Abortion... is it morally neutral?

[Ama-Gi]

You're presuming that a hospital exists for the comatose man to be dropped off at.  Abortion isn't dropping someone off at a hospital where they'll be taken care off, it's dumping them in a ditch to die (at best), or dismembering them with a chainsaw.

Okay so suppose there is no hospital that will take him, am I obligated to him for the rest of my life or the rest of his life, which ever is shorter? That doesn't make sense to me.

 

Also there is a point in the pregnancy called viability, and after that point the woman can evict the fetus from her womb and the fetus can survive if given proper care. The point of viability has slowly been creeping earlier and earlier in the pregnancy, and there doesn't seem to be good reasons to suspect that with the advancement of medicine in the future that it will stop.

 

So suppose it's 100 years in the future and a woman can evict a fetus after 2 months and it can survive, if someone wants to pay for the medical costs associated with saving the life of this baby, they can save it and adopt it if they so choose.

 

But I don't see how the moral content of abortion changes based on the medical technology involved. It seems to me that a mother owns her womb, can evict the fetus at any time she wants. 

[john cena]

If there is a person born with two heads and one body, is it morally permissible for the right head to use the right arm to blow the other's brains out? Is it morally permissible to kill a person who has been in a coma and had his memory erased, but after rehabilitation would become a fully functioning person? If you answered no to those two questions, then abortion is morally wrong unless you've got some other defining characteristic of what is human other than DNA and potential consciousness. If you answered yes to either of those questions, why? 

[Donnadogsoth]

Okay so suppose there is no hospital that will take him, am I obligated to him for the rest of my life or the rest of his life, which ever is shorter? That doesn't make sense to me.

 

Also there is a point in the pregnancy called viability, and after that point the woman can evict the fetus from her womb and the fetus can survive if given proper care. The point of viability has slowly been creeping earlier and earlier in the pregnancy, and there doesn't seem to be good reasons to suspect that with the advancement of medicine in the future that it will stop.

 

So suppose it's 100 years in the future and a woman can evict a fetus after 2 months and it can survive, if someone wants to pay for the medical costs associated with saving the life of this baby, they can save it and adopt it if they so choose.

 

But I don't see how the moral content of abortion changes based on the medical technology involved. It seems to me that a mother owns her womb, can evict the fetus at any time she wants. 

 

Taking care of the unfortunate is one of things taxes go to pay for.

 

I agree that a mother can evict her child at any time, but only on the caveat that that child must not be destroyed in the eviction process, and should be given to the relevant authorities to be taken care of.  A woman has the right of eviction, not the right to kill.

 

If the evicted baby is unviable, that is unfortunate but a necessary cost of the mother's personal integrity.  If it is small enough it can be frozen for future revival; if it is large enough it will survive being in an incubator.  As the technology of artificial wombs advances the babies can be transferred to those.

If there is a person born with two heads and one body, is it morally permissible for the right head to use the right arm to blow the other's brains out? Is it morally permissible to kill a person who has been in a coma and had his memory erased, but after rehabilitation would become a fully functioning person? If you answered no to those two questions, then abortion is morally wrong unless you've got some other defining characteristic of what is human other than DNA and potential consciousness. If you answered yes to either of those questions, why? 

 

Also history of consciousness.  Both heads on the two-headed person have a history of consciousness, as does the person in a coma.  As does, at a rudimentary level, an unborn baby past the roughly 12-week threshold.  They have a history and therefore a future provided circumstances, including human intervention, don't abort that future.

[ObserveandReport]

Surely it can be said that because a woman owns her body, she owns her womb. And because she owns her womb she has the right to determine who gets to use her womb and for what purposes. It would then follow that she has the right to 'evict' a fetus that is trespassing in her womb.

 

but you say "Oh she agreed to take the fetus on!" Well thats not always the case, there are often cases of unintended pregnancy, due to rape, due to failure of birth control or due to other accidents. 

 

Additionally, it is also true that if I invite you over to watch the game, and half way through I decide I no longer enjoy your company, surely I have the right to change my mind and evict you.

 

Lets imagine that we took in a man in a coma, decided to care for him, he lays on my couch and I feed him using a feeding tube and monitor his vital signs and what not. After about 2 months lets say that I am fed up, am I permitted to evict him? Am I permitted to drive him down to the local hospital and drop him off? Is this not analogous to abortion? Surely I am not morally obligated to care for the man in a coma, and it then follows I am not morally obligated to care for the fetus in my womb.

 

 

I was not addressing abortion in the case of rape or incest, as these are more clear cut as far as the woman's rights. A failure of contraception on the other hand isn't as easy to dismiss, precisely because in getting pregnant via consensual sex, you are possibly inviting a person into your care who (because of your decision) cannot be cared for by anyone else. If what you abort has the necessary components to be wronged, you have done wrong. If not, you are off the hook. Some people say human fetuses which will in the future have these requirements of moral agents, are wrong to prevent from realizing that potential. Others, like myself, say that you can't prevent or deprive inanimate objects like rocks, amoebas, tumors, or things that otherwise happen to have a full set of human DNA but are otherwise devoid of the neuro-correlates of consciousness. Thus the very long meandering debate spanning 3 pages.

[ObserveandReport]

If there is a person born with two heads and one body, is it morally permissible for the right head to use the right arm to blow the other's brains out? Is it morally permissible to kill a person who has been in a coma and had his memory erased, but after rehabilitation would become a fully functioning person? If you answered no to those two questions, then abortion is morally wrong unless you've got some other defining characteristic of what is human other than DNA and potential consciousness. If you answered yes to either of those questions, why? 

I appreciate the attempt at mirroring my argument. It fails for the following reasons: History of consciousness as Donnadogsoth has pointed out is one distinction between a fetus prior to 12 weeks (though arguably longer) and the coma patient/conjoined twin. Another distinction is that these fetuses lack the very pre-requisites for such history. Thus you cannot harm someone who doesn't exist. Imagine the braindead person versus the same, normally functioning, person just prior to their accident. The latter can be hurt, while the former cannot. Imagine that a developing fetus is the same but in reverse. The moral implications simply run in reverse. Secondly, your first example is perfectly consistent with my conclusions and is in fact a slightly modified (though morally similar analogue) of the "murdering a conjoined twin" thought experiment. The wrongness of an outsider for committing a double homicide of murdering conjoined twins applies to either twin for murdering the other, precisely because there are two minds and undoubtedly two distinct identities, each of which can be wronged by the other or entirely third parties.

Taking care of the unfortunate is one of things taxes go to pay for.

 

I agree that a mother can evict her child at any time, but only on the caveat that that child must not be destroyed in the eviction process, and should be given to the relevant authorities to be taken care of.  A woman has the right of eviction, not the right to kill.

 

If the evicted baby is unviable, that is unfortunate but a necessary cost of the mother's personal integrity.  If it is small enough it can be frozen for future revival; if it is large enough it will survive being in an incubator.  As the technology of artificial wombs advances the babies can be transferred to those.

 

Also history of consciousness.  Both heads on the two-headed person have a history of consciousness, as does the person in a coma.  As does, at a rudimentary level, an unborn baby past the roughly 12-week threshold.  They have a history and therefore a future provided circumstances, including human intervention, don't abort that future.

90% of abortions happen before that threshold. Do you have qualms with these, or no?

[Donnadogsoth]

I appreciate the attempt at mirroring my argument. It fails for the following reasons: History of consciousness as Donnadogsoth has pointed out is one distinction between a fetus prior to 12 weeks (though arguably longer) and the coma patient/conjoined twin. Another distinction is that these fetuses lack the very pre-requisites for such history. Thus you cannot harm someone who doesn't exist. Imagine the braindead person versus the same, normally functioning, person just prior to their accident. The latter can be hurt, while the former cannot. Imagine that a developing fetus is the same but in reverse. The moral implications simply run in reverse. Secondly, your first example is perfectly consistent with my conclusions and is in fact a slightly modified (though morally similar analogue) of the "murdering a conjoined twin" thought experiment. The wrongness of an outsider for committing a double homicide of murdering conjoined twins applies to either twin for murdering the other, precisely because there are two minds and undoubtedly two distinct identities, each of which can be wronged by the other or entirely third parties.

90% of abortions happen before that threshold. Do you have qualms with these, or no?

 

No.  As a Catholic I would counsel my wife against having an abortion, but I can't in good conscience allow a non-person (a literally brainless embryo) to control the life of a person, especially if that person is a rape victim, a woman for whom pregnancy is inadvisable for health reasons, or a child with extraordinary fertility.  Just don't let the embryo develop a mind.

[NoGreenerMan]

The real problem then, if we are our minds/brains, is that saying abortion is wrong before there is a thalamus or amygdala, is itself wrong. After all, what would be harmed in such a procedure simply wouldn’t be a person. I therefore hold that abortion before those structures develop is morally neutral. 

 

Also...

 

A man has had his brain eaten away all the way up until the very base of the brain stem by a rare fungus. However, the hospital has kept his body fed and externally cared for. If it is not murder to cut this mans throat, then it is because we are conscious beings and early abortion is morally neutral because no conscious being is harmed. 

 

What makes you assume an action is morally neutral if it results in no person being harmed?

 

Think cheating on a partner without being caught, stealing from or mutilating a dead body, necrophilia, defamation of someone's memory, etc.

 

What makes you assume an action is morally neutral if it results in no conscious person being harmed?

 

Think of the things you can't do to a comatose patient even one with no hope of recovery. Think destroying a tree.

 

What makes you assume transgressing against another party is only possible if their potential is realised in the now?

 

Think of the comatose patient who needs months of cerebral healing and reconfiguration. Think of little trees.

[ObserveandReport]

I'll try and parse my response accordingly. Sorry if there is redundancy. 

 

Also...

 

 

 

What makes you assume an action is morally neutral if it results in no person being harmed?

 

Harm=being aggressed against

 

 

 

 

A

 

Think cheating on a partner without being caught, stealing from or mutilating a dead body, necrophilia, defamation of someone's memory, etc.

 

 

Necrophilia is not harming or agressing against anyone. You cannot be harmed/aggressed against after death. "defamation of someone's memory" morally has no weight. I can aggress against your memories of someone who is dead. Cheating on a partner without getting caught is self-harm. There may be some situations where it actually might be best not to reveal said infidelity.  Even there, there is a being harmed. 

 

 

 

 

 

What makes you assume an action is morally neutral if it results in no conscious person being harmed?

 

Think of the things you can't do to a comatose patient even one with no hope of recovery. Think destroying a tree.

 

Is there no hope of recovery because there is no brain? If there is a brain, stuff might be going on. If it's certain there will never be consciousness again, doesn't matter. There is no violation of the non aggression principle for cutting down a tree. I'm not sure where you are getting any of this.

 

 

 

There are ways you can benefit moral agents and ways you can harm them. If you are doing neither, your actions are morally neutral. I can eat as much peanut butter as I want, but it is neither hurting nor benefiting any moral agent other than myself (except perhaps peanut butter producers)

 

What makes you assume transgressing against another party is only possible if their potential is realised in the now?

 

Think of the comatose patient who needs months of cerebral healing and reconfiguration. Think of little trees.

I posted many responses as to why potential human beings are morally distinct from actual human beings. I recommend you start at the beginning and scroll your way down. That being said, it's not your dna or your organs that make you, you. You begin existing no earlier than your ability to think and be conscious arises. Therefore, there is no one to deprive of a future existance. The same way you cannot harm someone after death, you cannot harm someone before existance. This is a reductio but imagine someone being tried for homicide, not just for the murder they committed but for all the children that person planned on having. That would be rediculous in my estimation. 

[john cena]

I appreciate the attempt at mirroring my argument. It fails for the following reasons: History of consciousness as Donnadogsoth has pointed out is one distinction between a fetus prior to 12 weeks (though arguably longer) and the coma patient/conjoined twin. Another distinction is that these fetuses lack the very pre-requisites for such history. Thus you cannot harm someone who doesn't exist. Imagine the braindead person versus the same, normally functioning, person just prior to their accident. The latter can be hurt, while the former cannot. Imagine that a developing fetus is the same but in reverse. The moral implications simply run in reverse. Secondly, your first example is perfectly consistent with my conclusions and is in fact a slightly modified (though morally similar analogue) of the "murdering a conjoined twin" thought experiment. The wrongness of an outsider for committing a double homicide of murdering conjoined twins applies to either twin for murdering the other, precisely because there are two minds and undoubtedly two distinct identities, each of which can be wronged by the other or entirely third parties.

90% of abortions happen before that threshold. Do you have qualms with these, or no?

Just because you can not ask the person of their history, doesn't mean that they do not have history. Their DNA has already been constructed, and is a representation of billions of years of evolution of a chemical molecule based on previous life experiences. Such a chemical not only has history, it could never be constructed without history. The trial and error process of creating new DNA from scratch would be comparable to all of our evolutionary history. So not only does it have a history, it has a unique and irreplaceable history which wholly defines the entirety of it's functional structure, and will probably never be arranged the same way again on this planet. New science shows that epigenetics is controlled by behaviors and experiences. It's practically a cold storage for easier rebuilding of memories/behaviors. A baby one day old has no change in moral responsibility from a "fetus" inside the womb at any point because it never has any conscious history. Do you also support killing unwanted children until they develop moral autonomy?

[ObserveandReport]

Just because you can not ask the person of their history, doesn't mean that they do not have history. Their DNA has already been constructed, and is a representation of billions of years of evolution of a chemical molecule based on previous life experiences. Such a chemical not only has history, it could never be constructed without history. The trial and error process of creating new DNA from scratch would be comparable to all of our evolutionary history. So not only does it have a history, it has a unique and irreplaceable history which wholly defines the entirety of it's functional structure, and will probably never be arranged the same way again on this planet.

DNA is completely irrelevant. I don't think you understand my point. I'll attempt to clarify: Even if you slowly replaced all the DNA in my body, one strand at a time, with someone else's DNA, I would merely have undergone a genetic change, not died. I continue to exist, therefore what I am can't be my DNA. Rocks have unique irreplaceable histories where each individual atom of a rock was synthesized billions of years ago either in suns or at the big bang, that doesn't give it a personal identity. It doesn't grant rocks the ability to be harmed. Whether or not someone can respond about whether they possessed the bare minimum for consciousness in the past is not what my argument is based on. Before some point, there was no possibility that the fetus was an degree of conscious. One point for certain is the zygote. I hope this clears things up.

[regevdl]

Too much obfuscation. Animals have brains and consciousness. Abortions are performed on fetuses, who are not people/moral actors. There is no moral component.

Wait...so animals are moral actors and fetuses are not?

 

The easiest way to lose an argument is to overstate your case.

 

What makes a moral actor? The capability to reason. Something that cannot conceptualize self, the other, formulate ideals, compares behaves to those ideals, and calculate consequences is not responsible for its actions. Does this present a grey area as a baby evolves into a moral actor? Certainly. Luckily, I think you'll find it quite impossible to argue that a fetus understands the consequences of its non-actions while infants cannot righteously enter into contracts.

 

a fetus is an incomplete moral actor... ending it's life before it reaches maturity to become a moral actor is not removing the moral component because the one ending the life of the incomplete moral actor is....a moral actor.  

 

Children aren't fully developed mentally even after birth so you are creating a subjective 'even horizon'.  Becauase in the womb and for many years out of the womb...the child has no moral agency for their actions.  But we are aware that in order to reach full moral agency and maturity, the child but be alive.

 

Animals will never have a capacity, even at full maturity, to have moral agency of their actions. I'm not waiting for my dog to really feel guilty and understand NAP when she reaches full maturity.  My children...yes.

 

So in that case....a moral actor is acting in a non-defensive aggression against something that poses no threat has no moral agency, and that was a creation of the moral actor's regrettable choices. So shouldn't the punishment fit the crime.... kill or punish the moral actor who made the error, not the result of that error?  I mean in actual rape cases, we don't imprsion the victim, rather the aggressor of the sex crime.

[DaveR]

Kick a pregnant women in the belly till her baby dies. See if society is outraged at the death of said baby, then you get your answer.

 

Women kills her own baby, she made the right choice.

Anyone else kills it, they are the devil incarnate.

[MrNlul77]

Cabbages, they're nice vegetables wouldn't you say.

[MrVitaminP]

Some people say human fetuses which will in the future have these requirements of moral agents, are wrong to prevent from realizing that potential. Others, like myself, say that you can't prevent or deprive inanimate objects like rocks, amoebas, tumors, or things that otherwise happen to have a full set of human DNA but are otherwise devoid of the neuro-correlates of consciousness. Thus the very long meandering debate spanning 3 pages.

Can you help me understand why time is a factor? In other words, why does the state of the fetus at the moment of abortion matter? If the fetus is incapable of being a moral agent at that moment aren't there potentially many more moments through out the life of a human where at that exact moment they are incapable of being a moral actor? If that were true would it then be neutral terminate that life?

 

As an aside, why would an amoeba be inanimate? It is alive - it moves, it grows, it reproduces, etc.

[Donnadogsoth]

As an aside, why would an amoeba be inanimate? It is alive - it moves, it grows, it reproduces, etc.

 

Is an amoeba sentient?  If it were, then ever cell in our bodies should be sentient too.  As a panpsychist I think everything has perception and appetition, even the inanimate things, but that doesn't mean they should be given anything more than aesthetic consideration when deciding whether to destroy them or not.

[dsayers]

Women kills her own baby, she made the right choice.

Anyone else kills it, they are the devil incarnate.

Woman chooses to have sex, that's okay. Somebody else chooses for her to have sex, they are the devil incarnate.

 

Funny how consent works, eh?

[MrVitaminP]

Is an amoeba sentient? If it were, then ever cell in our bodies should be sentient too. As a panpsychist I think everything has perception and appetition, even the inanimate things, but that doesn't mean they should be given anything more than aesthetic consideration when deciding whether to destroy them or not.

sentient and animate are not one and the same. Maybe I'm missing something in the definition but I understood inanimate to mean not living.

[DaveR]

Woman chooses to have sex, that's okay. Somebody else chooses for her to have sex, they are the devil incarnate.

 

Funny how consent works, eh?

 

That was an argument i considered, but i believe most people would not only be outraged by the mothers loss, but that a young life had been snuffed out. Abortion seems to transfer the decision of whether a life is worth life from courts and government to the whim of the mother, a single individual.

[Des]

This topic ties in nicely with motivation for being moral. It is not always convenient in the moment to be moral, so I only prefer to be moral in order to get the benefit of moral behaviour from others. I would prefer a contract / treaty with others, that we each confine ourselves to moral actions. Since I would be making this treaty with other people capable of making adult decisions to aggress against me, I have to go with whatever the consensus is about the non-adults and those who are not capable of aggressing against me.

 

I can't make a treaty with children, mentally-disabled people, or foetuses, so it is up to others to tell me how I must treat those (who can't aggress against me), in order to qualify for non-aggression against me (by those who can).

 

Can I get an adult woman to agree to a pact in which we both set out that there is some penalty or ostracism for harm to a foetus inside her body? If so, will I get that from all adult women? Is my no-abortion society limited to some portion of the total of adult human females, thus limiting the number of men who will join my no-abortion society, and getting the result that there will be a some-abortion society next door?

 

If I were a woman, would I sign up with men, to a treaty in which there is a penalty (e.g. ostracism) for an action which men cannot do?

[dsayers]

Abortion seems to transfer the decision of whether a life is worth life from courts and government to the whim of the mother, a single individual.

You are in the running for the "most times poisoning the well in a single sentence" competition!

 

Consent seems to transfer whether a vagina is worth abusing from thieves and rapists to the "whim" of its owner, a single individual. How ghastly! /sarcasm

[Donnadogsoth]

sentient and animate are not one and the same. Maybe I'm missing something in the definition but I understood inanimate to mean not living.

 

Well categorically there is sapient (human consciousness), sentient (animal consciousness), and then sub-sentient (inanimate or inorganic consciousness).  Leibniz termed them spirit, soul, and monad.  All have perception and appetition, but the monads are so "dimly lit" so to speak that they are mere sparks to the spirits' fire.

[thebride440]

Here are two links, the first is a video of people's reactions. The second is what they watched. http:/www.youngcons.com/this-powerful-video-is-changing-minds-about-abortion-across-the-country/ WARNING EXTREMELY GRAPHIC

[AncapFTW]

 

I'll try and parse my response accordingly. Sorry if there is redundancy. 

Harm=being aggressed against

 

 

 

 

Necrophilia is not harming or agressing against anyone. You cannot be harmed/aggressed against after death. "defamation of someone's memory" morally has no weight. I can aggress against your memories of someone who is dead. Cheating on a partner without getting caught is self-harm. There may be some situations where it actually might be best not to reveal said infidelity.  Even there, there is a being harmed. 

 

 

 

 

 

What makes you assume an action is morally neutral if it results in no conscious person being harmed?

 

Think of the things you can't do to a comatose patient even one with no hope of recovery. Think destroying a tree.

 

Is there no hope of recovery because there is no brain? If there is a brain, stuff might be going on. If it's certain there will never be consciousness again, doesn't matter. There is no violation of the non aggression principle for cutting down a tree. I'm not sure where you are getting any of this.

 

 

 

There are ways you can benefit moral agents and ways you can harm them. If you are doing neither, your actions are morally neutral. I can eat as much peanut butter as I want, but it is neither hurting nor benefiting any moral agent other than myself (except perhaps peanut butter producers)

 

What makes you assume transgressing against another party is only possible if their potential is realised in the now?

 

Think of the comatose patient who needs months of cerebral healing and reconfiguration. Think of little trees.

I posted many responses as to why potential human beings are morally distinct from actual human beings. I recommend you start at the beginning and scroll your way down. That being said, it's not your dna or your organs that make you, you. You begin existing no earlier than your ability to think and be conscious arises. Therefore, there is no one to deprive of a future existance. The same way you cannot harm someone after death, you cannot harm someone before existance. This is a reductio but imagine someone being tried for homicide, not just for the murder they committed but for all the children that person planned on having. That would be rediculous in my estimation. 

 

It is possible to have sex with someone without their consent or even knowledge of it, and without harming them.  Does that mean it isn't rape?  Trespassers haven't harmed you or your property.  Is trespassing ok, then?  What if I hack your computer but don't change anything, and just look around?

---

Cheating is the equivalent of a breach of contract, as the two of you have a spoken agreement to be sexually exclusive to each other, therefore your spouse is being harmed.

---

Such as when you are tried for murder for causing a woman to miscarry?  It's not the same anyway.  We're not speculating about possible future people, we are talking about an actual human that currently exists, but won't be capable of living outside their mother for several more months.  They wouldn't have even existed, and the discussion wouldn't even apply, had the mother not chosen to create them, or at least risk creating them.

[Filip S]

Here are two links, the first is a video of people's reactions. The second is what they watched. http:/www.youngcons.com/this-powerful-video-is-changing-minds-about-abortion-across-the-country/ WARNING EXTREMELY GRAPHIC

 

And here's a photo of an aborted fetus **WARNING EXTREMELY GRAPHIC**

 

http://shoebat.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/D-and-E-abortion_645_430_55.jpg

[thebride440]

Why are we defining a person's viability in terms of cognition? The issue with abortion is that you are killing, it is murder. As a student of the law I have not read any law or statute that says the murder is contingent on the mental capacity of lack there of, if the one you kill. Killing a human who was supposed to live without environmental or outside interference is murder. I heard my babies heart beat at 8 weeks, and most abortions are done well after that. She already had hands, a defined spinal cord and blood floating through her veins.

[dsayers]

The issue with abortion is that you are killing, it is murder. As a student of the law

The first part is an assertion. In the second part, "law" means arbitrary thing somebody wrote down one time. And posting content showing how horrible it looks is not an argument.

[thebride440]

Laws are based on traditional morality, pulled from philosophy and ethics. The link is not an argument, it is fact. One must know facts before making arbitrary assertions as you said.

[dsayers]

Laws are based on traditional morality, pulled from philosophy and ethics.

How do you know? Does the sheer number of them, the way they vary (sometimes from one day to the next) and even contradict themselves do anything to challenge your conclusion? Yes, words like morality, philosophy, and ethics are important, but that doesn't mean you can put them next to other words and make them righteous by association. If a "law" says ANYTHING other than "thou shalt not steal, assault, rape, or murder," it is arbitrary and not at all based on philosophy, morality, or ethics.

[thebride440]

Firstly in America our used laws fit on a sheet of parchment. People have bastardized what was once simple upb into what it is today. What we consider laws in a sense today is nothing more than the death throws of a dying Republic, as evidenced in history, such as the Roman Empire. The laws that remain the same throughout time regardless of culture are the big ones, one being murder. A rose by any other name.. Law, rules, or so on come down to the same thing. Similarly murder or abortion is rose of another name which are the same thing. Upb shows us that behavior is universal, and murder is repugnant in all of its forms.

And you keep saying arbitrary? Is it not arbitrary to think that killing one human is OK but not the other?

[Libertus]

"Laws are based on traditional morality, pulled from philosophy and ethics."

Are you saying all laws on the books, in all places, at all times during history, are in fact based on traditional morality, philosophy and ethics? I think your statement needs a lot of qualifiers in order to not confuse the hell out of people.

 

My take: Traditional morality, pulled from philosophy and ethics are what's being used to sell the most outrageous laws to the ruled upon public, by their oppressors.

[dsayers]

@thebride440: You didn't answer my questions about how you know and whether X, Y, and Z was sufficient for you to question your conclusion. These are base integrity checks, and without answering them, I have no way of knowing if it's at all worth my time to have this discussion. Please answer those questions or know that a deliberate avoidance of them will be interpreted as a lack of integrity.

 

Firstly in America our used laws fit on a sheet of parchment.

Yes and it said that Congress has powers that individuals do not. How did they get those powers? How can person X give to person Y something that person X doesn't have to give? This is one form of proof that it is arbitrary.

 

People have bastardized

If the laws were half as pure as you paint them to be, this simply wouldn't be possible. The fact that it is possible is another form of proof that it is arbitrary. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc actually emerged from constitutional republics where those constitutions were legally amended to pave their way.

 

Is it not arbitrary to think that killing one human is OK but not the other?

The topic is not about killing humans. Also, most of the discussion was NOT arbitrary, because it DID pull from philosophy, morality, and ethics. You used these words as if you understand their value and are now jettisoning them when they're inconvenient.

 

Answer how you came to those conclusions and if they are allowed to be challenged and we can continue to talk. As it was, the whole "'laws' come from ethics" remark gave me a pretty good idea that the person saying it was of a closed mind.

[Troubador]

I must confess I am completely lost at sea with regards to: is a fetus equivalent to a fully formed human life? As an entirely subjective and emotion based response I feel it is a tragedy. However I must reluctantly stand with the pro choice lobby as back when I looked into this when I was a teenager I saw data that indicated that when abortion is illegal there is greater loss of life through women seeking it from backstreet abortionists. I shall have to re-research any data as it may have been superseded as it was a long time ago.

 

It may be there is no concise neat philosophical resolution to this dilemma, although I am very keen to hear one in case there is, I'm just saying I haven't fathomed one with my limited mental resources. That said there is still somewhere we can go rationally when examining the question. For one make sure we men take steps to never put a woman in such a position, and women take steps to avoid it personally. In addition we as parents need to be on point to educate our own children to ensure they have the wisdom to navigate life without it having to come up.

[Gavitor]

Interesting conversation...

 

I'm curious if a child is stillborn or there is a miscarriage do the parents have a funeral?

 

I look at it the same way I look at ending the life of someone who is suffering. If I know that the child is going to suffer due to having shitty parents is it wrong to spare that child a life of misery?

 

However if the option to give that child up for adoption to parents who want and will care for that child I think that is the better choice.

 

There are lots of unwanted children that are already born, what are people doing to save them?

 

I see it as an act of mercy because I think its pretty fucked up to force a child to have parents who think its ok to kill said child in the first place.

[Donnadogsoth]

Interesting conversation...

 

I'm curious if a child is stillborn or there is a miscarriage do the parents have a funeral?

 

I look at it the same way I look at ending the life of someone who is suffering. If I know that the child is going to suffer due to having shitty parents is it wrong to spare that child a life of misery?

 

However if the option to give that child up for adoption to parents who want and will care for that child I think that is the better choice.

 

There are lots of unwanted children that are already born, what are people doing to save them?

 

I see it as an act of mercy because I think its pretty fucked up to force a child to have parents who think its ok to kill said child in the first place.

 

Yes, there should be a funeral.  Catholics should hold funerals for miscarried zygotes.

 

Is it wrong to kill an adult to spare him a life of misery?

 

I'm sure there is an organisation or two dedicated to making children's lives better.  Don't you suppose?

I must confess I am completely lost at sea with regards to: is a fetus equivalent to a fully formed human life? As an entirely subjective and emotion based response I feel it is a tragedy. However I must reluctantly stand with the pro choice lobby as back when I looked into this when I was a teenager I saw data that indicated that when abortion is illegal there is greater loss of life through women seeking it from backstreet abortionists. I shall have to re-research any data as it may have been superseded as it was a long time ago.

 

It may be there is no concise neat philosophical resolution to this dilemma, although I am very keen to hear one in case there is, I'm just saying I haven't fathomed one with my limited mental resources. That said there is still somewhere we can go rationally when examining the question. For one make sure we men take steps to never put a woman in such a position, and women take steps to avoid it personally. In addition we as parents need to be on point to educate our own children to ensure they have the wisdom to navigate life without it having to come up.

 

If using force to stop adults from murdering other adults, leads to a greater loss of life than would otherwise be, should we stop using force to stop adults from murdering other adults, and just let Nature take its course?

[Conniesim]

After reading this lengthy set of posts I find most of the arguments nothing more than an intellectual exercise the purpose of which is to justify aggression against a completely vulnerable human being.  It is a fact that after fertilization the embryo is human.  Potential is irrelevant.  The embryo will never be anything other than a human being.  

 

When we agree to justify our aggression against another human being we are complicit in all acts of aggression against other humans who for whatever reason are weaker than we are.

 

A woman ( and I am one) is biologically designed to carry the new human to the level of development so that they are capable of existing outside the protected environment of the womb.  Even at that point, the newborn infant is incapable of sustaining life without another human willing to care for them until they are capable of caring for themselves.  The entire process of pregnancy and birth equip us to care for this helpless human.

 

I posit that denying this biological imperative is the root of all aggression against humans including ourselves because it is contradictory to our deepest subconscious drive to live and perpetuate our species.  The damage that occurs when we deny our most fundamental reason for existence isn't something we necessarily recognize or are aware of but is profound.

 

Stefan has postulated that the reason that some women are so fixated on "helping" others is that because they are substituting the "others" for those children they do not have. I agree with him and would state that the drive to find substitutes demonstrates this fundamental drive.

 

Abortion, is in direct opposition to our fundamental reason for being and is actually the ultimate aggression against ourselves and is therefore immoral.