Why no argument for abortion has ever worked.

[Vectors]

So, 50 years ago rape was also rape. (Very generous of you to prefer affirmative consent in general, by the way. I guess that leaves some exceptions...)

50 years ago drugging and raping women wasn't legally rape, you couldn't legally rape your spouse, etc.

Yes means yes with the sole exception of marriage where no still means no.

And then there's child abandonment, also widely practiced. If only there had been proper abortion facilities around...

Abandoning children with the intention of them dying is a type of infanticide

Eligible to be adopted doesn't really mean anything if no one is willing to adopt you.

There is a huge demand for adoptions in the US.

Seriously? It's the woman who needs to request an abortion in the first place. If anything a doctor may discourage it - for whatever reason.

There are doctors who will go so far as to say the only responsible thing to do is abortion in cases such as Down Syndrome. Many people will uncritically accept what doctors say.




Valka, I'll reply when I have more time

 

[Commodore]

No. Just. No.

It is NEVER "morally right" to force a 12-year-old (or even younger) rape victim to carry her rapist's baby. NEVER. It is NEVER "morally right" to harass women entering a clinic to receive health services that are legal, and many of which actually have nothing to do with abortion.

I could go on all day with this... there are just some things that only a sick, twisted, utterly cruel mind could deem "moral" and these are but two of them.

I think you may have misread my comment. Read it again and I think you will find we are in agreement on this issue.

Does that then make abolitionists wrong and repugnant for opposing the majority belief in the acceptability or righteousness of slavery?

By the standards of the time, yes. By modern standards, no.

 

[Lexicus]

Seriously? Abolitionists were 'wrong and repugnant' to oppose slavery before the 1860s?

We are never going to see eye to eye on that.

I also find it kind of (read: extremely) ironic that your measure of morality is apparently "what the majority thinks" yet you actually said you don't think democracy works because of "the tyranny of the majority"

 

[Agent327]

I think what was pointed out is that what is moral changes with the times.

50 years ago drugging and raping women wasn't legally rape, you couldn't legally rape your spouse, etc.

Actually, you never can legally rape anyone.

Yes means yes with the sole exception of marriage where no still means no.

Perhaps you should read that back one more time.

Abandoning children with the intention of them dying is a type of infanticide

I'm sure. But child abandonment was widely practiced in a culture where infanticide was considered immoral.

There is a huge demand for adoptions in the US.

This was answered already. But just to point out that while there is 'a huge demand', there are also plenty of juveniles in foster institutions.

There are doctors who will go so far as to say the only responsible thing to do is abortion in cases such as Down Syndrome. Many people will uncritically accept what doctors say.

50 years ago maybe.

 

[Traitorfish]

Seriously? Abolitionists were 'wrong and repugnant' to oppose slavery before the 1860s?

We are never going to see eye to eye on that.

There are a lot of people out there who seem to think cultural relativism means "nihilism plus conformity".

At least when they're criticising cultural relativism, I understand why they'd want to blur the lines like that. But when they're advocating it? Always baffles me.

 

[Tahuti]

Seriously? Abolitionists were 'wrong and repugnant' to oppose slavery before the 1860s?

We are never going to see eye to eye on that.

I also find it kind of (read: extremely) ironic that your measure of morality is apparently "what the majority thinks" yet you actually said you don't think democracy works because of "the tyranny of the majority"

Morality is not absolute. Some pioneers in moral thought, like Friedrich Nietzsche, the 1960s counterculture movement and indeed, the abolitionists held views about morality that were at odds at what was commonly accepted, risking being viewed 'wrong and repugnant' in their time and the time after. It is shocking to reject Christianity before Christians, Governmental authority before police officers and racial stereotypes before Rednecks.

Yet, they succeeded where they could have failed. Morality is subjective and the degree over which a certain morality is in line with reality is dependent on the social power people who subscribe to that particular morality have. Yet, the most inclusive morality, the one least susceptible to superstitions such as racism, prudeness and econocentrism is also the most stable, because people who live under it find themselves less interested in destroying the agents of its enforcement.

 

[Lexicus]

There is a big difference between understanding that cultural hegemony affects people's sense of morality, and claiming that the hegemonic morality is the correct one. Like, yeah, hegemonic narrative affects people's moral sense. Duh, that's a relatively trivial observation. But to then say that the hegemonic narrative is the the right one simply by virtue of its being hegemonic? I will never agree to that. It's also very poor analysis in that it doesn't explain how the hegemonic narrative shifts.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

50 years ago drugging and raping women wasn't legally rape, you couldn't legally rape your spouse, etc.

Yes means yes with the sole exception of marriage where no still means no.

Whut?

Are you saying that yes doesn't mean yes between married people, and no only means no between married people?

There is a huge demand for adoptions in the US.

We've already agreed that this "huge demand" only applies for newborns, not older, "pre-owned" children. And since adoption agencies expect to be paid for their services, this is basically like saying it's okay to have puppy mills because there's always a market for puppies, and who cares about the older dogs languishing at the animal shelter?

What you're suggesting is banning abortion so the adoption agencies will always have a supply of the particular commodity they sell - in this case, human babies.

There are doctors who will go so far as to say the only responsible thing to do is abortion in cases such as Down Syndrome. Many people will uncritically accept what doctors say.

A doctor might say this if he/she knows the parents (or single mother) doesn't have the finances or family/social support system required to take care of such a child.

As always, it's the mother's decision. And while some Down Syndrome children do grow up happy and healthy, there are others who just end up institutionalized.


Personally, I have learned to never "uncritically accept" what my doctor says. If I had, I'd probably be dead by now.


BTW, there's a situation in Canada going on now; our country has joined the 21st century and legalized RU-486, the "abortion pill". The kicker, however, is that most women probably won't be able to access it because Health Canada wants doctors to stock and dispense it at their offices, rather than allowing a pharmacist to do it.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ru-486-abortion-pill-canada-1.3665865

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Moral arguments against abortion in the early stages of development hold no water. For the same reason there is no moral distinction between the above mentioned 5 minutes before birth and 5 minutes after (barring a threat to the mother's health), there is no real distinction between a zygote, and a sperm and an egg separately. The only way you give any kind of moral significance to the moment of conception is through a higher moral power - religion.

I entirely agree with you, and yet I find this to be nonsense at the same time. I agree with your summary of the facts completely, but you have no grounds to talk so objectively about something as subjective as morality, nor can you justifiably categorically state that religion is the only possible contributing factor to such a moral argument. As an individual person (presumanly not God), you don't get to decide these things.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I always find funny and pretty revealing how this absolutely fundamental distinction is nearly always completely ignored by the anti-abortion arguments. Probably because they have absolutely no case if they don't strawman as such.

I also find it revealing that you would phrase it like that, given that this has not been mentioned in the thread (up to this point) by the pro-abortion arguers either. One of whom specifically supported abortion up to about 25 weeks.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I think you may have misread my comment. Read it again and I think you will find we are in agreement on this issue.

I read it as her criticising your view that it WOULD become moral the moment the majority supported the position. I believe she was saying that it would always be immoral even if only a small minority felt it was such. So I think in that respect you two disagree. That's my take on it anyway.

 

[metalhead]

I entirely agree with you, and yet I find this to be nonsense at the same time. I agree with your summary of the facts completely, but you have no grounds to talk so objectively about something as subjective as morality, nor can you justifiably categorically state that religion is the only possible contributing factor to such a moral argument. As an individual person (presumanly not God), you don't get to decide these things.

When it comes to the difference between a zygote, and a sperm and egg separately, I can. The only significance the zygote has different from the egg and sperm, is the significance of a "soul" given to it through religious dogma. They're all just cells.

Perhaps other arguments exist, but I haven't heard them.

 

[Lexicus]

Well, the zygote can actually grow itself by cell division while sperm and eggs on their own cannot.

 

[metalhead]

Well of course there are differences, but a cell being capable of mitosis isn't exactly a basis for saying it's morally wrong to kill the cell. There are plenty of differences between the 5 minutes before birth kid, and the 5 minutes after birth kid, too. The question is, do those differences matter in how each ought to be treated by the law.

 

[Lexicus]

*shrug* sure, but the moment you get into morality you can't make objective statements anymore. Sure, you and I agree that the differences are not great enough for there to be different treatment under the law, but not everyone does (obviously).

BTW, I agree with you that the obsession with pretending fetuses and zygotes are morally equivalent to human beings derives from the religious belief in souls, regardless of whether the holder of the belief realizes it or not.

 

[metalhead]

I never said it was absolutely not morally objectionable. I said that it is only morally objectionable if you grant a zygote special properties, properties which only exist as part of various religious traditions. Those arguments don't hold water as a reason to ban abortion, because it imposes religious laws on our society, something the constitution is pretty clearly against.

 

[Lexicus]

Well I was referring to this:

but a cell being capable of mitosis isn't exactly a basis for saying it's morally wrong to kill the cell.

We agree on everything else (in fact, we agree on this but the way you phrased it, it makes it seem like you're saying no one could possibly argue otherwise). Obviously, so-called pro-life people do not argue this consistently, they instead make zygotes into a special case.

 

[Akka]

I also find it revealing that you would phrase it like that, given that this has not been mentioned in the thread (up to this point) by the pro-abortion arguers either. One of whom specifically supported abortion up to about 25 weeks.

It might have not been mentioned in this thread, but it certainly is a core point of the legislation and, even if not expressely spelled out, is based on the prevalent founding concept that we put values on the persons, not simply on ADN.

*shrug* sure, but the moment you get into morality you can't make objective statements anymore.

I'd disagree with that.
I'd say that the core concept of morality is absolute, but that it requires to take context in account, which adds a lot of relativity. But with still some absolute at its core.

 

[Commodore]

I also find it kind of (read: extremely) ironic that your measure of morality is apparently "what the majority thinks" yet you actually said you don't think democracy works because of "the tyranny of the majority"

The difference being that one thing is what I think and the other is how things actually are. I, personally, may not like morality on a societal scale being determined by the majority, but me not liking it doesn't change the fact that's the "reality on the ground" so to speak.

 

[Lexicus]

I'd disagree with that.
I'd say that the core concept of morality is absolute, but that it requires to take context in account, which adds a lot of relativity. But with still some absolute at its core.

You're talking past me here. What does 'the core concept of morality is absolute' mean?