an abortion thread with no personal attacks

[IdiotsOpposite]

Sperm are haploid sex cells. Come on now. This is like sixth grade biology.

You had biology in sixth grade? Lucky. I had to wait until 10th.

 

[El_Machinae]

Sperm are haploid sex cells. Come on now. This is like sixth grade biology.

Yes, I know. If you think that my point can be refuted by sixth grade biology, you probably have missed the gist of what I was going for. Some credit, please

So, that 'halploid sex cell' is an essential component of what became me. There was only one specific sperm that had the potential of making me, a unique living being. That historical sperm cell was also unique and living. Killing that sperm cell would have prevented my existence as absolutely as if my mother had aborted me.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Well, I've never heard anyone who knows modern science argue that sperm are alive, but I've heard plenty of "Pro-choice" people use it to try to argue against the apparent "Silliness" of our position.

Are you referring to me?

GhostWriter, right from the bat to avoid confusion, this will not be an analogy directed towards the validity of the pro-life argument.

Imagine someone reasoning to ban masturbation because that someone is convinced that sperm is just as much human as an embryo for whatever reason

 

[Akka]

Hiya! We've been doing a relatively good job at not chain spamming insults at each other, and most of the pro-lifers in this thread seem to have had enough for now and gone to sleep. Think we can dress this sentiment up a little more than the standard posturing?

I'll grant you that, you've been remarkably polite, level-headed and respectful. And even quite open-minded.
But you still ignore the whole point, which was precisely what I called pro-life on. I thank you for being much better at being cordial than me (and I'm not sarcastic here), but in the end you're still doing exactly what I railed against.

In fact, you can notice the point is still being ignored by every pro-lifer here. Despite having been raised several times. That says it all.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

no leg to stand beside "there is some kind of invisible soul"

The ironic thing is I actually respect that point of view, (deliberately scratched the arbitrary part, since this actually is based on a conviction which has nothing to do with defining a person, but rather a religious believe). Not to base legislation on, but because it's honest and I do understand the opposition to abortion better when that argument is used than when that view is a motivator for starting to define personhood as one sees fit to have that coincide with the moment, at which point the arbitrary part rears it's ugly head again.

 

[Farm Boy]

There is murder only if you kill a person, not if you just destroy some cells.

In fact, you can notice the point is still being ignored by every pro-lifer here. Despite having been raised several times. That says it all.

Well, I guess I will try to address this more directly then. While I might personally see a developing soul attached to an embryo, I do not base my logic for a secular democracy's public policy solely on my faith. I understand that rational minds disagree here and do not support the typical legislative lobbying of the pro-life agenda.

What I see in an embryo is a developing person. It's certainly human. It isn't sentient as far as science can measure. It is a necessary stage in which we all once were. Just because this human, right now, is mute and lacking intelligence does not, in my mind, justify terminating it before it can develop these traits. It is going to get smarter. It is going to develop all the traits to which we attach secular value and it is going to develop these traits in a hurry. Just like we did. I see human value there. We wouldn't allow the euthanasia of a 20 year-old coma patient if the prognosis was that the individual was likely to wake up in a year. That isn't a cure-all comparison though. I also see the potential conflicts of interest between developing personhood, female rights to one's own body, and fatherhood. Abortion, in the majority of the cases it is performed, makes me tremendously sad.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I emotionally get the argument with regard to potential to the point I'm irrationally granting more rights to a sentient-less human foetus than to a sentient animal. I cannot explain that one rationally. Just because of the potential of it. The thing is, where do you draw the line on it? Are you and I denying potential humans existing by not pro-creating every chance possible?

The egg meets sperm moment is an arbitrary line when it comes to the argument from potential. It's a change of states for both, so it's an obvious one, but just not based on potential.

 

[Farm Boy]

Animal rights are complex as well.

If I have to draw a line it lies with action. I have to take an action to "start" a human. Failing to take that action means it never is. The comparison to choosing not to save somebody who is drowning(as used before) isn't quite a good match. If you don't procreate that person never is. Once pregnant, though, abortion is an active action taken to stop that embryo from developing sentience.

I don't think this can be entirely rational, but that is ok. We aren't entirely rational beings.

 

[Traitorfish]

I don't really understand the "potential sentience" argument, to be honest. If you plan to abort a foetus, then it has no potential for sentience, because the possibility of it attaining sentience is 0, which we under no other circumstances describe as "potential"; we do not say that I could "potentially" leap over the Empire State Building, for example, despite it being just as likely.

If I have to draw a line it lies with action. I have to take an action to "start" a human. Failing to take that action means it never is. The comparison to choosing not to save somebody who is drowning(as used before) isn't quite a good match. If you don't procreate that person never is. Once pregnant, though, abortion is an active action taken to stop that embryo from developing sentience.

But by the same token, bringing the foetus to term involves a series of deliberate interventions- breathing, eating, moving around, none of these things happen apart from the human actually doing them. Inaction, in this case, would be lying down on the ground and staying perfectly still until you die, which is just as much a certain oblivion for the foetus as an abortion.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Animal rights are complex as well.

If I have to draw a line it lies with action. I have to take an action to "start" a human. Failing to take that action means it never is. The comparison to choosing not to save somebody who is drowning(as used before) isn't quite a good match. If you don't procreate that person never is. Once pregnant, though, abortion is an active action taken to stop that embryo from developing sentience.

I don't think this can be entirely rational, but that is ok. We aren't entirely rational beings.

Action seems fair but not strong enough for a ban, and in principle it would need to include contraception. Because there isn't much difference in an embryo and one which is about to be in those regards.

Those sentiments aren't very helpful when you think about legislation though, just subjective opinion.

 

[Farm Boy]

Inaction, in this case, would be lying down on the ground and staying perfectly still until you die, which is just as much a certain oblivion for the foetus as an abortion.

I will willingly stipulate, loudly, that bringing a child to term is a helluva lot of work. I am not asking for a little from those with unwanted pregnancies. I am asking for a lot. Forming an adoption plan gives a lot as well. It's worth asking for, it's worth begging for, and it's worth more than my pride. Personal value judgements may vary.

That said, it's still more realistic than jumping over the Empire State building so long as you weren't born on Krypton. Suicide by inaction is not really functionally on point with what I was saying. A total refusal to act in any way would be so far out of the norm of human behavior that it in itself would be more likely considered an active action than would be going on with "life as normal." A hunger strike is generally considered an endeavor even if it itself is merely the failure to eat. If a woman is indeed suicidal I would hope we can properly identify this and offer any and all medical/medicinal help available.

 

[Formaldehyde]

I can't wait for the day when willing embryo and fetus recipients line up at the Planned Parenthood clinics to have all of them them implanted in their own uteri to eventually be brought to term.

 

[El_Machinae]

Animal rights are complex as well.

If I have to draw a line it lies with action. I have to take an action to "start" a human.

If we use this intuition (and I think it's a fair one, in many ways), then the sperm remains a controversial organism. Remember, I draw my history from one specific sperm. If it had been killed, I would not have existed.

Now, sperm can naturally die all the time, and they do. They're recycled by the male's body. But if we want to unnaturally kill a sperm, then it requires an action to do so. Effort is required in order to coax the sperm out of its natural environment, which then causes the sperm to die an ignominious death. Again, I am working with your conception of 'proactive' actions and 'passive' actions. Killing that sperm would have undone my potential as surely as if my mother had had an abortion

 

[vypernight]

The underlining problem is no one can define when life begins. Science has theories; religion has faith. NO ONE has cold hard facts. It may be a clump of cells or an emerging life with a soul attached. No one can prove 100% one way or another.

As for potential, natural, whatever, that means you're a murderer if you masturbate since you're 'unnaturally' killing off lots of 'potential' life-makers. A woman who has a period is a murderer for not making an effort to cause that egg to produce life. While you're at it, why don't you charge the person with 1000 counts of murder for removing the potential for desendants.

I'm getting a migraine from this already.

The already-living should take priority over the unknown living, not the other way around. Abortion is already a tough, terrible choice. The people going through it should be supported and/or offered options, not treated as cold-blooded killers.

Finally, using religion to justify banning abortion kills the argument right then and there. Just because your holy book tells you that cells are a living person doesn't mean another's will as well.

 

[Traitorfish]

I will willingly stipulate, loudly, that bringing a child to term is a helluva lot of work. I am not asking for a little from those with unwanted pregnancies. I am asking for a lot. Forming an adoption plan gives a lot as well. It's worth asking for, it's worth begging for, and it's worth more than my pride. Personal value judgements may vary.

That's fair enough.

That said, it's still more realistic than jumping over the Empire State building so long as you weren't born on Krypton.

It's more realistic, I'll grant you that, but it doesn't mean that it's any more likely. It's more realistic (or, at least, less unrealistic) that I'd jump over the Empire State Building than that I'd jump over the Taipei Tower, but both have an equal probability of occurring.

Suicide by inaction is not really functionally on point with what I was saying. A total refusal to act in any way would be so far out of the norm of human behavior that it in itself would be more likely considered an active action than would be going on with "life as normal." A hunger strike is generally considered an endeavor even if it itself is merely the failure to eat. If a woman is indeed suicidal I would hope we can properly identify this and offer any and all medical/medicinal help available.

I get what you're saying, and I admit that it can seem counter-intuitive to pose "lie down and die" as the passive option. However, I think this confuses everyday speech for ontology, and it's important when discussing an ethical issue of this weight to rid ourselves of the prejudices of daily life. We need to understand activity as being fundamentally a matter of engagement with the world, and therefore inactivity as a refusal of engagement; whether or not any particular process of engagement is typical or exceptional is really neither here nor there.

The underlining problem is no one can define when life begins. Science has theories; religion has faith. NO ONE has cold hard facts. It may be a clump of cells or an emerging life with a soul attached. No one can prove 100% one way or another.

It isn't necessary to prove the non-existence of a soul, any more than it's necessary to prove the non-existence of Zeus. We simply observe that there does not appear to be any reason why we should believe such a thing exists, and go about our business as if it did not. The burden of proof lies squarely with those making the positive claim of the existence of an immaterial essence, so I don't see why that's an "underlying problem" for anyone but them.

 

[timtofly]

The underlining problem is no one can define when life begins. Science has theories; religion has faith. NO ONE has cold hard facts. It may be a clump of cells or an emerging life with a soul attached. No one can prove 100% one way or another.

As for potential, natural, whatever, that means you're a murderer if you masturbate since you're 'unnaturally' killing off lots of 'potential' life-makers. A woman who has a period is a murderer for not making an effort to cause that egg to produce life. While you're at it, why don't you charge the person with 1000 counts of murder for removing the potential for desendants.

I'm getting a migraine from this already.

The already-living should take priority over the unknown living, not the other way around. Abortion is already a tough, terrible choice. The people going through it should be supported and/or offered options, not treated as cold-blooded killers.

Finally, using religion to justify banning abortion kills the argument right then and there. Just because your holy book tells you that cells are a living person doesn't mean another's will as well.

Is a scientist relying on his theories, similiar to religion relying on written down words? Just because the exact wordage is different, I don't think people 3000 years ago were that stupid when it came to a "person" forming in a womb. They already knew that spilling sperm on the ground would prevent a child from being born. Like you said, no one has the cold hard facts. For all one knows, the soul may not even be given until the child can breath their own first breath.

Yes there are some who think the death penalty should be handed down, but not sure if they have a Biblical leg to stand on. People were killed by God, for not even producing sperm. People were killed by God for offering up infants to be burned to the god's. That is a pretty wide spectrum as you pointed out. So drawing a line in the sand is probably not wise to do, but people still do it. I am not sure why some get angry at others for trying to save lives. Other than the death penalty bit, which is a little overboard. Not to mention the fact that in the USofA Christians should not be legislating morals. They can voice their objections, but using government to force Christianity on people has always backfired historically.

 

[Farm Boy]

Effort is required in order to coax the sperm out of its natural environment

Ok, I'm pretty sure you win the thread with this euphemism. Probably going to giggle about this for half the morning.

I get what you're saying, and I admit that it can seem counter-intuitive to pose "lie down and die" as the passive option. However, I think this confuses everyday speech for ontology, and it's important when discussing an ethical issue of this weight to rid ourselves of the prejudices of daily life. We need to understand activity as being fundamentally a matter of engagement with the world, and therefore inactivity as a refusal of engagement; whether or not any particular process of engagement is typical or exceptional is really neither here nor there.

I'm not going to go along with you here. Ethical issues do not functionally take place in a frictionless vacuum of logic. The vaguely masturb...ah..."coaxurbatory" process of evaluating decisions in a vacuum might but fun, and it is important to do, but it is ultimately of limited use. The prejudices of daily life and everyday speech are the context and language in which those who face this decision understand it and make it.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

If I'd ejaculate on an anvil, and I took a hammer and then .. would that ... hmm, the Chamber eh?

Better not.

 

[Domen]

So to refer to the most discussed alternative - electronic cars - I take it the expensiveness of those, their short range of operation, the long time it takes to recharge them and the short life-expectancy of the batteries all are not relevant? Or perhaps those are all lies facilitated by you know who?

Electronic cars is an obsolete idea. There are much better ideas currently.

 

[Traitorfish]

I'm not going to go along with you here. Ethical issues do not functionally take place in a frictionless vacuum of logic. The vaguely masturb...ah..."coaxurbatory" process of evaluating decisions in a vacuum might but fun, and it is important to do, but it is ultimately of limited use. The prejudices of daily life and everyday speech are the context and language in which those who face this decision understand it and make it.

I don't think that it makes sense to embrace woolliness of thought just because it's familiar. That's a rejection of critical thought in favour of possibly groundless certainties, an abandonment of basic intellectual responsibility. It's not about making decisions in a vacuum (whatever you mean by this), but attempting to apprehend the world as it really is, or, at least, as we really experience it, rather than settling for how this-or-that received ideology tells us we experience it. It's not enough to say "I am used to thinking like this", one must be able to say "I am justified in thinking like this", and I don't think that we're at all justified in describing mundane engagement as passivity.