Why no argument for abortion has ever worked.

[miaasma]

All fine and dandy but fact is a great proportion of the 'pro life crowd' are also pro abstinence and anti-birth control.

interesting to consider this when most of them attempt to operate from some sort of moral highground, when it's clear they don't care about the lives of affected parents, nor about children born into poor circumstances

i like to call it a convenient sort of morality since it's only invoked when it involves controlling other people, specifically women

 

[TheMeInTeam]

A fine and dandy touchy feely approach that basically removes the ability to make generalized statements about abortion. It removes the logic from the conversation the same way as religion does.

Which illustrates the real reason why there is no logic argument for abortion. All of the persuasive arguments about abortion are made from ethos and pathos, not logos. Looking for a logical argument on either side is a fool's errand.

However, when one goes to set policies, it's rationality that should be winning. What are the measured/anticipated consequences of restricting or allowing it? *What actually happens* when you set a policy is a pretty important consideration whether you should go with that policy.

If you want functional governance, it's a greater priority than pathos.

It can't develop any sapience by itself. Neither can an egg.

I don't think you can make a case that a fetus can, "by itself", develop sapience. It would not live long. You handwaved that question, but the answer given was not self-consistent.

I would actually like to see some "fool's errand", non-pathos arguments for either side fleshed out. "This is right/wrong because that's how I feel" isn't credible, if anything using that as the basis for policy-setting is a greater fool's errand.

 

[Princeps]

No, democratic laws are mainly used to keep order in society, not to bring about moral outcomes.

Yeah, but what are moral outcomes? How do you determine that unless it through some type of a elective process? I think... it's called a democracy.

'They appear human to us' is not a good criteria.

That's the only criteria. We categorize things according to how they appear to us, and how they relate to us.

What's the difference between this and valuing fellow whites over dark-skinned people?

Because despite racial differences, you can objectively demonstrate that blacks and whites are people. They have clear properties that set them apart from fetuses. For one, they're not spineless, mindless blobs of flesh.

Your whole argument is based on the idea that people are so mindlessly stupid that unless we find the perfect moral system to guide them, they somehow fall for the most obvious moral loopholes and start supporting absurd evil. This not how people work.

Telling people that fetuses are not people does not mean that they will suddenly start thinking that blacks aren't people.

I didn't say it would at all. I just think it's morally equivalent.

I can't help it if you are blind to the obvious. They're simply not.

And that nut's inherent purpose (for lack of a better word) is to become a tree. That's why nuts evolved.

Yeah. There is a difference between actual and potential.

Potential means it doesn't exist. So a potential human isn't actually a human.

A fetus is a potential human. Not actually human.

 

[BvBPL]

However, when one goes to set policies, it's rationality that should be winning. What are the measured/anticipated consequences of restricting or allowing it? *What actually happens* when you set a policy is a pretty important consideration whether you should go with that policy.



If you want functional governance, it's a greater priority than pathos.

Just because something is not logical does not mean it is not rational. For example, my argument from state duties is from ethos and is rational. That is not to say that end results are not important. An argument from end results does not mandate a certain form of persuasion.

 

[civvver]

Well, as I'm in the camp that assigns moral worth to fetuses and still believes abortion should be legal, no questions asked, that doesn't entirely satisfy me. I think most women who have abortions do not feel about it the same way as they would about, I dunno, picking off a scab or something. It's a big deal. But 'the rights of the fetus' is a one-dimensional way to look at the issue, that actually leads to greater harm and abuse than other ways of looking at the issue.

Do you think it's morally wrong to have an abortion? You can think something is wrong without having to argue to outlaw it legally. I do believe Christians forget this almost all the time.

 

[Lexicus]

Do you think it's morally wrong to have an abortion? You can think something is wrong without having to argue to outlaw it legally. I do believe Christians forget this almost all the time.

I don't think there is one answer to the question. Whether abortion is morally right depends on the circumstances, and I think the best judge of the circumstances in any given case is the pregnant woman, her doctor, and/or whomever else she wants to involve in the decision.

This means that there are probably many abortions that happen that I would consider unethical, strictly speaking, but it simply isn't my place to comment on it and I feel it would be even more unethical for me to legislate that decision away from the people whom it concerns most closely.

 

[warpus]

Even if you take abortion as an option away from women (which would be highly immoral), abortions will still happen.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Are you saying that people will break the law to get what they want?

 

[classical_hero]

http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/06/27/supreme-court-strikes-modest-abortion-restrictions-highlights-2016-election-stakes/

In sum, the Court’s holding that petitioners’ second facial challenge to the admitting privileges requirement is not barred by claim preclusion is not supported by any of our cases or any body of lower court precedent; is contrary to the bedrock rule that a party cannot relitigate a claim simply because the party has obtained new and better evidence … In a regular case, an attempt by petitioners to relitigate their previously unsuccessful facial challenge to the admitting privileges requirement would have been rejected out of hand—indeed, might have resulted in the imposition of sanctions … No court would ever think of revising such a claim on its own. But in this abortion case, ordinary rules of law — and fairness — are suspended.

This is the dissenting view from Judge Alito and it show just how much the Supreme court has become a law unto itself. They are constantly making laws up based on their own prefernce not based on what is written.

To address warpus' point, what about all the other regulations then? Does then mean that if guns are regulated then they will be acquired some other way? What about the proposed soda regulations? But the real problem is the myth being displayed by those in the court about how people would just simple go to back alley abortions, which was never true, but it looks like we haven't learnt anything from the Kermit Gosnell case. http://thefederalist.com/2016/06/27/washington-posts-kermit-gosnell-denialism-is-out-of-control/

So the “major myth” that the “Notorious RBG smacks down” is, apparently, that Kermit Gosnell existed and was a serial murderer who operated under an abortion regime so permissive that he hadn’t been inspected in 17 years and was only found out thanks to unrelated regulatory oversight of the drug trade.

Except that she didn’t smack that “myth” down at all, partly because it’s anything but a myth, partly because she didn’t address how clinics like his are allowed to flourish without any oversight, and partly because she didn’t substantiate her own mythical claims. Gosnell existed under a legal abortion regime. As does my local clinic in Virginia that keeps running despite flagrant health and safety violations, year after year. As do countless other filthy and unsafe clinics operating throughout the country.



Completely apart from legitimate arguments about whether abortion clinics can or should be regulated, the Supreme Court ruling striking down health and safety regulations of Texas abortion clinics is a disingenuous and incoherent mess that does real damage to the rule of law and that only the most strident advocates of abortion could defend.

But just on the issue of regulatory oversight of clinics, the media are perpetuating a closed loop. The abortion corporations’ claim is that abortion clinics are safe and wonderful, but will somehow be forced to close if required to hold the same health and safety standards as other surgery centers. They carry water for the abortion corporations, fighting any oversight of abortion-related practices. They smother-to-the-death any and all stories about unsafe and unsanitary conditions at health clinics. They mock voters who don’t get their marching orders from Planned Parenthood and other abortion corporations. They praise Supreme Court justices who run roughshod over the law to keep at bay any regulation of abortion clinics. Rinse, repeat.

The bit in bold shows the bold faced lies we are seeing right now, if abortion is "safe" then these regulations would be perfectly fine since they are just making them safer, but that is an "undue burden" according to the justices.

 

[Mouthwash]

Yeah, it does. Maybe you should think about that for a while, and get back to me when you're finished.

Sorry, I'm not going to change my mind based on ill-conceived appeals to emotion.

Then why does it matter whether we kill all the fetuses

Because they have moral value. Not every ethics has to have rights in it.

Neither can a zygote, blastocyst, or fetus.

Yes, but those do not need to be altered to carry out different roles. Arguably the unborn human is in a symbiotic relationship with the mother. Sperm and eggs serve completely different purposes, and aren't intended to always succeed.

Think about it this way- if dandelions were sentient, and their seeds were considered as zygotes, than is it their gliding threads that have value, or the portion of the seed which grows the plant?

Even conceding that for the time being (but retaining the right to go back to it), you have given no reason whatsoever why potential should be treated the same as actuality.

I simply see no reason to do so, and I see very few cases in human society where the two are treated as equivalent. A player with the potential to be a great scorer in hockey won't have the same value as one who actually is, right now, a great scorer. A kid who had the intelligence to someday be a doctor before being crippled by a drunk driver won't get as much compensation as someone who actually had their doctor degree - because there is no certainty they would have some day become a doctor, and so we cannot assume their lost revenue (from working) would actually have been those of a doctor.

Fetuses are designed to develop into human beings. Your analogy fails before it gets off the ground.

Wherever one looks, the fundamental truth remains. The potential of a thing doesn't have as much value as the actuality of the thing.

You propose that we treat fetuses as an exception to that widespread rule, yet present no reason why we should do so.

I don't actually think that fetuses have as much value as fully-grown humans. However, I don't think that all fully-grown humans are morally equivalent- for instance, I consider it preferable to rescue a child from certain death than an elderly person. But I don't think that there's very much difference in value, and therefore it's best to simply treat everyone by the same token.

Since you do believe that all of these unborn babies need to be born, would you support a law that required every adult who opposes abortion be willing to raise the child of a woman who wants an abortion, but chooses not to have it? Those who oppose abortion would be randomly assigned and required to raise babies not aborted.

No. Right now, I'd support a state-sponsored orphanage. I know it sounds hideous, and I know that our childcare system is screwed, but every single one of those kids would prefer it to dying.

Even if you take abortion as an option away from women (which would be highly immoral), abortions will still happen.

Not if you also take procreation away from them. I think that all women should be sterilized and all babies grown in artificial environments. I know this isn't an option now, but with the right technology it could become one. Why should sapient beings have rely on being inside another's body in order to be born?

 

[Evie]

About ten to twenty percent of pregnancies end in miscarriages, which is a pretty high failure rate to begin with. Not counting a wide variety of other possible circumstances, such as stillbirth, non-viable children...and that's all with modern medical help, so very much outside intervention. The numbers would, of course, be significantly higher before the modern era's newer ways to help those fetuses reach their potential.

So, no, fetuses are not "guaranteed, barring unlikely circumstances, to develop into a human being." That's simply a false claim.

 

[Mouthwash]

About ten to twenty percent of pregnancies end in miscarriages, which is a pretty high failure rate to begin with. Not counting a wide variety of other possible circumstances, such as stillbirth, non-viable children...and that's all with modern medical help, so very much outside intervention. The numbers would, of course, be significantly higher before the modern era's newer ways to help those fetuses reach their potential.

So, no, fetuses are not "guaranteed, barring unlikely circumstances, to develop into a human being." That's simply a false claim.

I revised what I said. They're designed to do so. An athletic or intelligent kid isn't biologically pushed into becoming a hockey player or doctor.

 

[Evie]

Designed implies a designer. Your true convictions are bleeding through.

In addition to which, if we are designed, then it follows that we are designed with stillbirth and miscarriage as part of the package. So yes, a fetus is a potential human - AND a potential miscarriage. AND a potential stillbirth. All three are entirely possible, and entirely natural results. Yet only one results in a human being.

 

[Mouthwash]

Designed implies a designer. Your true convictions are bleeding through.

Not 'designed' designed. But it's foolish to claim that, since natural selection is aimless, all biological systems are equally purposeless.

 

[Evie]

Biological system have potential, not purpose.

 

[onejayhawk]

Biological system have potential, not purpose.

That's just semantics.

J

 

[El_Machinae]

Fetuses are designed to develop into human beings.

While true, this strikes me as being the naturalistic fallacy. We have no onus to 'obey' nature. We work within nature's laws to make life better for people.

A fetus is 'designed' to turn into a sentient organism, but a skin cell is very obviously not. That said, if one were to make a 'person' from a skin cell, that person shouldn't be killed or tortured. Despite that, killing skin cells remains moral.

The fetus undergoes a transition from morally insignificant to significant during its growth.

 

[Evie]

Hmmmm. Actually I'll withdraw that, not due to it being semantics (I would say there is a notable difference between potential and purpose), but because it occurs to me that some biological systems do have what I would term a purpose.

---------------

In any event, the point stand that there are multiple possible outcomes to a fetus developping. It might develop into a successful human being. It might also develop into a miscarriage. Or it might develop into a stillbirth, or another form of non-viable entity. All these are - absent any outside intervention - potential result from the fetus's development.

Even if fetuses are "designed" (to the extent that they are) to have the potential to develop into human beings. It does not follow that fetuses are human beings.

If I design a self-teaching AI with the intent that it will learn to be an intelligent conversationalist, it doesn't imply that it already is an intelligent conversationalist. It might turn into a teenage girl who think Hitler was the best thing, instead.

 

[Lexicus]

Sorry, I'm not going to change my mind based on ill-conceived appeals to emotion.

Considering your entire argument relies on "ill-conceived" emotional tactics such as asserting that fetuses are identical in value to already-born humans, and using the phrase "baby-killers," this is a bit rich.

Because they have moral value. Not every ethics has to have rights in it.

Saying that something has a right to life is just another way of saying it has moral value.

 

[Mouthwash]

While true, this strikes me as being the naturalistic fallacy. We have no onus to 'obey' nature. We work within nature's laws to make life better for people.

Teleological ethics are accepted by many.

A fetus is 'designed' to turn into a sentient organism, but a skin cell is very obviously not. That said, if one were to make a 'person' from a skin cell, that person shouldn't be killed or tortured. Despite that, killing skin cells remains moral.

The skin cell acquires moral worth when it is transformed into a zygote (or whatever equivalent the process creates).

If I design a self-teaching AI with the intent that it will learn to be an intelligent conversationalist, it doesn't imply that it already is an intelligent conversationalist. It might turn into a teenage girl who think Hitler was the best thing, instead.

I'm not talking about human purposes (which are flawed and often incongruous with reality), I'm talking about biological drives. Your self-teaching AI is an example of the former.

Considering your entire argument relies on "ill-conceived" emotional tactics such as asserting that fetuses are identical in value to already-born humans, and using the phrase "baby-killers," this is a bit rich.

Anything is rich coming from someone who feels that my arguments are invalid due to my gender.

Saying that something has a right to life is just another way of saying it has moral value.

Yes, but the reverse isn't true. All boogles are not necessarily zoogles.