Abortion

@NeitherExtreme,

Autonomy of a fetus isn't something that pro-life people talk about either. It's about weighing values. Elective abortion for nonmedical reasons may be highly regrettable, but the right of a woman to make choices about her own body and own life is held as more important.

As for the second question, no one is saying that a fetus isn't human. The point is that it is a scenario in which murder laws apply differently.

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@NeitherExtreme,

Quote:

How can a woman be expected to have a guilt-free abortion if she knows that if someone else ended the fetus' life it would be called murder?

One of the finest sentences within the entire tread! This type of carelessly adopted moral inconsistency is at the heart of the Al A Carte
implementation of morality by liberal ideology, instead of the Full-Couse consistency of a well prepared and thoroughly tested menu of articulate Entrees.

My illustrative analogy of morality consists of a ladder. Imagine a ladder extending limitless and each rung represents a sequential process of moral parameters. Now, the first rung has to be the recognition of the individual human life unhindered from the credibility destroying subjectivity of societal idealism's. If we as a society cannot reconcile the first rung of the moral ladder, and consequently unable to take the first step upwards, how can we possibly progress towards the 2nd rung without the closely examined ( adopting the arguing ending tool of rational consistency) and accepted SUPPORT of the 1st rung.

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@Ruthless Logic,

Ruthless Logic wrote:

This type of carelessly adopted moral inconsistency is at the heart of the Al A Carte implementation of morality by liberal ideology.

Come on, we can easily pick apart conservative moral viewpoints in which there is moral inconsistency. Like how extramarital relationships are discouraged and immoral for heterosexuals, but how marriage is particularly immoral and unacceptable for homosexuals. Bizarre. Or trying to prohibit the burning of a flag that symbolizes free speech. Or yielding unchecked executive power to the president despite a stated value of individual freedoms and rights.

But for you to view this point on abortion as moral inconsistency, case closed, is quite myopic because it doesn't take into account all the other variables involved aside from the ones you've mentioned. And this heavily supports my point that moral judgements are made emotionally and not rationally -- because you are willing to employ the minimum amount of data necessary to support your preexisting belief.

As an analogy, think about these groups of scenarios:

Group 1
A 100 year old man with advanced Alzheimer's is brought to the emergency room with pneumonia. The emergency physician says that he will die without treatment, but with aggressive treatment he has an excellent chance of survival. The family says "No, he has lived a good life, we should just make him confortable and let him be at peace."

A 1 year old otherwise healthy boy is brought to emergency room with pneumonia. The emergency physician says that he will die without treatment, but with aggressive treatment he has an excellent chance of survival. The family says "Yes, we want everything to be done to save his life".

Group 2
A 100 year old man with advanced Alzheimer's is brought to the emergency room with pneumonia. The emergency physician says that he will die without treatment, but with aggressive treatment he has an excellent chance of survival. The family says "Yes, we want everything to be done to save his life".

A 1 year old otherwise healthy boy is brought to emergency room with pneumonia. The emergency physician says that he will die without treatment, but with aggressive treatment he has an excellent chance of survival. The family says "No, he has lived a good life, we should just make him confortable and let him be at peace."

The only difference is me altering what the family has said. The otherwise identical situations have much different moral implications. We think it would be egregious and criminal for a family to let a 1 year old baby die of an easily treatable disease. We think it would be merciful for a family to let a 100 year old demented man die of the same illness, though.

And what's the difference? The difference is not whether one is human and one is not. The difference is how our societies view life, health, and disease in a baby versus an elderly person, and how we emotionally react to them.

And same with a fetus. While a fetus has a life of potential, it's also not yet been named, there has been no bonding with the parents, there has been no relationship, it has developed no emotions or attachment (even if it HAS developed sensations), etc. Society views it much differently -- it is a human, but it is very removed from the community of other humans, and thus we CAN comparatively prioritize other things (like the mother's self-determination). So we allow the mother to assign the value to the fetus, and therefore the homicide of that fetus by some other person is regarded differently than the mother's choice to terminate the pregnancy.

1 Reply

@Aedes,

Come on, we can easily pick apart conservative moral viewpoints in which there is moral inconsistency. Like how extramarital relationships are discouraged and immoral for heterosexuals, but how marriage is particularly immoral and unacceptable for homosexuals. Bizarre. Or trying to prohibit the burning of a flag that symbolizes free speech. Or yielding unchecked executive power to the president despite a stated value of individual freedoms and rights. (Quote)

There is no contradiction between the accusations of extramarital affairs and the marriage status of homosexuals. This juxtaposition is nonsensical, off topic and simply intellectually dishonest. Every single Human Being is produced by a female and a male, and no amount of careless idealism will ever circumvent this empirical circumstance. The model of this required union is called a marriage, and from this arrangement comes (hopefully) the single most IMPORTANT imperative known to mankind, REPRODUCTION.
In an effort to illustrate the importance of an activity (heterosexuality) that simply MANKIND depends on for its very existence, the marriage of a man and a woman is logically and rationally preserved within the parameters of a recognized union.

The United States Flag is a symbol of absolute sacrifice, along with the unequivocal status of Freedom. Millions have lost their lives defending the Flag, should we not honor their sacrifice by at least not allowing the desecration of the symbol that they valiantly defended with their own entrance into oblivion, a realm without the capacity of retort.

How can an unchecked executive power pose any threat to a populace that is highly armed and capable of imposing its will against any form of governmental tyranny. In fact, the executive office you are referring to actually advocates for the ownership of individual firearms, as well as the full recognition of the 2Nd Amendment. How can you conspire to take away Freedoms and Rights of an unsuspecting society and yet facilitate the arming of that same populace. This is a good example to illustrate the carelessness of liberal idealism. The liberal ideologs like to espouse infringements of any Freedoms or Rights, but at the same time advocating against individual ownership of firearms, as if words have any physical enforcement capabilities, but if you indulge in the carelessness of conjured utopian environments, you can begin to see how verbage and ideals will magically influence the flight of bullets, just like in the Matrix

1 Reply

@Ruthless Logic,

Wow, I can't believe I got you to take my bait here. My point was that very few issues are black and white, single variable issues, and this includes the abortion issue despite your efforts to make it seem so. In fact, you're absolutely right that it is intellectually dishonest to present issues like that.

And I got you to fall for my bait three times here by presenting issues as black and white

Thanks!

1 Reply

@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

Ok, but you're missing a rather large stage between embryo and baby, namely the fetus. The fetus is everything that follows the embryonic stage of fetal development, and many women don't even know they're pregnant during the embryonic stage.

Did I say embryo? Surprised

.... I meant fetus:whistling:

Aedes wrote:

You mean apart from prenatal care, ultrasounds, screening tests, vitamins / folate / iron supplementation, etc, avoiding alcohol, avoiding cocaine, avoiding tobacco, etc?

Yes but when the mother realises she is pregnant and wants an abortion is there as much care given to the fetus? And what about care towards giving care to the fetus? That kinda becomes obsolete with wanting an abortion, or needing one.

Besides, the fetus is separate from the mother, is it actually symbiotic to the mother as you said symbiosis?:perplexed: The fetus holds no values to the mother until birth, it doesn't see a "mother", (unless thats to much to say), so no will is to the mother. And does it have will on itself?, all nutrients to keep the fetus alive by going directly to it. The fetus has no choice, which is necessary for his/her life.

Yes I'd say aborting is murder, but why is murder wrong? What gives a person value? The ability to hold values on others and oneself I suppose,because its a subjective matter. If a person is insane like mass murderer, they may or may not hold value on other people, but it only matters if their will is directed on those values to care.

In this respect, a fetus is neutral. Until you recognize the effects of choosing to abort or not, which is differs in situations.

Aedes wrote:

That suggests that no one changes her mind. Be that as it may, here you're placing a condition on the moral position of an embryo or fetus -- its moral standing depends on how much care it's given according to this last statement.

This is utilitarians though.

Aedes wrote:

I disagree with your idea of "living" here (and trust me that I'm fully pro-choice, I just can't accept your argument). My 4 month old is wholly dependent on my wife's ability to produce milk, it comprises 100% of his nutritional and fluid intake. Yes, Enfamil etc make formula, but that is a medical invention of modernity so it cannot define being alive. Physiologic dependance can still exist between two DIFFERENT living beings. It's called symbiosis.

I'm not pro anything. I just think that situations should be treated a little differently. Though if somebody is like a mas murderer then death penalty!!

Aedes wrote:

But that said, you could just as easily argue from your points here that the fetus is comparatively disenfranchised and therefore merits MORE protection.

Until you finish off with the utilitarian bit. People enjoy life due to posited values and getting something out of the will they evoke as actions.

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@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

Autonomy of a fetus isn't something that pro-life people talk about either.

Are you sure? Different words, yes... but isn't the idea the same?

Aedes wrote:

It's about weighing values. Elective abortion for nonmedical reasons may be highly regrettable, but the right of a woman to make choices about her own body and own life is held as more important.

I think you are completely right in this assesment. I would add two clauses, so it would look like this: "The right of a woman to make choices about her own body and own life, as well as the body and life of the child, is held as more important than the life, and possible will, of the child." The problem is that I completely disagree with this value, as it inherently is only supportable by a "might makes right" morality in which the value of the individual is actually diminished rather than upheld. I don't think that the "choice" of the parents, male or female, is more important than the life of the child they chose to create.

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@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

As for the second question, no one is saying that a fetus isn't human. The point is that it is a scenario in which murder laws apply differently.

I still don't understand. You're saying murder laws apply differently in different situations? Can you find another scenerio in which murder laws don't apply to two or more people conspiring to kill and killing another human who has done nothing wrong?

And if you've accepted the fetus as a human, then I'll led back to my orginal question... How can you expect a woman to have a guilt-free abortion if society at the same time tells her it was a human that she has killed? Feeling guilt is a natural response to killing another person (not to mention your own offspring), is it not?

1 Reply

@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

Wow, I can't believe I got you to take my bait here. My point was that very few issues are black and white, single variable issues, and this includes the abortion issue despite your efforts to make it seem so. In fact, you're absolutely right that it is intellectually dishonest to present issues like that.

And I got you to fall for my bait three times here by presenting issues as black and white

Thanks!

It is absolutely amazing the careless continuance of describing and framing social issues with the accusation derived from the finality of decided social parameters known as black or white. EVERY SINGLE SOCIAL ISSUE starts with the non-binding consideration process (shades of commingled grey), and during this process is when the details of the subscribed parameters get vetted by all concerned interests. Theoretically, the consideration process can continue into perpetuity, but the parameters of a Social Construct will NEVER get developed. Now, the next stage FOR ANY RECOGNIZED OR ADOPTED social policy is the implementation process which requires the legal acceptance (the law) that provides the enforcement that simply makes the decided decision valid (the finality of black or white).

Your continuing indulgements of idealistic approachments regarding the anxiety inducing finality of decided decisions and your natural propensity to resist against all considerations as they approach resolution, quite frankly needs to be resolved with personal reflection.

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@NeitherExtreme,

Ruthless Logic wrote:

It is absolutely amazing....

Aw, Ruth, no need to lose your temper just because I've scored a couple punches on your specious arguments lately.

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@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

Murder laws never specify whether the other human has done something wrong. All murder victims are murder victims. And HOMICIDE, which abortion would fall under, includes everything from premeditated murder all the way down to criminally negligent homicide (i.e. manslaughter). So broadly speaking the laws governing how one prosecutes a particular type of homicide are variable depending on the circumstance.

The question of whether or not the victim has done something wrong is taken into account with murder laws. For instance, if someone breaks into my house and assaults my family, I'm allowed to shoot them (at least in some states). I will not be accused of murder. If I'm driving down the highway and a drunk person runs out in front of me and I kill them with my car, I will not be charged with anything. In both cases, I caused their death, but I am considered guiltless What I am asking for is a situation where two or more people to conspire and kill another human, who has done nothing wrong, without being considered guilty of some kind of crime. I'd be currious to hear any, because I've tried to think of one, and couldn't.

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@Aedes,

Murder laws never specify whether the other human has done something wrong. All murder victims are murder victims. And HOMICIDE, which abortion would fall under, includes everything from premeditated murder all the way down to criminally negligent homicide (i.e. manslaughter). So broadly speaking the laws governing how one prosecutes a particular type of homicide are variable depending on the circumstance. (quote)

Your distinction pertaining to the legal definitions regarding Murder vs. Homicide is accurate, but unfortunately your reasoning cannot stay consistent enough to compose three sentences. Premeditated murder is just that, murder committed with preexisting motives, which by the way usually produces the highest legal jeopardy, and simply does not allow the perpurtrator to move his or her crime into the legal definition of Homicide as you carelessly concluded. Homicide is completely legal if it is proven to be conducted within the constraint of Self-Defense.

1 Reply

@Ruthless Logic,

NE, you were describing the circumstance of self defense, which is an exception from homicide prosecution. Killing of civilians at war is exempted, and even police killings are exempt. Juveniles face different justice standards from adults.
And abortion, which is a consented medical procedure, best fits ethically with euthanasia. While active euthanasia is not legal, passive euthanasia is legal and common, and that is another circumstance where people in a medical setting conspire to end an innocent life.

1 Reply

@NeitherExtreme,

NeitherExtreme wrote:

First of all, the idea that abortion is an assault against the fetus is not a "general hidden assumtion" of the anti-abortionists, it is their clearly stated problem with abortion in the first place. There's no hidden agenda there, that's the whole complaint.

No, it is typically assumed with argumentation beginning from there.

Otherwise, they would cease making "pro-life" arguments or referring to unborn persons. Whether it is a living thing or unborn person is irrelevant because the woman is simply asserting control over her own body, not assaulting the fetus.

If you were to attempt to reside in my house and raid my refrigerator, you would be hard pressed to call it assault when I tossed you out the door.

Quote:

Well, I wrote quite a bit more, but realized nobody's likely to change opinions here, so why get all heated? Just to see if we have any common ground to start with... would you contend that "partial birth abortion" is not not an assault on the child, but is in fact is an act of defense by the woman and doctor against the aggression of the child?

The fetus is removed partially from the body and terminated. It is not ambushed on its way out.

"Partial-birth abortion" is a term invented by opponents of abortion and is not recognized by the medical community. It is loaded and intended to deceive.

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@Ruthless Logic,

Ruthless Logic wrote:

One of the finest sentences within the entire tread! This type of carelessly adopted moral inconsistency is at the heart of the Al A Carte
implementation of morality by liberal ideology, instead of the Full-Couse consistency of a well prepared and thoroughly tested menu of articulate Entrees.

You do realize that the "Unborn Victims of Violence Act" was pushed through by conservatives (most likely trying to cash political points on the murder of Laci Peterson) with the terms that it would not affect abortion. Most liberals in the congress and most pro-choice organizations strongly opposed it.

So conservatives condoned calling a fetus a legal person while condoning abortion, while liberals opposed calling a fetus a legal person at all times.

Who is consistent again?

1 Reply

@Mr Fight the Power,

Mr. Fight the Power wrote:

You do realize that the "Unborn Victims of Violence Act" was pushed through by conservatives (most likely trying to cash political points on the murder of Laci Peterson) with the terms that it would not affect abortion. Most liberals in the congress and most pro-choice organizations strongly opposed it.

So conservatives condoned calling a fetus a legal person while condoning abortion, while liberals opposed calling a fetus a legal person at all times.

Who is consistent again?

The accusation of inconsistency as it pertains to the additional defining of the unborn as an actual separate individual by the Legal System is simply an indulgement of meretricious reasoning. The law needed vital support from Liberal Senators to be able to be presented for the President to sign the new legal parameters into law. If there is any accusation for inconsistency it would be directed at the liberal ideology, because they want abortion-on-demand, yet relented from their Attention Deficit Ideals long enough to support the Unborn Victims of Violence Act. The new Legal Parameters are systematically and consistently laying the necessary evidential sequence of rational thought for the ultimate goal of overturning the patheticly concocted and carelessly reasoned Roe vs. Wade Ruling.

P.S. In the future, please consider your inconsistency arguments BEFORE you post, because I suspect you do not have much experience in that arena.

1 Reply

@Ruthless Logic,

Ruthless Logic wrote:

The accusation of inconsistency as it pertains to the additional defining of the unborn as an actual separate individual by the Legal System is simply an indulgement of meretricious reasoning. The law needed vital support from Liberal Senators to be able to be presented for the President to sign the new legal parameters into law. If there is any accusation for inconsistency it would be directed at the liberal ideology, because they want abortion-on-demand, yet relented from their Attention Deficit Ideals long enough to support the Unborn Victims of Violence Act. The new Legal Parameters are systematically and consistently laying the necessary evidential sequence of rational thought for the ultimate goal of overturning the patheticly concocted and carelessly reasoned Roe vs. Wade Ruling.

P.S. In the future, please consider your inconsistency arguments BEFORE you post, because I suspect you do not have much experience in that arena.

As I said, the bill was almost universally opposed by liberal pro-choice movements and was opposed by the vast majority of democratic senators.

IT IS A SMALL MINORITY OF LIBERALS WHO WISH TO GIVE PERSONHOOD TO THE FETUS, AS THE VAST MAJORITY RECOGNIZE THIS AS A DANGEROUS INCONSISTENCY.

(That is in all caps because I cannot bear to suffer again through the tedium of your post only to find out you did not bother to absorb what I had said.)

It is funny because this bill explicitly says:

Quote:

`(c) Nothing in this section shall be construed to permit the prosecution--

`(1) of any person for conduct relating to an abortion for which the consent of the pregnant woman, or a person authorized by law to act on her behalf, has been obtained or for which such consent is implied by law;

If you are correct, then everyone who did sign this vote is inconsistent at face value.

Perhaps you are correct that they have ulterior motives and are simply setting up the grounds to overturn Roe V. Wade, in which case they are liars and fiends.

1 Reply

@Mr Fight the Power,

I do not think there is any doubt that conservatives have been trying to wipe out R v W ever since the decision came down.

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@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

NE, you were describing the circumstance of self defense, which is an exception from homicide prosecution. Killing of civilians at war is exempted, and even police killings are exempt. Juveniles face different justice standards from adults.

Interesting situations, but none of these three work. For soldiers or police there would be the understanding that they are taking lives in order to save lives. If either of them took lives for any other reason, they would be considered guilty of murder. Juveniles facing different standards does not change the fact that they are considered guilty of something if they intentionally take a life.

Aedes wrote:

And abortion, which is a consented medical procedure, best fits ethically with euthanasia. While active euthanasia is not legal, passive euthanasia is legal and common, and that is another circumstance where people in a medical setting conspire to end an innocent life.

I agree that these two subjects are rather intertwined. As a society we still (thankfully IMO) condem active euthanasia, but allow the passive form. That seems about right to me. The problem is, there is nothing passive about abortion, it is a deliberate and unatural ending of a human life against it's will.

And before we get too sidetracked, I do want to bring this train of thought back to my original question... How can a woman be expected to live without guilt when she has consented to kill the fetus which would have been considered murder if anyone else were to kill it? It seems to me that that cuts against the very core of a person's maternal (or paternal) instincts. For what it's worth, I've always considered the mother, and sometimes the father, as the secondary victims of abortions. Another whole issue that I think goes undiscussed is how terrible it is that a mother can be put in a situation where she is recieving pressure, whether direct or indirect, that causes her to have an abortion that she doesn't want. I overheard (which I could not avoid) a conversation where a boyfriend was pressuring a woman to abort their child. What a horrific situation for her! And, assuming she goes through with it, I'm sure she will carry guilt and regret for the rest of her life... It's our fault as a society that she could be put in such a situation.

Mr. Fight the Power wrote:

Whether it is a living thing or unborn person is irrelevant because the woman is simply asserting control over her own body, not assaulting the fetus.

Really? Is someone "asserted control over their own body" by pointing a gun at someone else and pulling a trigger? All of our rights, wether it be speech, religion, press, or physical control of our bodies, are not unlimited. If they interfere with the rights of others, then both parties must be accounted for.

Mr. Fight the Power wrote:

If you were to attempt to reside in my house and raid my refrigerator, you would be hard pressed to call it assault when I tossed you out the door.

What if you found me uncounscious, brought me into your house, locked me in a room with your refrigerator, got angry when I eventually had to eat, then cut my throat as you tossed me out? That seems a more apropriate analogy, especially in the case of IDX.

Mr. Fight the Power wrote:

The fetus is removed partially from the body and terminated. It is not ambushed on its way out.

Call it "terminated" if you want to, but that doesn't change what happens. We all know full well that if they just pulled it out a few more inches it would have the same legal rights as any other baby. Just because they cut it's neck inside the body cavity of the woman doesn't make it her body that they are affecting.

Mr. Fight the Power wrote:

"Partial-birth abortion" is a term invented by opponents of abortion and is not recognized by the medical community. It is loaded and intended to deceive.

Yes, I know about the controversy surrounding the word. You'll notice that I had it in quotes in the first place. If you would prefer to call it ellective IDX, or anything else, that's fine with me. Both sides reword things to make themselves sound better. I'm not interested in wording, I'm interested in the subject at hand.

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@NeitherExtreme,

NeitherExtreme wrote:

Interesting situations, but none of these three work.

They all work. It's only your and my respective bias that color our interpretations. Abortion is not only a unique situation unto itself, but it entails a very broad and heterogeneous aggregate of unique situations. So there is no exact analogy for it except to say that there are other scenarios in human society in which innocent lives are taken without rendering the judgement of murder.

Quote:

The problem is, there is nothing passive about abortion, it is a deliberate and unatural ending of a human life against it's will.

Doing a c-section is a deliberate and unnatural delivery against the will of the baby. Do you object to that, too?

If not, then your objection is not against the deliberate, the unnatural, or the against-its-will points and ONLY against the ending of a life point.

Furthermore, you would immediately acknowledge that the word "human" can apply to a hugely heterogeneous collection of people within our species, including the unborn, the elderly, the healthy, the infirm, the good, the bad, etc. But it's a cliche of the anti-abortion movement to selectively ignore the uniqueness of an unborn fetus and assume that moral (let alone legal) judgements MUST be applied equally to everything that can be described as human.

Why MUST that be the case? And give me a reason other than Ruth's echolalia about consistency, because it's far too easy to perseverate on consistency if you're willing to selectively ignore the vast majority of variables out there.

1 Reply

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