an abortion thread with no personal attacks

[Farm Boy]

With exactly the same result: one less individual on Earth.

Maybe this difference is the same difference as this one : the difference between killing a man and not saving a man's life while you could do so without a large amount of effort.

The end result may be the same, both actions(or inaction) could be morally undesirable, but I still see a meaningful distinction between the two. I'm not certain pregnancy falls neatly into your last comparison though. "Saving a man's life while you could do so without a large amount of effort" is not the same as pregnancy/birth/childrearing. Even if you were to give the child up for adoption there is an enormous amount of impact to complete a healthy pregnancy.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I'm increasingly tending to think that the difficulty of a reasonable ethical debate on abortion lies in the failure to establish as shared metaphysical framework, and given the strength of religious belief (both of the scholastic and irrationalist varieties) among the majority of pro-lifers, I'm fairly sceptical that this would actually be possible.

It would seem obvious to me that in a secular society religious arguments should have no impact on the decision making. That is the biggest problem people who want to ban abortions out of religious motivation have. The realisation that their religious doctrine cannot be used in a discourse about abortion, coupled with the severe implication those convictions have on the subject of abortion.

I really honestly do have sympathy for the deadlock they are faced with.

 

[_random_]

Even if a fetus is a person, that shouldn't give it rights that trump the rights of the woman carrying it. If I were ill, and could only be saved by borrowing your kidneys, I can't force you to give me one. Even if this were a temporary problem and it could be solved by running tubes between us so your kidneys could process my blood while still staying in your body, I can't compel you to do this to save me. Why should a fetus be able to do so?

I don't think that analogy works, since it describes passive inaction resulting in death, where as abortion is an explicit action resulting in death. Suppose that, after being kidnapped by a mad scientist or failing to read the full terms of use for the new version of iTunes, you awake one day hooked up to a machine that uses your body as a life support system for somebody else, causing you significant inconvenience for a decent length of time. If you pull the plug, he dies. Once you're already in that situation, is it right to end it?

 

[Traitorfish]

The problem with that, though, is that it poses bringing a pregnancy to term as passive, which it isn't: the passive response to pregnancy is to lie down on the ground and die. Bringing a pregnancy to term and terminating it both represent different active responses, outcomes that both require active human intervention in the material universe to bring about, so neither analogy properly describes the situation.

 

[_random_]

The problem with that, though, is that it poses bringing a pregnancy to term as passive, which it isn't: the passive response to pregnancy is to lie down on the ground and die. Bringing a pregnancy to term and terminating it both represent different active responses, outcomes that both require active human intervention in the material universe to bring about, so neither analogy properly describes the situation.

Pregnancy is a remarkably unique situation, so any analogy is going to be flawed. I still think the point stands that taking action terminating the life of another person is wrong. That is still assuming that a human fetus is morally comparable to a human adult.

I'm increasingly tending to think that the difficulty of a reasonable ethical debate on abortion lies in the failure to establish as shared metaphysical framework, and given the strength of religious belief (both of the scholastic and irrationalist varieties) among the majority of pro-lifers, I'm fairly sceptical that this would actually be possible.

And that's really the heart of the matter and why I really don't think these discussions will get anywhere without veering seriously off topic. At least we can hope reasonably for some growth in mutual understanding.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

i think a biological argument can be made in that a gamete (sperm or ovum) only contains one set of chromosones (haploid)..... an individual cannot choose to combine his/her gametes to produce offsping, that is not a choice an individual can make.

I am not sure I see your point. Are you implying that moral obligations become irrelevant once they require collective effort to be fulfilled?

 

[History_Buff]

There is currently a private member's bill in Parliament to reopen the matter of whether or not abortion should be allowed in Canada. I remember the case of Chantal Daigle, whose boyfriend managed to get the courts to try to prevent her from obtaining an abortion. She sneaked across the border into the U.S. and got her abortion, and I remember being glad. Not because I hate babies (or whatever), but because she absolutely would NOT let this guy dictate what she could or could not do with her own body.

What is your opinion of the current situation? Should this whole issue be reopened?

Generally I'm pro-legal-abortions. I don't really have any problems with the status quo (except maybe the part where PEI refuses to perform them, and seeks to avoid paying for them).

I don't have a position thoroughly thought out, but the 'life begins at conception' argument has always struck me as stupid. Clearly a fetus is not the same as an infant. Even if it were, life@conception would seem to me to effectively make both birth control pills and the morning after pill wrong in the same swoop as doing so for abortion (ethically, probably not legally), which strikes me as incredibly naive, and a terrible loss for the women's rights movement.

The private members bill in question is not something I could support, and I'm pretty glad that supporting it would be far to large a political liability for the Tories.

 

[CELTICEMPIRE]

I don't have a position thoroughly thought out, but the 'life begins at conception' argument has always struck me as stupid. Clearly a fetus is not the same as an infant.

Why is that so?

 

[Cynovolans]

How do you get all that from what I said? What "right" thing did Chantal Daigle not do, in your opinion? Would you deny an abortion to a woman whose pregnancy turned out to be ectopic, and therefore unviable? Women don't choose to have a pregnancy go wrong - that's up to Mother Nature, and sometimes she makes mistakes.

I really do want to hear a pro-life member on this forum explain their position on a woman going through an ectopic pregnancy. Is she justified in terminating a pregnancy that'll kill her, or do you tell her to hope for the best?

 

[Farm Boy]

I really do want to hear a pro-life member on this forum explain their position on a woman going through an ectopic pregnancy. Is she justified in terminating a pregnancy that'll kill her, or do you tell her to hope for the best?

I'm not sure you are going to get one, much less in the convenient "I believe this" format that would allow the satisfaction of squaring off against somebody.

The best I can do is try to explain a very high level overview of what I think those people believe.

The only people I can imagine advocating against ectopic pregnancies are pretty hard core Catholics. At least you can give them consistency on this topic. They will oppose all forms of birth control and all forms of abortion. If you don't want to have a child, don't have sex and try not to get raped. If you do wind up pregnant, God is the alpha and the omega, there is a reason it happened. Even if everything appears to be wrong about it, it's part of God's plan and it is up to you and yours to deal with it as best you may. Nothing will justify the killing of what is defined as a human. You have to take into account that faith also believes in the direct intervention of God in everyday life through the intercession of saints and tangible proof of miracles, so the hand of God in their lives will seem to them much more visceral.

Disagree with them on religious grounds all you want but it is nice that we are keeping it civil. At least the Catholics are pretty consistent. They have a bright-line definition for life and they stand by it across the board from birth control to euthanasia to capital punishment. I really don't understand the "kill-em-all" pro-life pro-capital punishment militant evangelical protestants.

Edit: ack, forgot to answer the direct question. I don't believe they would tell her to "hope for the best," I believe they would tell her the pregnancy is going to kill her and to make peace.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

The main thing that I took from this thread is that, as a male, I shouldn't have an opinion on abortion. Which is fine by me, since I'm not going to have children anyway. But I will ask this:

How many pro-lifers here have had a family member require an abortion for one medical reason or another? Just asking.

 

[History_Buff]

Why is that so?

Because there's nearly no difference between a fertilized egg and the unfertilized egg that existed moments before it. Because a fetus lacks any observable sentience. Because it lacks most of the qualities we use to define life. Because it lacks every quality we use to define humanity. I mean it's clearly alive, but a freshly fertilized egg is not all that different from the uncountable number of stem cells living inside me. A seed is a not a plant, and won't treat it as such.

That, and if you really, truly believe that a person, with all the rights that entails, just pops into being at the moment of conception, then it leads you down a ridiculous road where a lot more than abortion needs to be illegal.

 

[Farm Boy]

Well, a seed is by definition a plant and an embryo is by definition human. A fetus embryo possesses all the trademarks of life. I don't think those are the terms you are looking for. Genetically speaking, a fertilized egg and unfertilized egg have less in common than a person and a monkey.

Sentience and/or person-hood are closer to the distinctions you are looking for, I think. At least those terms will more accurately address the issue of women's reproductive rights and what rights, if any, you can justify assigning to the unborn. Somewhat ironically, some of the most committed women's rights advocates will simultaneously support the right to abort late-term fetuses while supporting feticide laws.

 

[Ajidica]

Because it lacks most of the qualities we use to define life.

For the record, the fertilized egg does fit the qualifications of life, just not human life.

 

[Traitorfish]

Why not? It's pretty indisputably a specimen of H. sapiens.

 

[El_Machinae]

I really think that sentience should be the proper metric. To me, this handily explains why we toss the placenta but keep the baby

 

[Winston Hughes]

I'm increasingly tending to think that the difficulty of a reasonable ethical debate on abortion lies in the failure to establish as shared metaphysical framework

Would you explain what you mean by 'shared metaphysical framework', and why it's necessary?

I really think that sentience should be the proper metric. To me, this handily explains why we toss the placenta but keep the baby

Where are we drawing that line, though?

 

[El_Machinae]

Well, that's something to be investigated after it's decided whether it's a metric or not. The advantage of "conception" or "birth" is that they're relatively clear lines, and only really 'fuzzy' within a couple hour period. Sentience might have a longer fuzzy period, but there're still obvious indicators on either side of that fuzzy period.

Biology is inherently sloppy. Most of our definitions are for convenience. Some people like to measure, for example, the 'heartbeat' of a fetus. While the heartbeat of a baby is a rather obvious thing, and embryos clearly have no heartbeats - there's a lengthy period of fetal development where 'heartbeat' is debatable.

 

[TheLastOne36]

There is nothing civil about government intervention in a woman's decision-making.

This.

A fetus is basically a parasite until the later stages of pregnancy.

Bravo. Just yesterday I was reading on Care2 how there are some Catholic hospitals that refuse to perform abortions for women who have ectopic pregnancies (where the fetus is growing outside the uterus). These are cases where the fetus has ZERO chance of survival, and the woman has an excellent chance of dying if the fetus is not removed. And yet the hospitals scream "Oh noes! We won't abort that baby - that would be MURDER!" And if/when the woman dies, they have the gall to spout some platitude about "God's will."

No. Such things are not "God's" will. They are the "will" of fanatics who claim to be pro-life, but have the most hypocritical way of showing it.

People can just ask to be transferred to another hospital to get the abortion done though, can they not?

 

[Akka]

I don't hink it's really something you can discuss.
It all hinges on one premise: what is a fetus ?
A fetus is either a human (btw, I don't think it is) in which case abortion would obviously be murder or it's just a bunch of cells which could potentially but won't necessarily grow into a human at some point in which case you can't really make an argument against abortion.
If people disagree on that they won't agree on anything else.

That sums up the "debate".

Save for one point : in many case, abortion is not about a "fetus" but an "embryo". Abortion with a fetus is a rather hard case to separate (we enter into what Basketcase describe, that is "when can you call it just a fetus and when does it becomes a baby"), but embryo not being a person can not really be challenged on nonreligious ground.

For the rest, the same arguments have been made over and over and over and over, so any abortion thread with people having already "discussed" it in the past will just see the same copy'n'paste of the same things and it's why it will quickly devolve into either pointless polite discourse, or inflammatory argument.