Abortion

[Illyricum]

What are you thoughts/opinions on abortion?

[Tigerlilly]

Right or wrong has absolutely nothing to do with whether it (arbortion) should be available. I may personally believe that abortion is 'wrong' for me but that still doesn't make it wrong for my neighbour.

The issue is and always will be 'choice'. I have no right to force my beliefs on others nor they on me. No one is asking you to have (or sanction) an abortion. What is being requested is the right to make a personal decision.

My problem with pro-choice is that it takes on a clever phrase and doesn't really explain anything. Choice, in the broad sense, is not what is at stake, it's choice in a specific set of criteria. Choices have to be limited when they hurt/injur others, so one cannot say that it's always a personal choice and that no one else has the right to stop/infringe upon that choice.

one could say: I believe slavery is wrong, but that's my person opinion. If you don't like slavery, don't own a slave. People have to get invovled. Right or wrong does say whether or not something should be legal, or there would be no point to morality at all. It would be a FFA. To work in society, people have a Social Contract guided by moral principles of Rights and other concepts.

1. Autonomy
2. Utility
3. Moral Agency
4. Rationality/IQ
5. The Objectivist moral principle

1. Foremost according to the Objectivist principle, Man has sets of rights, and Man should do whatever Man wants according to those rights, unless those rights infringe upon others. According to Ayn Rand, as well as other Rights-based ethicists in her essay "MANS RIGHTS," Man's rationality is the source of Rights, and rights are artificial constructs used to protect the individual. According to many (including myself) the fetus has no rights up to a point, and beyond that point, it gets rights.

All of which deals with the two-pronged concept of autonomy. A Fetus is largely a non-rational, non-autonomous creature. It cannot survive on it's own, and it has neither the rational faculties nor the IQ to be treated like a developed child (past early infancy) or an average human. In fact, the fetus, as well as brain-damaged infants have a lower IQ and mental faculties than that of common household pets--the Cat, forexample.

From a concrete perspective, and one more scientific, Humans are nothing more than ANimals--a clever primate of the Genus Homo, species Sapien Sapien. THere is nothing special about humans, so the only things that one can use to distinguish between Humans and other animals is rationality, autonomy, and brainpower. If one didn't have these critera, one would not be able to (outside of personal attatchment) choose whom to save. A Cat, or a Human. We would choose the Human because Humans have a certain mental/physical worth. If that didn't exist, and the Human were on the same playing field as a Kitten or a Dog, one has no legimiate reason to choose the Human over the Dog. According to Bioethicist Utilitarian of Princeton University, one would then be a Speciesist.

1 In light of this, a fetus does not develope a durable central nervous system untill late in the pregnancy, and only 9 weeks into the pregnancy, does it "maybe" feel pain/pleasure. Since it feels NO pain and pleasure prior to that, most likely only stimuli responses and reflexes, it there is no reason to consider it with Utility Hedonistic principles--the Greatest Happiness (pleasure vs pain). You can do anything to the baby and it won't hurt it.

2. The fetus is not even a viable creature untill late into the pregnacy, around the 20-24 week mark, which means that it has no autonomy, in addition to it's total lack of rationality and miniscule-cat-like IQ. This means that the fetus a lot of the biological definition of a Parasite, not to be crass...just honest.

The Fetus is a being which grows on/in another living organism (the mother) and uses all her resources and strength, causing sickness and other problems, while contributing nothing to the health and longevity of the mother.


In conclusion to this segment: the Fetus is not rational, not-autonomous and low in IQ. It also cannot feel pain/pleasure up utill a specific point. Even if it can after the 8 week period, it does not have any of the other important faculties, which cancels out the concern for pain/pleasure minimizing.


Let us now examine the principle of autonomy and utility on behalf of the mother. Firstly, the mother, unlike the fetus, is a rational, average IQ, autnomous being, and therefore, she has rights, whereas the Fetus ought not. THis means she has access to the full range of her Rights, including the right over her own body. SHe is harming no other rational, autonomous creature by getting an abortion, and she is not being malicious and doing it to harm something. SHe is doing it to help her body and have dominion over her body. No one has the right to live off of someone else's body and grow inside of it, especially beings which have no rational faculties. There is no " right to parasite."

From the perspective a Preference and Hedonistic Utilitarian, the mother in this case matters, as well as the people in the family. From the Hedonic Utility principle, we want to maximixe happiness while minimizing pain. From the PReference Utility principle, we want to maximise or satisfy the most ammount of preferences possible.

It is the mother's preference that she have dominion over her own body, and doing so would maximise her happiness while minimizing damage and suffereing. The suffereing caused tothe baby is short-lived and not as compelling due to the mother's other supporting ethical principles.

The family, if they support her decision to get an abortion, make it even better. However, if they do not support it, their personal opinions of digust and rejection do not factor into a utilitarian calculation, since they are not being mentally or physicaly injured, and the subject under concern's body is not theirs to deal with, so they have no say.

The same could be said of people who feel "angry" or unhappy when homosexuals get married. That opinion, although it produces unhappiness,is relatively unimportant, especially according to one of the major 19th century founders of Utilitarianism, John STuart Mill.

[justanotherperson]

Alright, so this is my first post and forgive me for not addressing any of the previous post on this issue, I am just going to post the conclusion that I have come to based on my own logic and oddly enough it does not have to do with religion.

To start with, the desicion of Roe v. Wade was based around the idea of viability. And other court cases following have pointed out that abortion cannot take place (legally) after the point of viability. Since Roe v. Wade, the point at which the unborn becomes viable has come to be less and less because of the advance of health care technologies. In other words, you probably will not be able to have an abortion now (legally) at 24 weeks into the pregnancy, but you could have 20 years ago.

So my point is, we don't know exactly when viability begins (from a scientific point of view, not taking religious teachings into account).

If we, America, do not know when "life" begins, how can we legislate certain dates in pregnancies that suppose we do. There has been no solid concrete evidence as to when a fetus becomes viable and obtains certain signs of "life." If you have evidence please show it to me. I don't believe any doctor or scientist will EVER be able to show scientifically when it is that a fetus obtains life.

If we don't know this, then how can we legalize abortion. Should we not make it illegal until we find out this all critical point that court cases have revolved around (read them for yourselves, I suggest the judges opinion's instead of the court cases for a shorter reading)? And if we can't figure it out, we should never make abortion legal. Propose that a fetus gains life at conception (which is altogether feasible, but something we presently don't know) then the government has allowed the murdering of over 42 million babies since Roe v. Wade. But if they had never made it legal then they would have saved those millions of innocent lives.

It is feasible that life begins at conception and I pray that it doesn't because if so, we as a country have created the greatest genocide known to man. But if for instance life did begin around the 30th week of pregnancy and we had never made abortion legal, then my approach would have only stepped on women's rights for the past 30 years, are far lesser travesty to mankind.

If we don't know, how can we pass laws saying we do! The better approach, the one with the least consequences given the present scientific facts, would be to make abortion illegal and yes, possibly step on women's rights as a result. Womens rights or babies life?

[chrispalasz]

bernee51: Right or wrong has absolutely nothing to do with whether it (arbortion) should be available. I may personally believe that abortion is 'wrong' for me but that still doesn't make it wrong for my neighbour.

The issue is and always will be 'choice'. I have no right to force my beliefs on others nor they on me. No one is asking you to have (or sanction) an abortion. What is being requested is the right to make a personal decision.

Nothing more nothing less.

And what about murder? That is wrong for me. According to you, that doesn't have to be wrong with my neighbor either. Now, if you're going to argue the value of human life or the infringement upon another's happiness or choice - then the same can be applied to abortion. You're eliminating any happiness, choice, and life for the baby that is murdered.

Corvus: Isn't this what we've been doing for the past 22 pages?

It is what we have been discussing for 22 pages. Tigerlilly has not been around for the whole thing, and I find her (his?) view and approach to be refreshing and rejuvinating the discussion. So I am starting it over, hoping that Tigerlilly will add to it.

bernee51: I don't think that being pro-choice=nazism - that is a slippery slope fallacy. Besides one can be pro-choice and anti-abortion.

Not all slippery slope arguments are fallacies. Claiming that they all are is in itself a fallacy. There are many cases in history where the slippery slope argument is shown to have been true. That's why the argument exists today. It is misapplied... but not always.

A person claiming to be pro-choice and anti-abortion is a hypocrite. What kind of stance is that. Any person who is pro-choice is anti-abortion in my eyes.

1. "I think everyone should have the right to choose, but I will never have an abortion."

2. "I think everyone should have the right to steal, but I will never steal.

3. "I think everyone should have the right to murder, but I will never murder."

4. "I think everyone should have the right to throw their garbage everywhere, but I will only throw it in a trashcan."

Point and fact: If you're not against abortion, you're for it.

[ENIGMA]

And what about murder? That is wrong for me. According to you, that doesn't have to be wrong with my neighbor either. Now, if you're going to argue the value of human life or the infringement upon another's happiness or choice - then the same can be applied to abortion. You're eliminating any happiness, choice, and life for the baby that is murdered.

For happiness and choice, I would contend that nobody can deprive me, you, or anyone else that which they do not have. Likewise the fetus has neither happiness nor choice, and thus cannot be deprived of either.

As for life, I'll leave that for others to tackle.

bernee51: I don't think that being pro-choice=nazism - that is a slippery slope fallacy. Besides one can be pro-choice and anti-abortion.

Not all slippery slope arguments are fallacies. Claiming that they all are is in itself a fallacy. There are many cases in history where the slippery slope argument is shown to have been true. That's why the argument exists today. It is misapplied... but not always.

Close, but incorrect. All such slippery slope arguments are in fact fallacies. The thing is, however, not all fallacious arguments yield a false conclusion. i.e.:

a) All Penguins are Black
b) All Crows are Black
therefore:
c) All Penguins and Crows are Birds

...Which is a true conclusion but completely and utterly fails to follow from the premises.

Saying that something derived from a fallacious argument is necessarily false is a fallacy (Known, conveniently enough, as the Fallacy Fallacy). What is in fact the case is that the fallacious argument makes no determination of the truth claim of the conclusion.

A person claiming to be pro-choice and anti-abortion is a hypocrite. What kind of stance is that. Any person who is pro-choice is anti-abortion in my eyes.

1. "I think everyone should have the right to choose, but I will never have an abortion."

2. "I think everyone should have the right to steal, but I will never steal.

3. "I think everyone should have the right to murder, but I will never murder."

4. "I think everyone should have the right to throw their garbage everywhere, but I will only throw it in a trashcan."

Do you have any intentions of becoming a Doctor? How about a musician? Or a programmer perhaps? How about getting a heart transplant? (Hopefully you're not planning on that..). How about living indefinately in a foriegn country?

Does your lack of motivation to do these things and (hopefully) your belief that everyone should have a right to try to do/become those things/professions, mean that you are a hypocrite?

Point and fact: If you're not against abortion, you're for it.

Just like in the good old days when if you were against amputation, you were supporting death by infection.

[Tigerlilly]

Well. NOt all slippery slopes are fallacies. All one has to do to prevent it from being a fallacy is show that there is a realistic link between action A and bad actions B C D E cauesed by it. Then it's not longer a fallacy.

If the claim of a slope is nto supported by real evidence,then it becomes the fallacy.

[mrmufin]

1. "I think everyone should have the right to choose, but I will never have an abortion."

2. "I think everyone should have the right to steal, but I will never steal.

3. "I think everyone should have the right to murder, but I will never murder."

4. "I think everyone should have the right to throw their garbage everywhere, but I will only throw it in a trashcan."

Point and fact: If you're not against abortion, you're for it.

I think everyone should have the right to occupy a woman's body against her will and inject her with hormones and be wholly dependent upon her resources for survival, though I will never occupy a woman's body against her will.

Point and fact: If you're not against the occupation of a woman's body against her will, you're for it. Don't you ever wonder what the mosquito's spin on malaria is?

Regards,
mrmufin

[chrispalasz]

Tigerlilly: According to many (including myself) the fetus has no rights up to a point, and beyond that point, it gets rights.

Who gets to determine that point? Why do those people get to determine that point?

Tigerlilly: A Fetus is largely a non-rational, non-autonomous creature. It cannot survive on it's own, and it has neither the rational faculties nor the IQ to be treated like a developed child (past early infancy) or an average human. In fact, the fetus, as well as brain-damaged infants have a lower IQ and mental faculties than that of common household pets--the Cat, forexample.

Okay. This is a start. You'll have to go further, though, in your explanation. Why can't a mother kill their fully born, yet undeveloped child? It takes several months for a child to fully develop and possess an I.Q. Their senses aren't even developed yet. This goes beyond the fetus. Why is a born child so different from an unborn child?

Tigerlilly: 1 In light of this, a fetus does not develope a durable central nervous system untill late in the pregnancy, and only 9 weeks into the pregnancy, does it "maybe" feel pain/pleasure. Since it feels NO pain and pleasure prior to that, most likely only stimuli responses and reflexes, it there is no reason to consider it with Utility Hedonistic principles--the Greatest Happiness (pleasure vs pain). You can do anything to the baby and it won't hurt it.

You're not "hurting" it under the limited definition that it cannot feel pain. "Hurt" is by no means limited to the nervous system's ability to feel pain. Otherwise, we could use drugs to sedate anybody so that they can't "feel" - then is it okay to murder them?

Of course you're hurting it. You're killing it. That is hurting it, even if it can't feel pain. The potential still exists for that fetus to develop into a human that does have that durable central nervous system. You're taking that away by killing the baby. Just because something or someone does not KNOW that something is happening, doesn't mean that thing is not affecting them in a negative way.

In fact, the very reason abortion needs to be illegal is because fetuses cannot defend themselves - the same as any child. They can't look out for themselves, and it's our responsibility to look out for them.

Are you in favor of killing people that are not fully functional simply because their dysfunctionality causes them to not know what you're doing?

Tigerlilly: 2. The fetus is not even a viable creature untill late into the pregnacy, around the 20-24 week mark, which means that it has no autonomy, in addition to it's total lack of rationality and miniscule-cat-like IQ. This means that the fetus a lot of the biological definition of a Parasite, not to be crass...just honest.

But the development process is underway, and that fetus will become a child. It takes the active process of murdering that life in order to stop the process of that fetus becoming a child. This isn't the case of the sperm or the egg. If we leave them alone... they will never develop into a child.

Tigerlilly: The Fetus is a being which grows on/in another living organism (the mother) and uses all her resources and strength, causing sickness and other problems, while contributing nothing to the health and longevity of the mother.

And it's not about the mother. It's about the life inside the mother. The overall effects of pregnancy is positive - contributing to the continued existence of the human race. A Fever is a defense in the human body. It causes us to feel sick, which we hate, but overall, it is positive because it kills the disease inside of us. Many things work like this.

Tigerlilly: Firstly, the mother, unlike the fetus, is a rational, average IQ, autnomous being, and therefore, she has rights, whereas the Fetus ought not. THis means she has access to the full range of her Rights, including the right over her own body. SHe is harming no other rational, autonomous creature by getting an abortion, and she is not being malicious and doing it to harm something. SHe is doing it to help her body and have dominion over her body. No one has the right to live off of someone else's body and grow inside of it, especially beings which have no rational faculties. There is no " right to parasite."

I will not touch further on your use of the term "parasite". I have already made the argument of potential human growth in this particular parasite, which sets it apart from your reasoning.

A mother has full access to her rights. A child does not have full access to his/her rights. But they both have the right to LIFE. A fetus, being a person in its very nature, has the right to LIFE also. Just because it does not have all the same rights as a mother doesn't mean it shouldn't have any rights.

Tigerlilly: From the perspective a Preference and Hedonistic Utilitarian, the mother in this case matters, as well as the people in the family. From the Hedonic Utility principle, we want to maximixe happiness while minimizing pain. From the PReference Utility principle, we want to maximise or satisfy the most ammount of preferences possible.

I recognize that you're coming from a specific perspective. With respect to that, I will try to argue the reasoning in your perception. In my case, the mother also matters... but the circumstances must be specific. For example, if the mother's life is in danger, then I wouldn't be so opposed to it. I would have to think about it more. Happiness is important... but not at the expense of human life.

Tigerlilly: It is the mother's preference that she have dominion over her own body, and doing so would maximise her happiness while minimizing damage and suffereing. The suffereing caused tothe baby is short-lived and not as compelling due to the mother's other supporting ethical principles.

But the consequences of a mother's decision must be factored in. When she is pregnant, she is no longer solely responsible for herself. In a similar way that a bus driver is responsible for himself and the children he drives. She took on the job of being a mom or being pregnant. A bus drive takes on the job of being responsible for the children he/she drives.

Tigerlilly: The same could be said of people who feel "angry" or unhappy when homosexuals get married. That opinion, although it produces unhappiness,is relatively unimportant, especially according to one of the major 19th century founders of Utilitarianism, John STuart Mill.

Hmm, okay. I can understand that. If I were to try and keep my Christian perspective and still argue under the Utilitarian perspective... I would have to say that the greatest happiness will come from knowing God and not from pursuing homosexual desires or abortion. But I suppose there isn't much to discuss on this point. We just differ there.

Tigerlilly: Thanks for sharing your perspective. I very much enjoy holdinga discussion with you.

[chrispalasz]

ENIGMA: For happiness and choice, I would contend that nobody can deprive me, you, or anyone else that which they do not have. Likewise the fetus has neither happiness nor choice, and thus cannot be deprived of either.

So, you have to HAVE happiness to be deprived of happiness? You have to HAVE choice to have to be deprived of choice? That doesn't make any sense.

Do you have to HAVE beer to be deprived of beer? That's easy. Just take away your beer... and you're no longer being deprived of it, because you don't have it. The same can be said for anything in place of beer.

You can only say that happiness and choice are not being deprived if those things are not readily available. The fetus surely has potential to have these things - maybe not immediately, but that's just the point: they will have those things if direct action is not taken to prevent such things from coming about.

ENIGMA: Close, but incorrect. All such slippery slope arguments are in fact fallacies. The thing is, however, not all fallacious arguments yield a false conclusion. i.e.:

a) All Penguins are Black
b) All Crows are Black
therefore:
c) All Penguins and Crows are Birds

...Which is a true conclusion but completely and utterly fails to follow from the premises.

Saying that something derived from a fallacious argument is necessarily false is a fallacy (Known, conveniently enough, as the Fallacy Fallacy). What is in fact the case is that the fallacious argument makes no determination of the truth claim of the conclusion.

Your example here is not an example of slippery slope. Slippery slope is basically:

If we allow A to happen, then B will happen and then C will happen and it will all just get worse from there. This is not ALWAYS true, but it is certainly in a good number of cases.

Tigerlilly brings up a good point:

Well. NOt all slippery slopes are fallacies. All one has to do to prevent it from being a fallacy is show that there is a realistic link between action A and bad actions B C D E cauesed by it. Then it's not longer a fallacy.

If the claim of a slope is nto supported by real evidence,then it becomes the fallacy.

ENIGMA:Do you have any intentions of becoming a Doctor? How about a musician? Or a programmer perhaps? How about getting a heart transplant? (Hopefully you're not planning on that..). How about living indefinately in a foriegn country?

Does your lack of motivation to do these things and (hopefully) your belief that everyone should have a right to try to do/become those things/professions, mean that you are a hypocrite?

Having motivation for becoming a doctor or musician or programmer in this discussion does not go where you want it to go. Thinking that nobody should be able to murder a baby because I don't want to is not the same thing as thinking that nobody should become a doctor because I don't want to. I think you can see that the situations are quite different. One is wrong and the other is not. In one scenario, you are taking away a life. In the other scenario, you are choosing how to live your life. Do you see the difference? Or should I expand on this?

mrmuffin: think everyone should have the right to occupy a woman's body against her will and inject her with hormones and be wholly dependent upon her resources for survival, though I will never occupy a woman's body against her will.

Point and fact: If you're not against the occupation of a woman's body against her will, you're for it. Don't you ever wonder what the mosquito's spin on malaria is?

By "occupy a woman's body against her will" - it sounds like you mean rape. But since we're talking about abortion, I'll assume you mean a baby, and you're trying to expand that to adults. I presume you're trying to make the point that children do not and should not have all the same rights as adults. Well, I agree with you. However, the children are growing inside a woman's body. I do think that children that are growing inside a woman's body should have the right to occupy it. The circumstances of another person are quite different. But that's interesting. I've never heard that said before.

You're expanding the right of a child that is being grown inside a woman beyond reasonable circumstances. We're talking about the right to live, here.

As for your point and fact: I am for the right for a child to occupy a woman's body against her will... when it comes down to a matter of that child's right to live and so long as her life is not in danger.

[Cliff]

As in the recent case where a woman was killed and her baby removed from her womb, why did that unborn baby have significance? Because it was wanted? If it was not wanted, it could have been killed. If you were not wanted, should that make it legal for someone to kill you?

[Cliff]

I saw a documentary once that indicated that Margaret Sangar's (founder of Planned Parenthood) ideas about promoting a better culture by getting rid of the lowest classes of people, was inspirational to Uncle Adolph.