Abortion is immoral. Period.

@maxdancona,

There are lots of belief systems that ascribe something like the soul existing prior to birth or even prior to conception, but live births are what has been recorded throughout history. You can look at Roman birth records if you need an example from before Christ, but age is recorded starting at birth, not at conception. I don't have any problem with those who believe otherwise, but I do have a problem if you try to legislate your belief system to me.

2 Replies

@engineer,

Nothing less than brilliant.

0 Replies

@engineer,

Quote:

but live births are what has been recorded throughout history.

1. I feel like you are inventing "facts" without doing any research to see if they are actually true. A quick Google search shows that many cultures don't celebrate birthdays, and a few celebrate the number of "springtimes" you have lived.

2. A slightly interesting question to me is what pre-colonial cultures would think of the modern practice of abortion. We can imagine going to a pre-colonial Incan, or Australian or Chinese society and asking people if it would be moral to end a pregnancy by removing a fetus from a the womb.

I suspect that you would get a very different answer from the very different pre-colonial cultures. I don't know for sure and neither do you.

I am not even sure if this is important... if somehow we could find out most pre-colonial cultures would be against modern abortion, would it change your mind?

3. Your example of ancient Rome is particularly inconvenient. We do know Roman law (since it was well written down). Abortion was legal until 12 or so years after was born. There is Roman literature where unwanted children were left to die after they were born, and yes.... patria potestas gave you the legal right to kill your child until he reached adulthood.

1 Reply

@engineer,

Quote:

I do have a problem if you try to legislate your belief system to me.

The problem with this is that the reverse is not true. We are perfectly willing to legislate our belief system on other people.

There are indigenous cultures that support some form of female circumcision and child marriages. These are things that most of us, as modern Americans, feel are immoral. You and I both support the laws that prevent people from doing these things. Imagine you you would react to a bumper sticker that read "If you are against female circumcision, don't have one."

If you considered abortion to be immoral, you would want to legislate against it.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Quote:
but live births are what has been recorded throughout history.

1. I feel like you are inventing "facts" without doing any research to see if they are actually true. A quick Google search shows that many cultures don't celebrate birthdays, and a few celebrate the number of "springtimes" you have lived.

But not the number of springtimes since you were conceived? That is pretty much my point. There are lots of belief systems about "souls", but we count life starting at birth. You suggest that is a recent trend, I contend it is not, but certainly recorded history records births. Do you have an example of a society that records conception as the start of life?

maxdancona wrote:

2. A slightly interesting question to me is what pre-colonial cultures would think of the modern practice of abortion. We can imagine going to a pre-colonial Incan, or Australian or Chinese society and asking people if it would be moral to end a pregnancy by removing a fetus from a the womb.

That is an interesting thought, but not really pertinent. We can both imagine that those cultures support our positions, but we have no way of knowing.

maxdancona wrote:

I suspect that you would get a very different answer from the very different pre-colonial cultures. I don't know for sure and neither do you.

Exactly, but we don't need to go back that far. We would get very different answers from people who live in the same town today. That's really not the question. In any cross section of people in the US, morals will vary widely. The question is what you do with that? Do you default to the most radical end of the spectrum and use that to make law, do you go with majority rules and force the minority to accept the beliefs of the majority or do you develop a logical framework with definitions and then define individual rights from that? I can find people who would support the former because they feel they are morally just and anyone who does not see it their way are sinners in need of judgment. The middle option is certainly the historical norm either through law or custom, but the latter is what we say we ascribe to in the US. Part of my logical framework is that life starts at birth. I don't see that as a radical position despite knowing that others believe differently.

maxdancona wrote:

I am not even sure if this is important... if somehow we could find out most pre-colonial cultures would be against modern abortion, would it change your mind?

No, not really. It doesn't change my mind that some predominately Catholic countries today outlaw abortion. I don't dispute the Catholic belief and even sympathize with it, but I don't subscribe to it and in the US where religion and government are supposed to be separate, I contend that Catholic beliefs are to be respected but not used as a criteria for law. Refusing a woman an abortion when her life is at danger might be the Catholic position, but I can't see that as something I would put into law in the US even though it is the law in some places of the world.

maxdancona wrote:

3. Your example of ancient Rome is particularly inconvenient. We do know Roman law (since it was well written down). Abortion was legal until 12 or so years after was born. There is Roman literature where unwanted children were left to die after they were born, and yes.... patria potestas gave you the legal right to kill your child until he reached adulthood.

There is a lot of variation among people, not just of different societies but within the same society, around what life is meaningful and should be protected. On this forum, there is a lot of resistance to Black Lives Matter. There are people who support capital punishment and who feel no concern about "collateral damage" as long as the lives lost are of people with different color sink or religion. There are people on this forum would would cheer border patrol agents who intentionally kick over water left out for immigrants trying to cross the border (and people here would go out to leave water for them.) What life do you consider worthy? Where do you define life as starting? For me, it is at birth and I think that is consistent with how every society acts, even if it is not consistent with what they say they believe. I disagree with the Roman definition since I believe that life begins at birth. I don't believe my position is arbitrary or inconsistent.

2 Replies

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Quote:
I do have a problem if you try to legislate your belief system to me.

The problem with this is that the reverse is not true. We are perfectly willing to legislate our belief system on other people.

How true. Society does have interests in establishing a set of rules. In the US, we say that we balance the needs of society with the rights of the individuals, but that's always been pretty subjective. That is how we ended up with a whole series of laws that we consider regrettable today.

maxdancona wrote:

There are indigenous cultures that support some form of female circumcision and child marriages. These are things that most of us, as modern Americans, feel are immoral. You and I both support the laws that prevent people from doing these things. Imagine you you would react to a bumper sticker that read "If you are against female circumcision, don't have one."

As a society we grant a lot of authority to parents to act on the behalf of their minor children. We very loosely limit that to say the parents must act in the children's best interest (very loosely). Mutilation is not in the children's best interest, so that is pretty clear cut, but we allow parents to do all sorts of things to their children even though a number of people think those things are morally wrong.

maxdancona wrote:

If you considered abortion to be immoral, you would want to legislate against it.

Maybe. Certainly if I considered it murder I would do everything I could to discourage it including perverting the law (which is what we see all over the country). That's why we need protections for civil rights. Much better to do things like increasing Medicare support (since over half of live births in this country are paid for through Medicare), promptly funding the Children's Health Insurance Program and pushing for universal health coverage than to strip the rights of people to satisfy others' moral rage.

0 Replies

@engineer,

Quote:

Where do you define life as starting? For me, it is at birth and I think that is consistent with how every society acts, even if it is not consistent with what they say they believe. I disagree with the Roman definition since I believe that life begins at birth. I don't believe my position is arbitrary or inconsistent.

1. I would like to know how you define the word "arbitrary" and why your position isn't arbitrary. Your position that life begins at birth seems quite arbitrary.

2. Your position that life begins at birth isn't even held by many people on this thread. Earlier, people arguing for abortion rights put the barrier at "viability" (the baby's ability to survive on its own). I suspect that there are very few Americans who would support killing the fetus as the mother is in labor (something that your standard would allow).

3. Are you really comfortable arguing with members of other cultures about what they believe? If a member of another culture explains to me that they believe life begins at conception, I tend to accept that; they understand their own culture better than I do.

When members of a Catholic culture say they believe that life beings at conception and then passionately opposes abortion... that seems consistent to me. Celebrating a birthday seems awfully trivial. We celebrate lots of milestones; birth, bris, communion, first word... the importance we place on each one is culturally specific (and arbitrary).

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

1. I would like to know how you define the word "arbitrary" and why your position isn't arbitrary. Your position that life begins at birth seems quite arbitrary.

I've gone over my reasoning over the last several posts, but it comes down to 1) Our society doesn't recognize personhood until birth and 2) it doesn't treat an embryo with the same reverence that is treats a child. Again, no firefighter is going to choose to save ten fertilized embryos over one child because no one considers an embryo to be equivalent to a child.

maxdancona wrote:

2. Your position that life begins at birth isn't even held by many people on this thread.

I'm not sure why this matters. There are lots of people online who don't share my positions. There are lots that do. My position is that the majority doesn't rule in matters of personal rights.

maxdancona wrote:

3. Are you really comfortable arguing with members of other cultures about what they believe?

I'm not arguing with people of another culture. You keep resorting to this dodge. We're both in the US with the same legal culture and the same rights as guaranteed under the Constitution. I'd be happy to discuss abortion with people of other cultures but I'm not suggesting we invade them and change their laws.

maxdancona wrote:

When members of a Catholic culture say they believe that life beings at conception and then passionately opposes abortion... that seems consistent to me.

Great, no problem with that. When you add that everyone must do as you do, I disagree. You go on about not preaching to others about how they should live, how we should respect other opinions, then in the next sentence, say that we should all adhere to a Catholic standard? I respect your opinions on abortion, I respect your decision when faced with an unexpected pregnancy. Can you say the same?

1 Reply

@engineer,

engineer wrote:

I don't dispute the Catholic belief

this isn't even consistent within the faith. there is one batch of Catholics that uses the 'life begins with the first breath' take from the bible. my old hairdresser (Baptist) tells me that's why her minister preaches that Catholics are not Christians.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/rick-lowery-phd/abortion-what-the-bible-says-and-doesnt-say_b_1856049.html

__

I'm going to keep on pushing for good / better sex ed and better access to birth control.

1 Reply

@engineer,

Quote:

1) Our society doesn't recognize personhood until birth and 2) it doesn't treat an embryo with the same reverence that is treats a child. Again, no firefighter is going to choose to save ten fertilized embryos over one child because no one considers an embryo to be equivalent to a child.

This isn't even factually true. Our society absolutely recognizes personhood before birth. You are talking as if there are only two states... embryos, and born child. In reality there are quite a few stages in between.

1) A woman who is 9 months pregnant, but hasn't given birth yet has a human being inside of her. I don't think there is many American who will doubt this. The fact that it hasn't been born yet is irrelevant. You have kids, Engineer. You have been through the process. You know this is true. You are splitting hairs. Losing a child at this point is a death of a human being.

Can you tell me that you kids were not fully human beings in your head and in your heart in the days and weeks just before they were born.

2) The legal standard in the US isn't birth. It is "viability". I don't think there is very much support for abortion at 9 months.

3) Are you really making the argument that a voluntary abortion after 9 months (without a medical need) should be legal?

2 Replies

@ehBeth,

Quote:

I'm going to keep on pushing for good / better sex ed and better access to birth control.

Hear hear EhBeth. Sometimes we agree.

0 Replies

@maxdancona,

What is important in this discussion is how far the baby has developed the things that make us human.

- Is the baby's brain developed to the point that it can process information.
- Can the baby respond to stimulus (as human beings do).
- Can the baby feel pain.

I understand the viability argument (although the definition of "viability" is not as clear as people would like)... can the baby live outside of the mother's body. To me, the real question is how much has the baby developed human qualities.

Whether a fully developed baby is inside the womb or not really doesn't make sense to me as a standard of being human. The idea that 1 minute a fully developed baby with a functioning brain and working physiology able to survive on its own is non-human, and then 5 minutes later it is human only because of a change in location seems nonsensical. When an incision is made for a c-section, is the baby magically transformed into a human being by the doctor's hands?

I don't see how the point of birth... which is not a change in development, but only a change in location... is anything but an arbitrary standard.

And I don't see anyone outside of this discussion seriously claiming that a fully developed baby after 9 months who hasn't been born yet isn't a human being.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

To me, the real question is how much has the baby developed human qualities.

Just as long as you also recognize the extreme arbitrariness of this "human quality" standard and the obvious fuzziness that surrounds that standard.

Hell, many of us see "human qualities" in robots and kitty cats.

0 Replies

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Quote:
1) Our society doesn't recognize personhood until birth ...

This isn't even factually true.

Yes, it is. You don't need a passport to travel in the womb. If you become viable in China to Chinese parents and you are actually born in the US, you are a US citizen by birth. (Traveling to the US to deliver is a thing for rich Chinese couples.) You don't have a legal identity until birth. My mother had two miscarriages after I was born. There are no records of them. My father had an older brother who died of crib death. My grandmother was very young (as was typical in that day and local) and no one ever discussed it. My father found out because he found the birth records at the courthouse while doing a genealogy search. That child was born and recorded by society even if his family chose not to recognize it. All this is not to minimize in any way the pain felt by those who lose a pregnancy. I understand and sympathize. That's not a basis for making law.

You routinely post that "liberals" are so fast to impose their moral standards on others, especially other societies. That is exactly what you are proposing here. You have a moral difference with someone else and you want to impose your standard through law.

In answer to your questions:

Quote:

1) A woman who is 9 months pregnant, but hasn't given birth yet has a human being inside of her. I don't think there is many American who will doubt this. The fact that it hasn't been born yet is irrelevant.

Emotionally sure, legally no. I had two colleagues who had a late term pregnancy where the umbilical cord wrapped around the fetus's neck and it suffocated. It was very tragic and I felt for them. They felt they lost a child and in no way would I downplay their feelings. Legally it was another pregnancy that did not come to term even though the fetus was viable before it died.

Quote:

2) The legal standard in the US isn't birth. It is "viability". I don't think there is very much support for abortion at 9 months.

3) Are you really making the argument that a voluntary abortion after 9 months (without a medical need) should be legal?

If you make the argument that abortions with a medical need are acceptable, then your whole argument is shot. If a fetus (or a viable fetus) has the same rights as the mother, then it could be equally argued that the mother should be sacrificed to birth the child or that we can take no action to save one until the other dies. I'm sure some women would chose to end their own lives so that the child could live and I respect that position. I respect your position and were you facing an unwanted pregnancy, in no way would I presume to tell you what to do. I don't want you dictating to me either. If you want to offer help to new mothers and children or change adoption laws or provide health insurance to make the choice to give birth to an unwanted child easier, I support that. If you want to legislate your morals to me, I don't.

1 Reply

@engineer,

Quote:

You routinely post that "liberals" are so fast to impose their moral standards on others, especially other societies. That is exactly what you are proposing here. You have a moral difference with someone else and you want to impose your standard through law.

You are misstating my point (actually you are conflating two points that I have made, and misstating both of them).

Every society has a need to impose moral standards on its citizens. This is not a function of "liberal" or "conservative", it is a function of living in a organized social group. Whether our society will allow abortion is a current question. Whether it will allow slavery is settled (and pretty much everyone agrees). The relevant point here is that we as a society do impose moral values by prohibiting behaviors (e.g. female circumcision, prostitution and drug use).

I don't contest the other points you make. I don't think they are important... just because we don't give a passport to an unborn baby doesn't mean that it doesn't have a right to life as a human being.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

The question is who's morals are going to form the standard and how do you balance the rights of the individual with the subjective and variable morals of the collective. So what is your proposal? You started off with "I do believe that abortion should be safe, legal and rare". That works for me (and pretty much everyone else who responded in this thread.) Are you berating us for not being more conflicted in our opinion?

2 Replies

@engineer,

Quote:

and rare

strongly disagree with this aspect of it...

2 Replies

@engineer,

In the beginning of this thread, my objection was to people mischaracterizing the argument of people on the pro-life side. The issue for many Americans is when human life begins. The claim that the intent of opposition to abortion is to control women's bodies is a (rather nasty) straw man.

I don't feel like I am berating anyone. I am personally conflicted about this issue (as I think many Americans are). I don't insist that you be conflicted, but I am suggesting that understanding the issue honestly is a good thing.

I don't understand your question about my "proposal"? We live in a constitutional democracy. I predict that Roe v. Wade will be overturned in the next 5 or 6 years (or at least deeply crippled). The legal standard will be battled state by state.

I would prefer that people in society to talk to each other civilly in an attempt to understand each other and work out a consensus. But, we all know that isn't reality.

0 Replies

@Region Philbis,

Region Philbis wrote:

Quote:
and rare
strongly disagree with this aspect of it...

I think what this means, at least it means for me, is that I ALSO want to support all the policies that would limit the need for an abortion. This means providing birth control, studying how unwanted pregnancies happen and implementing policies to reduce those numbers, teaching effective sexual education in school, etc.

When I say that I want abortion to be rare, I mean in the sense that as many people getting pregnant do so because they want to and unwanted pregnancies are reduced through policy and education.

1 Reply

@Region Philbis,

Really, you disagree with the "rare" in "safe, legal and rare"?

What "rare" means is that we should enact policies that greatly reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. This includes

- Sex education that includes responsible use of birth control and healthy relationships.
- Cheap or free access to birth control methods.
- Programs address issues of poverty and gender inequality (these things correlate with unwanted pregnancies).

Reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies seems like something that should be uncontroversial.

1 Reply

Abortion is immoral. Period.

Quick Links

My Account

able2know