[RD] Restrictions on Abortions are illiberal

[Cutlass]

Most principled ancaps are teens and twenty-somethings who live with their parents.

You mean people to immature to have principles, or understand the implications of what they are talking about.

 

[El_Machinae]

Abortion is very much a different case, insofar as you've created the dependency. It's not a simple enslavement/parasite case.

If I were to kidnap you, tie you up, and then dangle you via a highrise building, I then become morally responsible for making sure you make it safely back to the roof. It's a very different circumstance from someone putting a gun to my head, a rope in my hand, and the suggestion that I may not let go of said rope.

In one circumstance, if I let go of the rope, claiming my hands were tired, I am a murderer. In the other, I am also a victim.

Now, I don't think that the moral status of a fetus begins until after 25 weeks, but the 'liberal' argument for post-25 week abortion doesn't sway me the least. There are oodles of good reasons to have them be available, but this isn't one of them.

 

[Mouthwash]

You mean people to immature to have principles, or understand the implications of what they are talking about.

Yes. Those are the only kinds of people who think liberalism is totally perfect.

 

[Cutlass]

Yes. Those are the only kinds of people who think liberalism is totally perfect.

No one thinks it's perfect. It is people with a mature moral compass who think it's the best of all alternatives.

 

[timtofly]

I believe in the permissability of abortion because the cognitive abilities of a fetus is such that they should not be deemed persons. This absolves me of most of the moral quandaries supposed in the opening post. At least as far as abortion is concerned.

I would be curious to what @OP would think about the following case:
B is dying and needs to live parasitically off A for 9 months to survive
A agrees to allow B to live parasitically 9 months in order to survive
After 4 months A decides "screw B, I hate his obsession with violin music, I'm withdrawing my consent"
Do you think it's permissible to prevent A from killing B?

I in fact would say that it is permissible to prevent A from doing so.

Overall I think bodily integrity is an extremely important thing, but when people start talking in absolute rights terms I start getting skeptical, things are seldom that simple.

Some could argue that a human is not self aware until almost a year old, and at what stage do you want to consider the larvae human form, that is not human? We could just exterminate the humans that leech off of others as they rape them for their selfish addictive purposes. Is there a fine line between addiction and the evolutionary need to procreate? We make the claim that morals are part of the evolutionary process, but should we even have morals, because it seems to stifle any liberal thought processes that have also allegedly evolved as well. It would seem to me though that morals evolved and later came liberal ideologies to get past morality.

 

[Arakhor]

Moderator Action: Simmer down people, or the thread will need to be cooled down manually.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[warpus]

You never follow an ideology 100%. That's why things being "illiberal" are fine

 

[Akka]

I'm a strong believer in giving people full agency about their bodies, and I have to say, limiting abortion to only the first few weeks of the pregnancy is an unacceptable restriction to that.

Think about it like this:
If another person could only survive by "parasitically feeding on your body" in some way, you would have the right to deny that person that privilege, and therefor sentence the person to death. Even if the consequences for you would be trivial, no person has the right to use you as a "host" of sorts. The right for bodily self-determination trumps every other right - as it rightfully should.

Except you enter a state when your own self-determination clash with the self-determination of the baby.
As long as it's an embryo, a simple lump of cells without nervous system and as such a nonperson, no problem.
Once it becomes a fetus, and gets a brain, then it starts becoming a person, and you can't just say "what I want to do trumps everything else".

Pregnancy is a bit different in scope of course - after all, the person that is growing in your body is growing there because of your own decisions - but I don't see how that would affect the situation. The person that is growing in you would not even have the chance to grow at all if you had not made other decisions before, so why would you forfeit the right to a part of your body? That doesn't make sense to me.

You said it yourself - it's because your own decision. You accepted responsability, after it has crossed the treshold into a being you can't just whims it away.


Also :

I just saw this, not sure if we should make a new thread
But regarding rape pregnancy and what happens to many girls in Republican states, its not pretty either

[insane story]

What the effing eff ?
Like, dafuq ? In ten metres high letters.

 

[warpus]

Once it becomes a fetus, and gets a brain, then it starts becoming a person, and you can't just say "what I want to do trumps everything else".

The problem is trying to come up with a legal way to designate legal personhood that begins before birth. Where do you draw the line and why? It's why we do it at birth, it's legally unambiguous this way.

 

[Akka]

The problem is trying to come up with a legal way to designate legal personhood that begins before birth. Where do you draw the line and why? It's why we do it at birth, it's legally unambiguous this way.

Actually, I was pleasantly surprised, when I did some cursory research some years ago, that the legal abortion limit was (at the time at least) based exactly on the same reasoning as mine :
A person is defined by having a brain (for obvious reason), the nervous system starts to develops when an embryo becomes a fetus, it happens roughly about 12 weeks, and the limit for abortion (outside medical reasons of course) was set at 12 weeks.

 

[onejayhawk]

I'm with you until that very last sentence. "Birth" is not a morally satisfactory line, given that, aside from anything else, it can be achieved artificially by Cesarean section. If we can decide when birth is, even within limits, as we do in an ever-increasing number of cases, it can't be possibly treated as a point of objective moral transformation.

I mean, what does a moment-before-birth abortion actually look like, if not a Cesarean and a closed adoption? Actually terminating the pregnancy at that point would be more dangerous and more invasive, not less so.

Exactly. A viable fetus is much more reasonable. At that point you are dealing with two lives. Then it should be a matter for courts, with the fetus having a representative..

The problem is trying to come up with a legal way to designate legal personhood that begins before birth. Where do you draw the line and why? It's why we do it at birth, it's legally unambiguous this way.

For practical purposes, rule out the last two months and seriously consider the whole third trimester. Again, we have courts for a reason. After, say 26 weeks, present a case to a magistrate showing some compelling reason to medically end a life. A doctor can set a date of conception early in the pregnancy. Simply count off 182 days.

J

 

[warpus]

Actually, I was pleasantly surprised, when I did some cursory research some years ago, that the legal abortion limit was (at the time at least) based exactly on the same reasoning as mine :
A person is defined by having a brain (for obvious reason), the nervous system starts to develops when an embryo becomes a fetus, it happens roughly about 12 weeks, and the limit for abortion (outside medical reasons of course) was set at 12 weeks.

Did your research lead to an understanding as to why we don't use this milestone to designate legal personhood and wait until birth?

 

[onejayhawk]

Did your research lead to an understanding as to why we don't use this milestone to designate legal personhood and wait until birth?

It should be noted that law has recognized a late term unborn as a life for centuries, since Rome IIRC. Consider McDuff, who was from his mother untimely ripped.

J

 

[Ryika]

I dunno, it seems to me that with sex you're agreeing to have sex until you don't want sex anymore. But in the parasite case you're agreeing full the full term of the treatment not until you no longer feel like it.

Well, make it a case about prostitution then. What if you paid for an hour, and in the middle of it, she starts feeling bad and wants you to stop. Of course not doing so would still be rape.

You simply cannot be forced to uphold an offer of your body over a certain period of time in any other case, even if you made a promise to do so.

So yeah...

I mean consider if the person signed a statement initially agreeing to see it out for the full 9 months. Should they still be allowed to back out despite them signing a promise?

...within the context of self-determination being accepted as the highest value, of course it should.

Except you enter a state when your own self-determination clash with the self-determination of the baby.
As long as it's an embryo, a simple lump of cells without nervous system and as such a nonperson, no problem.
Once it becomes a fetus, and gets a brain, then it starts becoming a person, and you can't just say "what I want to do trumps everything else".

Yes, but that person still requires your body. In no other situation would you be forced to let another human use you that way, even if you initially consented.

That's what I still have not read a convincing argument for, why you can "sign away" self-determination for months in this one case only. You would not be able to do that in other cases where it means the death of another human being (as in, you would always have the right to opt out of any promises made), so what exactly is different? The only difference I see is that you "created" this dependency, but I don't really see that as a strong factor either, as without you, that life wouldn't have existed in the first place, it's not like you dragged a perfectly-viable being into the state of being dependent on you.

 

[Akka]

Yes, but that person still requires your body. In no other situation would you be forced to let another human use you that way, even if you initially consented.

Because there IS no other situation that alike this one which exists.

That's what I still have not read a convincing argument for, why you can "sign away" self-determination for months in this one case only. You would not be able to do that in other cases where it means the death of another human being (as in, you would always have the right to opt out of any promises made), so what exactly is different?

1) Actually no, you don't have the right to opt out what you put your responsability in just because you changed your mind. You can't just say "no, I don't wish to reimburse my loan after all". Well you can say it, but you don't get to stop paying it anyway.
2) Because there IS no way out save for killing someone. We might, as a society, give a "right to screw up" and try to mitigate the consequences of someone making bad decisions, but that's because we can find ways to compensate. You can't find a way to compensate killing someone like that.
3) You're the one putting someone in a state of dependency. You can't then yank the rug under their feet. Just like I can't tie you up and throw you in the water and then say "hey, I have no duty to care for someone else, she could have swim by herself, I'm not responsible for her drowning".

The only difference I see is that you "created" this dependency, but I don't really see that as a strong factor either, as without you, that life wouldn't have existed in the first place, it's not like you dragged a perfectly-viable being into the state of being dependent on you.

1) Following your reasoning, you get the right of life and death on all your descendants, because after all, without you they wouldn't exist. I'm pretty sure you can realize how bogus this reasoning is.
2) The "only difference" is a pretty major one, I don't see how or why you think you can just shrug it away as a trivial little detail. The only difference between consensual sex and rape is consent, I'm pretty sure it's still sufficient to make one fun and the other a major crime.

Well, make it a case about prostitution then. What if you paid for an hour, and in the middle of it, she starts feeling bad and wants you to stop. Of course not doing so would still be rape.

Stopping having sex doesn't kill someone.

You simply cannot be forced to uphold an offer of your body over a certain period of time in any other case, even if you made a promise to do so.

Why not ?


BTW, I'm pretty sure you're playing the Devil's Advocate in this entire thread

 

[Traitorfish]

Well, that's again the rape example, isn't it?

A agrees to have Sex with B.
After a bit, A decides: "Screw B, this is not fun, I'm withdrawing my consent."
But B is having fun! Doesn't mean it's permissible to prevent A from withdrawing consent.

That example does of course lack the heavy hitter of death of person B being the consequence, but it works by the same logic. There might be a case to be made about ignoring our general values in extremely one-sided cases, but such a case would need to be argued for. As it stands, no, I don't think it would be permissible to prevent A from withdrawing their consent to support B.

If A proposed to resolve the situation by killing B, we might tend to see that as a moral conundrum. And therein lies the central question, at what point does the act of terminating a pregnancy become the act of killing of person?

 

[El_Machinae]

Not really. You actually did drag it into dependency. The dependency was created. By you. Insignificantly different from dangling someone off a roof. They weren't there. And you put them there.

 

[Berzerker]

fetuses aren't parasites

 

[Broken_Erika]

The parasitic stage starts after birth.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

fetuses aren't parasites

actually we all are parasites, feeding off of gaia in the most despicable way imagineable.

not just the planet's ressources of course, we essentially feed off of every life form. us included, of course.

even the ones we do not breed, eat, abuse for their labor or their bodily juices we use for entertainment.

maybe your statement is correct to some degree. maybe a fetus is the least parasytic of all the human stages.

(well, almost. obviously a dead human would be better )