Abortion: Even the non-religious should be against it

[anEvilAtheist]

There seems to be some contradiction here. You’re a vegetarian because you want to avoid harming sentient life, yet you have no problem killing a child in utero. The only practicable difference is location, in the womb or out.

No. The difference is whether or not it is sentient. If it’s sentient then it deserves moral consideration. Even then though, it can sometimes be justified to kill a moral agent. For example, if a terrorist was trying to take over a plane and the only way to stop him was to kill him, it would be immoral not to do so. The violinist example raised earlier explains why abortion can sometimes be moral even if the fetus has reached the point of sentience.

So it does seem you see something wrong with stopping a biological process.

Humans are far more intelligent than any other species. By implication of your own admitted logic, it is unavoidable to conclude that it would be orders of magnitude more immoral to kill a human because it thinks and feels at a much more exquisite level than other animals.

I think that’s right. It would seem absurd to me if someone valued the lives of a dozen ants above the life of a man. Do you disagree?

This all speaks to a very solid secular argument against abortion.

Which is?

Two objections:

1. Abortion is one of those moral issues where there is a perfectly clear line of demarcation, conception. We all know that a biological process known as an individual human life begins a fertilization.

There is a clear line of demarcation, but the question is whether that is the morally relevant one. With pay, you could say that the clear line of demarcation would be paying them nothing versus paying them something, but we would all agree that paying them a penny would be immoral.

1. You’ve seemed to miss my earlier point. I fully grasp indeterminacy. At what point does a person officially become old? No clear cut off point.

But my objection is the fact that ANY moral dilemma you may devise is contingent on life. Any question about when something is or isn’t wrong presupposes living agents. Hence, abortion isn’t simply another run of the mill moral dilemma, but is actually about the fabric of morality itself.

I’m still unclear about what you mean by it being about the “fabric or morality” and how you think that is relevant for determining the immorality of abortion.

To the contrary. Practically all major religions rely on the ethic of reciprocity. Insofar as religions vary from this, they vary from their foundation.

I never limited it only to major religions. My assertion was that “For any immorality you can think of, there is almost certainly some religion that has believed it was perfectly fine.” There are or have been religions that believed that murder, rape, incest, or genocide were perfectly fine. In fact, some Christians believe that the genocides God ordered in the Old Testament were completely fine and that that the incest necessarily to get from one human couple to billions of humans was perfectly fine.

You posited a good secular reason to oppose abortion, as I cited above, you simply don’t apply that reason consistently.

And there seems to be no reason that utilitarian can’t also be pro-life. If you desire to avoid all unnecessary pain, harm, or death to a sentient being, which I take it you do, then it is simply a matter of belief.

I never said that a desire utilitarian could not be anti-abortion. I just said that there are not good reasons for doing so. What desires would be thwarted if people did not have an aversion to early term abortion?

You don’t believe that abortion would thwart your desire. I would (and have) argued that your belief is false.

I don’t remember you naming specific desires that it would thwart. Why do you think it would thwart my desires?

This is all well worn and ultimately tangential to the topic at hand. Both sides marshal good arguments. But regardless of the base of morality, abortion is still immoral.

I agree that it is tangential to the argument at hand. I brought it up because someone had claimed that without God there could not be a basis for moral values. And just because both sides have arguments do not mean that they are good. I have done some reading of the philosophical literature on the topic and have yet to find an unproblematic version of divine command theory. If you want to read about some of the problems with divine command theory, I recommend checking out the work of Christian philosopher Wes Morriston who, despite being a believer, does not hesitate to point out the flaws in theist argument when he thinks they’re flawed. Here are two articles of his that are particularly relevant.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

I cannot believe (still) the length pro-abortionists will go to and the verbal gymnastics they employ. Again - talk to someone who has had an abortion and you will see that the aftermath afterwards would certainly give you pause to think about things in a different way.

A “blob” of cells… with a beating heart??

All of the above makes me very sad. In the midst of my healing process being 23 year post-abortion, I can speak to the truth that I aborted a baby, a human being, regardless of how many cells were present when I did so.

And now, my baby girl is glorified in Heaven with our Lord…if she was a “blob of cells” when I aborted, how did she get to Heaven?

If every woman entering an abortion clinic was offered an ultrasound before the procedure - she would change her mind instantly.

I have talked to someone who has gotten an abortion and her experience was very different than yours. I understand that if someone is convinced by their religion that what they have done is equivalent to murdering a child, having gotten an abortion would be a huge emotional burden. But I think it is mistaken to view it as killing a child and think that people who do not have this mistaken view and get abortions generally do not suffer the same agony over their decision.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Yes. If you’re wanting to be perceived as an intelligent, free thinking person then it seems contradictory to label yourself pro-abortion without careful consideration.

Where is the contradiction? Also, what makes you think I haven’t given it careful consideration? I’ve spent a long time think about the issue, both when I was pro-life and now that I’m pro-choice.

 

[Tigg]

For the sake of those who are healing from the anguishing emotional aftermath of abortion, I just want to say that all who are repentant have hope of God’s mercy and healing.

You are absolutely correct…sorry, I just re-read my post and need to clarify that the only point I was trying to make was how evil abortion is. Of course those truly repentant will receive God’s forgiveness.

 

[Contarini]

But is the point at which the fetus becomes a morally relevant person necessarily the same point at which abortion becomes wrong? I used to think that it is, but have recently been persuaded by Judith Jarvis Thomson’s violinist argument (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Defense_of_Abortion). I’d be interested in what you think of her argument, since I’ve yet to find a really good response to it.

I’ve seen a number of responses–you may or may not think they are good. The book I recommended elsewhere, The Abortion Controversy, has Thomson’s piece and a number of responses. I think it’s interesting that you find this argument persuasive, since I find the ultra-libertarian assumptions of Thomson’s argument almost self-refuting, and tend to assume that a lot of prochoice folks would as well.

For starters, I think that Thomson’s analogy is only relevant in the case of rape and/or when the mother’s life and health are in danger. Thomson tries to avoid this objection by her analogy of the seeds floating in the window, but I don’t think the analogy works. Consensual sexual intercourse is related to conception a lot more closely than just 'leaving the window open." And if the consequences of leaving the window open were such that we might be driven to take a human life as a result, I think we would make sure our windows were very securely closed, and we would certainly not have a right to take human life if we forgot or if a window somehow malfunctioned.

Another objection I have to the violinist analogy is that it obscures the difference between indirectly causing someone’s death and directly doing so. Most abortions involve some kind of direct violence to the fetus. One of the huge ethical differences I find between myself and many prochoice folks is that they don’t seem to find this to be relevant. In the case of the violinist analogy–if it so happened that the only way I could separate myself from the violinist was to chop him up into little pieces, I would certainly consider myself obliged to lie there for nine months instead. If it is legitimate to unplug oneself from the violinist, this is because I am not directly intending his death. The act of unplugging myself is quite consonant with my desire for the violinist to find some other way out of his unfortunate situation. But directly doing violence to him is not.

Finally, I am not convinced by Thomson’s premise. I do not think that it would be unjust for people around me to prevent me from unplugging myself, although it would of course also be only just to prosecute the kidnappers. And if the violinist were wealthy, I’d expect to be well remunerated for my contribution!

Edwin

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Oh, ok. I didn’t see anything in what MerryCatholic was saying to suggest such a leap in logic, but I could be missing something. So we’re on the same page with those issues being different things.

As far as early term abortion goes…here are a few thoughts:

1. That child is a human life, regardless of level of development. A child who would one day be born and grow up like us. Who would live, love, make friends, contribute to the world and make his or her place in the world. And who, it is to be hoped, will be glad for his or her life just as we are for ours. And who will have others who love that person and are glad for that person’s life, too. Abortion destroys all that.

Okay, but the fetus is not that now. When parents elect not to have sex and conceive a child, that is also a case where a child who would otherwise be born and live, love, make friends, contribute to the world and make his or her place in the world never gets to be born.

1. If a pregnant mother is murdered, the culprit is charged with double homicide because he/she has taken two lives. As far as I know, that would be the charge regardless of how far along in the pregnancy/development of the unborn child. So, legally, it’s recognized that unborn child’s rights to live were taken away in that case just as much as the mother’s was.

I don’t think our law should be that way. It seems inconsistent to allow abortion and yet consider that a double homicide. But this law is no more an argument that fetuses have moral worth than the fact that abortion is legalized is an argument that they do not.

So, should the basis of the unborn child’s rights to live boil down to only whether that child is wanted or not?

No. Did anything I say anything that implied otherwise?

1. There are alternatives to abortion, for example open adoption or a regular adoption to give that child a life rather than taking it from him or her if the birth parents cannot find support in their families or community to raise the child themselves.

There certainly are other options. My only argument is that there are no good reasons for denying women this one.

1. Heartbreaking and scary medical issues can arise either with the mother or unborn child. Sometimes the doctors get the diagnosis…or even the prognosis…wrong. I’d be scared to think what the doctors might have told my mom if they’d discovered the genetic condition I have prior to my birth. If all she’d heard was the worst case scenario, I might not be here. Good thing that potential didn’t become a reality! And I’m blessed, not only with my life, my family and friends, and my work, but with having none of the worst-case scenario issues (e.g., serious cardiac problems).

There are also risks associated with pregnancy and childbirth. Women should be aware of all risks and make an informed decision without having the risks blown out of proportion or minimized.

With all the prenatal genetic testing that happens now, it puts parents in the position of having to make a ‘choice’…and even being pressured into abortion if an ‘abnormality’ is discovered. My heart goes out to everyone who faces something like this. It seems to me that the loving and right thing to do is not to destroy that child, but to give that child life, and love, and care.

Even in the most heartbreaking of circumstances, there are still alternatives to abortion.

I agree that there are alternatives, but I think there are times where abortion is the best option.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

anEvilAtheist;6596498:

But is the point at which the fetus becomes a morally relevant person necessarily the same point at which abortion becomes wrong? I used to think that it is, but have recently been persuaded by Judith Jarvis Thomson’s violinist argument (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Defense_of_Abortion

). I’d be interested in what you think of her argument, since I’ve yet to find a really good response to it.
I’ve seen a number of responses–you may or may not think they are good. The book I recommended elsewhere, The Abortion Controversy, has Thomson’s piece and a number of responses. I think it’s interesting that you find this argument persuasive, since I find the ultra-libertarian assumptions of Thomson’s argument almost self-refuting, and tend to assume that a lot of prochoice folks would as well.

For starters, I think that Thomson’s analogy is only relevant in the case of rape and/or when the mother’s life and health are in danger.

But if it is relevant in “the case of rape and/or when the mother’s life and health are in danger”, then my point stands. My argument is that even after a fetus has become morally relevant, there are circumstances in which abortion should be legal. At minimum, I think that abortion should be permitted when the fetus is not yet morally relevant or in cases of rape or when the woman’s life is in danger. Beyond that it becomes a lot tougher.

Thomson tries to avoid this objection by her analogy of the seeds floating in the window, but I don’t think the analogy works. Consensual sexual intercourse is related to conception a lot more closely than just 'leaving the window open." And if the consequences of leaving the window open were such that we might be driven to take a human life as a result, I think we would make sure our windows were very securely closed, and we would certainly not have a right to take human life if we forgot or if a window somehow malfunctioned.

Yeah, I’m not fully convinced by that part of her argument.

Another objection I have to the violinist analogy is that it obscures the difference between indirectly causing someone’s death and directly doing so. Most abortions involve some kind of direct violence to the fetus. One of the huge ethical differences I find between myself and many prochoice folks is that they don’t seem to find this to be relevant. In the case of the violinist analogy–if it so happened that the only way I could separate myself from the violinist was to chop him up into little pieces, I would certainly consider myself obliged to lie there for nine months instead. If it is legitimate to unplug oneself from the violinist, this is because I am not directly intending his death. The act of unplugging myself is quite consonant with my desire for the violinist to find some other way out of his unfortunate situation. But directly doing violence to him is not.

Yeah, I think the kind of person without a strong aversion to chopping up other people is a bad person. Certain desires can be immoral even if in one circumstance they could maximize utility. This is where I differ with other forms of utilitarianism in which it would seem like a perfectly moral mother, faced with a situation in which she had to either kill one of her kids or have them both die should gleefully murder one of her children and feel no remorse. While a lack of an aversion to chopping up others has very negative consequences, I don’t see why a lack of an aversion to killing something without moral significance would have similar negative consequences.

Finally, I am not convinced by Thomson’s premise. I do not think that it would be unjust for people around me to prevent me from unplugging myself, although it would of course also be only just to prosecute the kidnappers. And if the violinist were wealthy, I’d expect to be well remunerated for my contribution!

Edwin

It just seems wrong to me that other people would force her to stay there and prevent her from escaping. I think that freedom is valuable and think we would all be worse off if people did not care about it.

Also, this is a busy time for me, so I apologize if you leave a post and it takes me a while to respond. I’ll try to get to all of them eventually though.

 

[Lizziebel]

Okay, but the fetus is not that now. When parents elect not to have sex and conceive a child, that is also a case where a child who would otherwise be born and live, love, make friends, contribute to the world and make his or her place in the world never gets to be born.

Yes, the fetus is that now. The fetus is *a human life *that has been conceived. The fetus is actually a human life that will one day have those things unless an action like abortion is taken to destroy him or her.

I don’t think our law should be that way. It seems inconsistent to allow abortion and yet consider that a double homicide. But this law is no more an argument that fetuses have moral worth than the fact that abortion is legalized is an argument that they do not.

No. Did anything I say anything that implied otherwise?

No, you didn’t say anything that implied otherwise. I was basically just pointing out the inconsistency. But I agree with the double homicide law in recognizing that the unborn baby counts. It is a human life. I believe that unborn babies have moral worth just as any other human life does, but yes that is a separate issue from any legal issue.

There certainly are other options. My only argument is that there are no good reasons for denying women this one.

There are also risks associated with pregnancy and childbirth. Women should be aware of all risks and make an informed decision without having the risks blown out of proportion or minimized.

I agree that there are alternatives, but I think there are times where abortion is the best option.

What times?

 

[Puddin317]

I have talked to someone who has gotten an abortion and her experience was very different than yours. I understand that if someone is convinced by their religion that what they have done is equivalent to murdering a child, having gotten an abortion would be a huge emotional burden. But I think it is mistaken to view it as killing a child and think that people who do not have this mistaken view and get abortions generally do not suffer the same agony over their decision.

I suggest that you talk to more than one person who just so happens to have the same opinion as you. At the time I had my abortion I was not “convinced” by my religion that it was murder, but I knew it in my heart all the same. I believe there are very few (if any) that walk out of an abortion clinic feeling just fine and not suffering in some way.

 

[Darkbloom]

No. The difference is whether or not it is sentient. If it’s sentient then it deserves moral consideration. Even then though, it can sometimes be justified to kill a moral agent. For example, if a terrorist was trying to take over a plane and the only way to stop him was to kill him, it would be immoral not to do so. The violinist example raised earlier explains why abortion can sometimes be moral even if the fetus has reached the point of sentience.

Okay, allow me to first reiterate that were not dealing with a mere moral dilemma, but with life, on which all moral dilemmas are contingent.

Furthermore, at conception a biological process is begun that leads to sentience at some point fairly early on in utero. Stopping this biological process is volitionally stopping sentience.

I think that’s right. It would seem absurd to me if someone valued the lives of a dozen ants above the life of a man. Do you disagree?

No, I absolutely agree, and I believe that if you truly and uniformly applied that principle you would be compelled, on secular moral grounds, to reject abortion.

Which is?

You believe that a being deserves moral consideration commensurate with its level of intelligence. You also believe that humans are far and away the highest level of intelligent being known. You should consequently desire that care of a much greater thoroughness and profundity be taken in sparing a human harm than an animal.

Following from the above, if you avoid meat, then being pro-life seems a fortiori to follow. It takes less effort to not initiate an abortion than it does eat a meat-free diet.

(I’ve never been involved with an abortion, but I am a vegetarian, so I can attest to the difficulty of the latter.)

There is a clear line of demarcation, but the question is whether that is the morally relevant one. With pay, you could say that the clear line of demarcation would be paying them nothing versus paying them something, but we would all agree that paying them a penny would be immoral.

The start of the biological process known as human life is prima facie such an obvious and profound line of demarcation that I if you were to argue otherwise you would have to marshal a very powerful argument to counter it. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Plus, if you parsed what I said previously a little closer, you would see that I was arguing that even if abortion were a run of the mill moral dilemma (which it is not) there is no great indeterminacy in where moral and immoral separate.

I’m still unclear about what you mean by it being about the “fabric or morality” and how you think that is relevant for determining the immorality of abortion.

There is no moral dilemma you can possibly conceive of that does not require living moral agents. Corpses and inanimate objects owe no moral obligation to any one, and no living agent owes moral obligation to corpses and inanimate objects.

Put simply, if there aren’t living beings involved, on both ends, then it has nothing to do with morality. Since that is the case, then moral questions that involve life are on a clearly higher plane than those simply conditional to life.

I never limited it only to major religions. My assertion was that “For any immorality you can think of, there is almost certainly some religion that has believed it was perfectly fine.” There are or have been religions that believed that murder, rape, incest, or genocide were perfectly fine. In fact, some Christians believe that the genocides God ordered in the Old Testament were completely fine and that that the incest necessarily to get from one human couple to billions of humans was perfectly fine.

You can no more expect me to defend EVERY iteration of religion than I could expect you to excuse Stalin, Mao, or even the Columbine shooters because they were atheists.

All major religions teach some version of the ethic of reciprocity as a major obligation on adherents.

I never said that a desire utilitarian could not be anti-abortion. I just said that there are not good reasons for doing so. What desires would be thwarted if people did not have an aversion to early term abortion?

The desire to do the least possible harm to sentient beings.

I don’t remember you naming specific desires that it would thwart. Why do you think it would thwart my desires?

It would thwart your desire not to cause undue harm to sentient beings.

I agree that it is tangential to the argument at hand. I brought it up because someone had claimed that without God there could not be a basis for moral values. And just because both sides have arguments do not mean that they are good. I have done some reading of the philosophical literature on the topic and have yet to find an unproblematic version of divine command theory. If you want to read about some of the problems with divine command theory, I recommend checking out the work of Christian philosopher Wes Morriston who, despite being a believer, does not hesitate to point out the flaws in theist argument when he thinks they’re flawed. Here are two articles of his that are particularly relevant.

There are no unproblematic formulations of divine command theory, just as there are no unproblematic rebuttals to divine command theory.

Give Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling a go sometime.

 

[Darkbloom]

Where is the contradiction? Also, what makes you think I haven’t given it careful consideration? I’ve spent a long time think about the issue, both when I was pro-life and now that I’m pro-choice.

Do we generally consider someone smart because they take what positions they do so they fit in, or because they mindfully and intelligently weigh both sides and then decide?

We all know the answer. So yes, if you take a pro-abortion stance because that is the stance favored by the intelligentsia, then there is a contradiction.

And I never singled YOU out. But it is blatantly clear that social identity and political affiliation have much more to do with the average abortion proponent’s stance than rigorous and sincere moral deliberation.

If someone is environmentally conscious, antiwar, rabidly politically correct, and generally makes “compassion” their mantra, but yet thinks it morally acceptable to kill a child in the womb, something is clearly amiss.

 

[Lypher]

But is the point at which the fetus becomes a morally relevant person necessarily the same point at which abortion becomes wrong? I used to think that it is, but have recently been persuaded by Judith Jarvis Thomson’s violinist argument (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Defense_of_Abortion). I’d be interested in what you think of her argument, since I’ve yet to find a really good response to it.

The point at which abortion is wrong is when an embryo is destroyed. This is based on the assumption that it has a soul. If you cannot accept the assumption that humans have a soul then we have nothing to discuss further to discuss as we will argue in circles about the value of a human being.

It appears that you are viewing life from the same perspectives as other humans from the past have based on no intrinsic value for humans. Humans are a commodity or resource and honestly are only valuable so long as someone is willing to say so.

This world view that I believe you profess understandably allows you to kill fetuses, and actually using the above worldview you should have the right to take an life at any age if someone does not value it, since it has no intrinsic value. Infants that have no parents could be sold or traded or destroyed if not of value, so could the aged.

I cannot see how you can argue against killing infants with no advocates if they don’t have some kind of intrinsic value? Your position would be wishy washy.

 

[Lypher]

I have talked to someone who has gotten an abortion and her experience was very different than yours. I understand that if someone is convinced by their religion that what they have done is equivalent to murdering a child, having gotten an abortion would be a huge emotional burden. But I think it is mistaken to view it as killing a child and think that people who do not have this mistaken view and get abortions generally do not suffer the same agony over their decision.

Are you saying that conditioning is the issue? So if a parent has no emotional attachment to their children and decides that they can only feed 1 and not 2 that you would have no intrinsic objections to them killing one of the kids to ensure the survival of the other? If you do have an objection why? From what moral ground can you argue that a -1 day old is any different then a +1 day old? Are you just bantering words, getting a rise?

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Yes, the fetus is that now. The fetus is a human life that has been conceived. The fetus is actually a human life that will one day have those things unless an action like abortion is taken to destroy him or her.

But you still don’t explain why the fact that the fetus could one day possess valuable attributes means that we should treat it as if it has those attributes right now.

anEvilAtheist:

There certainly are other options. My only argument is that there are no good reasons for denying women this one.

There are also risks associated with pregnancy and childbirth. Women should be aware of all risks and make an informed decision without having the risks blown out of proportion or minimized.

I agree that there are alternatives, but I think there are times where abortion is the best option.

What times?

There are times when I think abortion is clearly the best option, and times where the best option is more unclear. I think a clear example of the former would be a woman who found out that she’s one month pregnant, and for whom pregnancy poses serious health risks.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

I suggest that you talk to more than one person who just so happens to have the same opinion as you. At the time I had my abortion I was not “convinced” by my religion that it was murder, but I knew it in my heart all the same. I believe there are very few (if any) that walk out of an abortion clinic feeling just fine and not suffering in some way.

I’d be happy to talk to people about their experiences. But I think it’s sensible to abstain from drawing too many conclusions from the anecdotes of a small number of possibly unrepresentative people. If I talked to ten people who thought abortion caused them serious harm or ten people who thought it caused them no harm whatsoever, that wouldn’t tell me anything about what happens in the average case. And for people who do endure emotional agony after getting an abortion, we should distinguish between what is directly caused by the abortion, and what is caused by beliefs about abortion.

And I didn’t mean to imply that only the religious can have a sense that abortion is wrong. I think most people pick up some of the moral beliefs of those they associate with. I shared your sense that abortion was wrong at one point, despite being non-religious. But I don’t see any reason to assume that our moral intuitions are infallible and when I thought about the arguments for and against abortion, I concluded that it was not always immoral.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Okay, allow me to first reiterate that were not dealing with a mere moral dilemma, but with life, on which all moral dilemmas are contingent.

Furthermore, at conception a biological process is begun that leads to sentience at some point fairly early on in utero. Stopping this biological process is volitionally stopping sentience.

Yes, you are stopping a process that if not stopped will probably result in the birth of a sentient creature. I don’t grant that doing so is immoral.

On a somewhat related note, one time I came across a guy who thought that everyone was responsible for all of the long term consequences of their actions. The guy who invented the knife was responsible for all subsequent stabbings. A man who saved another man’s life would be responsible if that man ever killed someone. I don’t think morality works like that.

No, I absolutely agree, and I believe that if you truly and uniformly applied that principle you would be compelled, on secular moral grounds, to reject abortion.

Would you mind explaining why, because I’m not seeing it?

You believe that a being deserves moral consideration commensurate with its level of intelligence.

Kind of, though it’s not exactly intelligence. In some sense you could say that every computer has intelligence. What I think deserves moral consideration is our capacity to desire, to place value on things. Whether or not there is a god, there are things that I value, and a better world would be one in which more people were able to get what they valued most.

You also believe that humans are far and away the highest level of intelligent being known. You should consequently desire that care of a much greater thoroughness and profundity be taken in sparing a human harm than an animal.

I do. I don’t know the extent of animal desires, but I think that humans have more and stronger desires that are thwarted by killing them than animals do. I do think there are some animals, such as coral, that there is no ethical problem with eating. There are also reasonable arguments that it is ethically acceptable to eat animals that have been raised a certain way. I just find it easier to give up meat completely.

Following from the above, if you avoid meat, then being pro-life seems a fortiori to follow. It takes less effort to not initiate an abortion than it does eat a meat-free diet.

(I’ve never been involved with an abortion, but I am a vegetarian, so I can attest to the difficulty of the latter.)

Not eating meat requires as little effort as not getting an abortion does. You just do nothing. However, there are consequences of both that do require effort. Being vegetarian requires effort to ensure there is meatless food available. Not getting an abortion requires one to endure everything associated with pregnancy, which I’ve heard requires quite a bit of effort. And for me, it requires almost no effort to be vegetarian. Perhaps it helps that I no longer desire meat, and live in a city, so restaurants always have at least one meatless dish.

I do agree with you that if I thought that ending the life of any member of the kingdom Animalia was immoral, then abortion would also be immoral. But I don’t. And even if there was some level of moral consideration that was applicable merely by something being a member of that kingdom, that still wouldn’t show that a human zygote should be accorded any higher level of moral consideration than we give to coral.

The start of the biological process known as human life is prima facie such an obvious and profound line of demarcation that I if you were to argue otherwise you would have to marshal a very powerful argument to counter it. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

It is a demarcation between two clearly different states. But showing that there’s a difference between two cells and the union of two cells does nothing to show the moral significance of that difference. It still seems similar to my example of paying someone 0 cents versus paying the 1 cent.

Plus, if you parsed what I said previously a little closer, you would see that I was arguing that even if abortion were a run of the mill moral dilemma (which it is not) there is no great indeterminacy in where moral and immoral separate.

I understand that that is what you are arguing. I just don’t think you’ve shown any reasons why conception is a point at which things of little moral significance become something of enormous moral significance.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

There is no moral dilemma you can possibly conceive of that does not require living moral agents. Corpses and inanimate objects owe no moral obligation to any one, and no living agent owes moral obligation to corpses and inanimate objects.

Put simply, if there aren’t living beings involved, on both ends, then it has nothing to do with morality. Since that is the case, then moral questions that involve life are on a clearly higher plane than those simply conditional to life.

I’m not quite sure what you mean by “conditional to life”, but I definitely agree with the rest of this.

You can no more expect me to defend EVERY iteration of religion than I could expect you to excuse Stalin, Mao, or even the Columbine shooters because they were atheists.

All major religions teach some version of the ethic of reciprocity as a major obligation on adherents.

You’ve hit on my point. It is unreasonable to expect you defend every theistic worldview, just as it is unreasonable to expect me to defend every atheistic worldview. My original point was that it makes no sense to say without God, all is permitted, since bare theism or atheism make no claims about morality. Without evidence that morality is possible under theism, but impossible under atheism, I don’t see how it makes any sense to say that without God, all is permitted.

The desire to do the least possible harm to sentient beings.

It would thwart your desire not to cause undue harm to sentient beings.

Remember, I asked what desires would be thwarted if people did not have an aversion to early term abortion. A zygote is not sentient, so harming it would not thwart a desire not to harm sentient beings.

However, there are clearly some people who not only desire that all sentient beings be protected from harm, but that all humans, from the moment of conception, are protected as well. Harming a zygote would thwart their desires. However, there are also people who do desire to have early-term abortions, so there are conflicting desires. Since a basic principle of morality is that ought implies can, you have to look at what is possible. You cannot feasibly get everyone who wants an abortion to no longer desire an abortion, no longer desire to go to college (or whatever the pregnancy might have stood in the way of), no longer desire to be healthy (in cases where one’s pregnancy poses health risks), or no longer desire financial stability. However, it is possible to convince someone that early-term abortions are morally permissible, and overwhelming majorities in many countries do not find anything immoral about such abortions. It is not possible to convince everyone overnight, but it is much more possible in the long run. There is a bit of a parallel with slavery. Even if you could convince the slaves that they desired to be slaves, slavery would still thwart many of their desires, such as freedom, lack of physical abuse, and ability to choose one’s wife and protect one’s family. In a world in which you could change every single thing people cared about so that being enslaved brought them maximum satisfaction, people would no longer be people. Although it took a long time, the desire to enslave others declined. So now almost no desires are being thwarted by prohibiting slavery.

There are no unproblematic formulations of divine command theory, just as there are no unproblematic rebuttals to divine command theory.

Give Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling a go sometime.

May I ask what you believe then? Do you subscribe to divine command theory, and if so, what kind? Regarding Fear and Trembling, what do you think I would find interesting in it? I just ask because the list of books I’d like to read (even just those dealing with philosophy and religion) is in the hundreds so I probably won’t get to it in a long time unless I have a good idea why it’s important.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Do we generally consider someone smart because they take what positions they do so they fit in, or because they mindfully and intelligently weigh both sides and then decide?

We all know the answer. So yes, if you take a pro-abortion stance because that is the stance favored by the intelligentsia, then there is a contradiction.

And I never singled YOU out. But it is blatantly clear that social identity and political affiliation have much more to do with the average abortion proponent’s stance than rigorous and sincere moral deliberation.

I agree completely.

If someone is environmentally conscious, antiwar, rabidly politically correct, and generally makes “compassion” their mantra, but yet thinks it morally acceptable to kill a child in the womb, something is clearly amiss.

Here it seems like you are doing the very thing you claim to decry. We should mindfully and intelligently and weigh both sides of an issue instead of using loaded words to score rhetorical points. Now I don’t know if this was your intent, but saying abortion is killing children is no more impartial than saying that abortion is the relocation of a ball of cells.

 

[Marc_Anthony]

Here it seems like you are doing the very thing you claim to decry. We should mindfully and intelligently and weigh both sides of an issue instead of using loaded words to score rhetorical points. Now I don’t know if this was your intent, but saying abortion is killing children is no more impartial than saying that abortion is the relocation of a ball of cells.

We’re not looking to be impartial, we’re saying what’s true. Abortion IS killing children; that is the full truth of it. Calling it the relocation of a ball of cells is only a half truth. It is just as true if you claimed that you “relocated” me, a being that scientifically can be reduced to a ball of cells, into an active volcano. But calling throwing me into an active volcano the “relocation of a bunch (I suppose I can’t be called a ball) of cells” is not giving you the full truth, that you are killing a living breathing human. That is one of the things I don’t like about pro-choice rhetoric, the use of half-truths to convince people that what they’re doing isn’t murder.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

The point at which abortion is wrong is when an embryo is destroyed. This is based on the assumption that it has a soul. If you cannot accept the assumption that humans have a soul then we have nothing to discuss further to discuss as we will argue in circles about the value of a human being.

If you see a soul as some supernatural entity, than yes, I do not believe that humans have souls. I think that very few atheists believe that there are supernatural souls. Of course I’m sure there are some, just as I’m sure there are some atheists who believe that God created the universe but no longer exists. But if you’re trying to make an argument against abortion that will convince non-believers, it seems just about as silly to start with the existence of souls as an assumption as to try to convince an atheist of something by starting with the assumption that God created the universe. Unless you have evidence for the existence of souls that should convince non-believers that souls exist even if God does not exist, then you cannot make a strong argument that non-believers should be against abortion by relying on the existence of souls. Of course you could argue that all people should be Catholics because you believe there is strong evidence or Catholicism, and Catholics should be against abortion, therefore all non-believers should be against abortion, but that really doesn’t seem like it was the intent of this thread.

It appears that you are viewing life from the same perspectives as other humans from the past have based on no intrinsic value for humans. Humans are a commodity or resource and honestly are only valuable so long as someone is willing to say so.

This world view that I believe you profess understandably allows you to kill fetuses, and actually using the above worldview you should have the right to take an life at any age if someone does not value it, since it has no intrinsic value. Infants that have no parents could be sold or traded or destroyed if not of value, so could the aged.

I cannot see how you can argue against killing infants with no advocates if they don’t have some kind of intrinsic value? Your position would be wishy washy.

Before saying whether humans have intrinsic value, we need to clarify what we mean by intrinsic. Merriam-Webster defines it as “belonging to the essential nature or constitution of a thing.” I do not think that there is any reason to believe that there is any super special property of enormous value that a fused sperm and egg possess that is not possessed by a sperm or egg.

I agree with you that humans are not a commodity which are only valuable if people say so. I agree with you that it is wrong to kill someone even if no one else values that person’s life. I agree with you that it is wrong to kill infants or the elderly. But you have not shown that there is anything wishy-washy or inconsistent about my position. Unlike the desire to get an abortion, the desire to kill infants or the elderly are desires that tend to do quite a lot of harm and thwart quite a lot of other desires. It is irrelevant whether in one specific case other people would be happier if they killed someone, the fact remains that walking up to someone on the street and killing them is wrong because the desire to murder tends to do a great deal of harm, both to the individual being murdered and to those that care about him or her. If you want me to get even deeper into meta-ethics, I can try to explain why it makes sense to see desires as the unit of moral analysis rather than individual actions.

But really, it’s not my duty to provide a comprehensive moral theory. You are saying that if I allow killing any fetuses, I should have the right to kill someone that people don’t value. But you haven’t shown any reason to think this is the case. I could similarly argue that if you are okay with killing carrots, you should be okay with killing humans, but without providing evidence that this is the case, my argument would carry no force.