have not now, and only may have in the future - and the entire future is a maybe. Further, what is its value and how do you assess it? And you're not in any case talking about a person in any sense.

Do you not value your future Tim, are you looking forward to dinner tonight? Looking forward to the next good movie you will watch, time spent with folks you love. Are you indifferent if these things happen or not? Would it be moral for me to shoot you in the head, and deny these future events?
lack of certainty in what your exact future is, does not make you still desire it to happen

Quoting tim wood

3. Killing someone is immoral because it denies them their FOV
This isn't an argument; it's a bald claim without support, in terms of, and about things and concepts about those things, that are themselves error-riddled.

It is not an argument, it is a proposition, I pro port as true, Based on 1 murder is immoral, denying a FOV is murder, therefore denying FOV is immoral

Quoting tim wood

5. This organism is 100% human, and 100% alive.
So is pimple on my backside. Why do you not make clear and explicit whatever it is your argument is, and what it is for?

Your pimple is not an organism, it is a word with meaning


Quoting tim wood

FOV, a gee-whiz term that is supposed to mean something, but that does not.

I defined it,

Quoting tim wood

7. It is immoral to deny a FOV
Two points here. 1) there has been no argument in support of this or any part of this. 2) the author of the essay this comes from troubled to make explicitly clear that just exactly this, he was assuming for the sake of (his) argument.

Just flatly disagree with 1. And you still have not understood your first error about his assumption that I corrected you on earlier

Quoting tim wood

The larger lesson here is that if Rank Amateur had paid "even the cold respect of a passing glance" to what he was doing, he would not have posted, and he would have been far better off for the thinking he might have done instead. That's a loss of value, and nothing future about it - implicitly he's the immoral one here.

Thank you for the comments. All of your comments to the argument posted were flippant and near thoughless. Much more aimed at inflating your quite developed ego, them meaningfully answer what may well be my feeble attempt at summarizing a rather respected philosophical argument.

Quoting Andrew4Handel

Anyone can uses references [whilst] misrepresenting the findings of studies and selecting a few studies out of thousands.

Ah, ha! Lives in the UK, "whilst" he posts on TPF.

Reply to EpicTyrant Reply to Tzeentch Reply to Andrew4Handel Reply to Rank Amateur Reply to AJJ

It isn't clear to me HOW abortion came to be the hot issue it has become. I am familiar with the 20th /21st century history, going back at least a century. I am (I think) aware that abortion was disapproved of in the ancient world, but NOT on account of the fetus--rather it was on account of the parent, or patriarch of the tribe/community. At the same time as there was concern about women denying someone a child, the ancient world was quite willing to get rid of inconvenient live births. Unwanted babies were thrown out with the bath water -- left outside to die.

So, sometime after the demise of the Empire in the west, and before contemporary time, a religious-led objection to abortion and infanticide arose. (I'm guessing the objection to abortion was as present in Islam as Christian teaching and practice.)

Who, what, when, where and why did the drive to fervently foster full-term fetuses develop?

Reply to EpicTyrant Quoting tim wood

All arguments against abortion that I've encountered are exercises in begging the question.

I guess the problem boils down to when a fetus becomes a person, then raising the question of possible murder. That is crucial information we lack to make a good judgment.

Religion and science are head-to-head on the matter.

Science sees it as an issue of fetal viability ex utero at more than 23 weeks while religion believes in a soul that comes into existence at a time before that. As is obvious the two sides don't agree on when exactly a fetus becomes a person.

Religion has lost credibility these days and the vote of the people swing towards the scientific analysis of fetal viability.

However, science and religion will come to agree at some point in the future because of the rapid progress in medical technology allowing fetuses even younger than 23 weeks to survive ex utero. What about scenes from science fiction movies where babies are cloned in incubation chambers right from the zygote stage? Don't you think that religion will win the debate with the help of science, as odd as that sounds?

Quoting TheMadFool

I guess the problem boils down to when a fetus becomes a person, then raising the question of possible murder. That is crucial information we lack to make a good judgment.

Personhood is a quagmire. It is completely arbitrary, pick the criteria that you like, draw the arbitrary line and anything on one side is and anything on the other side is not. What is or is not a person has been a time honored ploy to cleave off a group of people and to do thinks to you can't do to real people

Quoting TheMadFool

Science sees it as an issue of fetal viability ex utero at more than 23 weeks while religion believes in a soul that comes into existence at a time before that. As is obvious the two sides don't agree on when exactly a fetus becomes a person.

Religion has lost credibility these days and the vote of the people swing towards the scientific analysis of fetal viability.

However, science and religion will come to agree at some point in the future because of the rapid progress in medical technology allowing fetuses even younger than 23 weeks to survive ex utero. What about scenes from science fiction movies where babies are cloned in incubation chambers right from the zygote stage? Don't you think that religion will win the debate with the help of science, as odd as that sounds?

There is no conflict at all between science and religion on abortion. Science is clear when human life begins, religion, at least my religion agrees. When a fetus is or is not viable is a matter of science, using as a criteria for abortion is not a matter of science. It is just one more arbitrary and as you note variable line we draw to justify what we want to do.

Quoting Bitter Crank

"Anyone can uses references [whilst] misrepresenting"

Ah, ha! Lives in the UK, "whilst" he posts on TPF.

There's another one here:
Quoting Andrew4Handel

the suffering of friends and relatives and the fear of death whilst facing it.

Don't you just love "whilst"? :heart:

I am going to train myself to use it.

Quoting TheMadFool

I guess the problem boils down to when a fetus becomes a person

Yes, my perception is that it's exactly that, and the more cool-headed analyses on both sides of the argument approach it that way.
Quoting TheMadFool

Religion and science are head-to-head on the matter.

I don't think science has a position on that question. Nor, for that matter, do most religions. 'Personhood' is a strictly philosophical concept. It involves (philosophical, ie qualia-based) consciousness, about which science says nothing.

Reply to andrewk Reply to Rank Amateur I was simply pointing out that future medical technology could eventually make the zygote itself viable ex utero, closing the gap (if personhood is the issue) between religion and medical science.

We have sperm banks which means we've found a way to keep sperm alive, in different words sperm are viable. It's strange that the viability spectrum has a gap between sperm and a 23 week fetus.

One more thing is that if sperm are viable and the medical community uses the criterion of viability to justify abortion then they should be protecting sperm from being murdered.

Quoting Rank Amateur

Do you not value your future Tim, are you looking forward to dinner tonight?

This goes to the elusive 'is death a deprivation?' question, that has respectable supporters of both sides, eg Shelley Kagan and Epicurus say No, while Thomas Nagel and (unless my memory is tricking me) Bernard Williams say Yes. It is usually raised in the context of the 'is there any reason to fear one's own death?' discussion.

Perhaps its a feeling rather than something that can be logically argued. I don't feel it would be a deprivation for me if I were to suddenly die or be killed, because I wouldn't be around to experience the deprivation - no matter how much I were looking forward to dinner.

But somebody's sudden death would in most cases be a deprivation for their friends and others that know them and like their company, because it is depriving those people of the society of the deceased, not to mention upsetting them greatly. Sudden, unexpected death is also usually a negative experience for anybody else that witnesses it, regardless of whether they know the deceased.

Reply to andrewk Reply to Rank Amateur Another thing I want to point out is a very relevant discrepancy. It concerns both religion and the secular faction. We don't afford full rights to children until the age of 18. Doesn't this imply personhood comes in stages. Why do some people have an issue with defining a fetus as a non-person? Do such people let their children drink alcohol at age 6?

Reply to TheMadFool The two rights that come immediately to my mind are the right to drink and the right to vote. I don't see those as related to personhood. I imagine the intent of the first prohibition is to protect children from the harmful effects of ingesting alcohol, while the second is perhaps to protect society from having its government elected by people who have no understanding of what they're voting for (Yes I've left that gate wide open. Charge in if you must)

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

I do not think anyone gladly has an abortion. Generally abortion is undertaken for unwanted pregnancy and pregnancies may be unwanted for many reasons, inability to care for the child, unpreparedness in life, etc.

This implies that one way to reduce the number of abortions is to prevent unwanted pregnancy through sex education, ready access to birth control and other methods. Ironically many people opposed to abortion are also opposed to sex education and medical interventions to prevent pregnancy.

Does potential life (embryo, fetus) have the same moral or ethical value as established life (a four year old child, or adult)? I think not and anyone confronted with a fire in a fertilization clinic would easily save the children there instead of the frozen embryos. Potentials are not actualities or existents.

At some point the state does develop an interest in developing life and the religious (eager to count God on their side) always have an interest in other peoples moral and ethical decisions. Technology allows us to prevent pregnancy easily and conveniently, to detect pregnancy at an ever earlier stage and to terminate unwanted pregnancies more safely, and earlier making the health and ethical considerations less fraught all (in my mind) desirable goals.

I do not think old white men in the legislature or in religious trapping should be telling young women confronted with unwanted pregnancy that they must carry the pregnancy to term and raise an unwanted child. The social consequences of unwanted children are another thing to be considered and debated.
Even in an ideal world, where unwanted pregnancies were not a reality, nature would still confront us with fetal malformations, in utero deaths, genetic diseases, threats to the life and health of the mother and other difficult medical and ethical choices. These choices are best left to the individuals affected, their counselors and their medical providers.

Quoting tim wood

Like you, me human beings.
— Rank Amateur
But not candidates for abortion, yes? I thought the issue was abortion, not whether murder was good or bad, or moral or immoral.

The first few premises are establishing murder, defined as taking away a future of value for human beings like us is immoral - he wants to establish it is immoral for us before moving on to fetuses

Quoting tim wood

— Rank Amateur
Who are you talking about? Me?

Yes, you. You made the point you can't posses a future. I was asking if you value your future


Quoting tim wood

I assure you it is 100% human and 100% alive. Your criteria. Are you withdrawing your criteria?

My point was a pimple, while on a human is human, is not an organism - I told you an organism has a specific meaning- a pimple does not meet the criteria

Quoting tim wood

— Rank Amateur
Here is what he wrote: "The argument is based on a major assumption.... that whether or not abortion is morally permissible stands or falls on whether or not a fetus is the sort of being whose life it is seriously wrong to end. The argument of this essay will assume, but not argue, that [this is] correct.

And again he was not making any assumption about the nature of a fetus. He is saying that abortion can or can not be morally permissible depending on the nature of what a fetus is. What he is asking you to assume is the nature of what a fetus is, will bear on the morality of killing it. It does not ask you to assume any thing else. It is the first thing in his argument because, if the nature of the fetus has no bearing on morality of abortion there is no need for him to make an argument about the nature of a fetus.

I will pass on the snide remarks this time

Reply to prothero I will avoid the social arguments concerning abortion on this forum, because I do not consider them philosophical. But the philosophical question is, shouldn't we agree on the morality or immorality of the act, before we consider the social issues

Quoting andrewk

I am going to train myself to use it.

We all might as well.

The 'st' on the end of 'whilst' is called an 'excrescence'. Apparently philologists don't like it. There are several excrescent words:

whilst, amongst, amidst, against, and unbeknownst

betwixt seems to be the most disliked excrescent word. It goes back to Old English, betweox.

Swingeing (pron. swinjing, rhymes with singeing) deserves more usage. It's British;, meaning a sweeping change..

Unbeknownst to me whilst I was living amidst the Gaulois, a plot against Ceasar was being hatched amongst his soldiers.

Quoting Rank Amateur

I will avoid the social arguments concerning abortion on this forum, because I do not consider them philosophical. But the philosophical question is, shouldn't we agree on the morality or immorality of the act, before we consider the social issues

Which act are we talking about?
The prevention of pregnancy through birth control pills or contraceptive?
The discarding of unused embryos in the fertilization clinics?
The morning after pill?
RU-486 in the first few weeks of pregnancy?
Medical (drug) abortions in the first ten weeks of pregnancy?
Aspiration in the first trimester?
Termination after rape or incest?
Young teens?
Late term abortions for severe fetal malformations (anencephaly, in utero fetal death, etc)?
Just what act are you talking about, and what moral or ethical criteria or system are you using to decide for everyone?

Quoting EpicTyrant

Perhaps in this media, we can keep the question more true to the biological aspects and philosophical aspects of the subject.

What i would primary like to discuss here is, in which state of the process of creation of life, would you consider as an acceptable form of life that should fit into the equation of what we decide that fits into the judgement of our moral part when we make the decision to perform an abortion or not?

I'm fine with abortion up to the end of the second trimester. After that, it's murder. But that's just based on my feelings. What are the philosophical aspects of that?

Reply to Bitter Crank The philology in this thread is far more valuable than the philosophy.

Reply to prothero no clue where all that came from. Or what you think, or thought by my statement. My only point was, the first order question is, is abortion murder? If yes, all the social implications have to be evaluated against that, if it is not murder, than in that light.

As an example, the social consequences of unwanted pregnancies in your first post. I would assume these are different considerations if abortion is or is not murder.

Quoting Rank Amateur

the first order question is, is abortion murder?

Rubbish. Murder is illegal killing. So it is only murder if it counts as illegal, and if it counts as killing. The circularity of your argument marks its absurdity.

Quoting Banno

Rubbish. Murder is illegal killing. So it is only murder if it counts as illegal, and if it counts as killing. The circularity of your argument marks its absurdity.

Do you believe the moral permissibility of abortion is a settled item, unworthy of challenge?

What pisses me off most about the choice debate is the insincerity of the antagonists.

The reason you want to ban abortion is nothing to do with fair ethical consideration. It's because the people who tell you what your invisible friend wants say abortion is naughty.

The same misogynist folk who fight against child care, public education, maternity leave, and most other things that will actually benefit people. The ones who think giving guns to children is a good idea, and are shit scared of anyone who is slightly different, sexually, ethnically, geographically, politically or spiritually.

The folk who will not mention, let alone consider, the role of the potential mother; utter bullshit.

Reply to Rank Amateur Whence your moral principles?

Quoting EpicTyrant

in which state of the process of creation of life, would you consider as an acceptable form of life that should fit into the equation of what we decide that fits into the judgement of our moral part when we make the decision to perform an abortion or not?

The woman who has the Blastocyst is the one who should decide what to do with it. There is no question that she is alive and able to make the decision.

All else is self-serving crap.

Reply to Banno if you wish to read a dispassionate argument against the moral permissibility of abortion, prob a 15 minute read

https://rintintin.colorado.edu/~vancecd/phil215/Marquis.pdf

And as an aside, my argument against abortion is completely secular, and completely based on reason.

Quoting Rank Amateur

dispassionate

:brow:

Passion has its place.

Reply to Banno here is the first paragraph which seems appropriate

The view that abortion is, with rare exceptions, seriously immoral has received little support in the recent philosophical literature. No doubt most philosophers affiliated with secular institutions of higher education believe that the anti-abortion position is either a symptom of irrational religious dogma or a conclusion generated by seriously confused philosophical argument. The purpose of this essay is to undermine this general belief. This essay sets out an argument that purports to show, as well as any argument in ethics can show, that abortion is, except possibly in rare cases, seriously immoral, that it is in the same moral category as killing an innocent adult human being.

Reply to Rank Amateur "Woman" is mentioned once in your cited article.

"mother" is not mentioned. Nor "Parent".

So, tell me if I am wrong, but the article you cite appears not to mention the cost to the woman involved - as there always must be in such cases.

Is that right? Why?

Is abortion to be regretted? Of course, as any medical procedure would be best unneeded.

Quoting EpicTyrant

Carrier

A neat word that denies the humanity of the woman involved.

Disgusting.

Quoting Rank Amateur

we are on the same team.

You might want to reconsider your bedfellow. Or are you comfortable with misogyny?

Quoting Rank Amateur

As an example, the social consequences of unwanted pregnancies in your first post. I would assume these are different considerations if abortion is or is not murder.

It comes from the fact that "abortion" is not one issue, but a multiplicity of issues. As for murder, the state defines murder and at the current time abortion is not "murder". It is not a simple or single issue. Are there social consequences, yes, are there medical considerations, yes, are there ethical considerations, yes but trying to paint all these different complex situations with one answer (although simple), is incorrect and I might add unphilosophical.

Reply to Banno because the mother has no more basis in this argument, than the mother of a 1 year old would have.

However, this pro abortion argument is I think the best argument that account for roll of the mother, more specifically here right to determine the use of her body

https://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.htm

Reply to Rank Amateur
Again, here, the woman receives no mention.

Why?

Reply to Banno what? Dr thomsons argument is completely about the right of the mother to control the use of her body, and it is completely a pro choice argument. What are you talking about

Quoting Rank Amateur

because the mother has no more basis in this argument, than the mother of a 1 year old would have.

Seriously?

I think your discounting of the woman is grossly immoral. What kind of blindness could bring you to think like that?

Reply to Rank Amateur

I was referring to your argument, in the post I was replying to.


Quoting Rank Amateur

Let me try and make the argument for a valuable future- there is a link above to the whole argument

1. It is immoral, without justification, to kill people like us. ( can we avoid a rabbit hole about justified here please, it is not important to the argument)

2. What one loses, when one is killed is all the experience, joys, relationships, etc that is in ones future. Let's call this a human future of value. FOV

3. Killing someone is immoral because it denies them their FOV

4. After the process of conception is completed, a new and unique organism exists

5. This organism is 100% human, and 100% alive

6. This unique, human organism is in complete possession of a fully human and unique FOV

7. It is immoral to deny a FOV

8. It is immoral to deny these organisms their unique FOV therefore abortion is immoral

No mention of the involvement of the woman.

Reply to Rank Amateur

I propose, then, that we grant that the fetus is a person from the moment of conception.

(Judith Thomson)

A Blastocyst is not a person.

Reply to Banno you read 1 sentence of probability the best pro choice, pro woman argument and make a complete judgment of it. amazing.

Reply to Rank Amateur If an assumption of the argument is wrong, it's not worth following the argument.

Reply to Banno as you wish. Enjoy the rest of your evening.

Reply to Rank Amateur Did you read the final paragraph?

At this place, however, it should be remembered that we have only been pretending throughout that the fetus is a human being from the moment of conception. A very early abortion is surely not the killing of a person, and so is not dealt with by anything I have said here.

Just to be clear, those who oppose free choice on the part of a woman wishing to put an early end to an unwanted pregnancy are acting immorally.

Reply to Banno

Why? If one accepts the premiss that the baby has any rights, arent we then having a discussion about competing rights? Whether they are acting immorally depends on what basis they are working from as far as defining what kinda personage we give the “baby”.
Why is it necessarily immoral?

This is why we need to be more precise what we are talking about?
Is an 8cell blastocyst a person? Does it have legal rights?
Not under the law.

Quoting DingoJones

If one accepts the premiss that the baby(sic.) has any rights...

A blastocyst does not have rights.

Reply to Banno

Obviously some people do not define blastocyst to include the “baby”.
Why is it necessarily immoral? Isnt there at least a process or scenario where a discussion might take place about how far along the “baby” is and how developed it needs to be to have rights? If there is a discussion, a debate of any kind, then how is it necessarily immoral? Is this purely ground you must stand because it so soundly dispells the anti abortion position? Im honestly asking, I have no dog in the fight on abortion.

Quoting DingoJones

Obviously some people do not define blastocyst to include the “baby”.

And some do not define fetus to include the "baby".

Reply to Banno

Ok, so how is it necessarily immoral?

Quoting DingoJones

Why is it necessarily immoral?

Drop the "necessarily". It's immoral. It's immoral because it puts the "needs" of a cyst ahead of those of a human. As if a cyst had needs.

Quoting DingoJones

Isnt there at least a process or scenario where a discussion might take place about how far along the “baby” is and how developed it needs to be to have rights?

But see the OP. This is not such a discussion. Pretending a cyst has rights in order to defend one's invisible friends is immoral.

Quoting DingoJones

If there is a discussion, a debate of any kind, then how is it necessarily immoral?

The discussion - go for it. Opposing the rights of women - wrong.

Quoting DingoJones

Is this purely ground you must stand because it so soundly dispells the anti abortion position?

Was the post that got your attention a rhetorical device? Consider it a grumpy response to those who think God tells us how to behave.

Quoting Banno

The discussion - go for it. Opposing the rights of women - wrong.

That is not the discussion I was referencing, but rather it was the discussion about the difference between a baby and a cyst. If there is a discussion, then it isnt necassary. Of course, you would like me to drop “necessarily” but thats what I thought you were saying.
Ok, so why is it a cyst? When is it not a cyst any more and is now a baby? Ive always been fine with whatever medical professionals decide but you seem to have something else in mind.

Quoting DingoJones

...you seem to have something else in mind.

Not really. The usual trimester arrangement - around Week 24 or 25 - will do for most purposes, using viability as the main criterion.

Reply to Banno all human beings, you, me and every one else in the world began our life in time and space on this world at the completion of conception. At the completion of conception there is a 100% human, 100% alive, 100% unique fully human being. That is fact, and non disputable

Every line drawn between conception and birth that allows abortion based on size or capabilities is arbitrary and variable.

In most and best current philosophical arguments about the morality of abortion, if not agreed, the personhood of the fetus is stipulated, because it is an irrational and losing argument. And the pro choice folks center their argument on if the fetus has a right to the use of the woman's body.

Quoting Rank Amateur

At the completion of conception there is a 100% human, 100% alive, 100% unique fully human being. That is fact, and non disputable

Well... it obviously is disputed. Repeatedly and enthusiastically.

A cyst is not a human.

Quoting Banno

Not really. The usual trimester arrangement - around Week 24 or 25 - will do for most purposes, using viability as the main criterion.

I see. Fair enough.

Reply to Banno a cyst is not a fetus, or an embryo, it is a cyst

a fetus is a human being in a specific state of development, an embryo is a human being in a certain state of development, Banno is a human being in a certain state of development.

as an aside - one of the most interesting things in these debates is how quick those on the pro choice side are to abandon science -

Here is my honest cut on where the best philosophic arguments are on the morality of abortion.

these are all in a nutshell - all can be more fully developed for serious discussion

the only logical personhood arguments that are left involve the ability to know and value ones life. This is a good argument and it is logical. The issue with the argument is it allows infanticide - and no one likes infanticide - so it involves drawing an arbitrary line at birth where it the argument either works or does not - which then reduces the concept of personhood to merely born or unborn. And also allows abortion to 1 sec before birth

Dr. Thompsons argument that while accepting for the debate the fetus is a person with rights, so is the mother a person with rights, and her argument is this is a case of competing rights. The pro life argument back is there is implied consent to the use of her body when having sex. This objection would allow abortion in the case of life of the mother, or rape as morally permissible.

Dr. Maquiis argument that the fetus has a future of value much like ours, and one can define murder as the unjustly taking on ones future of value. And therefore abortion in most, but not all cases is immoral. The major objection to Dr. Marquis argument rest on extending the future of value argument back to the unfertilized ovum and sperm.

I kind of pay attention to this issue - and that is where i thing the best philosophy is. I have attached both pro choice and pro life argument in the thread already - for those who may be interested.

Quoting Banno

Not really. The usual trimester arrangement - around Week 24 or 25 - will do for most purposes, using viability as the main criterion

on viability:

sadly a mother and her 3 month old baby are in a car accident - the mother is fine but the child is seriously hurt. The doctors talk to the mother and say, the child had serious injuries, but we feel the operations were successful, The child is on life support now - and will most likely be so for months - but it is expected if all goes well the child will eventually be able to be removed from life support and have a full recovery.

The mother, who is rather poor, and has 3 other children at home is concerned that she will be able to take care of the child, who was an unwanted pregnancy any asks the doctor is it permissible for her to ask the doctors to remove her from life support, knowing that she is not viable with out it.

if viability is a condition of person hood - than it should be allowed
if viability is not a condition of person hood - than it should not be allowed

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Reply to tim wood just fyi

Don Marquis (born 1935) is an American philosopher whose main academic interests are in ethics and medical ethics. Marquis is currently Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kansas.[1]

Marquis earned an A.B. in Anatomy and Physiology from Indiana University in 1957. After receiving an M.A. in History from the University of Pittsburgh in 1962, Marquis returned to Indiana University to study philosophy. He received an M.A. in History and Philosophy of Science from Indiana in 1964 and a Ph.D. in Philosophy in 1970. He has taught at the University of Kansas since 1967. During the 2007/08 academic year, Marquis held the Laurance S. Rockefeller Visiting Professorship for Distinguished Teaching at the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University.[2]

Marquis is best known for his paper "Why Abortion Is Immoral", which appeared in The Journal of Philosophy in April, 1989. This paper has been reprinted over 80 times,[3] and is widely cited in the philosophical debate over abortion.[4] The main argument in the paper is sometimes known as the "deprivation argument", since a central premise is that abortion deprives an embryo or fetus of a "future like ours".[5]

Reply to tim wood

for those who like video evidence - a good debate with Peter Singer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Qfiq18DMYk

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Quoting tim wood

And so does every flap of a butterfly's wings. If you grasp this then Marquis goes out the window. If you do not grasp it..

if you wish to discount the argument on the " flap of butterfly wing defense" it would be a must simpler process to try and identify what state of affairs the flap of butterfly wings objection does not apply to.

I discard the objection as once again flippant and thoughtless.

Quoting tim wood

His argument, then, is of the form, if a, b, c ,are true, and we assume them to be true, then x, y, z follow. This is not a mature argument, rather it is an exercise - and on the presumption that the author knows these things as well or better than you or I (Indiana is a no-joke philosophy and English school), you should wonder just what his point was. In short, I disqualify his argument for lack of substance.

would be happy to address if you wish to make an argument why you believe his conclusions do not follow - Only if you wish. I have no concern one way or the other if you agree or disagree - my only point in sharing was, many who hold a position on the issue may have been unaware of the work, which by many is held as important. I also shared what I consider the best pro choice argument I know. And I leave both for those interested to read and make up their minds.

This issue deserves thought and reason. It is lacking in most discussions on this topic.

thank you once again for chiding me a second time for grabbing a poor link at first. I would have thought my first apology would have sufficed - seems i was in error on that belief.

You may now return to Mt Olympus while we await you further pronouncements

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Quoting tim wood

You ask me to argue "why I believe his arguments do not follow." Whether his "arguments follow" is irrelevant.

I think we have a winner. :party:

Reply to tim wood does your arrogance have any bounds. Don’t answer, Rhetorical

You had no idea the argument existed 2 days ago. The argument has existed for near 30 years and has been challenged on a few issues in that time but never has it been dismissed for form.

I have read you posts, dribble that they are. Just one more chest beater with the single goal of trying to impress himself, with himself.

We are done.

Quoting Rank Amateur

a cyst is not a fetus, or an embryo, it is a cyst

Are you here agreeing with me that a Blastocyst is not a person?

Reply to Banno make a serious argument and I will respond, have no time for these twitter type one liners

Reply to Rank Amateur That's the Achilles heel. It's pretty hard to pretend a cyst is a human, let alone a person with rights. And if you admit that it isn't then your claim that the issue is about conflicting rights collapses. So you cannot reply.

Reply to Banno so what you are saying is at one time you were nothing but a cyst

Reply to Rank Amateur "nothing but".

At one time each of us was a cyst.

Reply to Banno so at what point exactly do we stop being cysts and why then?

Reply to Rank Amateur Why do you think there is an exact point?

But first, can a cyst be a person?

Reply to Banno ok we agreed you were a cyst and now you are a human being. Explain the metamorphosis to me, So I can know exactly when it changes from being able to kill banno the cyst, and not being able to kill banno the human.

Reply to Rank Amateur Just to be clear: do you agree with me that a blastocyst is not a human being?

Reply to Banno of course not.

Reply to Rank Amateur That's an ambiguous answer - of course you don't agree, or of course a cyst is not a person?

Reply to Banno sorry too fast, as I have said somewhere above, I and biology believe we are all fully human, fully unique and fully alive human beings after the process of conception is complete

Reply to Banno what we are half heartedly discussing is a concept of personhood, when is still ok to kill this human being and why then.

And to bury the lead because I have to leave, any answer you give will be arbitrary and variable unless you are willing to allow infanticide. Because they all are.

Reply to Rank Amateur OK. Thanks.

Then I will say that being a person involves sentience, emotion, affection, physical health, and appetite and rationality. A woman is capable of all of these. A cyst, of none.

Further, a blastocyst can only achieve personhood by inflicting its demands on a woman.

SO for example, opposing the morning after pill is immoral because it denies the dignity of the woman involved. The cyst has no moral standing.

Quoting Rank Amateur

...personhood...

Indeed. Cysts are not persons.

If you want lots of words to back this obvious observation, then read Martha Nussbaum.

Quoting Rank Amateur

I and biology believe we are all fully human, fully unique and fully alive human beings after the process of conception is complete

Self-serving, disingenuous twaddle. But if you like, we can move on to persons, and leave this crap behind.

Quoting Banno

I and biology believe we are all fully human, fully unique and fully alive human beings after the process of conception is complete
— Rank Amateur

Self-serving, disingenuous twaddle. But if you like, we can move on to persons, and leave this crap behind.

And pure fact


Reply to Banno and fact. And I conQuoting Banno

?Rank Amateur OK. Thanks.

Then I will say that being a person involves sentience, emotion, affection, physical health, and appetite and rationality. A woman is capable of all of these. A cyst, of none.

And neither does a 3 month old - you ok with infanticide? I said if willing infanticide there is one logical personhood argument- and you danced around it, but close enough- it involves self awareness and the ability to value ones life.

Quoting Banno

Further, a blastocyst can only achieve personhood by inflicting its demands on a woman.

Dr. Thomsons argument that I posted earlier is this point. The counter argument is implied consent to use of the mother's body, I outlined the argument earlier- scroll up

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Reply to tim wood in a moment a big steak and hopefully a bigger red wine. Dinner with friends- enjoy your night

Quoting Rank Amateur

And neither does a 3 month old...

A three-month old does not show more sentience, emotion, affection, physical health, appetite and rationality than a cyst?

Try again.

Reply to Banno And we are back at the beginning again- have to run and this Twitter fight is a waste of time

Quoting Rank Amateur

The pro life argument back is there is implied consent to the use of her body when having sex.

That's an extraordinary suggestion. "the use of her body", as if a woman must be passive during sex. How boring! How misogynistic.

And as a whole - that in having sex the woman (but not the man?) is consenting to carrying any resulting conception to full term. Sex is for procreation only - where does that idea come from? I think the invisible friends have been whispering in your ear again.

The conservative religious pattern is emerging nicely as we proceed.

Quoting Rank Amateur

And pure fact

Bullshit. My blood cells are human. They do not amount to a human being. A blastocyst is human. It is not a human being. Your posited support from biology relies on equivocating between human and human being.

Reply to Rank Amateur Actually, I can't see were you have presented anything that remains viable.

Should we abort the discussion?

Quoting Banno

That's an extraordinary suggestion. "the use of her body", as if a woman must be passive during sex. How boring! How misogynistic.

Baby’s use of her body. If you would actually take a second to read and understand what we are talking about this would go faster

Reply to Banno nice pun. Too late it died awhile back.

Quoting Rank Amateur

Baby’s use of her body.

Quoting Banno

And as a whole - that in having sex the woman (but not the man?) is consenting to carrying any resulting conception to full term. Sex is for procreation only - where does that idea come from? I think the invisible friends have been whispering in your ear again.

If you would actually take a second to read and understand what we are talking about this would go faster. :razz:

Reply to Banno if you leave a blood cell alone it becomes a blood cell, if you leave a fetus alone it becomes well us.

Quoting Rank Amateur

if you leave a fetus alone it becomes...

dead.

You keep missing that point. There is a woman involved in every pregnancy. The woman is a person. The cyst, not at all. The embryo, hardly. The foetus, not much. The baby, yep.

But your conservative mindset insists on drawing an exact line somewhere in this process, and your invisible friends say to draw it at conception.

Quoting AJJ

I don't think that killing is obviously wrong.
— Andrew4Handel

Well if we all make ourselves Godless self-appointed gods about the matter then I think that will be problematic for wider society.

Well God apparently didn't think killing is wrong since he kills the most people in the Bible.

Including flooding the whole earth.
Killing all the First born of Egypt.
Ordering people to be stoned to death for picking up sticks on the Sabbath
Sending bears down to kill children for insulting Elijah
To name but a few.

I gave an argument for my position on killing and it was nothing to do with playing God. Even the Bible that I quoted has a more nuanced view than you apparently do on the matter.

God is the ultimate murderer who has created us all and sentenced us to death.

Quoting EpicTyrant

Perhaps in this media, we can keep the question more true to the biological aspects and philosophical aspects of the subject.

Good luck, even if I believe this forum is a bit better for debating complex questions, I think there are many here who don't even know how to keep a dialectic in any Socratic form whatsoever.

Quoting EpicTyrant

Why is this considered moral by human standards and not frowned upon? What is the difference between ending a premature state of life other than a fully developed one. Is it the lack of perceptive of reality and consciousness of the premature state of lifeform that makes it more bearable to perform an abortion for the carrier? Because the only thing that separates the premature life form from a fully developed one, is the passing of time.

In some situations, I think this is closely linked to how you would answer the question about euthanasia. In terms of painful deceases why would existence through that pain be better than ending it before it's even conscious of its own existence? It would be the same as euthanasia.

But I think this is about morality when someone is canceling pregnancy out of, for example, the decision to not being ready to have children in their life.

If we were to go by pure logic in this, it would become a bit horrific for some, but the logic points consciousness being developed so late and the ability to understand it's own existence that a super late abortion would be like removing an organ. It's a living thing, but it isn't anything yet. If you define it all by the concept of time, why not go backward? If time is everything, wouldn't the ejaculation of male sperm be like killing millions? And the menstruation killing the egg that should have become a new being?

I think this subject has so much emotion and religious/spiritual confusion around it to ever be put into a definitive answer. But if we are to carefully break down it all, an infant doesn't know its own existence really. A newborn baby doesn't have the cognitive function to understand anything other than mimicking and registering events. Right before its birth, it gets pulled out of a sleeping state which is the final stage of its existence before birth. So we could argue that it is its own person as soon as it starts working its cognitive journey to a higher cognitive state. But that would mean that you could abort a child right before its birth before it wakes up out of its sleep state. This is a horrible idea to many but its really not illogical. The baby isn't aware of its existence, it's not aware of anything. If a newborn baby sometime after its birth isn't conscious of its surrounding or existence why would an unborn baby have any notion of anything, especially since the only cognitive processes is sleep without anything processed through that sleep in term of dreams etc.

The conclusion to this is essentially that based on measuring an unborns cognitive ability and consciousness it will not even notice its own end. The trauma of losing a child at that time in pregnancy should not inform of the morality of the ending of its existence. All of this is about what is considered justified within the idea of the unborn child's existence. Through this idea, I cannot deny that it seems that the idea of a late abortion has emotional attachments to it that don't have any foundation in logic to the child's pain or existence when stopped existing. The event is measured by the pre-existing morality of the parents and society around them, the emotional trauma of the event of ending a pregnancy and spiritual/religious fantasies about existence. Measuring by the actual existence, a newborn child that's out of the sleep state should not be terminated, i.e after birth or after the awakening from that sleep. Before that sleep, there is no pain to the end of existence.

This would mean that up until awakening from that sleep, abortion should be "ok". This is the logic when looking at the actual biological process of pregnancy.

So the measurement of what is morally correct comes into contact with how we define a person. If we use euthanasia to terminate someone who is braindead and that is considered ok, why is it not ok to terminate a pregnancy for a child who has not even awaken from a sleep that has no cognitive foundation? Because that child has an entire life ahead of them taken away? What about sperms? With each ejaculation, there is one sperm that would have been a child with an entire life ahead of them. So how come we draw the line at some point?

I would say that the line is drawn because of our emotional opinion about a child. If it looks like a child we cannot abort. I think this is a problematic way of looking at this. The reasons to abort can be many things and I assume everyone is on board with abortion being a right for free people to be able to decide the course of their life.

But the morality of judging the importance of existence based on the physical form of something is just as irrational as judging the rights a statue that resembles a human has to exist. The value of existence should be measured by the cognitive completion of that being, otherwise, it's just an organ, organic matter, a statue of organic matter that we imbue with the importance of existence out of our emotional reaction to the form, not to the logic of its existence.

I would argue that existence isn't valuable as its own being until it starts coming out of the sleep stage right before birth. But in order to make room for any errors in judgment over the cognitive capabilities, I think the third trimester is the last stage to do it. In the question of doing it at all, I would argue that there's no point in dwelling about a fetus existence more than sperm ejaculation or passive organs consisted of living tissue. To think about the existence of a fetus in terms of the possible existence of a human later on, would be like dwelling on the consequences of all male ejaculations and sperm dying. There's no logic to this emotional attachment to a fetus because it's a form without consciousness. It has just as much future as the sperm ejaculated during sex. If it's about when a sperm and egg combine, there's so many impregnated eggs getting ejected as menstruation without many couples even noticing it as being an impregnated egg.

The problem people have with abortion has nothing to do with the logic of biology and is almost entirely about religious, spiritual and emotional irrational concepts about the topic bypassing any rational ideas because it's such a powerful topic. Birth and death is such huge questions when thinking about our existence that it's easy to understand why, but seriously, if you view biology in any scientific way, the answer is less powerful than our emotional reaction to it.

The worst part, however, is how society sets the parameters around this topic based on emotion rather than reason. We force people with more rational and mature concepts of this to act according to the ideas of emotional uneducated and in my opinion unintelligent voices of the public debates. In essence, a woman who still has the baby inside of them should not be considered a murderer or morally bad if they terminate their own pregnancy. Essentially it's still their own body they are manipulating, it's not detached yet and isn't conscious of its own existence. People force women to act in a certain way because of emotional responses to the subject rather than logical ideas about it. In my opinion, this is despicable to the freedom of individuals. It's a legacy from religious bullshit that's always been so emotional at its core that it manages to survive beyond the obvious religious existentialism and through that become an emotionally loaded taboo rather than biologically reasonable.

Reply to Andrew4Handel

I take the view that destroying innocent human life because we find it convenient to do so is wrong. If that lacks nuance then so be it.

Reply to AJJ Reply to Christoffer Reply to Banno Reply to Andrew4Handel

for those on this thread - a little more complete argument -

ARGUMENT FOR THE FUTURE VALUE
Mostly stolen with some adaption from Dr. Don Marquis

P1. One definition of murder is the loss of one’s future of value

Any discussion on abortion needs to start with some theoretical account of the wrongness of killing. I would imagine most on here would have no issue with the assertion it is morally impermissible to, without justification, kill adult human beings like us. But why is it wrong to kill people like us? While we may want to suggest it is the loss others would experience due to our absence. But if that was all it was, it would allow the killing of hermits, or those who lead otherwise independent or friendless lives. A better answer would be the primary wrong done by the killing is the harm it does to the victim. The loss of one’s life is one of the greatest losses one can suffer. However is it simply the change in a biological state that make killing wrong? That seems insufficient. The effect of the loss of my biological life is the loss to me of all those activities, projects, experiences, and enjoyments which would otherwise have constituted my future personal life. These activities, projects, experiences, and enjoyments are either valuable for their own sake or are means to something else that is valuable for its own sake. Some parts of my future are not valued by me now, but will come to be valued by me as I grow older and as my values and capacities change. When I am killed, I am deprived both of what I now value which
would have been part of my future personal life, but also what I would come to value. Therefore, when I die, I am deprived of all of the value of my future. Inflicting this loss on me is ultimately what makes killing me wrong. This being the case, it would seem that what makes killing any adult human being prima facie seriously wrong is the loss of his other future.

P2. From a very early point in a pregnancy there is a unique human organism.

After the process of conception is completed there exists a new zygote cell. This cell has a unique genetic makeup. This zygote is an embryonic stem cell with the ability to generate every organ in the body. For the next 2 weeks or so, or until it is at the 16 cell stage it has the ability to split and twin. After this time, there exists a unique human organism, and this organism can only develop into a human.

P3. All adult humans undergo the same process of development

Currently, there is no other way to become an adult human being, than to start as a human ovam, and a human sperm, to undergo the process of conception and fertilization and the various stages of embryonic development leading to a birth of some type.

P4. Each human being on the planet can directly trace their past as a biological creature on earth from now back to their unique human organism as defined in P2

P5. All things that are part of a unique past time line as defined in P4, where at one time a future on the same time line.

P6. If P5, all human organisms as defined in P2 are on a unique time line that encompasses their unique human future much like ours

P7 One’s awareness or desire for one’s future of value does not impact the moral permissiveness of taking it as in P1.

One is in possession of one’s biological future whether or not one is aware of it or not. One is possession of ones one’s future of value even if one ( in most cases) does not desire it. As an example there can be a seriously depressed person, who do to the nature of their illness wishes to kill themselves and have no desire for their future. I would argue that it is not morally permissible to allow them to kill themselves because their judgement that their future is without value is handicapped by their illness. The concept of “ideal desire” would apply, and our judgement on the moral permissibly of them killing themselves should be based on what their ideal desire would be if their handicap was not there, and we would assume absent their depression they, like us would desire their future. In the second instance assume there was a person is a catatonic state, but with the real prospect of regaining conciseness, we could not say, that since this person is unaware of their future at that time, they are not in possession of it, the concept of ideal judgement would apply, and we should assume that if they were conscience they would be aware of their future and we should not let the handicap of the catatonic state deny them of their right to it. I argue that the same concept of “ideal desire” applies in the case of the fetus, and their handicap of the state of their development is not philosophically different then the prior 2 examples and we should assume that absent this handicap they would be aware, and desire their future of value as we do.

Conclusion

If P1 and one definition of murder is the loss of ones future of value and if P6 Shortly after the process of conception is complete, and very early in human development there is a unique human organism with a unique human future, and if P7 their awareness or desire for this future is not a condition of their possession of this future, taking of this human future of value is murder, and immoral.

Exceptions:

This argument holds for most cases, but not for all. If it can be shown that that there is not a future of value, say thorough embryonic DNA testing that there are sever issues this argument would allow such abortions. Since the argument hinges on there being a unique human organism and there can be a sound biological argument that one does not exist until after twinning this argument would not omit the morning after pill. Finally this argument would not omit infanticide as commonly practiced today with severely premature and physically challenged children facing lives without value as we outlined in P1.

last caveat - this argument makes no attempt at the next level argument that even if the fetus has a right not to be killed because of it life of future value, that does not necessarily give it the right to the use of the woman's body, that is a different argument that is pointless to have until this one is done. when this one is done - i am happy to do that one.

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Quoting tim wood

Really?! And what exactly do you understand this "possession" to entail, or mean? What is it that is possessed?

it was explained with the concept or ideal desire, and it is possessed exactly the same way you possess yours. If your future is not yours, who's is it ?

Quoting tim wood

What is it that bestows a special status on this "zygote" that at the same time deprives sperm or egg of that same status?

it has a new and unique genetic make up, and it is a embryonic stem cell, able to generate every organ in the body - again it was explained

Quoting tim wood

What does this mean??? What is a future value? Think it through: hint, look at the word "is." The notion of "future value" comes from finance, and of it at least one thing is true: never ever not ever do you "possess" a future value. What you have is a present assessment - maybe. Further, the FV of, for example, of a stream of payments is estimated within an extremely narrow set of probabilities over a an extremely narrow set of possibilities - which considerations have precisely nothing - zero - to do with estimating the so-called FOV of a life.

yet again it was fully explained and defined in P1 - it has nothing at all to do with your financial point, that is pure dribble - if you have an issue with the definition happy to address

Quoting tim wood

From the Marquis paper:
The analysis assumes that killing me (or you, reader) is prima facie seriously wrong. The point
of the analysis is to establish which natural property ultimately explains the wrongness of the killing,given that it is wrong. I'm sorry to ask, but do you understand what is going on in this kind of ann argument? Preaching to the choir is one name.

It's time to construct and own your own arguments. These from Don Marquis aren't worthy.

thanks for the opinion and the suggestion -

Quoting tim wood

Implicit in Marquis's argument is that when the victim's death is, then the victim is too. I, myself, would argue that nothing hurts a dead person. In fact it is one of the appeals of death to the old - and sometimes not so old - that when death is, they are no longer. Someone with Marquis's background knows this quote perfectly well. If his argument was intended to be substantive, he would have had to deal with it.

since you liked it once before, we are in violent agreement here, the point yet once again was made inside the argument - that the mere change of biological state involved in murder is not nearly sufficient harm - from there he goes on to posit that the real loss is your future and all that entails.

Since nearly every point you asked was covered in the argument, i am once again left with the supposition that you skim the argument, and with a pre determined position rattle of what ever prattle comes to the top of your head. You are just throwing darts.

You have not made a single valid point that shows any of the premises are false, or the conclusion does not follow. I though you asked that we try and do philosophy. Surgeon heal thyself.

Quoting AJJ

I take the view that destroying innocent human life because we find it convenient to do so is wrong. If that lacks nuance then so be it.

Well this doesn't apply to abortion.

Reply to Rank Amateur I've already answered this. A blastocyst is not a person. It's a cyst.

The future of value approach strikes me as an ad hoc response to the choice argument. It's shallow.

For comparison, look at Nussbaum's capabilities approach. Originating in her thinking on global development, it has taken on a role in moral arguments across the board.

And it gives a far more nuanced account of what it is to be a human being, to be a person.

Quoting Rank Amateur

I and biology believe we are all fully human,

I don't think the idea "fully human being" is meaningful. Humans are very different and have different capacities and go through many different stages of development.

Quoting Andrew4Handel

I take the view that destroying innocent human life because we find it convenient to do so is wrong. If that lacks nuance then so be it.
— AJJ

Well this doesn't apply to abortion.

It is a life, it is human, it is innocent. It is most often destroyed simply because it is unwanted.

Reply to AJJ

People have abortions because they are raped, because they are unfit to raise a child, have mental health problems, cannot afford to, or are in an abusive relationships and more.
There is not just one reason.

Children suffer because irresponsible parents creating them and childhood abuse neglect and famine etc. It is much more humane to have an abortion than bring a child into poverty, dysfunction and other gross harms.

The word destroyed is emotive in this context. A lot of conceptions and pregnancies fail with the child not making it alive out of the womb and in the past many children died soon after birth. Nature is destructive.

I think most people are against abortion for religious reasons yet religious scriptures do not tend to mention the subject and complain verses that do not support the sentiment.

Human dignity inheres in sentience, emotion, affection, physical health, appetite and rationality.

It is in recognition of this dignity that a person had moral standing.

A cluster of cells, not having any of the characteristics of human dignity, has no moral standing.

As that cluster of cells develops, it grows in its ability to express sentience, emotion, affection, physical health, appetite and rationality. It grows in its entitlement to be treated with dignity.

The woman involved in a pregnancy is fully entitled to be treated with dignity.

Pregnancies that threaten the dignity of the pregnant woman may be terminated up until such time as the dignity of the developing human becomes significant. That is, when the developing human shows significant sentience, emotion, affection, physical health, appetite and rationality.

Thereafter pregnancies may be terminated if on balance the continuation of the pregnancy will result in a reduction human dignity.

Generally, this will be around the end of the second trimester of the pregnancy.

Reply to Andrew4Handel

People also have abortions simply because they do not want the child, and so an innocent human life is destroyed because it suits someone else’s plans.

Quoting Banno

As that cluster of cells develops, it grows in its ability to express sentience, emotion, affection, physical health, appetite and rationality. It grows in its entitlement to be treated with dignity.

So on your moral code murdering an adult is less acceptable that murdering a new born baby?

Reply to AJJ

If someone "simply" doesn't wan't a child what will it benefit the child to be born?

(which is no simply situation).

Like I said life and nature is destructive and not a gift or inevitable joy.

If you are a Christian or some other religious person then the idea of an innocent human is problematic but I think you are using it in a purely emotive way.

The aborted fetus could be the next Hitler, or simply a chronic depressive or an anonymous mediocre person with few friends. But at least you know if they are aborted they had no desires or goals and will not suffer.

I think it is nearly evil to create life especially unwanted life in an overcrowded, polluted planet exposing them to disease, struggle and anxiety.

If you think someone should be punished for an accidental pregnancy by being forced to bear the child to full term knowing there is someone in the world they are responsible for who could produce many more clones I think that is a bit sadistic.

I don't think the child in the womb has a right to life because of its lack of independent existence.

It cannot survive without its mothers body and is therefore not individually viable.

It's right to life would interfere with the mothers right to life and many women in history have died in pregnancy.

Quoting Rank Amateur

The effect of the loss of my biological life is the loss to me of all those activities, projects, experiences, and enjoyments which would otherwise have constituted my future personal life. These activities, projects, experiences, and enjoyments are either valuable for their own sake or are means to something else that is valuable for its own sake

My older brother developed primary progressive Multiple sclerosis in his mid 20's .He has now had the illness for over 20 years and it has left him fully paralyzed for at least the last 10 years and he has had to communicate by blinking. He is fed by a tube in the stomach and has a catheter and a tracheotomy to breath through.

This was biologies fate for him.

Reply to Andrew4Handel

A lot of people live perfectly good lives. The majority of people love their children, planned or not.

On a moral code of any worth, destroying an innocent human life because you find it convenient to do so is wrong, even if life isn’t always great.

Quoting Rank Amateur

Any discussion on abortion needs to start with some theoretical account of the wrongness of killing.

Let's do some deconstruction.

Removing a cyst is not killing. A cyst is not a living thing, not a plant, animal or mushroom, and hence cannot be killed.

But more obvious is who is not included in the argument. The account hardly mentions the pregnant woman, and then only to say we will talk about her later. That alone ought give us pause, and wonder as to the attitude towards women that stands behind this argument.

Quoting AJJ

So on your moral code murdering an adult is less acceptable that murdering a new born baby?

I don't have a moral code. That's for those with invisible friends. I make it up as I go along.

Funny thing is, so do those with moral codes; only they probably won't admit it. Ever at the point of choosing what to do, they choose to follow their code or not.

There is considerably more difference between a newborn and an embryo than between a newborn and an adult.

Reply to Banno

You’re outlining a moral code that favours the strong and healthy over the weak and defenceless, and your response to opposition is an accusation of misogyny?

Quoting AJJ

You’re outlining moral codes that favour the strong and healthy over the weak and defenceless,

Actually, if you take a look at the capabilities approach offered by Nussbaum, you will find it provides very strong defences for the rights of the disabled, for women, the poor, and social justice in general.

Reply to Banno

If you say so. I’m going off what you’ve been saying.

Reply to AJJ Let's be clear then. A person has dignity in virtue of their sentience, emotion, affection, physical health, appetite and rationality. It does not admit of degrees; there is no scale of dignity.

And a blastocyst is not a person.

Just noticed the story at Reply to Andrew4Handel. Andrew's brother is a person with dignity, and has moral standing.

Quoting AJJ

On a moral code of any worth, destroying an innocent human life because you find it convenient to do so is wrong, even if life isn’t always great.

I don't know what you mean by "because it is convenient to do so". I think creating suffering is worse than terminating an unborn child.
You keep on calling it a innocent human life. But it is someone who has not been born into the world, has no hopes dreams and aspirations and is not even aware that they exist.

I don't think anyone has a coherent justifiable moral code. Creating a child that will have a poor quality a of life and is unwanted, is no basis for a moral code.

A child has no interests in the womb because they can express no desires and do not exhibit waking states of consciousness. They do not need to continue to exist.

I think life for everyone is substandard personally and I think people who think this world and life is acceptable are delusional.

Comparing killing a fetus to killing a child or adult independent of their mother is disingenuous and dishonest.

You may as well just keep parroting "destroying an innocent apple's life when you eat it" or "Destroying the innocent pigs precious life" when you have a bacon sandwich It is just trite.

I have no idea what AJJ mean by "innocent".

In the bible it says:

"For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God"

"Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me."

"Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one."

Reply to Andrew4Handel

I’m not talking about pigs or apples. I’m talking about innocent, defenceless, human life. Innocent because it has done no wrong; defenceless because it cannot defend itself against violence; human because it is human; a life because it is alive. Destroying such a life because you’d rather not take care of it (which would be an inconvenience) is wrong. Destroying it because Andrew4Handel thinks it would be better off dead, is also wrong.

Quoting Banno

Let's be clear then. A person has dignity in virtue of their sentience, emotion, affection, physical health, appetite and rationality. It does not admit of degrees; there is no scale of dignity.

And a blastocyst is not a person.

OK, so how many of those attributes and to what degree does someone need them before they get their Dignity Card? And what about those without theirs? Are they fair game?

It’s not self-conscious and rational if that’s what you mean, but will become so unless interrupted by violence.

Quoting AJJ

I’m not talking about pigs or apples. I’m talking about innocent, defenceless, human life. Innocent because it has done no wrong; defenceless because it cannot defend itself against violence; human because it is human; a life because it is alive. Destroying such a life because you’d rather not take care of it (which would be an inconvenience) is wrong. Destroying it because Andrew4Handel thinks it would be better off dead, is also wrong.

You are using emotive language that could be applied to anything. if you watch crime documentaries you will notice they don't use terms like "destroying." When someone is murdered. They tend to say killed or brutally killed if the murder was particular drawn out. The majority of time something is killed people do not use the word destroyed.

As I mentioned and you just do not respond to like most points is that there are lots of miscarriages and unsuccessful pregnancies and mothers can die giving birth. There is no benevolent natural of spiritual plan for us a children. The species most successful at breeding are things like plankton. Being able to reproduce is no award winning profound feat.

If you believe humans have a soul then you cannot destroy a person only their body.

Reply to Andrew4Handel

The killing of unborn children is an emotive issue. So what if there are unsuccessful pregnancies? How does that make any difference to the fact that it is wrong to kill (as if using the word ‘kill’ makes it any better) children? The answer, so that you don’t have to think about it, is it doesn’t. It’s not about souls and spirits; it’s about valuing and having respect for the lives of others, especially if they’re weak and defenceless.

Quoting AJJ

A lot of people live perfectly good lives.

I would contest that, however even if this were true it doesn't justify creating the millions of people who have poor quality lives.

Quoting AJJ

So what if there are unsuccessful pregnancies? How does that make any difference to the fact that it is wrong to kill (as if using the word ‘kill’ makes it any better) children? The answer, so that you don’t have to think about it, is it doesn’t. It’s not about souls and spirit

Souls and spirits are entirely relevant to the nature fate of a life.

Now you are using the word child which is manipulative also because the unborn does not have identical status to someone born. It is not a fact that it is wrong to kill you are stating your opinion as a fact.

Children can have their life support machine turned off because they have a poor quality of life and can even have an assisted suicide now in some countries. We don't just assume every life is valuable and must be preserved at all costs.

Reply to Andrew4Handel

Look, I’m bored now, so I’ll just state the obvious one more time and leave it at that.

My language is blunt; it’s no wonder you don’t like it, because what you’re doing is justifying the killing of unborn children, so it helps you to veil this fact with softer words. The reasons for your belief seem crude: life sucks, what’s the point?, etc.

I’d say a society which values and respects the lives of its members, especially the weak and defenceless, is better than one which does not. It will be safer, kinder, and happier - at least in my view; doesn’t seem too controversial to me. But you, of course, can believe what you want.

Quoting AJJ

I’d say a society which values and respects the lives of its members, especially the weak and defenceless, is better than one which does not. It will be safer, kinder, and happier - at least in my view; doesn’t seem too controversial to me.

That is extremely controversial if you read a history book or newspaper about what actually happens in reality.

In what way is an unborn child, entirely dependent on its mother, a member of society? In What way does it contribute?

Societies with limited access to abortion have the worst quality of life on earth anyway.

Your language is not blunt it is simply deceptive, inaccurate and emotive. You have offered absolute zero argument and 110% emotional manipulation. Well Done!

Reply to Andrew4Handel

Again, it’s an emotive issue mate, and requires a modicum of moral intelligence to consider properly. But as I said, believe what you want.

Reply to AJJ

There is no excuses for causing protracted suffering.

Reproduction causes protractive suffering. Abortion causes no suffering.

Consider it this way, we can only exist and do something once at a time. At the moment you can only do one thing even though you are capable of doing many things. When you abort a foetus, or a baby, or killing anything for the matter - it won't be as dramatic as everyone seems to make it. The real horror is taking a life, my thoughts are that although life is a great gift and so many wonderful opportunities arise, the death of a human will not stop the world going around.

Killing it will only last a second, it is not cruel, especially since the baby won't really go to hell for it. Whether it dies or it lives it doesn't matter. Our conscious or state of being is what is important, not existing physically. I don't think the baby will fully die. It just won't exist to us.

At the point of conception it becomes the parents' responsibility. If they were not ready for that responsibility then they should have used contraception. Now a future person must die because of their complacency.

I'm not anti-abortion, mainly because a lack of such an option potentially creates worse alternatives, but if a child is terminated for reasons other than medical, I think that is an extremely questionable act.

Is it wrong to kill aliens if it's to our advantage? I think abortion is wrong if the child can live on it's own (that is, could be a premie). That seems obvious. Just because it's in the mother, that doesn't change the ontology. The alien question is interesting though. They have life, consciousness, and reason perhaps. But what if they are running around our towns causing fear? I bet Christians will get their guns out

Quoting Gregory

Just because it's in the mother, that doesn't change the ontology

Ontologically, isn't inside of/connected to the mother different than outside of/disconnected from the mother?

No

It's spatiality doesn't matter. It's nature matters. Abortion after the child can be a premie is murder, plain and simple.

The fate of fetuses before that is very analogous to the fate of aliens at our hands. So far every species we know is lower than us intelligence. Aliens change all that

Quoting EpicTyrant

What is the difference between ending a premature state of life other than a fully developed one.

What's the difference between a developing tumor and a developing fertilized egg - those are indistinguishable according to abstract & broad 'life' definition.

If you say "necessary" genetic material, then I imagine you'd be offended by women removing their ovaries & male masturbation (as sperms/eggs) only carry necessary 'genetic material - to it's fullest capacity necessary -' for commencing human life - I suppose the Xtians are recklessly consistent in that way.

Reply to Swan

Imagine working in a factory and you have this new product called "Cookiebookie". You start the process in creating it but somewhere along the way you decide that it's an bad idea so you throw it to the side. Cookiebookie was bound to become a product, only by the passage of time and the goodwill of the person.

Masturbating is like deciding that CookieBookie wasn't a good idea at first, so you didn't even start the process of creating it, which by itself is denying the possibility of the product, but you don't deny it's inevitable existance, since all pre-products become products by the passage of time in which everything must pass according to our laws of physics.

Imagine the fetus being the product.

Quoting tim wood

All arguments against abortion that I've encountered are exercises in begging the question. If a person doesn't like terminating pregnancies, then they need merely either not get pregnant, and if they do, not have an abortion. Anything else is minding someone else's business. (Which is not in itself wrong - if gone about in the right way for the right reasons.) The problems with the above lie in the words, and thereby in the ideas and thinking they represent. Shortest way: what life is created? And what is - what does it mean to say - "the premature state of an already existing life form."

At this point in the modern debate on abortion, a debate roughly a century in, with all of the pain on all sides, the sheer stupidity of this argument is unforgivable, and can only have been offered by a troll, or someone so green they have no real idea of what they're talking - writing - about. Go do some research and some thinking!

Sounds like your the one trolling, Tim Wood. His question is completely legitimate.

This thread, Like Jesus, has returned from the dead. No good will come of it.

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Reply to tim wood

of all the useless posts i've answered in the past couple months, i'll answer this one in a couple of hours. I feel you are clearly playing ignorant on the OP. I really don't feel you could be that short sighted to not see what the OP is talking about. Talk to you in a couple of hours.

Reply to Gregory

I'm not asking your opinion of what matters.

I asked whether it wasn't ontologically different.

How would inside/connected not be ontologically different than outside/not connected?

People are saying silly things, as always happens in discussion on abortion.

Quoting EpicTyrant

Why is this considered moral by human standards and not frowned upon?

It isn't considered moral in human terms, and it is frowned upon. There are some people though, who do not recognise an unborn baby as a human being. I think that they have found an opportunity to disregard the perspective of the unborn because they do not see it's face, hear it's sounds, see it's reactions to environmental stimuli. But, that also can be said of parents who are in a bad mood, who also are completely unable to see those things in children.

There is just a state of ignorance that a human sometimes slips into that causes them to become incapable of empathising with others. I name it demonic possession (based upon John 3:36 - whoever does not obey the son does not see life, and the wrath of God abides upon him).

So those ones you mention, who are unable to see the life of the baby, it has become their delusion to think that what they do is not murder, only because they have refused to obey the son of God. Anyone who obeys the son of God will come to exercise sexuality according to the principles that He teaches, hence no desire for abortion, and much love for God's gift of new life.

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Reply to tim wood

Considering the future for most of our youth is a career working for Uber, i'm not sure i can come up with a good argument against you. The ancient Amorites and ancient Israelites were allowed to sacrifice their children to other gods because its better to die young and go to heaven then to grow up and work for Uber as your career and be predisposed to reject the living God. Have a good day sir.

Quoting Serving Zion

There are some people though, who do not recognise an unborn baby as a human being. I think that they have found an opportunity to disregard the perspective of the unborn because they do not see it's face, hear it's sounds, see it's reactions to environmental stimuli.

A blastocyst does not have a face, hear sounds nor react to stimuli.

Quoting Banno

A blastocyst does not have a face, hear sounds nor react to stimuli.

You are only 2/3's correct though .. and furthermore, those two are not necessary definitions for qualifying life. It is meant to show that the immorality relies upon moving the goalposts for the definition of life, so that they can believe themselves innocent of putting life to death.

Reply to EpicTyrant

Did you just use a Sesame Street cookie monster analogy?

Reply to Serving Zion You would cut out any other cyst without hesitation. The inconsistency is yours.

Quoting Banno

You would cut out any other cyst without hesitation.

Why would I want to do that?

Quoting Serving Zion

Why would I want to do that?

Why would you want to do what?

Quoting Banno

What pisses me off most about the choice debate is the insincerity of the antagonists.

The reason you want to ban abortion is nothing to do with fair ethical consideration. It's because the people who tell you what your invisible friend wants say abortion is naughty.

The same misogynist folk who fight against child care, public education, maternity leave, and most other things that will actually benefit people. The ones who think giving guns to children is a good idea, and are shit scared of anyone who is slightly different, sexually, ethnically, geographically, politically or spiritually.

The folk who will not mention, let alone consider, the role of the potential mother; utter bullshit.

Quoting Banno

Just to be clear, those who oppose free choice on the part of a woman wishing to put an early end to an unwanted pregnancy are acting immorally.

Quoting Serving Zion

It is meant to show that the immorality relies upon moving the goalposts for the definition of life, so that they can believe themselves innocent of putting life to death.

What goalposts though? Who set up the goalposts that are allegedly being moved?

It's not about "life" either. We kill lots of life all the time. No-one much cares about the billions of bacteria.

Quoting Echarmion

What goalposts though? Who set up the goalposts that are allegedly being moved?

Morality doesn't have an author as such, so it's pointless to ask who set up the goalposts. The point is, they will believe it is immoral to kill a breathing baby for convenience, but not an unborn. In making that distinction, they shift the goalposts (where "killing" is to take the life of a living, and "baby" is the one who is not independent/self-supported).
Quoting Echarmion

It's not about "life" either. We kill lots of life all the time. No-one much cares about the billions of bacteria.

Strict morality does condemn that though.

Quoting Serving Zion

Strict morality does condemn that though.

What is "strict morality"?

Quoting Serving Zion

Morality doesn't have an author as such, so it's pointless to ask who set up the goalposts.

If you want to argue that someone is moving the goalposts, you have to establish what the goalposts are, first. Without agreed-upon goalposts, the charge makes no sense.

Quoting Serving Zion

The point is, they will believe it is immoral to kill a breathing baby for convenience, but not an unborn. In making that distinction, they shift the goalposts (where "killing" is to take the life of a living, and "baby" is the one who is not independent/self-supported).

That's just one way to draw the line. No "shifting" is going on here. You're also oversimplifying the issue to "killing is wrong, not killing is right". That's not a viable moral stance.

Quoting Echarmion

What is "strict morality"?

It is just judgement of the absolute truth. When one says "do unto others as you would have them do unto you", then the judge decides whether the complaint is credible or not.
Quoting Echarmion

That's just one way to draw the line. No "shifting" is going on here.

Actually, you are only able to say that because you do not acknowledge the complaint of the unborn: "they took my life".
Quoting Echarmion

You're also oversimplifying the issue to "killing is wrong, not killing is right". That's not a viable moral stance.

Can you please explain why?

Quoting Banno

Why would you want to do what?

You said I would cut out any other cyst without hesitation, so I have asked you to give an example of why I might want to cut out a cyst.

You seem to be suggesting that a blastocyst should be regarded as a cyst, and the name "cyst" means it is something that ideally should not exist in the body. I will look to identify why you should regard a blastocyst as distinct from a cyst (Eg: everyone has been a blastocyst, but no cyst has become a living person).

Quoting Serving Zion

It is just judgement of the absolute truth

How do we know the absolute truth?

Quoting Serving Zion

Actually, you are only able to say that because you do not acknowledge the complaint of the unborn: "they took my life".

The unborn cannot lodge such a complaint, even in theory, though. So really it's you making the complaint, even though you don't have to bear any of the consequences.

Quoting Serving Zion

Can you please explain why?

It is sometimes necessary to kill in order to protect other rights. Like when we are acting in defense of ourselves or others.

Quoting Echarmion

How do we know the absolute truth?

I think it's better to say "how can we know the absolute truth?" .. is that what you meant?

Quoting Echarmion

The unborn cannot lodge such a complaint, even in theory, though. So really it's you making the complaint,

Yes, that is true. I also am not the only one who makes that complaint on their behalf. There is a spiritual reality that speaks, pricking our conscience. Whenever we fall foul of the judgement of the absolute truth, we must wrestle those voices. To achieve peace of mind, some people refuse to hear those voices (eg: 1 John 4:6), or they might adjust their moral compass to deceive themselves (thereby rejecting their conscience in favour of an alternative spirit). Neither of those options is good for us, but it is what we choose to do when we are unable to confess our errors.

Quoting Echarmion

It is sometimes necessary to kill in order to protect other rights. Like when we are acting in defense of ourselves or others.

In those cases, the absolute truth yields itself to our support, because the aggressor was doing immorality to begin with - they were transgressing the moral law "do unto others as you would have them do to you".

Quoting Serving Zion

I think it's better to say "how can we know the absolute truth?" .. is that what you meant?

Yes, that'd be the more basic question.

Quoting Serving Zion

Some people refuse to hear those voices (eg: 1 John 4:6), sometimes they adjust their moral compass to deceive themselves (thereby rejecting their conscience in favour of an alternative spirit).

Sounds awfully condescending. Perhaps it's your moral compass that's in need of adjustment? A lot has been written on the topic, some of it very thorough. It's not a matter of willful ignorance or denial.

Quoting Serving Zion

In those cases, the absolute truth yields itself to our support, because the aggressor was doing immorality to begin with - they were transgressing the moral law "do unto others as you would have them do to you".

But, given that we accept limitations even to the right to life, it's no longer a simple question of whether or not the unborn child is indeed alreay a child or still a foetus. It's also a matter of what circumstances we are going to accept as justification for ending that life. It's not a black of white issue. Plenty of people who are "pro life" accept special circumstances, like danger to the mother or pregnancy as a result of rape. On the other side, plents of "pro abortion" people accept limits to legal abortion based on the state of the pregnancy or the circumstances of the decision.

Quoting Echarmion

Yes, that'd be the more basic question.

Ok, well we just need to see what prevents a person from accepting the absolute truth. Then, by removing those barriers, they can advance to know the truth.

Quoting Echarmion

Sounds awfully condescending.

I am sorry, I have reworded it to try and soften the blow. I don't know if that will be enough for you, but let's see.

Quoting Echarmion

Perhaps it's your moral compass that's in need of adjustment?

What, seriously? .. that people can kill babies for unrestrained sex? You would work yourself to death while trying to adjust that compass, I can assure you.

Quoting Echarmion

A lot has been written on the topic, some of it very thorough. It's not a matter of willful ignorance or denial.

We will need to part ways over this. Nobody is born demonic, they become demonic by yielding their mind to the thinking that shields them from the conviction of the truth.

Quoting Echarmion

But, given that we accept limitations even to the right to life

Who does? .. don't get me wrong, the parasite takes a risk by invading a host. I do not grant the same terms to describe pregnancy, one would be severely warped to arrive at that.

Quoting Echarmion

it's no longer a simple question of whether or not the unborn child is indeed alreay a child or still a foetus.

It doesn't make a difference though, to the judgement. The fact is, that it is taking life, and the question in the judgement is whether it is morally justified.

Quoting Echarmion

It's also a matter of what circumstances we are going to accept as justification for ending that life. It's not a black of white issue. Plenty of people who are "pro life" accept special circumstances, like danger to the mother or pregnancy as a result of rape.

Those considerations are in fact justifications for adjusting the moral compass, and they don't have any strength when faith is involved. So it does remain a black and white issue, IMO.

Quoting Echarmion

On the other side, plents of "pro abortion" people accept limits to the right of abortion based on the state of the pregnancy or the circumstances of the decision.

It would be useful to analyse some of those differences.

Quoting Serving Zion

Ok, well we just need to see what prevents a person from accepting the absolute truth. Then, by removing those barriers, they can advance to know the truth.

Sure, let's start.

Quoting Serving Zion

that people can kill babies for unrestrained sex?

Do you have a problem with unrestrained sex?

Quoting Serving Zion

We will need to part ways over this. Nobody is born demonic, they become demonic by yielding their mind to the thinking that shields them from the conviction of the truth.

If you're going to refuse every counterargument as demonic, what's the use talking to you, exactly?

Quoting Serving Zion

and they don't have any strength when faith is involved

This is a philosophy forum though.

Quoting Echarmion

Do you have a problem with unrestrained sex?

I am only against the problems it causes.

Quoting Echarmion

If you're going to refuse every counterargument as demonic, what's the use talking to you, exactly?

That question is loaded with a false premise. There are many times I observe counterarguments as not being demonic. But, even if a person does speak to me in a demonic spirit, the words can be useful to produce a better knowledge of the truth.

Quoting Serving Zion

That question is loaded with a false premise. There are many times I observe counterarguments as not being demonic. But, even if a person does speak to me in a demonic spirit, the words can be useful to produce a better knowledge of the truth.

What is evidence of a demonic spirit?

Reply to Echarmion Understanding the "fruits of the flesh" is a good start (see Galatians 5:19-23, and you might consider James 4:1).

Quoting Serving Zion

You seem to be suggesting that a blastocyst should be regarded as a cyst, and the name "cyst" means it is something that ideally should not exist in the body. I will look to identify why you should regard a blastocyst as distinct from a cyst (Eg: everyone has been a blastocyst, but no cyst has become a living person).

There's no arguing with that level of rationality.

Why are you talking about cysts? The thing that gets aborted looks just like a tiny human... because it is.

Reply to frank

Does this resemble a tiny human? My eyes are not what they used to be, but I think not.

Reply to EricH Blastocysts embed in the endometrium after 11 days. Prior to that, she doesn't know she's pregnant, after that, the blastocyst won't come out.

We have to wait until there is a fetus.

Quoting Banno

There's no arguing with that level of rationality.

That appears to be a concession.

Quoting frank

Why are you talking about cysts?

It wasn't my choice.

Quoting frank

The thing that gets aborted looks just like a tiny human... because it is.

That deviation began when I said that they see a fetus as inferior (therefore they do not see it as a tiny human) because they do not see it's facial or vocal expressions. Any opportunity to establish a class of inferiority is sufficient to support immorality (and, in fact, is required for immorality - otherwise one could not bear to do it, because doing it to anything that is not inferior, is in fact doing it to themselves).

FWIW, I consider life to have begun before fertilisation (ie: sperm is alive).

Quoting frank

We have to wait until there is a fetus.

The morning-after contraception is sufficient to achieve the same effect - abortion by putting to death the life within (they do not want the life - they choose to kill it instead of loving it).

Reply to frank
I see your point. I was trying to answer your question: Quoting frank

Why are you talking about cysts?

Most discussions about abortion (e.g., this discussion) eventually lead to questions regarding the legality of preventing the blastocyst from being embedded in the endometrium. Hence the discussion about "cysts".

Quoting Serving Zion

FWIW, I consider life to have begun before fertilisation (ie: sperm is alive).

Every sperm is sacred? I'm a full blown moral nihilist today, so I can only look at that anthropologically.

What more is humanity than a squiggling fungus on a rock hurtling meaninglessly through the void? You know youre a nihilist when that thought makes you laugh.

Quoting EricH

Most discussions about abortion (e.g., this discussion) eventually lead to questions regarding the legality of preventing the blastocyst from being embedded in the endometrium. Hence the discussion about "cysts".

I see. You should probably go with the largest version of abortee when pondering what's actually happening, right? It has fingernails. It can and does cry. It's ok, though. It's lungs wont work, so it will die pretty quickly.

Quoting frank

What more is humanity than a squiggling fungus

"Moreover", it is a "squiggling fungus" that found a perfect opportunity to adapt and thrive!

Quoting Serving Zion

Moreover", it is a "squiggling fungus" that found the perfect opportunity to thrive!

True. Thrive.

Quoting Serving Zion

That appears to be a concession.

Not so much.


You confuse human beings and human tissue. They are not the very same.

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Quoting Banno

You confuse human beings and human tissue.

I haven't done that, the confusion is your doing. I have acknowledged life present in various stages of growth. Are you suggesting that a blastocyst is not alive?

Quoting tim wood

Exactly so, as with the egg. Therefore, no new life created. Let us now forever dispense with that leg of the argument.

I don't see that an unfertilised egg is alive. The statement is still true though, there is no new life created in conception. The life is in the seed.

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Reply to tim wood Ad hominum is pointless (and disgraceful). If you think I need to learn something, give me information to consider.

Reply to Serving Zion The unfertilized egg and the sperm have about the same status in terms of life. They each carry 1/2 the chromosomes needed for a whole human. The sperm is more like pollen than a seed.

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Quoting frank

The unfertilized egg and the sperm have about the same status in terms of life. They each carry 1/2 the chromosomes needed for a whole human. The sperm is more like pollen than a seed.

I note those points, thank you.

Quoting tim wood

Human egg, dead or alive?

The human egg appears to be a living cell (ie: a unit of human tissue in which life operates). Although it is more difficult to see an egg as a living thing than sperm, there are descriptions of scientific research that shows it does behave with characteristics of intelligence, which are a sign of life operating (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_fertilization#cite_ref-9). Thank you for bringing that to my attention.

Quoting tim wood

is your understanding of sexual reproduction c. 350 BCE?

What is significant about that date, that you chose it?

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

I would love to see how people's position on this topic fits with their philosophical idea of "becoming". How does the topic of abortion and the topic of becoming get integrated into a coherent worldview?

Reply to Harry Hindu Right now, I imagine the sperm and the egg's individual anxiety: "I must find a mate, else I will perish". It reminds me of an unmarried human's intrinsic anxiety when the age of realisation comes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r56ogtlni8Y

I haven't seen anything on this discussion about the mother's role in this matter. Women get abortions for a whole host of reasons. Carrying the baby to full-term may cause the death of the mother, the fetus may be at a large risk of miscarriage (which is much more common than most of society is aware of), not to mention other reasons like rape.

Your main question is about the stage in which a fetus is to be considered to have rights to life, but this question ignores an essential piece of the discussion that is the "morality of abortion." Once we've determined when a fetus is considered to have rights, then we must determine if those rights take precedence over the rights of the mother. Does a mother lose the right to bodily autonomy just because the fetus remains viable to a certain point? A fetus doesn't just sit in your womb for 9 months. Once you're pregnant, you will be a mother forever and that fetus, in most cases, becomes the entire life of the mother. We can't reasonably assess which of the two will contribute more to society so we can't use that as a metric for deciding which life means more. The pro-choice side says the mother is more important and has a right to decide what to do with her body while the pro-life side argues for the uncertain future of the fetus on the grounds that it is a living human and it deserves a chance.

To answer your question, I want to ask a few more questions. What do you determine as value of life? Does mere existence give life value? Does existence merit the receipt of rights? Considering that the "rights" we're discussing are just a part of our Social Contract, what qualifies as a contribution to society?

Quoting Harry Hindu

I would love to see how people's position on this topic fits with their philosophical idea of "becoming". How does the topic of abortion and the topic of becoming get integrated into a coherent worldview?

Quoting Reagan

I haven't seen anything on this discussion about the mother's role in this matter. Women get abortions for a whole host of reasons.

That's the trouble with Zombie threads.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/249231

And elsewhere.

Quoting Serving Zion

I haven't done that, the confusion is your doing. I have acknowledged life present in various stages of growth. Are you suggesting that a blastocyst is not alive?

Your argument is poorly drawn. Set it out so it can be seen.

A blood cell from your veins would be human, but not a human being. It is alive - at what cost must it be kept alive? Bleeding kills blood cells - is it therefor immoral?

What is it about the blastocyst that makes it worthy of preservation, in a way that blood cels are not?

Can you present your position in a way that is consistent?

Reply to EpicTyrant

Is abortion a logically impossible truth or irrational?

Existence requires time
Human Beings exist
Therefore, Human Beings require time for their existence

In other words, that would seem to negate the personhood in-the-process argument.

Life, like anything else, does not really have value for what it is, but for what it will be. The only reason our lives have value is because we expect to be alive tomorrow. Large banknotes wouldn’t have any value if they were expected to burn the next instant.

A fetus has value because it is expected to become a human being like we are – a self-conscious thinking thing. Whether or not you want to call it a human being already, is irrelevant, since it is not valued for what it is.

A newborn baby is not a self-conscious thinking thing, but it should also be valued for what it will be. Why is it often considered wrong to kill a newborn baby, but not wrong to kill a fetus? They should both have the same moral status since they are both potentially self-conscious thinking things, but potentially only.

Any rules for when abortion should be allowed would be completely arbitrary. At any stage the fetus looks more like a human being than at the previous one, but so what? We may feel that the looks of it makes it more or less valuable, but that feeling has no rational basis.

Reply to Congau And eggs and sperm?

Quoting Banno

Your argument is poorly drawn.

That, again, is your doing, not mine.
Quoting Banno

Set it out so it can be seen.

I have done so, according to my own expectations. If it is insufficient for you, yours is the responsibility to seek clarification, as I note you have proceeded to do:
Quoting Banno

A blood cell from your veins would be human, but not a human being.

Good fact.
Quoting Banno

It is alive - at what cost must it be kept alive?

A conscious entity's experience of life produces an intrinsic value for it's own life, according to the prospect of the alternative/s. Therefore morality considers the living entity's intrinsic right of life whenever there is a cause for complaint that its rights of life have been transgressed. So wherever the taking of its natural right is immoral, the cost of not supporting its life should be considered too great.

Quoting Banno

Bleeding kills blood cells - is it therefor immoral?

Sometimes it is, sometimes isn't.

There is sometimes opportunity for a living entity's "rights to live" to be not supported by morality. As in the example of the case of a blood cell, it's primary function is to serve the needs of the life of its human being. Therefore while its life is sacrificed in order to clot a wound, it is not necessarily immoral to expect its sacrifice because upholding its right to life would be transgressing the human being's right to life where the blood cell's purpose and duty in life is to serve the maintenance of human being's rights of life - but, it can be immoral to cause the death of living blood. Eg, if the wound is inflicted for an immoral reason, then it is causing an unnecessary loss of life, therefore the cost should be rightfully borne to preserve the life of the cell (the cost to be borne, is the refusal to support the immoral action). To refuse to bear that cost is counted as wickedness by judgement where the rights of the blood are brought to consideration, thus the person doing such immorality loses right to belong to the spirit of innocence and truth (iow, they are drawn into possession by the spirit that deceives them, by their refusal to follow the truth into repentance).

Quoting Banno

What is it about the blastocyst that makes it worthy of preservation, in a way that blood cels are not?

Nothing, because a blastocyt's intrinsic right of life is entitled to the same considerations by a judge of morality, as a blood cell.
Quoting Banno

Can you present your position in a way that is consistent?

I haven't seen that my presentation is inconsistent, so I really am not able to acknowledge that such a question can be answered.

Quoting Harry Hindu

I would love to see how people's position on this topic fits with their philosophical idea of "becoming". How does the topic of abortion and the topic of becoming get integrated into a coherent worldview?

Quoting Banno

That's the trouble with Zombie threads.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/249231

And elsewhere.

Quoting Banno

Human dignity inheres in sentience, emotion, affection, physical health, appetite and rationality.

It is in recognition of this dignity that a person had moral standing.

A cluster of cells, not having any of the characteristics of human dignity, has no moral standing.

As that cluster of cells develops, it grows in its ability to express sentience, emotion, affection, physical health, appetite and rationality. It grows in its entitlement to be treated with dignity.

The woman involved in a pregnancy is fully entitled to be treated with dignity.

Pregnancies that threaten the dignity of the pregnant woman may be terminated up until such time as the dignity of the developing human becomes significant. That is, when the developing human shows significant sentience, emotion, affection, physical health, appetite and rationality.

Thereafter pregnancies may be terminated if on balance the continuation of the pregnancy will result in a reduction human dignity.

Generally, this will be around the end of the second trimester of the pregnancy.

The fetus has a brain with synapses and can feel, hear, smell and taste by the end of the second trimester. You didn't seem to address my actual question either. When does someone start the "becoming" of being "dignified"? What is sentience, and how do we know that you have it? You often insult others that don't think the way you do and therefore don't treat others in a "dignified" manner. Why shouldn't you be aborted? You say sentience is a requirement, yet the second-trimester fetus has sentience.

I don't see a problem in the day-after pill, or having an abortion within your first trimester, but to wait until sentience develops would immoral, according to your own statements, and I would agree.

It seems to me that the question is about women's rights. Without the possibility of abortion you condemn a woman to a kind of slavery in order to produce an unwanted child, whose life is unlikely to be worth living.

Reply to iolo Yes, it is a question of women's rights (and indirectly, men's rights), where the question is whether they have the right to take human life for convenience.

What you also introduce by asking that question, is sanity of a woman who resents bearing a child. When you consider the female body's function in reproduction, it is clear that it's regular function is a hope to bear offspring. It produces and holds an egg in hope of fertility, and when the fertilization does not arrive before the condition of the egg deteriorates, it discards (at a cost) and makes another attempt.

A woman who does not cherish the offspring is suffering an unnatural depression. I agree that a baby is more likely to suffer less by having been aborted than raised by a resentful spirit and deranged mother. But, the real question then, is where justice must decide whether a woman of such insanity should not be treated and whether society is not entitled to be protected from the spirit that abides in her (which I do! - too demanding of my patience, are parents who resent and mistreat their children, and authorities that support them. It is an abomination).

Your post was unclear to me. SO I will paraphrase it, below, and you tell me if I have the gist.

Quoting Serving Zion

[quote="Serving Zion;346959"]There is sometimes opportunity for a living entity's "rights to live" to be not supported by morality.

So sometimes it is OK to kill things.

Quoting Serving Zion

As in the example of the case of a blood cell, it's primary function is to serve the needs of the life of its human being. Therefore while its life is sacrificed in order to clot a wound, it is not necessarily immoral to expect its sacrifice because upholding its right to life would be transgressing the human being's right to life where the blood cell's purpose and duty in life is to serve the maintenance of human being's rights of life

An example is that a blood cell ought be allowed to die for the greater good of the body

Quoting Serving Zion

but, it can be immoral to cause the death of living blood. Eg, if the wound is inflicted for an immoral reason, then it is causing an unnecessary loss of life,

It is moral to kill blood cells immorally (?)

Quoting Serving Zion

therefore the cost should be rightfully borne to preserve the life of the cell (the cost to be borne, is the refusal to support the immoral action).

So one ought not kill blood cells immorally (?)

Quoting Serving Zion

To refuse to bear that cost is counted as wickedness by judgement where the rights of the blood are brought to consideration,

Blood cells have a right to life so killing them is sometimes judged wicked (?)

Quoting Serving Zion

thus the person doing such immorality loses right to belong to the spirit of innocence and truth (iow, they are drawn into possession by the spirit that deceives them, by their refusal to follow the truth into repentance).

People who kill blood cells needlesly are bad.

Quoting Serving Zion

Nothing, because a blastocyt's intrinsic right of life is entitled to the same considerations by a judge of morality, as a blood cell.

The blood cell and the blastocyst are on the same moral level



Bringing that together,

sometimes it is OK to kill things; It is moral to kill blood cells immorally;So one ought not kill blood cells immorally; People who kill blood cells needlesly are bad. The blood cell and the blastocyst are on the same moral level

Is that what you said?

I was taking your post seriously; but I came to this:Quoting Harry Hindu

You often insult others that don't think the way you do and therefore don't treat others in a "dignified" manner. Why shouldn't you be aborted? You say sentience is a requirement, yet the second-trimester fetus has sentience.

That's a pretty pathetic pronouncement, even by your standards. You are not worth the effort, Harry. Especially as you pretty much agree with my stated position.

Quoting Serving Zion

...for convenience.

SO a twelve-year-old rape victim ought not be permitted a neat, convenient abortion?

Quoting Serving Zion

What you also introduce by asking that question, is sanity of a woman who resents bearing a child. When you consider the female body's function in reproduction, it is clear that it's regular function is a hope to bear offspring. It produces and holds an egg in hope of fertility, and when the fertilization does not arrive before the condition of the egg deteriorates, it discards (at a cost) and makes another attempt...

Calling out this misogynist crap: Women are for having children; any woman who does not wish to bear a child to term is insane; a woman who is not happy in the role of mother is deranged...

You've lost any moral standing you had, Zion. What you say here shows your judgement on ethical issues is not worth considering.

Think on how you degrade women while extolling a mere cysts. The bankruptcy of this position should be obvious even to you.

Quoting Banno

And eggs and sperm?

Eggs and sperm don’t have a potential for anything in particular. They are like bricks that can be used for anything or nothing. There would be nothing bad about throwing away a rock you found lying about even though that rock could be used for building a house or making a statue or whatever, but it would certainly be bad to walk into a building site and throw away a rock that was being used as a brick for a house in progress.

A fetus at its earliest stage already contains all the data of the fully developed human being. The potential is real and specific.

It’s a shame to ruin anything that has the definite potential of becoming something valuable and especially when you know that it will be if only you leave it alone. You don’t destroy a work of art in progress if it looks promising, even if it hasn’t reached its finished form yet.

If you think it’s wrong to murder people because you think they are valuable in themselves, it would also be wrong to kill potential people.

Potentiality is no less valuable then actuality since what is actually existing also derives its value from its potential for continued existence.

Quoting Banno

So sometimes it is OK to kill things.

I didn't mention killing blood. To kill is to take action to cause death. In the examples, the blood clotting is in response to a necessary or accidental wound - therefore, nobody has accrued moral debt for the life of the blood.

Quoting Banno

It is moral to kill blood cells immorally

It seems that you have misread me. Please check or explain how you have arrived at this idea.

Quoting Banno

So one ought not kill blood cells immorally (?)

No question about it, in my mind.

Quoting Banno

Blood cells have a right to life so killing them is sometimes judged wicked (?)

That is truth.

Quoting Banno

People who kill blood cells needlesly are bad.

The more important point is that when a person is confronted with truth that demands them to change, yet they don't want to change, they need to rationalise their thinking. The only way to do that is to employ deceit, and since the devil is the name given to the father of lies, it is a devilish spirit that they choose to follow in their thinking. It is no longer the spirit of truth that they follow, even though they convince themselves to believe they are of the truth. That is the nature of demonic possession. That's why it is important to really love the truth, because Jesus says truth, way and life are all one in the same "I am the way, the truth and the life" - there is no life outside of the truth, and there is no way apart from the truth. To depart from the truth is to be cut off and to die, hence all the immoral fighting etc - that is what demons achieve through human refusal to repent.

Quoting Banno

The blood cell and the blastocyst are on the same moral level

There is no such thing as "levels" in morality. Life is life. Right is right, wrong is wrong, and purpose prescribes duty.

Quoting Banno

Is that what you said?

That's what you said I said. I have said what I said, and I have shown you what I think of what you thought I said. Some of what you thought I said is not accurate. It looks like you have rushed, or you have not been interested in understanding what i have said, or the ideas are so new to you that you need more time to fully grasp what the words mean.

Quoting Harry Hindu

I would love to see how people's position on this topic fits with their philosophical idea of "becoming". How does the topic of abortion and the topic of becoming get integrated into a coherent worldview?

Existence requires time
Human Beings exist
Therefore, Human Beings require time for their existence

If that little syllogism is sound/true, then it would make abortion illogical or irrational.

(And speaks to your concern about " becoming ")

Reply to Congau
Scooping out your argument, a foetus contains all the data for a fully developed human being. This gives the foetus a thing called potential, that is not had by eggs and sperm.

An analogy for you: imagine disk drive containing all the information to run this forum. It has the potential to become the forum. But of course, much more is needed - the computer specifically set up to recognise the data and to implement it, the various components that connect that computer to the internet, and the internet itself. While the drive has the potential to become the forum, it cannot do so by itself.

While the foetus might have potential to become a person, realising that potential requires the intervention of the mother and the world in which she lives.

Quoting Congau

It’s a shame to ruin anything that has the definite potential of becoming something valuable and especially when you know that it will be if only you leave it alone.

Now note the bit that is bolded.

A foetus that is left alone will die. It requires substantial effort on the part of the mother and her support folk in order to reach birth; and thereafter more effort is required for it to reach maturity.

The mother is already a person.

Isn't that something quite distinct from having the potential to be a person?

So, how would you balance the real, undeniable personhood of the mother against the mere potential of the foetus?

Reply to Serving Zion I find your posts ponderous in the extreme, with no identifiable argument. Furthermore you have expressed a moraly abhorrent disregard for women.

I don't see a point in reading your posts.

Quoting Banno

Calling out this misogynist crap:

You have some other person in mind. There are people who are mysogenists that you can describe as you have described me. But you can't name me mysogenist. I hate evil, and the mentality that despises children - whether through male or female. It is not women that I hate.

Quoting Banno

Women are for having children;

Women get to be mothers.

Quoting Banno

any woman who does not wish to bear a child to term is insane;

It is insane to not cherish new life.

Quoting Banno

a woman who is not happy in the role of mother is deranged...

Well, delusional at least. To be unhappy about a reality that doesn't yet exist, and that could well be different, is delusional. To kill because of that delusuon, is deranged.

Quoting Banno

You've lost any moral standing you had, Zion.

I don't accept your judgement. It is clear that you have no understanding of morality.

Quoting Banno

What you say here shows your judgement on ethical issues is not worth considering.

As I said, your judgement is authoritative in your view but not mine, and why? .. it is because you want a judge that will say it is ok to kill babies so people can have unrestrained sex. It just cannot be justified morally, and when I judge, I am constrained by morality.

Quoting Banno

Think on how you degrade women while extolling a mere cysts. The bankruptcy of this position should be obvious even to you.

So to those that are watching, and who are capable of growing, Luke 21:23 mentions the wrath of God being upon mothers of infants, and why? Just as I have described of the mechanism of judgement, for refusing to follow truth into righteousness.

Reply to Banno I offered you the opposite, but nevertheless, it is your decision and my words could not have been more persuasive.

Reply to Serving Zion
So back to my main point:

What pisses me off most about the choice debate is the insincerity of the antagonists.

The reason you want to ban abortion is nothing to do with fair ethical consideration. It's because the people who tell you what your invisible friend wants say abortion is naughty.

The same misogynist folk who fight against child care, public education, maternity leave, and most other things that will actually benefit people. The ones who think giving guns to children is a good idea, and are shit scared of anyone who is slightly different, sexually, ethnically, geographically, politically or spiritually.

The folk who will not mention, let alone consider, the role of the potential mother; utter bullshit.

Quoting Serving Zion

I offered you the opposite, but nevertheless, it is your decision and my words could not have been more persuasive.

Persuasive words - well, they persuade.

Your writing is ugly, nasty, self-serving bullshit.

Reply to Banno No, Banno, you don't know me at all. You are describing some other person, probably that you have thought is me because we are both called "Christian".

Reply to Banno That's what you see. It's not who I am.

Quoting Banno

SO a twelve-year-old rape victim ought not be permitted a neat, convenient abortion?

I wouldn't recommend it, Banno. Remember what I said earlier:

Quoting Serving Zion

Those considerations are in fact justifications for adjusting the moral compass, and they don't have any strength when faith is involved.

Quoting Serving Zion

That's what you see

No, it's what you said:Quoting Serving Zion

...it is a question of women's rights (and indirectly, men's rights), where the question is whether they have the right to take human life for convenience.

What you also introduce by asking that question, is sanity of a woman who resents bearing a child. When you consider the female body's function in reproduction, it is clear that it's regular function is a hope to bear offspring. It produces and holds an egg in hope of fertility, and when the fertilization does not arrive before the condition of the egg deteriorates, it discards (at a cost) and makes another attempt.

A woman who does not cherish the offspring is suffering an unnatural depression. I agree that a baby is more likely to suffer less by having been aborted than raised by a resentful spirit and deranged mother. But, the real question then, is where justice must decide whether a woman of such insanity should not be treated and whether society is not entitled to be protected from the spirit that abides in her (which I do! - too demanding of my patience, are parents who resent and mistreat their children, and authorities that support them. It is an abomination).

If that's not you, then don't say it.

Reply to Banno I'm happy to say those things. It's not ugly or nasty, but tells of a person who does not love children: it is they who are ugly and nasty. It is only self-seeking insofaras I share in their suffering (Matthew 25:40, Proverbs 31:8, Isaiah 1:17).

Reply to Serving Zion Well, yes, it is nasty. It tells of a person who does not respect women; who assigns them their place based on their gender alone, without regard for their personhood, their potential, their needs and desires.

There is nastiness also in your quoting from the bible - as if that decrepit text had any remaining moral authority.

Here's a bit from the Book of Judges, demonstrating how women are to be treated:

Now as they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, certain sons of Belial, beset the house round about, and beat at the door, and spake to the master of the house, the old man, saying, Bring forth the man that came into thine house, that we may know him. 23 And the man, the master of the house, went out unto them, Nay, my brethren, nay, I pray you, do not so wickedly; seeing that this man is come into mine house, do not this folly. 24 Behold, here is my daughter a maiden, and his concubine; them I will bring out now, and humble ye them, and do with them what seemeth good unto you: but unto this man do not so vile a thing. 25 But the men would not hearken to him: so the man took his concubine, and brought her forth unto them; and they knew her, and abused her all the night until the morning: and when the day began to spring, they let her go. 26 Then came the woman in the dawning of the day, and fell down at the door of the man's house where her lord was, till it was light. 27 And her lord rose up in the morning, and opened the doors of the house, and went out to go his way: and, behold, the woman his concubine was fallen down at the door of the house, and her hands were upon the threshold. 28 And he said unto her, Up, and let us be going. But none answered. Then the man took her up upon an ass, and the man rose up, and gat him unto his place.

SO at least be honest and admit that your objection to abortion is not based on a proper consideration of the morality involved, but instead on your acquiescence to an irredeemable, antiquated, uncivilised text.

Opposition to abortion is immoral.

It is immoral because it puts the "needs" of a cyst ahead of those of a human.

Pretending a cyst has rights in order to defend one's invisible friends is immoral.

My blood cells are human. They do not amount to a human being. A blastocyst is human. It is not a human being. Anti-abortion rhetoric relies on equivocating between human and human being. Cysts are not persons. Being a person involves sentience, emotion, affection, physical health, an appetite, and rationality. A woman is capable of all of these. A cyst, of none.

But a blastocyst can only achieve personhood by inflicting its demands on a woman. Opposing the morning after pill is immoral because it denies the dignity of the woman involved. The cyst has no moral standing.

Nor does a foetus start as a person.

Now some folk have trouble with this; they need a firm, hard line drawn. They find the fact of the slow development of the person from the embryo disconcerting. They try to force a firm break into a situation where one does not exist.

That's their problem. A proper study of philosophy of language might lead to an improvement in their understanding of what is going on when we categorise stuff, and may hopefully dispel their need for certainty.

It is also important to recognise the usual mode of argument of the anti-abortionist. They start with the belief, gleaned from their invisible friends, that abortion is wrong, and then proceed to find arguments for their case.

They are not involved in a real open discussion of the ethical issues involved. Their minds are already decided.

Quoting Banno

Well, yes, it is nasty. It tells of a person who does not respect women;

For the third time, Banno, It is not women that I disrespect, but those who despise children, whether male or female. Furthermore, it is disrespectful to the title of woman to suggest that a woman should be characterised as someone who feels entitled to have sex at will, aborting babies as nuisance side-effects. A woman is a person in whom the noble characters of womanhood have developed - and that contains a vital essence of love for children among other things that are of good virtue for a woman. If a woman is despicable and doing what is dishonourable, then it is unreasonable to expect me to respect them. It does not mean that I do not respect honourable women. This is an approach to judgement that I can see is somewhat foreign to you.

Quoting Banno

... who assigns them roll based on their gender alone

Wrong. It is gender that assigns them that role. It is a role that only that gender can have!

Quoting Banno

, without regard for their personhood

That's crazy. You plucked that from thin air.

Quoting Banno

, their potential,

Oh, you try now to say that I did that? .. would you like to explain how that one whose potential is wasted by the baby inside of her, has happened to become pregnant with a baby she doesn't want?

Quoting Banno

their needs and desires.

Again, you do not understand morality in the slightest. Why is it necessary that her needs and desires should force her to kill a human being?

Quoting Banno

There is nastiness also in your quoting from the bible

Again, again. That is what you see but it is contrary to what I have shown. You are viewing what the spirit of the devil is showing you instead of the spirit of truth according to what I am giving.

Quoting Banno

- as if that decrepit text had any remaining moral authority.

It is offered for the potential, that's all. Just as Jesus did, explaining "To whomever already has, more shall be given and he will have an abundance, but to whomever does not have, even that which he does have shall be taken away from him".

Quoting Banno

Here's a bit form the Book of Judges, demonstrating how women are to be treated:

.. here's a bit from the book of Jude, that refers to the event you quoted, and shows that God in fact destroyed the city because of the wickedness found there:

Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them—having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after a different sort of flesh—are displayed as an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire.

St. Peter wrote about it too:

He devastated the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, reducing them to ashes—making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly.

Quoting Banno

SO at least be honest and admit that your objection to abortion is not based on a proper consideration of the morality involved

No, it honestly is moral because of the one fact: that they think babies should be killed to make way for unrestrained sex. Their desire for sexual gratification is so important to them that they will kill for it, and, they do not have any love and affection for children. That, in and of itself, is immoral.

Quoting Banno

... , but instead on your acquiescence to an irredeemable, antiquated, uncivilised text.

You are just plain wrong. But hey, I know it's not convincing you by saying it.

Quoting Banno

Opposition to abortion is immoral.

I appreciate this approach. Too many defend abortion by saying it's a matter of women's rights. That argument is similar to that of Southern slave owners who defended slavery by insisting it was a matter a state's rights.

If slavery is immoral, no one has a right to own another person. If abortion is immoral, no woman has a right to have one.

But, is it some philosophy of language that supports your assertion? Is that better than an invisible friend?

Plus, the blastocyst deal is odd. Abortions happen way beyond that stage.

Quoting Serving Zion

...it is disrespectful to the title of woman to suggest that a woman should be characterised as someone who feels entitled to have sex at will, aborting babies as nuisance side-effects. A woman is a person in whom the noble characters of womanhood have developed - and that contains a vital essence of love for children among other things that are of good virtue for a woman.

Extraordinary, that you cannot see that what you have written here reeks of misogyny.

So I might just leave it here for others to consider when appraising your work.

Quoting frank

is it some philosophy of language that supports your assertion?

I think so. Analysis of language as use shows the poverty of explicit definition. Consider family resemblance, for instance.

Reply to Banno Misogyny is inappropriate because it does not accurately describe my views toward honourable women. There is a character of behaviour, not a gender, that distinguishes a woman from a female slut. One is honourable, the other does not invite respect. Gender does not define that distinction.

Damning yourself with your own words:

Quoting Serving Zion

...honourable women...

Quoting Serving Zion

...female slut.

Keep digging. Explain to us again how women ought behave.

Reply to Banno With morality and self-respect (as I would say for men too, if you would like to venture into that realm of conviction).

Quoting frank

Abortions happen way beyond that stage.

Thinking of Morning after pill.

Quoting Serving Zion

With morality...

...as found in the Bible. Do you eat shellfish?

Quoting Banno

as found in the Bible.

That's laughable, Banno. I am the judge of what is moral or not in my own words.

Quoting Banno

Do you eat shellfish?

What on earth does that have to do with the topic? .. and after all I have explained about the moral rights of blood cells, do you think I am not vegetarian?

Quoting Serving Zion

What on earth does that have to do with the topic?

Leviticus 11:

But anything in the seas or the rivers that does not have fins and scales, of the swarming creatures in the waters and of the living creatures that are in the waters, is detestable to you.

So one assumes you do not do anything so immoral as to eat prawns or oysters.

Quoting Serving Zion

I am the judge of what is moral or not in my own words.

Yeah. It doesn't work like that. We get to judge what you say, too.

You are presenting a patriarchal view of womanhood.

@Serving Zion, why not stop the pretence of doing anything like ethics and just admit that what you are doing here is not philosophy, but your own imaginings of what it is to serve Zion?

Quoting Serving Zion

here's a bit from the book of Jude,

You missed the point that these two blokes thought it acceptable to have their daughter and concubine raped to death.

Quoting Banno

Leviticus 11:

But anything in the seas or the rivers that does not have fins and scales, of the swarming creatures in the waters and of the living creatures that are in the waters, is detestable to you.

So one assumes you do not do anything so moral as to easy prawns or oysters.

It is interesting you have found it to be a matter of morality, where it has said only "a thing detestable" to you - ?????? Sheqets, from Leviticus 11:10, interlinear.

Could you review that and explain why you have said it is given as a commandment on the grounds of morality rather than just feelings of disgust?

Quoting Banno

I am the judge of what is moral or not in my own words.
— Serving Zion

Yeah. It doesn't work like that. We get to judge what you say, too.

Well, I have complained plenty that you seem to be hearing something different than what I am saying. That's not unusual, but it does make it impossible for me to accept that your judgements against me are valid.

Quoting Banno

You are presenting a patriarchal view of womanhood.

You know, I'm not really doing that. All I am saying, is that having sex is a pretty serious thing, but the present culture that you are lobbying for, and that is pretty well consuming the whole world, makes it seem like sex is as normal as eating food. There's a whole lot of problems that come as a result of that.

Reply to Banno It doesn't say that though. Lot subjected his daughters to the townsfolk instead of the strangers. They are girls that had lived in the town all their lives, and the townsfolk all knew who they were. Do you not think that Lot was expecting they would come to their senses and do the decent thing?

Quoting Serving Zion

It doesn't say that though.

You have to believe that, don't you. Despite what is written right in front of you.

Reply to Banno Actually, I have noticed that you'd quoted a story from Judges, and I had read the gist as being the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. In review of that story, from Judges 19-21, it is clear that since the whole of Israel came together to make war on the tribe of Benjamin and destroy them, for having not turned over the murderers, you have no right to say that the bible promotes that treatment of women. You are misrepresenting the bible.

Reply to Serving Zion Yeah, you had the wrong story. In the right story, the one I am talking about, Israel came together not to defend women's rights, but to defend father's and master's property rights.

Your holy book is full of such misogyny. It's anachronistic to expect it to set out virtues worthy of today.

Quoting Banno

why not stop the pretence of doing anything like ethics and just admit that what you are doing here is not philosophy, but your own imaginings of what it is to serve Zion?

Quoting Banno

Yeah, you had the wrong story. In the right story, the one I am talking about, Israel came together not to defend women's rights, but to defend father's and master's property rights.

Could you show where the text makes that distinction?

Quoting Banno

Your holy book is full of such misogyny.

I really am suspecting now that perhaps you genuinely don't understand what that word means...

Quoting Banno

It's anachronistic to expect it to set out virtues worthy of today.

Oh well, times change. Moral law doesn't.

Quoting Serving Zion

Moral law doesn't.

Again, you have to make that claim, because your morality is out of an old book.

That's why you find yourself adhering to the morally indefensible view that abortion is wrong.

Reply to Banno It's about rights and enforcement of responsible behaviour. Does a person have a moral right to take life from a living entity that came as a result of irresponsible sex? Nope. Morality can't say it does. Book or no book.

Tedious.

Reply to Serving Zion All you have done here is assert your position, sans justification.

Reply to Banno If you were interested, you would see quite the opposite - that is what I see.

I also see that you made many accusations, some repeatedly, without justification, and you have not answered any questions I have asked you that would force you to find your error.

Reply to Serving Zion SO go ahead, ask a direct question.

Reply to Banno Another one? .. ok, in addition to those you have already ignored, what makes you repeatedly say that my moral views wrt abortion are from what the bible says? .. and can you show any statement in the bible that supports your idea (ie: where is abortion mentioned in the bible, etc).

Quoting Serving Zion

what makes you repeatedly say that my moral views wrt abortion are from what the bible says?

Your name, your predilection for scriptural quotations, and my experience of those who oppose abortion; together with your lack of a coherent ethical argument.

Quoting Serving Zion

.. and can you show any statement in the bible that supports your idea

No. Nor do I grant the bible any authority.

Quoting Banno

Your name, your predilection for scriptural quotations, and my experience of those who oppose abortion;

That is prejudice.

Quoting Banno

together with a lack of a coherent ethical argument.

Then the fact is clear that your failure to read me is the cause of your opinion, as you have admitted here. In light of what I have said, and what you have not understood, you do not speak truthfully when you accuse me of not making a "coherent ethical argument". The truthful statement would be that you do not see that I have made a coherent ethical argument. I strongly advise you to make an effort to understand what I have said.

Quoting Banno

.. and can you show any statement in the bible that supports your idea
— Serving Zion

No. Nor do I grant any biblical authority.

Then you really have no right to complain about my position as being "of the book" - and that figures, seeing as it is true that my position is only of judgement according to morality.

Quoting Banno

But anything in the seas or the rivers that does not have fins and scales, of the swarming creatures in the waters and of the living creatures that are in the waters, is detestable to you.

So one assumes you do not do anything so moral as to easy prawns or oysters.
— Banno

Quoting Serving Zion

It is interesting you have found it to be a matter of morality, where it has said only "a thing detestable" to you - ?????? Sheqets, from Leviticus 11:10, interlinear.

Could you review that and explain why you have said it is given as a commandment on the grounds of morality rather than just feelings of disgust?

@Banno, this is another important unanswered question too, along the same lines.

Quoting Serving Zion

That is prejudice

Then set me to rights; deny your religion.

Quoting Serving Zion

The truthful statement would be that you do not see that I have made a coherent ethical argument. I

Then present your argument, clearly and coherently. Or point to the post in which you do so.

Quoting Serving Zion

...only of judgement according to morality.

Yep. I'm saying your position is morally bankrupt. I explained why here.

Reply to Serving Zion What?

Quoting Banno

What?

Do you not understand that morality is different from desire?

Quoting Banno

Cysts are not persons.

This is where you and I have fundamental difference in philosophy, which empowers you to do that which is immoral in my view. You deny the rights of a blastocyst because you do not acknowledge the rights of personhood that the blastocyst has:

Quoting Banno

Being a person involves sentience, emotion, affection, physical health, an appetite, and rationality. A woman is capable of all of these.

and it is a distinction I have made clear from the start:

Quoting Serving Zion

There are some people though, who do not recognise an unborn baby as a human being. I think that they have found an opportunity to disregard the perspective of the unborn because they do not see it's face, hear it's sounds, see it's reactions to environmental stimuli. But, that also can be said of parents who are in a bad mood, who also are completely unable to see those things in children.

.. so, there is a clear pattern in this conversation, where right from the beginning when you approached me even until this moment, you have not engaged with me respectfully to hear what I am saying, but to argue against me in any way that pleases you. In order to do that, and as a consequence of your having chosen to do so, you have believed me to be someone quite different from who I am, and that has resulted in a large number of accusations against my character that are invalid. It is distracting whenever we are dealing with people of such a spirit that refuses to cooperate toward mutual understanding.

Reply to Serving Zion Yes. Your point?

Reply to Banno I'm not attempting to make a point by it (isn't that interesting!). I am simply asking you to explain why you take the commandment that says "eating shellfish is detestable for you" and then say that it is a commandment of morality.

Quoting Banno

I was taking your post seriously;

That's a first. You typically take the less serious and more vague route when the questions get tough.

Quoting Harry Hindu

You often insult others that don't think the way you do and therefore don't treat others in a "dignified" manner. Why shouldn't you be aborted? You say sentience is a requirement, yet the second-trimester fetus has sentience.

Quoting Banno

That's a pretty pathetic pronouncement, even by your standards. You are not worth the effort, Harry. Especially as you pretty much agree with my stated position.

So I wouldn't be able to point to some post of yours where you don't treat another member in a dignified manner?

I don't know what you believe to say that I agree because you are typically contradictory. A fetus has sentience before the end of the second trimester, so maybe we should think about restricting abortions to the first trimester.

It also seems to me that we should be having a discussion about when minds arise in a brain, or what it means to have a mind. It's interesting so see how all of these "political" discussions are really all based in answers science can/could provide. In other words, these shouldn't be politically-based discussions.

Bringing these loaded and subjective terms like "dignity" and "privilege", that you are then unwilling to define after using them, into an objective discussion doesn't help either.

Reply to Serving Zion

If you condemn a child to a life of unwanted unhappiness in this dreadful society, you are surely evil beyond serious belief, at least to those who know something about what happens to children.

Quoting iolo

If you condemn a child to a life of unwanted unhappiness in this dreadful society, you are surely evil beyond serious belief, at least to those who know something about what happens to children.

Yes, wholeheartedly I am agreeing. But, I am saying that the moral solution is not to kill the child as some sort of act of mercy, but to heal the parents who make the child's life misery. As I mentioned, the problem is systemic, and authorities being uneducated and ignorant of the causes, unable to discern right from wrong, thereby using their power to oppose true justice, are empowering the evil to thrive upon the world.

Reply to Serving Zion Quoting Serving Zion

Yes, wholeheartedly I am agreeing. But, I am saying that the moral solution is not to kill the child as some sort of act of mercy, but to heal the parents who make the child's life misery. As I mentioned, the problem is systemic, and authorities being uneducated and ignorant of the causes, unable to discern right from wrong, thereby using their power to oppose true justice, are empowering the evil to thrive upon the world

I think the problem is systemic in a wider sense: it is the economic system we live under that often makes abortion the kinder choice.

Quoting Congau

Eggs and sperm don’t have a potential for anything in particular.

What's potential, exactly? Some physical notion of cause and effect? A value judgement?

Quoting Congau

A fetus at its earliest stage already contains all the data of the fully developed human being. The potential is real and specific.

So does any given combination of sperm and egg.

Quoting Congau

If you think it’s wrong to murder people because you think they are valuable in themselves, it would also be wrong to kill potential people.

Can you demonstrate how this is supposed to follow?

Quoting Congau

Potentiality is no less valuable then actuality since what is actually existing also derives its value from its potential for continued existence.

That would imply people who have a terminal illness are less valuable. In fact, since all life is finite, it would imply that life has no value at all, since it ultimately has no potential for continued existence.

Quoting frank

I appreciate this approach. Too many defend abortion by saying it's a matter of women's rights. That argument is similar to that of Southern slave owners who defended slavery by insisting it was a matter a state's rights.

If slavery is immoral, no one has a right to own another person. If abortion is immoral, no woman has a right to have one.

How is the argument substantively similar? The mother is a person, and personal rights can conflict.

Quoting Echarmion

I appreciate this approach. Too many defend abortion by saying it's a matter of women's rights. That argument is similar to that of Southern slave owners who defended slavery by insisting it was a matter a state's rights.

If slavery is immoral, no one has a right to own another person. If abortion is immoral, no woman has a right to have one.
— frank

How is the argument substantively similar? The mother is a person, and personal rights can conflict.

The similarity is that Southern states were insisting on the right to engage in an activity that's immoral. Were they right to make that claim? (don't read any emotion into my question, I'm just asking).

Quoting frank

The similarity is that Southern states were insisting on the right to engage in an activity that's immoral. Were they right to make that claim? (don't read any emotion into my question, I'm just asking).

If it's immoral, then it follows that they weren't right. But it's not inconceivable that states rights might influence a question of morality. For example, it'd be difficult to establish some moral tax rate across all states, so that's a question where the individual decision of state legislators matters.

In the case of abortion, arguing that women are insisting on the right to engage in immoral behaviour is begging the question.

Quoting Echarmion

If it's immoral, then it follows that they weren't right.

If abortion is immoral, a woman doesn't have a right to one. The issue is not about rights. It's about morality.

Quoting frank

If abortion is immoral, a woman doesn't have a right to one. The issue is not about rights. It's about morality.

The term "right" isn't usually rigorously confined to positivist legal rights. There is a more general notion of "moral rights", as in basic human rights.

Reply to Echarmion If abortion is immoral, what sort of right could a woman have to one?

Quoting frank

If abortion is immoral, what sort of right could a woman have to one?

It's not that you could have a right to an immoral behaviour. It's that a right you have might make an otherwise immoral behaviour moral under the circumstances.

Quoting Echarmion

It's not that you could have a right to an immoral behaviour. It's that a right you have might make an otherwise immoral behaviour moral under the circumstances.

:yikes:

Reply to frank

Self Defense would be an easy example.

Reply to Echarmion

So aborting a pregnancy is immoral (in the same way homicide is), but under certain circumstances it's ok?

Quoting Serving Zion

This is where you and I have fundamental difference in philosophy,

Oh, yeah. I have presented grounds for personhood: sentience, emotion, affection, physical health, appetite and rationality. You have said being human is dependent on having a face, hear sounds, and reactions to environmental stimuli.

Your notion of being human could apply to a doll.

Quoting Serving Zion

...you have believed me to be someone quite different from who I am,

I based that belief on your misogynist writing. What else am I to judge you by, if not what you do?

Quoting Serving Zion

I am simply asking you to explain why you take the commandment that says "eating shellfish is detestable for you" and then say that it is a commandment of morality.

Logic for beginners. If the bible is the source of our morals, and it says very clearly that we ought not each shellfish, then we ought not eat shellfish.

If.

I do not think the bible is the source of our morals. Hence I am not bound by the syllogism. Do you think the bible is the source of our morals? If so, then you are bound by the syllogism, and ought not eat shellfish.

Quoting frank

So aborting a pregnancy is immoral (in the same way homicide is), but under certain circumstances it's ok?

Personally, I wouldn't structure it that way. In my mind, a single action, with a specific intent, can be moral or immoral. Generalizations like "Killing is immoral" are either simplifications (which isn't necessarily a problem) or begging the question (i.e. assuming specific circumstances or intentions). So I wouldn't say aborting a pregnancy is immoral, but exceptions exist, but if someone described their stance that way, I'd consider that a reasonable starting point.

Quoting Harry Hindu

Why shouldn't you be aborted?

It was this to which I was referring, Harry. Are you making a death threat? That's the pretty pathetic pronouncement. And it's not something I would do.

Should I contact the mods? Or the police?

Reply to Echarmion

I said: if abortion is immoral, a woman cant have the right to do it.

And you disagree with that because to you, morality is dynamic and resistant to generalization. Honestly, it sounds like you're a moral nihilist. Or relativist?

So, you would redo my statement as:

It's impossible to state as a general rule that x is immoral. Therefore, morality cant have any bearing on rights, civil or otherwise. Is that right?

Reply to frank Hmm. Looks like moral nihilism, rather than relativism.


A relativist might say something like "I think it right, you might not"; but @Echarmion seems to think it undecided, or undecidable.

Quoting frank

I said: if abortion is immoral, a woman cant have the right to do it.

And you disagree with that because to you, morality is dynamic and resistant to generalization. Honestly, it sounds like you're a moral nihilist. Or relativist?

Well for one I'd say we need to define what we mean by "right". If we mean a moral right the sentence is just redundant. If we mean a legal right it doesn't follow (immoral acts can be legal).

I don't see my stance at relativistic at all. You can assess the morality of acts, and that assessment is general. But of course the assessment depends on the circumstances.

Quoting frank

So, you would redo my statement as:

It's impossible to state as a general rule that x is immoral. Therefore, morality cant have any bearing on rights, civil or otherwise. Is that right?

I wouldn't say it can't have any bearing. Even if we're talking about legal rights, we'd consider morality when deciding on what those should be.

Reply to Echarmion I guess we tried, but failed to understand one another. It happens.

Quoting Banno

relativist might say something like "I think it right, you might not"; but Echarmion seems to think it undecided, or undecidable.

I'm not sure. It defies pinning down, I got that at least.

Reply to frank There's a certain thinking that refuses to make a decision on moral grounds. Of course that means never making a decision.

Talking of pointing things down, I'm not sure of where you stand on abortion.

Reply to Banno I'm in favor of legal abortion up to the end of the second trimester.

Reply to frank Much the same as me.

Reply to frank Reply to Banno

I have this weird sense of deja vu. Didn't we have a similar situation a while back, where my stance was confusing to you both?

Anyways, to clarify I don't think you can't make statements like "abortion is moral up to the end of the second trimester". It's perfectly plausible that, to that point, there'd be no normal circumstances that could possibly make the abortion immoral. I am not up to date on the biology, but I probably agree with you.

I just think where you draw the line is a question of how you value the interests of the foetus compared to those of the mother. You can't simply say "but the foetus is a potential human" or "it's the mother's bodily autonomy" and be done with it. And there'll always be circumstances (like rape, or medical risks) that can shift the line.

Quoting Echarmion

where my stance was confusing to you both?

SO what's that telling us? :joke:

Quoting Echarmion

I am not up to date on the biology,

It's biology that decides moral issues? Nah. Naturalistic fallacy.

Quoting Echarmion

I just think where you draw the line is a question of how you value the interests of the foetus compared to those of the mother.

Yep. So, how do you value the interests of the foetus compared to those of the mother? Make a choice.

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Reply to tim wood It's the will of the people.

Quoting Banno

SO what's that telling us? :joke:

That you're all just not reading properly, of course. :razz:

Quoting Banno

It's biology that decides moral issues? Nah. Naturalistic fallacy.

If I get the facts wrong, I'll get the wrong results, even if I apply the correct moral rules. If biology was irrelevant, it wouldn't make sense to draw the line at the second trimester (or anywhere, for that matter) either.

Quoting Banno

Yep. So, how do you value the interests of the foetus compared to those of the mother? Make a choice.

I consider abortion for any reason moral until the pregnancy is so far along that the foetus would stand a decent (let's say higher than 50%) chance at survival if born. After that, I think it would only be moral if conditions are fairly dire, like a significant health risk (including certain psychological risks). I am not sure how to consider genetic defects. I am personally hoping I never have to make that kind of decision.

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Quoting Banno

Oh, yeah. I have presented grounds for personhood: sentience, emotion, affection, physical health, appetite and rationality. You have said being human is dependent on having a face, hear sounds, and reactions to environmental stimuli.

Your notion of being human could apply to a doll.

That's not what I said. In fact, I haven't provided a definition for being human, but there isn't really a substantial difference between what you and I have said about being human.

You said it has sentience, emotion, affection, physical health, appetite and rationality, and I have said that they (transgressors) have difficulty seeing the rights of the unborn as a living human, because they cannot observe its face, see that it hears sounds and responds to external stimuli. It is only said to show that the transgressor justifies his immorality by refusing to recognise the unborn as a living person.

I have also shown consideration for human life being aware of its life in various stages (eg to speak of sperm and eggs, and blood cells, as having moral rights), where those expressions of life don't have faces or ears to hear with. It is because of that fact, you are wrong to say that what I have said is a definition of human life.

Do you know why you chose to take what I said and misuse it, by saying it is my definition of human life, when it isn't?

Where moral law is defined by the principle "do unto others as you would have them do to you", and when there is no objective judge, the transgressors are the judge of the morality of their own decisions. Therefore in order to do unto others what they would not have done to themselves, they need to see their victim as being inferior to theirself.

I said that they find it easy to identify a fetus as inferior to themselves because they don't see its face, they don't see that it hears sounds and responds to external stimuli.

I also said that parents who are in a bad mood do the same to children, because when, as a third party, I see the anguish in the face of the children when the parents are doing such cruelty, it is clear that the parents are not seeing it.

Quoting Banno

I based that belief on your misogynist writing. What else am I to judge you by, if not what you do?

What you are judging me by is an imagined character. You are not, in fact judging me by what I do. In order to be effective in judgement, you must judge by what I do. Then, and only then, will I as a judge, be capable of accepting your judgement.

Quoting Banno

Do you think the bible is the source of our morals?

That statement shows that you do not understand morality, and assumes that you think I have made an idol of the bible - as the imagined character that you think I am, would do.

No, I do not think the bible is a source of morality. It is a potential source of education. It is through learning about the human problem from the words of a teacher who can lead us to grow beyond it, that moral justification can be found. But moral justification is only found as a result of acting in love.

If a person acts in love, he does no harm to a neighbour - therefore he does not come under the judgement of morality.

The bible is able to teach us how to identify sin in our life, so that repenting of sin releases us into the freedom of justification according to truth, where love abounds simply as a result of being a human not doing sin. But, also the bible is no guarantee of producing that result, because a student cannot be greater than his teacher - and I have not yet found a translator that has escaped non-biblical indoctrination, so as a result, I notice in every translation a tendency toward doctrinal error in their interpretation of the bible and their subsequent explanation of it to the reader in the new language.

So, basically, the Bible's authors were on to something valuable, but to grasp that value is not as simple as reading the bible - it is only by tapping into that same thing that they had found (John 5:39-40).

Quoting Banno

It requires substantial effort on the part of the mother and her support folk in order to reach birth; and thereafter more effort is required for it to reach maturity.

Usually the mother will give birth to the baby unless she does something actively to abort it or it gets aborted by itself. Do you think she can just decide not to make the effort and then it will not be born? What are abortion clinics for then?

Granted, after the child is born it takes an effort to keep it alive. Does that mean it’s permissible to let it die? The newborn infant is not yet a person – it’s not a self-conscious rational thing. It’s only a potential.

Quoting Banno

imagine disk drive containing all the information to run this forum. It has the potential to become the forum. But of course, much more is needed

Your disk drive needs something added to it in a very different sense. The forum consists of the disk drive, a computer, different components, the internet, posts etc. A person doesn’t consist of a fetus, an infant, food, care, sleep, warm clothes etc.

Quoting Banno

how would you balance the real, undeniable personhood of the mother against the mere potential of the foetus?

What balance is there to make? The personhood of the mother is not threatened. If you let both live, both personhoods are secured. Of course, it is a different matter if the mother’s life is at risk. Then you need to sacrifice the one for the other. The emotionally natural thing to do would of course be to let the mother live, but not because the fetus is merely a potential. You already know the mother, and anyone would sacrifice a stranger for someone known.

Quoting Banno

It was this to which I was referring, Harry. Are you making a death threat? That's the pretty pathetic pronouncement. And it's not something I would do.

Should I contact the mods? Or the police?

Should I contact the mods or police because you think it is ok to terminate sentient human life? It's strange that you see that as a threat rather than me pointing out another one of your inconsistencies, when I'm the one arguing that we shouldnt terminate sentient life. It was a question, not a statement, and therefore not a threat, for you to clarify your own position, but you'd rather engage in ad hominem trollong. That's too bad.

Quoting tim wood

It's the will of the people.
— frank
A facile, disingenuous, dishonest, and ultimately inaccurate answer. Do better!

In fact, do a better job of reading the question:
Exactly why should abortion be subject to any law?
— tim wood

Tim. What are you drinking?

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Quoting Echarmion

If I get the facts wrong, I'll get the wrong results, even if I apply the correct moral rules. If biology was irrelevant, it wouldn't make sense to draw the line at the second trimester (or anywhere, for that matter) either.

Sure. It's the decides that is problematic. Descriptions are a different animal to prescriptions.

As for the rest, that's pretty much my opinion.

Quoting tim wood

take it you neither know why abortion should be subject to law nor have any ideas about it.
As to "will of the people," at best that's advisory.

Ok. I dont know what you're driving at, and you're not inviting me to care.

Quoting Serving Zion

It is only said to show that the transgressor justifies his immorality by refusing to recognise the unborn as a living person.

That's because not all unborn are living persons. A blastocyst lacks sentience, emotion, affection, physical health, appetite and rationality; it is not a person. Over time, and with considerable support, it might become a person. But it isn't there yet.

Quoting Serving Zion

I have also shown consideration for human life being aware of its life in various stages (eg to speak of sperm and eggs, and blood cells, as having moral rights), where those expressions of life don't have faces or ears to hear with. It is because of that fact, you are wrong to say that what I have said is a definition of human life.

A person has moral standing because they have sentience, emotion, affection, physical health, appetite and rationality. Blood cells do not have sentience, emotion, affection, physical health, appetite and rationality; hence they have no moral standing.

SO the question to you is when do we assign moral standing? You assign it to blood cells; would you assign it to skin cells? Carcinomas? Nasal Mucus? Each contains living human cells.

And the philosophical point here is to question the coherence of your assignments of moral standing.

Quoting Banno

That's because not all unborn are living persons.

To say "that's because", is circular reasoning.

Quoting Banno

A blastocyst lacks sentience, emotion, affection, physical health, appetite and rationality;

I don't agree with this. I only agree that you don't see it.

Quoting Banno

it is not a person. Over time, and with considerable support, it might become a person. But it isn't there yet.

Now, to use the word "person" as the qualifier for moral consideration, is shifting the goalposts again. I am saying any self-aware living entity has a right to resent unfair treatment, hence they have rights in moral consideration.

The word "person" is the root of the word "personality" - meaning that it is a type of life that expresses a character of individual personality - so that would most likely exclude plants (only because a personality is difficult to detect without animation). But I have also mentioned that I do recognise the moral rights of plants.

Quoting Banno

A person has moral standing because they have sentience, emotion, affection, physical health, appetite and rationality.

I disagree with this. A person has moral standing because the one judging his rights gives recognition to those rights. As I said, the best definition is found where a living entity has been transgressed so that he has a valid cause to complain "he did to me what he would not have done to himself".

Quoting Banno

Blood cells do not have sentience, emotion, affection, physical health, appetite and rationality; hence they have no moral standing.

You are wrong to say that.

Quoting Banno

SO the question to you is when do we assign moral standing?

I am most interested to answer that question well. I need a bit more information from you before I can do that:

Quoting Banno

You assign it to blood cells; would you assign it to skin cells? Carcinomas? Nasal Mucus? Each contains living human cells.

Could you please show me proof of the claims "skin cells, carcinomas and nasal mucus contain living human cells".

Quoting Banno

And the philosophical point here is to question the coherence of your assignments of moral standing.

A living entity does not want to die, it wants to thrive. When a living entity has its life taken from it, it therefore loses a thing that it valued. It also may suffer in the process.

Morality is a law that prescribes how a judgement should be made for or against the complaint. The Golden Rule of morality is defined simply as "do unto others as you would have them do unto you".

Therefore, when making a moral judgement about the suffering inflicted by one upon another, the judgement must consider "would the one inflicting the suffering complain or not, if the roles were reversed?" - and in so doing, objectively and without favouritism, morality proves whether an action is moral or immoral.

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Quoting Serving Zion

"do unto others as you would have them do to you"

This can be no more than a rule of thumb. It's too easy to bend it into a reason for mistreating others. "If I were disables, I would like to die; therefore it is OK for me to kill the disabled..."

Quoting Serving Zion

But moral justification is only found as a result of acting in love.

Love will not suffice. Much the is immoral is done in the name of love. It is acts that bring about the growth of a person into their potential that are moral.

Quoting Serving Zion

You are not, in fact judging me by what I do. In order to be effective in judgement, you must judge by what I do. Then, and only then, will I as a judge, be capable of accepting your judgement.

Thing is, what you write is a part of what you do. So if your writing is misogynist...

What I found offensive in your writing is your prescribing a social role to women on the basis of their gender; that a good woman is one who has babies and loves them. That view denies the freedom of women to become who they will, consigning them to a role determined by their gender. It denies the sentience, emotion, affection, physical health, appetite and rationality of women, and hence is immoral.

But one one thing we seem to agree: it is actions that count.

Quoting Serving Zion

If a person acts in love, he does no harm to a neighbour - therefore he does not come under the judgement of morality.

Hollis Brown acted out of love for his family. Love will not suffice.

Quoting Serving Zion

The bible is able to teach us how to identify sin in our life...

The bible is a poor source for moral teaching. The commandments are a case in point. I've presented other examples elsewhere. There are much better sources of moral guidance - even Kant is to be prefered!

Quoting Serving Zion

To say "that's because", is circular reasoning.

Go on then, set out the circularity exactly.

Quoting Serving Zion

A blastocyst lacks sentience, emotion, affection, physical health, appetite and rationality;
— Banno

I don't agree with this. I only agree that you don't see it.

It doesn't made a difference if you agree or disagree; a blastocyst does not have the characteristics of a person.

Quoting Banno

Go on then, set out the circularity exactly.

You are hard work, Banno. And you aren't making it worth my while!

Quoting Serving Zion

Now, to use the word "person" as the qualifier for moral consideration, is shifting the goalposts again. I am saying any self-aware living entity has a right to resent unfair treatment, hence they have rights in moral consideration.

I didn't shift the goal posts - you just happened to notice where they were. SO good for you. I've tried to use "person" consitently to denote an individual with sentience, emotion, affection, physical health, appetite and rationality; as distinct from merely human, a characteristic of blood cells and snot. THat's been quite intentional, since it appears to me that you confuser the two.

SO, not all human tissue is a person.

Quoting Serving Zion

You are hard work, Banno. And you aren't making it worth my while!

Cheers. Perhaps now you are beginning to see that philosophy is hard. Theology is a walk in the park by comparison.

Keep thinking, keep responding. You might learn something. As might I.

Quoting Serving Zion

The word "person" is the root of the word "personality" - meaning that it is a type of life that expresses a character of individual personality - so that would most likely exclude plants. But I have also mentioned that I do recognise the moral rights of plants.

Plants have moral standing in so far as they have potential for growth in sentience, emotion, affection, physical health, appetite and rationality. Which is not so much.

A foetus - or even a blastocyst - has moral standing int he same way.

But in the case of a pregnancy, that standing is to be held against atet of the mother and the community into which the potential child will be born.

And the rights the mother to sentience, emotion, affection, physical health, appetite and rationality, far outweigh those of the foetus.

Hence, it is the mother who must have the say as to the continuation or termination of the pregnancy.

Quoting tim wood

It's a fair question as to why (exactly) abortion should be subject to law.

It is a good question. But is it so different to why any act might be subject to law? We set out explicitly what is acceptable and what is not; we set out explicitly the consequences for some our actions; and hence we have the rule of law, and can use it to oppose arbitrary decisions.

Quoting Harry Hindu

I'm the one arguing that we shouldnt terminate sentient life.

You aren't, though. Your argument has the usual inconsistency and incompleteness - the same fault that others have pointed out many times.

Try setting out what you are thinking in a clear fashion.

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Quoting tim wood

you want something but can't say exactly what. It becomes then very nearly a certainly that you are not going to get exactly what you wanted.

Perhaps; I'd say that if you want something but can't say exactly what, then there is not a something that is exactly what you want.

That is, you will not get exactly what you want because what you want is not exact.

Quoting tim wood

...but is apparently incapable of saying why it should be subject to law in the first place.

We'll need to leave that to @frank.

Quoting Banno

but is apparently incapable of saying why it should be subject to law in the first place.
— tim wood

We'll need to leave that to frank.

Yeah, it's the will of the people. What else?

Quoting frank

it's the will of the people.

That's no more than a convenient myth.

Quoting Banno

it's the will of the people.
— frank

That's no more than a convenient myth.

Wooow, Mr. Pessimism.

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Quoting Echarmion

That would imply people who have a terminal illness are less valuable

Exactly, it does imply that. Terminally ill people are less valuable because they don’t have any potential. If you were forced two kill one person, either one who only had an hour left live anyway or one who might have years ahead of him, I don’t doubt that you would kill the former. We value things for their potential more than for what they are at the moment. Would you pay a lot of money for something you knew would disappear tomorrow? Even our own lives are only valuable only because they have potential – because we expect to be alive tomorrow.

Your life has value as a specific potential, that is as the continuation of what is now you.

Things that have the potential of being valuable should be preserved. (because we want what is valuable, “valuable” means that we want it)
A person is already a thing and has the potential of being a person in the future, so it should therefore be preserved. (if you value persons)
A fetus is already a thing and has the potential of being a person in the future, so it should therefore be preserved. (if you value persons)
An egg and a sperm that are not combined are not a thing.

A thing that has potential is a thing that now exists, and has in itself, through continued existence, the potential of becoming a similar or a different thing. Any combination of elements that might be brought about in the future, is not a thing now.

It’s not a matter of potentiality as such, but of things that have potential.

Reply to Congau What's absent is...potential for [i]what[/I]?

And I'm gong with growth in sentience, emotion, affection, physical health, appetite and rationality - at least as a starting point.

Reply to Congau

I have a number of problems with that approach.

First of all you don't seem to be making a distinction between people and things, that is subjects and objects. This would imply people don't have a special qualitative value in your system, and hence can be subjugated by, and treated as, objects.

Secondly, "potential" seems to run into an infinite regress. If I am valuable not because of what I am today, but because of my potential for tomorrow, where does that value of tomorrow come from? If it comes from the state I am in tomorrow, then that is the value of what I am tomorow (a singular state), not a potential (a range of future states), which would falsify your premise that "things" aren't valued for what they are (i.e. single states). If my potential is valuable because tomorrow, I have another potential for another tomorrow, you have an infinite regress (or egress, rather). Ultimately, everything is worthless because everything ends eventually.

Furthermore, I don't see a way to quantify "potential". For example, what's the difference in potential between someone who will live for another 10 hours, 10 days or 10 years? If there is no quantitative difference, then the results are entirely arbitrary.

Lastly, I thing the notion that we don't value things for what they are, but only for their potential, is simply wrong as a matter of fact. If we valued things only for their potential, we'd never watch movies in the cinema, go to live concerts or have "bucket lists". We also value people for who they are, their character traits, or things they do and say. We don't somehow feel something that's transitory is less valuable. Indeed it's usually the other way around: We try to hold on to the transitory.

Quoting Banno

You aren't, though. Your argument has the usual inconsistency and incompleteness - the same fault that others have pointed out many times.

Try setting out what you are thinking in a clear fashion.

You thinking about your own posts, not mine.

How about actually responding to this, where I explain when sentience occurs within the womb and how that should determine when it should be immoral to have an abortion:

Harry Hindu:The fetus has a brain with synapses and can feel, hear, smell and taste by the end of the second trimester. You didn't seem to address my actual question either. When does someone start the "becoming" of being "dignified"? What is sentience, and how do we know that you have it? You often insult others that don't think the way you do and therefore don't treat others in a "dignified" manner. Why shouldn't you be aborted? You say sentience is a requirement, yet the second-trimester fetus has sentience.

I don't see a problem in the day-after pill, or having an abortion within your first trimester, but to wait until sentience develops would immoral, according to your own statements, and I would agree.

Answer the question in bold.

Quoting Harry Hindu

What is sentience, and how do we know that you have it?

sentient | ?s?nt??nt, ?s?n?(?)nt |
adjective
able to perceive or feel things: she had been instructed from birth in the equality of all sentient life forms.

But you knew that.

And your pretence that I have not answered your question is not endearing. I have pointed out that sentience develops somewhere between the conception and birth; and that those who demand a firm date for its development are acting disingenuously.

Further, Harry, it seems that you and I agree that abortion is acceptable up until at least the end of the first trimester.

So are you just being contrary?

Reply to DingoJones

In the case of a female individual being pregnant, ,as her body is her property and only hers, she has the freedom to do whatever she wants with it (and as the fetus is being carried by her, it becomes her property). In this case, it's not categorized as murder.

Quoting Gus Lamarch

as the fetus is being carried by her,

How did that happen? .. Did it result from the choice of the fetus, or the mother?

Quoting Gus Lamarch

it's not categorized as murder.

Murder is simply categorised as taking life from another, especially where it is intentional or violent, and more especially where it is premeditated.

Perception of ownership (by a murderer or a law maker) does not negate the validity of a moral complaint by the one who was murdered.

Consider and answer this question therefore: if the fetus who is to be aborted, rather would live, does the fetus have a right to request a safer environment? Does it have the power to move to a safer environment? Given that it has no opportunity to move to an environment where it can be kept safe until the age of independence, why do you not say it is enslaved and held under the threat of murder?

Quoting Echarmion

What's potential, exactly?

Potential is from the word "potent", meaning a thing that can make a big impact when it is activated, but whose impact is presently dormant or unrealised. It also does not guarantee that the impact will be big, because it depends upon the optimal release.

As an example, petrol is a potential source of explosive power, but only if it is ignited, and only if its ignition occurs where it has vaporised with sufficient oxygen.

Quoting Congau

If you think it’s wrong to murder people because you think they are valuable in themselves, it would also be wrong to kill potential people.

I can see what you are saying in this, and I just want to suggest giving consideration to the idea of what a person is. As I had mentioned to Banno, personhood is of recognising a person, as the word personality describes the person's expression, where personal rights are recognised according to the intrinsic value that being a person has.

A person is one who has an individual right to have their views recognised in law, to express that they suffer and plead for justice.

Personhood is, therefore, the fundamental qualifier for standing, when bringing a moral complaint.

The ones who do not recognise the right of a fetus to have a complaint, do not recognise that the fetus is a person. They qualify this by identifying anthropological qualities that the fetus lacks, that justifies their inability to grant empathy to it, as a person. Going beyond human beings, the same applies to animals, where dogs are more emotionally expressive than chickens, therefore the idea of killing a dog for food is more controversial than the chicken because it is easier to anthropomorphise the dog's behaviour than the chicken's, thereby to empathise with it personally.

But to do that, the one who quantifies the value of the dog as being more than the chicken, is showing favouritism in judgment. To judge without partiality, one would recognise the chicken has an equal moral right to complain about being killed for food, as a dog would.

In showing that there is a difference between intrinsic value and perceived value, I want to bring you to consider how far we should go with impartiality in judgement, by showing you that insects have an awareness of self, of danger, a will to survive - and yet their personality (though being distinct and strongly expressed), is not so much observed through facial expressions and voices. Then, of course, the plant - quite a difficult creature to personify, because of its maleability - it can be split, cloned, grafted etc. So one entity can become two entities by striking root of a cutting, and two entities can become one entity by grafting. Yet, it demonstrates vitality, suffering, intelligence - all proof that the force of life expresses itself through them, but do they have self-awareness (ie: soul)?

Then, you can see that morality exercised without partiality really cannot give preference to one person's rights over another on the basis of the potential of that person, because doing so would be perverting justice for the preferences of the judge!

I think it is good though, that you have mentioned the fetus' potential to be recognised as a person - because a fetus (untampered with) naturally will appear to be a person, as time progresses. Therefore it proves that the fetus is in fact a person who is developing personality, even if the one (or a law) who does not value him as a person cannot see that he is in fact a person.

Reply to Serving Zion Interestungly, the food in your refrigerator is a potential human. A pile of un-decomposed trash is.

Quoting frank

the food in your refrigerator is a potential human. A pile of un-decomposed trash is.

You are saying absurdity, you have to explain.

Reply to Serving Zion Whars your first language?

Reply to frank I am a native English speaker.

Reply to Serving Zion Cool. I just meant that food has energy in it and has the potential, given the proper circumstances, to become a human.

Quoting Banno

But you knew that.

And your pretence that I have not answered your question is not endearing. I have pointed out that sentience develops somewhere between the conception and birth; and that those who demand a firm date for its development are acting disingenuously.

Further, Harry, it seems that you and I agree that abortion is acceptable up until at least the end of the first trimester.

So are you just being contrary?

According to you post, if being disingenuous is demanding a firm date and you say that we both agree on a firm date, then we're both being disingenuous. Do you ever check your posts for consistency before posting them?

Quoting Serving Zion

How did that happen? .. Did it result from the choice of the fetus, or the mother?

It resulted by the individual choice of the female, and only by her choice. (The most important property that we all have is ourselves.)


Quoting Serving Zion

Perception of ownership (by a murderer or a law maker) does not negate the validity of a moral complaint by the one who was murdered.

Morals only serves to inhibit the individual freedom of expressing its own will, so in this case, as the fetus is "assaulting" the will of the female individual, abortion is justified.

Quoting Gus Lamarch

the fetus is "assaulting" the will of the female individual

This appears to be contradicted by your previous comment:

Quoting Gus Lamarch

It resulted by the individual choice of the female, and only by her choice.

Do you accept that contradiction? .. that a fetus does not assault the mother by being present because the mother's actions caused it to be formed?

Quoting Serving Zion

...that a fetus does not assault the mother by being present because the mother's actions caused it to be formed?

The female individual can very well choose to become pregnant, and through the act of "doublethink", see the fetus as an "assaulting" of her own will and as a "choice" of her own will, and in the end opt to an abort. (Remember, in this case, morals are not applied)

Quoting Harry Hindu

...that we both agree on a firm date,

Oh, Harry.

Reply to Serving Zion
I’m not so concerned about what a person is and whether a fetus is a person. Whatever name you give it, it doesn’t change the argument. It’s enough to say that it will be something and that something is considered valuable. (That again is valuable because it has the potential of remaining valuable.)

Something is valuable when it has the potential of being appreciated. That is really the basic meaning of value. Money is valuable because we appreciate it and want it. Intrinsic value is a rather dubious concept, because it is not supported by anything: It’s hanging in the air. Something must be valued by something to have value.

What would it mean that a person has intrinsic value? A person is a person according to certain criteria, and these criteria are supposed to make it valuable, but why? Because it has rights? What does that mean? Where are the rights coming from? A government can distribute rights, but it can do it in any arbitrary fashion. If it were decided that chairs and tables had rights, it would be so.

If people have value, it’s because they can be appreciated by others and by themselves. Dogs and chickens can also, but probably to a lesser degree and therefore they are less valuable.

Quoting Congau

Something is valuable when it has the potential of being appreciated.

Yes, of course. In morality, it is the life of the one who is living that is appreciated by it, and it is exclusively its complaint that its life has been mistreated, that morality is concerned with.

Reply to EpicTyrant Quoting EpicTyrant

Is it the lack of perceptive of reality and consciousness of the premature state of lifeform that makes it more bearable to perform an abortion for the carrier? Because the only thing that separates the premature life form from a fully developed one, is the passing of time.

I'm a little late to the party, but yes the lack of consciousness and perception are what makes it completely bearable to get rid of a clump of unthinking cells that may devastate the life of the woman that is pregnant. besides even if everyone else deems abortions immoral women will still seek back alley abortions and get themselves killed, or kill a fully conscious and reality perceiving baby i would rather have abortion.

Reply to sarah young

You do know that within the passage of time in which everything in the universe must pass, that planted seed will grow into a thinking humanoid with feelings, which you deny for eternity. All that just because you wanted to have sex, which in turn is an act of egocentrism, knowing that your biological structure sure is made to have children. Could you then please explain to me what's the difference between murder and abortion since both equal the same outcome: to end a life?

I personally don't think humanity is ready for this type of moral dilemma yet which is why we can't really make up our minds about it. Sex is too much of an importance for us to bear life in it's current state so we disregard some things that may seem morally unjust. Maybe in a future, where we can achieve a different enlightenment about different forms of comfort to survive, we could make a balanced suggestion based on our current moral development too have sex only when needed or maybe due to technical wonders, achieve sexual relations with 100% reduced risk of impregnating?

Reply to EpicTyrant Quoting EpicTyrant

Could you then please explain to me what's the difference between murder and abortion since both equal the same outcome: to end a life?

abortion does not begin with a life

Masturbation is killing sperm; abortion is killing a fetus. I don't think it's murder to abort sperm or a fetus.

It can be argued to be murder, but that depends on how much value you attribute to sperm/fetus.

Reply to Qwex

Well, when you masturbate, the process of creating a life hasn't begun yet,so you're not really denying anything from happening. You are just choosing not to start the process which leads to life kind of like abstaining from sex.

Abortion is killing a fetus, which is predestined to become a life. Since we're all bound to time just like we're bound to the physical rules of this universe it could be considered equal to kill a fetus as to kill a functional living being because there isn't really any difference between them and a thinking human because within time they will share the same attributes.

Could you argue against it?

Reply to sarah young

If you did read my text then you'd understand that life within different stages is still life. According to your logic it would be equally right to kill a newborn child as to an abortion state fetus as they both haven't really developed into full consciousness.

Reply to EpicTyrant

Yes I can argue against it.

The same value isn't attributed to a fetus as is a baby.

Killing a fetus isn't like killing a baby.

It is life, but the type of life it is, is okay to abort.

Reply to EpicTyrant Quoting EpicTyrant

If you did read my text then you'd understand that life within different stages is still life. According to your logic it would be equally right to kill a newborn child as to an abortion state fetus as they both haven't really developed into full consciousness.

I have not clarified that I mean first or second trimester pregnancies not third trimester, and do you deem it okay to kill a fully grown, fully conscious cow, what about a deer, or a pig, by your logic it would be wrong to kill them, even if there was a purpose. I am saying it is okay to "kill" a clump of cells with no free thinking, a clump of cells who might grow into a mentally scarred child because they were born into a family who was unable or unwilling to take care of them. with your argument a fetus might become conscious, so it is wrong to abort, so that makes it wrong to kill a conscious, sentient animal.

Reply to sarah young

Well i am ok with your logic without taking time into the equation. If you take time into the equation that clump of cells is equal to a conscious human, since we're all a part of it. Life is just a process that begins and ends and all processes are dependent on time. It is not entirely certain that the child will become mentally scarred, and even if it do, there are many records of people rising above and obtaining some kind of quality of life. To exist, even in great measures of pain is better than to not exist at all, but that is entirely subjective and my personal opinion.

It's not possible to apply an animal into this debate since it's been necessary for our survival to consume, just the law of nature.

Have a great weekend!

Reply to EpicTyrant Quoting EpicTyrant

Well i am ok with your logic without taking time into the equation. If you take time into the equation that clump of cells is equal to a conscious human, since we're all a part of it. Life is just a process that begins and ends and all processes are dependent on time. It is not entirely certain that the child will become mentally scarred, and even if it do, there are many records of people rising above and obtaining some kind of quality of life. To exist, even in great measures of pain is better than to not exist at all, but that is entirely subjective and my personal opinion.

It's not possible to apply an animal into this debate since it's been necessary for our survival to consume, just the law of nature.

well then why not just keep going back, a sperm cell or an egg cell is just fertilization and time away from being a full grown fetus, and those aren't conscious so what's the difference if they both have potential for human life. besides that, you are right but generally if a mother is getting an abortion then the home environment would not be good for the child.
And to that I say yes it 100% is, you CAN live without eating any kind of meat, a mother CAN choose to not get an abortion, even if she cannot sustain the child.
you too, have a great week after that too.

Reply to EpicTyrantThe entire abortion issue should've been buried the day contraception was invented. After all, if we can prevent conception as easily as is now possible, abortion becomes meaningless. While I can understand the need for abortion in cases where fetuses are so severely diseased as to make living a veritable hell or when rape results in a pregnancy or contraception failure, I'm uncomfortable with what the label pro-choice implies. Pro-choice as a term used by advocates of abortion has positive connotations, having to do with women's rights over their bodies and all. However, there's something sinister about such an outlook- it seems to license irresponsible behavior by neglecting to give due importance to contraception which could've easily prevented pregnancy in the first place.

Quoting EpicTyrant

If you did read my text then you'd understand that life within different stages is still life. According to your logic it would be equally right to kill a newborn child as to an abortion state fetus as they both haven't really developed into full consciousness.

And in fact what you say, has been proposed, they call it "After-birth abortion".

https://jme.bmj.com/content/39/5/261

Abstract

Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus' health. By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.

Quoting Pussycat

And in fact what you say, has been proposed, they call it "After-birth abortion".

After-swallowing chew :chin: