Here Is An Interesting Scenario

[singinbeauty]

Hello All!
Ok, so I came across something very interesting last night that I would like your opinion on. There are some people out there who are considered mentally unstable because of a desire they have to have certain limbs or parts of their bodies surgically removed. The parts are perfectly fine and normal. The person just feels like they don't need it, the feel it's a nuisance, or it is causing them to feel like it's hindering them in some way. It is against the law for a surgeon to perform these surgeries and they can lose their lisence for it. Is this any different then say a woman wanting to abort her baby because, with nothing being wrong with the baby, she just feels like it's going to hold her down, she doesn't need it, or it's going to be a nuisance? I mean this is a part of her and is very attached to her. Let me know what you think!

[Amadeus]

Yes, I think hormones may play a part in it, but not as much as the pressure and fear related to the situation. Also, if the panicking woman doesn't have anyone around her to try to keep her head level, the panic would increase and she would be more inclined to do drastic things she would later regret.

[singinbeauty]

I agree... I think that if our society is going to allow abortions (shudder) then there should be a counselling session or two that the mother has to go through. What do you think?

[otseng]

Amen!

Just a reminder of the rules.

9. No unconstructive one-liners posts are allowed in debates (Do not simply say "Ditto" or "I disagree" in a post. Such posts add little value to debates).

[Jose]

Just a reminder of the rules.

Gee whiz, otseng! The opportunities for irony, and for quick irrelevancies...well, OK.

I think that if our society is going to allow abortions (shudder) then there should be a counselling session or two that the mother has to go through. What do you think?

It seems to depend on the situation whether this is reasonable or not. Suppose I'm a newly-pregnant woman, in a life situation in which I would be unable to care for a child, and possibly unable to retain my minimum-wage job if I remain pregnant. Both the child and myself are in trouble. The child is, at this point, an unsentient blob of cells. We have no idea whether it is one of the many that will abort spontaneously due to mutation, chromosome abnormality, or congenital developmental errors. Abortion, at this point, saves one life that would be adversely affected, at the expense of an unknown possibility. I cannot afford to make the trip to the city to see the doctor very often; for this situation, I can go once. If I am forced to undergo counseling (probably religious counseling from someone not of my religion, since my religion does not forbid abortion), then I may not be able to manage another trip, and the law has de facto forbidden the procedure.

Laws of this kind have been struck down because they pose an undue burden on some women, notably the ones who are most likely to be in dire straits if an unplanned pregnancy occurs. It's not a burden for the rich. It may or may not be a burden for deeply religious women, who would not seek an abortion anyway, or who might abstain from sex until marriage. It probably is a burden on women from subgroups of our society that many of us pretend do not exist, in which sex is an inescapable part of daily commerce [I do not mean prostitution; I mean normal high school life, and life after dropping out of high school]. In this subgroup, education is not highly regarded, nor is it adequately provided. Not everyone knows how pregnancy works--especially if sex education is considered an inappropriate subject for school, and if instruction in condom use is considered politically incorrect, and is not given.

Hormones make women do things that are maybe somethings they would not normally do. Weird cravings and demands and such. Do you think that this may magnify a situation so much that killing her child seems like the only way out?

I don't think we have a good idea just what hormones are involved in pregnancy. There are probably many that have not been discovered. We don't know, for example, why certain foods become disgusting to pregnant women, or why it varies with the pregnancy. It's evolutionarily protective, since it prevents ingestion of toxic compounds that could cause developmental abnormalities in the embryo. Still, we don't know how it works.

My guess, as an onlooker, is that many of the hormones go the other way from what you've suggested--that expectant mothers become more psychologically attached to the developing fetus, rather than the opposite. Even so, the panic of unwanted, and unsupportable pregnancy is, and has been, enough to drive women to very extreme measures. Without legal, and safe, abortions, we have historically found illegal, and unsafe abortions that often lead to the death of both the embyro and the mother--even when the mother knows that this is a likely outcome. It might do us all good to try to imagine ourselves in this kind of position, where the prospect of bearing a child is so terrifying that we would be willing to face a back-alley procedure that will probably kill us.

But what about another question here: 50 years from now, after the population has doubled again (and more), and we can't feed as many people as the earth holds, do you still consider the life of the pre-sentient embryo to be so precious that it should be brought to term into a life of starvation?

[Amadeus]

But why should we encourage the idea of parenthood as such a terrifying ordeal? There are agencies that help poor pregnant women. There are orphanages, and there are other jobs (they are hard to come by, but compared to killing a living being, being jobless is just and inconvenience).

[Jose]

What is available appears to be insufficient. Perhaps the biggest problem is that what is available requires that you be below a certain financial-need cutoff. If you get a slightly better job (or sometimes even a job at all), you are no longer eligible. And, of course, a significant percentage of funds for unwed mothers go to polygamist families, in which only the "chief wife" is officially married to the husband, and the others all qualify for federal aid.

I haven't been there myself, but the bottom line appears to be that for many, abortion is seen as the only alternative, even if at the risk of one's own life. I find this observation to be profoundly unsettling. I'd like to be able to help the people we have, rather than force them to a lower standard of living in an abusive environment.

I don't think that we are encouraging the idea that parenthood is a terrifying ordeal. Under ideal circumstances, it isn't. But there appear to be circumstances in which it is. For people trapped in those circumstances, which are beyond their control, there are no good choices.

[Amadeus]

I have heard of many mothers who almost had an abortion and changed their minds. They would attest that it ended up being a good decision afterall.

[singinbeauty]

But just because it is inconvenient to have a child that means that the child is slaughtered? Here is a list of excuses:

#1: I am not ready for a child.
Who is?

#2: I am not financially stable.
Again, Who is?

#3: I don't want my body to change.
What woman wants to get fat and then push something
the size of a watermelon through a hole the size of a pea?

You are never going to be completely ready for a child but why does the child get murdered because of this? Don't have sex if you don't want a baby!

[Corvus]

Sure, but neither did she probably seek, or actively attempt, to, get pregnant, otherwise she would not be seeking to procure a miscarriage in the first place. Contraceptives fail, women get manipulated, raped, drugged, drunk or pressured. One cannot force a person to keep something they never wanted in the first place.

Ok, there is sooooo much about this comment that makes me shiver... Even though she did not "seek" or "actively attempt" to get pregnant, should that justify the killing of a child. You call it a miscarriage but a miscarriage is:

Main Entry: mis-car-riage
Pronunciation: "mis-'kar-ij, 'mis-"
Function: noun
1 : corrupt or incompetent management; especially : a failure in the administration of justice
2 : spontaneous expulsion of a human fetus before it is viable and especially between the 12th and 28th weeks of gestation

Check out definition #2. It's a spontaneous expulsion of a human fetus. Abortion is not spontaneous it is deliberate.

Actually, abortion can be spontaneous.

a-bor-tion ( P ) Pronunciation Key (-brshn)
n.

1. Termination of pregnancy and expulsion of an embryo or of a fetus that is incapable of survival.
2. Any of various procedures that result in such termination and expulsion. Also called induced abortion.
3. The premature expulsion of a nonviable fetus from the uterus; a miscarriage.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

a-bor-tion (-brshn)
n.

The expulsion of an embryo or fetus before it is viable.
1. A miscarriage.
2. An aborted organism.
3. Cessation of normal growth, especially of an organ or other body part, before full development or maturation.
4. The arrest of an action or process before its completion.

The American Heritage Stedman's Medical Dictionary

Abortion is a fairly new English word. By using "procure a miscarriage" I was echoing the terminology of the British and Irish Offences against the Person law which states, "Every Woman, being with Child, who, intent to procure her own Miscarriage, shall unlawfully administer to herself any poison or other noxious Thing, or shall unlawfully use any Instrument or other Means whatsoever with the like Intent, and whosoever, with Intent to procure the Miscarriage of any Woman, whether she be or be not with Child, shall unlawfully administer to her any Poison or Noxious Thing, or shall unlawfully use any Instrument or other Means whatsoever with the like Intent, shall be guilty of Felony, and being convicted... blah, blah"

You have also gotten your definition from an American source. My Oxford Dictionary states a miscarriage is only, "1. Fail of success; go astray. 2. Be delivered prematurely of a child (strictly of a foetus which is not viable)."

And an abortion is: "Expulsion of foetus from uterus during first 28 weks of pregnancy, either spontaneous or induced; dwarfed or misshapen creature."

Admittedly the use is anachronistsic, but it's a term I would love to have return, since "abortion" has become much maligned lately.

One cannot force a person to keep something they never wanted in the first place.

That something you are referring to is a child though. You may not be able to force someone to keep a car they may not want or a piece of clothing but, c'mon, a child... IF you don't want to get pregnant then don't have sex. It's as simple as that. You are right. Contraceptives fail all the time and none are 100%. If you lay down with someone you are inviting the chance of getting pregnant. Just because it's "inconvenient" doesn't mean that justifies slaughtering a human life before it has a chance to start.

I think the last sentence of your post inadvertently provided an answer about why this sort of thing is fine. It is because many believe that a life that is ended before it has begun is not a life at all. There is more to it than that, however. There is sentience and personhood, but now we are moving completely away from the original topic, which is about comparing a body image neurosis with a desire to, as I say, "procure a miscarriage", and into a generic argument on abortion. Since we already have a topic on that particular subject, and I have already posted extensively there, I will link to key arguments:

My post on why it is acceptable to kill a foetus: http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... =6186#6186

A post I wrote after reading Alice Jenkins' Law for the Rich. She wrote in 1960 about the abortion movement. At the time, illegal abortion was second only to suicide as the leading cause of death of English women. In an effort to procure abortions, they inserted a variety of implements, everything from syringes to knitting needles, into their bodies: http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... =5977#5977

Post in the Abortion topic and I will gladly debate the issue with you.


Lastly, I get the impression that the prevailing belief is that most people who get abortions are misguided adolescents for whom a baby would be an inconvenience. In Alice Jenkins' time, most of the people who were attempting to get abortions, and dying because of it, were mothers already with a few children of their own, for whom the introduction of a newborn to the family represents the complete upheaval of a family's plan of organising limited finances around the children and affording university education. This is no less true in 2004. 60% of abortions are already performed on mothers who have had one or more children, so were are talking about more than just promiscuous teenagers.

As for the question on hormones: I think Jose answered this well. Since one of the greatest biological drives is to propagate, a mother's instinct would probably be geared towards keeping the child.

[Jose]

I have heard of many mothers who almost had an abortion and changed their minds. They would attest that it ended up being a good decision afterall.

Indeed, for them, it was a good decision. For others, it may not be. It is important to understand the specific circumstances that each individual faces, and not imagine that everyone is the same.

You are never going to be completely ready for a child but why does the child get murdered because of this? Don't have sex if you don't want a baby!

Ah, if only it were that simple. Perhaps, it is that simple in your culture, but it is not so in others. Despite the fact that the US is one country, with a more-or-less consistent set of laws, there are great cultural divides among different groups of citizens. Unfortunately, few recognize that there are people who just don't have the same choices that they, themselves do.

And, do read Corvus' previous posts.