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So, you're saying, if someone has intentional unprotected sex, knowing that it will create a new human being with the same rights as you and I, which happens as soon as the egg is fertilized, you're saying that person has the right to murder the person that they literally just chose to create and bring into the world? And they can just do that over and over again if they want? Just because of the fact that at that stage it relies on their body for sustenance, and they're just exercising their bodily autonomy? Again, after you just purposefully decided to create the new person?
Harsh. I mean... again, maybe arguable, but pretty shaky moral ground, there, especially to be the foundations of why we're pro-choice. Maybe less shaky in cases of rape, I'll grant. But, yeah.
I have known a number of women who have had abortions. All of them early in a pregnancy. And none of those women just casually had sex like "no big deal" and went and got abortion after abortion. They did it one time, for a reason as particular as their individual situation.
The time that I would have gotten an abortion, I'd just had my tubal ligation. Doctor told me that as soon as I was healed enough to feel comfortable having sex, I was covered as far as not getting pregnant was concerned. She SHOULD have told me to wait at least an entire menstrual cycle. Fortunately for me, I miscarried at 5 weeks and was able to cancel the appointment that I had made.
Then there is the problem of rape. Frankly no matter how statistically prevalent it is for abortion to be sought because of rape, I really don't want to live in a world where ultimately at the end of the day, a woman can only choose not to reproduce on sufferance of men, because if it comes to it, she can be forced. And then have no recourse. Furthermore, if the rights of a woman can only be considered if she was first violated by a man, then that opens things up to a LOT of possibly false accusations.
So for me what it comes down to, is a question of conflict of the rights of two entities. And yes, for me, even if one of them is deemed a whole human being and a life, the other one STILL has some rights that matter...up to a point. But not until the birth of the child, because well before that, she could have a premature birth induced and it could survive on its own and be put up for adoption potentially.
I do not believe that it is shaky moral ground in the slightest, to say that even if an embryo or a zygote is a life, and even if that life does matter, the pregnant person's rights to bodily autonomy (at the early stages) still outweigh it. Non-personhood is not the foundation for why I am pro choice. More the fact that the woman is also a person.
And I think that's a damn good thing since you are never, ever going to convince a lot of people, that a conceived zygote/embryo/fetus is anything but a human life, and one that is being ended. So all that is left then, is whether the termination of it is in some way justified, or is it murder?
Would I prefer not to see abortion being used willy nilly as birth control? Yeah, tons of pro choice folks would and almost all of us would agree that preventing conception is better than terminating a pregnancy. But most agree that there are at least some circumstances where it is justifiable. However, legislating to leave space for those is difficult and can cause far more problems. Hence, again, my suggested solution.
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Again, regardless of all that, I'm pro-choice, and I think everyone should be pro-choice, because, it's not a human being. The autonomy angle is absolutely hugely relevant and important, as is the whole practicality angle in general, but that angle is a whole different conversation if we're considering an embryo as a living, breathing, sentient person, with the right to life.
I don't agree. I think that we allow for exceptions to how sacred we hold the "right to life" for living, breathing, sentient persons all the time. Can't make me donate blood to save someone. War. Death penalty. Self defense.
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I'm suggesting that birth is when we should consider that a life begins, and when we grant a developing human the right to life as a person. For practical and legal reasons, an ultimately inevitably arbitrary line has to be drawn somewhere. Any point after birth is unnecessary. Since we're not talking about the social problem of infanticide here, we're talking about the dilemma of people's need to have an abortion.
The problem of drawing that line, is that when we base it on these discussions where we are highly unlikely to ever achieve consensus, then it really is arbitrary and difficult to defend.
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Judith Jarvis Thomson takes that particular position in her famous essay, but other philosophers disagree.
I think it's at least a lot more complicated a moral issue, than you put it there. (Again, all on the hypothetical that it's a person in there, which I don't see that it is.)
That's why I say to make laws based not on these philosophical, moral, religious, or emotional debates...but simply by procedure. To 12 weeks, you have a choice. Square it with your God or your conscious however you want...be for or against it as you please. But the option is legal and accessible. After that...different story.
But then we'd be depriving the protesters of the ability to shock everyone with those gruesome dismembered baby graphics, and that just won't do, will it? Gotta keep that outrage burning hot!
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I agree for the same reason that I'm pro-choice. No brain activity = it's definitely not a person anymore. That person is dead already. The life being supported is simple physical processes like a blood pump.
Right! Evaluation of fetal brain activity in determination of where in development some relative level of "sentience" exists...well, it makes a lot more sense than "a beating heart!" But if we simply park the date where one can no longer get an abortion at some developmental point, again we are opening up all of those relative moral, emotional, religious arguments and difficulties in enforcement and need to invasively track women's privacy and... It's too much of a mess logistically.
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I completely agree with that conclusion of course, but, again if we accept that a fetus is a person, then I think the circumstances/motives of the pregnancy and the abortion, might well justifiably come into play. They only don't, because it's not.
Will we also grill men about their motives in having sex, in these instances? Why is unwanted pregnancy, which is a pretty extreme thing to have to live through whether anyone wants to believe it or not, a reasonable "punishment" for a woman who chose to have sex, but not for a man who chose to inseminate her, when we have the medical means to level that playing field?
Or can those who believe this way admit that they are not in favor of equal human rights for men and women, and believe that nature intended women to suffer less freedom than men are meant to have?
A woman is evil for wanting the same freedom naturally enjoyed by a man? I mean, if you really want to be philosophical about all of this...
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And words represent those ideas, or else communication means nothing at all. If one person is saying a human being means x, and another says it means y, then of course we're not going to agree on what's a human being or not. But if we actually first can agree on a definition of something, then we can actually investigate to see if something (in this case a fetus at a given developmental stage) meets that criteria or not.
I have deliberately avoided doing something that a few of my friends on Facebook have been doing, which is an insistence on using gender neutral language to take into account that pregnant people may be trans men or non binary people. I agree that they might be...but I feel that bringing semantic details meant to fight a different fight entirely into this discussion, do it a disservice because they create a distraction.
When you focus on a point that you're never going to get consensus on, when other points can easily be used to support the same ultimate result... Like I said, there are things we could argue forever and all that would happen is people's blood pressure would go up. Conflict for its own sake holds no amusement for me. So I'd rather acknowledge that some are always going to see a zygote as a human life from the moment of conception, and try to find ways to respectfully work around that.
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I think if it's an infant, if it's post-birth, if it was breathing on its own and independent of anyone else's physical body, we call that murder. Because, again, there is no one point where a person comes to be. We have to make an arbitrary decision on when a legal concept of personhood/rights begins. Birth, or around that point in time, seems the best choice for that, considering everything. (Including women's rights/practicality concerns.)
Alright. What about viability? If labor can be induced and a baby birthed vaginally or by C-section that is premature but likely to survive, do you feel that it makes sense for that to be considered a non-person and therefore a candidate for termination...? Because while I am generally on the pro-choice side of all this...I think that at that point (especially since the pro choice activists say that it is only done when the mother's life is in peril anyways) we could really go ahead and codify what is already supposedly reality.
There are specific exceptions in place for abortions to which the mother has consented.
Most of these laws were enacted post 1973 by legislatures who were pressured by right-to-lifers. This has been a subtle way that the group has tried to advance its cause.
Often these laws were passed simply because no one wanted to defend someone who would commit a physical assault on someone that might result in a miscarriage or such. It was a politically unpopular group to defend. So, in the context of criminal justice, they were able to enact laws making the death of a fetus in a crime "murder". I prefer consistency and I think these laws should not have been enacted unless fetal viability at the time of the assault could have been proven. Assault is a serious enough crime on its own.
Most of these laws were enacted post 1973 by legislatures who were pressured by right-to-lifers. This has been a subtle way that the group has tried to advance its cause.
Often these laws were passed simply because no one wanted to defend someone who would commit a physical assault on someone that might result in a miscarriage or such. It was a politically unpopular group to defend. So, in the context of criminal justice, they were able to enact laws making the death of a fetus in a crime "murder". I prefer consistency and I think these laws should not have been enacted unless fetal viability at the time of the assault could have been proven. Assault is a serious enough crime on its own.
I think it would be very hard to persuade a woman whose much-wanted fetus (what such women naturally refer to as their baby) died at any point in a pregnancy due to an assault, that this was not a murder. I know I would have considered it such.
I’m “prolife” but I’m not anti-abortion entirely. Im against abortion being the easy BC method and the one generally pushed onto women. The focus should first be on proper condom application as well as the health benefits of using a synthetic condom with spermicide lubricant. The condom should be the first line of defense. The pills, implants, and devices for women should be the second line of defense. The morning after pill should be the third line of defense. If all those either fail or are not used then the options should be adoption or abortion with detailed explanations from advocates on both sides. I wouldn’t want an adoption advocate to explain abortion nor would I want an abortion provider to explain adoption. Both men and women need to know how to properly apply a condom. Homosexual men should use condoms even though they don’t need protection from pregnancy. Natural condoms are less effective at preventing STDs and pregnancies but are still more effective than no condom at all. Would be nice if the arm implant worked for all women without the negative side effects or if they could come up with a male version that doesn’t greatly reduce testosterone and interest in sex. Until then condoms are the method I prefer people use because it helps to prevent pregnancies and reduces the risk of spreading or contracting an STD. Of course all this is for consensual sex. For rape the woman’s pills and or devices as well as the morning after pill are her lines of defense.
For the record, this very sensible position of yours is called being pro-choice. As in, sounds like you want legal and safe abortion to be an available option for women, should the need arise.
Anyone who's against the outlawing of the medical procedure of abortion, and against forcing women to carry every pregnancy to term, is therefore pro-choice.
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Originally Posted by Sonic_Spork
I have known a number of women who have had abortions. All of them early in a pregnancy. And none of those women just casually had sex like "no big deal" and went and got abortion after abortion. They did it one time, for a reason as particular as their individual situation.
Same here. I don't know that that's even a thing that really ever occurs. I was just noting that it theoretically could happen. And just that I think that possibility weakens the strictly privacy/autonomy based pro-choice case, a bit. I do think we need that case, and also we need the moral case that a person's life does not begin at conception. Only point I was trying to make with the hypothetical.
I've never particularly been a fan of abortion, and as the poster above said, it shouldn't be the first line of defense as far as birth control. But, it still needs to always be a line of defense, because the other birth control often fails. And of course there's other reasons for abortions, too.
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Then there is the problem of rape. Frankly no matter how statistically prevalent it is for abortion to be sought because of rape, I really don't want to live in a world where ultimately at the end of the day, a woman can only choose not to reproduce on sufferance of men, because if it comes to it, she can be forced. And then have no recourse. Furthermore, if the rights of a woman can only be considered if she was first violated by a man, then that opens things up to a LOT of possibly false accusations.
Absolutely. "Only in the case of rape" is a ridiculous position.
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I do not believe that it is shaky moral ground in the slightest, to say that even if an embryo or a zygote is a life, and even if that life does matter, the pregnant person's rights to bodily autonomy (at the early stages) still outweigh it. Non-personhood is not the foundation for why I am pro choice. More the fact that the woman is also a person.
And I think that's a damn good thing since you are never, ever going to convince a lot of people, that a conceived zygote/embryo/fetus is anything but a human life, and one that is being ended. So all that is left then, is whether the termination of it is in some way justified, or is it murder?
Well, it's a consistent position to take. There's nothing wrong with that foundational position for a pro-choice viewpoint. I only disagree in that I think it's only part of the picture of why abortion should be permissible.
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But then we'd be depriving the protesters of the ability to shock everyone with those gruesome dismembered baby graphics, and that just won't do, will it? Gotta keep that outrage burning hot!
Haha.
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Right! Evaluation of fetal brain activity in determination of where in development some relative level of "sentience" exists...well, it makes a lot more sense than "a beating heart!" But if we simply park the date where one can no longer get an abortion at some developmental point, again we are opening up all of those relative moral, emotional, religious arguments and difficulties in enforcement and need to invasively track women's privacy and... It's too much of a mess logistically.
There's really no ideal point, especially when it comes to women's privacy and rights. I'm hesitant to cut it too close with any arbitrary point, after a woman even might not be aware yet that she's pregnant.
Abortion might be a really tough decision for a woman, that they need a few months to think about. I'm not against abortion just because the fetus has been developing for a couple of months. It may be larger and more baby-like at that point, physically, but it's not a living child.
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I have deliberately avoided doing something that a few of my friends on Facebook have been doing, which is an insistence on using gender neutral language to take into account that pregnant people may be trans men or non binary people. I agree that they might be...but I feel that bringing semantic details meant to fight a different fight entirely into this discussion, do it a disservice because they create a distraction.
Same here. Man, that's a whole different, but also currently relevant huge topic, too. I may start a 'Great Debates' thread about... what even is a woman, anymore.
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When you focus on a point that you're never going to get consensus on, when other points can easily be used to support the same ultimate result... Like I said, there are things we could argue forever and all that would happen is people's blood pressure would go up. Conflict for its own sake holds no amusement for me. So I'd rather acknowledge that some are always going to see a zygote as a human life from the moment of conception, and try to find ways to respectfully work around that.
That's fair enough, and of course we're coming from the same place ultimately.
It's funny with the whole consensus thing, when it comes to this topic. We shouldn't need any consensus on this, since it should be a personal individual choice. If you don't want an abortion, don't get one.
I wouldn't care at all about this topic, if people all across more than half the US states right now, weren't trying to force their view about abortion on all the women who live in their state, many who don't agree.
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Alright. What about viability? If labor can be induced and a baby birthed vaginally or by C-section that is premature but likely to survive, do you feel that it makes sense for that to be considered a non-person and therefore a candidate for termination...? Because while I am generally on the pro-choice side of all this...I think that at that point (especially since the pro choice activists say that it is only done when the mother's life is in peril anyways) we could really go ahead and codify what is already supposedly reality.
If it's alive and it's outside of the mother already, I'd say we do our best to keep it alive, and certainly there's no abortion at that point.
You're right that even the birth cutoff is far from a perfect solution. The viability question is surely a complicating factor to be considered by any state laws.
And by the way, as far as US politics, I guess the next stop is going to be for the blue states to enshrine abortion legality and access into state law. This is going to be one hell of an interesting year to watch what happens with the SCOTUS and these egregiously theocratic state laws.
For those of you who think this issue isn't about religion, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was just notified by the archbishop that she can no longer receive Holy Communion in San Francisco because she supports abortion rights. Biden was similarly denied Communion several years ago. https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/20/polit...ese/index.html
The imposition of their beliefs by any organized religion on others is one of the most egregious things in this whole abortion debate and leaves no room for discussion or compromise, particularly when it's an attack on an important political figure. While I don't think it's a good idea at all to allow individual states (see Oklahoma, above) to determine the legality of an important issue like this, I'm beginning to think it will at least allow maintenance of some pockets of sanity and respect for others in the US.
Abortion might be a really tough decision for a woman, that they need a few months to think about. I'm not against abortion just because the fetus has been developing for a couple of months. It may be larger and more baby-like at that point, physically, but it's not a living child.
The "larger and more baby-like" it becomes, the fewer doctors are willing to participate. If the mother's life/health are at risk, or the fetus has serious abnormalities, that's one thing, but if a woman waltzes into a clinic at 4 or 5 months pregnant and asks for an abortion of a healthy fetus because she's just now made up her mind that she doesn't want it, she shouldn't be surprised to be told that this is not legal and/or that no doctor there wants to perform such an unpleasant procedure.
Fortunately, the vast majority of women don't need months to decide.
The "larger and more baby-like" it becomes, the fewer doctors are willing to participate. If the mother's life/health are at risk, or the fetus has serious abnormalities, that's one thing, but if a woman waltzes into a clinic at 4 or 5 months pregnant and asks for an abortion of a healthy fetus because she's just now made up her mind that she doesn't want it, she shouldn't be surprised to be told that this is not legal and/or that no doctor there wants to perform such an unpleasant procedure.
Fortunately, the vast majority of women don't need months to decide.
That's true of adult women, but plenty of teen girls who become pregnant either don't realize they're pregnant or don't dare to tell their parents for some time, which brings up the issue of requiring parental consent for an abortion.
That's true of adult women, but plenty of teen girls who become pregnant either don't realize they're pregnant or don't dare to tell their parents for some time, which brings up the issue of requiring parental consent for an abortion.
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Originally Posted by mojo101
or an obese woman may not realise she is pregnant
So you are both saying that "I didn't know I was pregnant" is a free get-an-abortion-at-any-point card.
Some women don't realize they're pregnant until they're in the process of giving birth. Is that too late to have an abortion?
So you are both saying that "I didn't know I was pregnant" is a free get-an-abortion-at-any-point card.
Some women don't realize they're pregnant until they're in the process of giving birth. Is that too late to have an abortion?
Please don't tell me what I said. I was responding to your comment about "woman waltzes into a clinic at 4 or 5 months pregnant" and assertion that "most women don't need months to decide." No woman waltzes into an abortion clinic...take a look at any of the numerous videos on line showing patients entering a clinic if you don't believe me. And teens can have difficulty recognizing they're pregnant due to lack of education or irregular periods, and/or they try to hide it from their parents and BF until they can't any longer.
For the record, I don't believe in a "free get-an-abortion-at-any-point card." Your sarcasm is not well-placed. I've stated previously in this thread, that in my opinion, I believe abortion should be legal until the fetus is viable outside the mother, which is ~24 weeks. After that, abortion should be limited to medical necessity.
Please don't tell me what I said. I was responding to your comment about "woman waltzes into a clinic at 4 or 5 months pregnant" and assertion that "most women don't need months to decide." No woman waltzes into an abortion clinic...take a look at any of the numerous videos on line showing patients entering a clinic if you don't believe me. And teens can have difficulty recognizing they're pregnant due to lack of education or irregular periods, and/or they try to hide it from their parents and BF until they can't any longer.
For the record, I don't believe in a "free get-an-abortion-at-any-point card." Your sarcasm is not well-placed. I've stated previously in this thread, that in my opinion, I believe abortion should be legal until the fetus is viable outside the mother, which is ~24 weeks. After that, abortion should be limited to medical necessity.
Well, I apologize for coming across as snarky. I was reacting more to the idea suggested by another poster, that a woman may know perfectly well for several months that she is pregnant, but just not be able to make up her mind whether to abort or not. I think it is actually quite rare for that to happen, barring severe abnormalities which show up later on an ultrasound. I've also observed that most pregnant teens are almost immediately sure that they do or do not want to continue the pregnancy, although parents and such may try hard to persuade them one way or the other. Of course anyone at any age can be in denial, sometimes all the way until the baby's birth.
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