2 Deep PRO-LIFE Questions from an atheist

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naylordaisy said:
Is that an abortion or a murder?
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Assuming that this is a zygote (ie with its own complete DNA), it would be killing of a human being, and a sin.

My understanding is it’s technically not abortion because the little fella lives in a Petri dish, but abortion is an operation or a medication to induce pregnancy loss, with death of the baby.

Murder I think is actually a legal term and reserved for persons already born.

But the act you describe is still the unjust killing of a human being.
 
Oh, and it’s a hoot when people think they found that one question that unravel the entire pro life argument.

Seriously, your friend need to bring a better class of game to the game.
 
Pattylt said:
That is a philosophical argument and that is where the religious viewpoint and the atheist viewpoint are in conflict.
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The case against abortion stands separate from religion. It is about human life. In fact, those who are not religious are often more committed to the intrinsic value of all human life as this life is it.

https://www.secularprolife.org/

Trent Horn addresses the abortion issue from a purely secular/philosophical standpoint.
 
Ghosty1981 said:
The problem with this argument is that a single cell does not necessarily make for a human being. Every time we scratch our skin we are killing individual cells. Yes, a single cell is alive, but a single cell need not be a human person.
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This objection confuses the parts with the whole. A skin cell or even a sperm or ovum is PART of a human being. A single-celled zygote is a WHOLE human being, a single-celled organism.

I try to not get bogged down in zygote-related debates because nobody enters the abortion clinic to abort a zygote. This phase of human development occurs long before a woman knows that she’s pregnant.

It becomes relevant with birth control that prevents implantation, such as the IUD.
 
blackforest said:
This objection confuses the parts with the whole . A skin cell or even a sperm or ovum is PART of a human being. A single-celled zygote is a WHOLE human being, a single-celled organism.
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The post I was responding to was talking about the life/non-life distinction. I was merely pointing out that arguing that a single cell is alive does not suffice to prove that a single human cell is a human being.

Most people who say that a zygote isn’t a person aren’t arguing that a zygote isn’t alive, they are simply arguing that it isn’t a human being. I agree with you about the part and the whole, it just wasn’t relevant to the point I was responding to.
 
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That’s what I was trying to say…badly. Take the religious views out of the discussion and go with the philosophical argument of the value of life.

Sorry I muddled that comment.🤭
 
From an atheist, yes once you have a zygote, it is a person. just at the earliest stage of being a person. Just like a marathon runner is still a marathon runner on the first step and dies of a heart attack at step three. They are still a marathon runner. A zygote is the earliest development stage of a person, just like the stage of childhood, to adolescence, to teenager, to adult.
However, the zygote has all the rights that everyone else has. So just like everyone else, its right to its life does not supersede someone’s else right to bodily autonomy. Which is why we don’t force inmates to give up their body to save the life of their victims, why we don’t harvest the deceased and force people to be organ donors, etc. If you give the zygote a right to live at the expense of someone else’s bodily autonomy, you are now granting them special additional rights that no one else has. Want to change the law, then make all parents lose their bodily rights to save the life of their child, regardless of their child’s development stage. Fathers would be forced to give up their kidneys, blood, etc. to save their child without their consent.
 
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Damian said:
However, the zygote has all the rights that everyone else has. So just like everyone else, its right to its life does not supersede someone’s else right to bodily autonomy. Which is why we don’t force inmates to give up their body to save the life of their victims, why we don’t harvest the deceased and force people to be organ donors, etc. If you give the zygote a right to live at the expense of someone else’s bodily autonomy, you are now granting them special additional rights that no one else has. Want to change the law, then make all parents lose their bodily rights to save the life of their child, regardless of their child’s development stage. Fathers would be forced to give up their kidneys, blood, etc. to save their child without their consent.
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This is an interesting argument, one that I believe is well-addressed here. Suffer the Violinist: Why the Pro-abortion Argument from Bodily Autonomy Fails | Christian Research Institute On the off-chance you have time to read through it, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
 
Here’s the synopsis of the argument put forth in the paper in:
The bodily autonomy argument and their defenses of it fail for at least four reasons. First, the argument fails to account for situations in which a mother harms but does not kill her child; given its logic, it would affirm a mother’s decision to intentionally take a medication that will cause birth defects in her child, for example. Second, the argument assumes that prenatal parental responsibilities are largely voluntary. Third, the analogies used to support the argument fail to take into account the difference between diseased and healthy physiological states. Fourth, the argument results in absurdities if taken to its logical conclusion. Taken as a whole, then, the bodily autonomy argument does not give us justification to jettison our deepest moral intuitions that mothers should not intentionally kill their offspring, whom proponents of this argument concede are rights-bearing individuals. Intentionally killing human fetuses in the act of elective abortion thus remains a great moral wrong.
 
Damian said:
First, the argument fails to account for situations in which a mother harms but does not kill her child; given its logic, it would affirm a mother’s decision to intentionally take a medication that will cause birth defects in her child…
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The argument of bodily autonomy is specifically addressing the specific point that someone is using a woman’s body against her will.
Part 1 is addressing a woman who has already chosen to be a parent and is failing to be a good parent by taking care of their child.
The bodily autonomy defense doesn’t address this because its not addressing the issue of being a bad parent because the woman is not accepting the role of parent for the fetus using her body. The fetus is a perfect stranger to her and she has not taken on or accepted the role of parent to that child.
Conclusion: Part 1 is irrelevant to the defense of bodily autonomy.
Damian said:
Second, the argument assumes that prenatal parental responsibilities are largely voluntary.
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Once the woman accepts the role of parent to the child, then she can be held accountable for not taking on the prenatal responsibilities, given that she can afford these responsibilities via her time and money. However, again, bodily autonomy defense doesn’t address this because its not addressing the issue of being a bad parent because the woman is not accepting the role of parent for the fetus using her body.
Conclusion: Part 2 is irrelevant to the defense of bodily autonomy.
Damian said:
Third, the analogies used to support the argument fail to take into account the difference between diseased and healthy physiological states.
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The fact that women’s bodies are designed to carry a fetus to term is irrelevant to the argument of bodily autonomy. Women’s bodies are designed to physically accept sex from a man, but without consent, its rape.
Conclusion: Part 3 is irrelevant to the defense of bodily autonomy.
Damian said:
Fourth, the argument results in absurdities if taken to its logical conclusion. Taken as a whole, then, the bodily autonomy argument does not give us justification to jettison our deepest moral intuitions
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This is the only one that seems to be relevant. We are discussing two conflicting moral situations. Care for others over care for our bodily autonomy. So far, we value bodily autonomy over someone else’s rights to life in the hierarchy of moral assessment. Again, this is why we don’t force people to be organ donors, we don’t force men to give up their body to save their child after its born, etc.
 
For a review of the full discussion on this check out my post of:
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Why are you pro-choice 19Sept2018 Trent call Moral Theology
So I called into the CAL to talk about why be pro-choice on 19Sept2018 with Trent. The conversation was going along fine and we had to take a break. They hung up on me over the break and every time I tried to call back in, they kept hanging up on me without ever explaining why. I used the name Carlos from Denver. So if we could pick it up where we left off with this conversation. The pro-choice position, as I understand it, is about consent of use for someone’s body. I gave the example of how …
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That argument easily allows for discrimination. It also helps make a case for why abortion should not be government funded.
 
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I could be off-base but I think one missing piece in the arguments with pro-choice people is really putting this all into perspective about what is now valued and what is not. There are all these arguments that we should protect animal life, plant life, the ocean, air, etc, yet human life is not as valued. There is even legislation in the works in NJ to protect pregnant cows and their unborn. Why is that yet a human baby is not as valued? How is that ok? There isn’t enough compare and contrast, too much is put on science and morals and that gets us nowhere. Comparative logic makes you really think no matter your affiliations. For instance, take people who think all these non-binary gender identities are valid. I have compared that to how Rachel Dolezal was called out (rightly so) for claiming identity as a black woman and people are left speechless. Why is one ok and one isn’t? How is sexual identity fair game but race is not and is considered a given at birth? These kind of arguments don’t take a vast knowledge of science or theology and get your average person to think and question.
 
I don’t understand what you’re addressing here. Could you be more explicit?
 
If a mother is not obligated to have the fetus in her womb, than it naturally follows that the state should not be obligated to fund abortion with other people’s money.
 
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People aren’t obligated services so being denied on the basis of race (for example) isn’t a bad thing if you expand the premise a bit.
 
What is the premise you are addressing here? Is it the bodily autonomy supersedes right to life premise?
 
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