Arguing About Abortion

[VanitasVanitatum]

They still have cognition. They’re just asleep.

A fetus doesn’t have the capacity for cognition. It’s a ball of cells with different DNA.

Not having the capacity for the moment and not being able to for the moment are the same in the end result.

Sure they can. Wake 'em up.

While they are asleep they don’t so its okay while they are in that state.

 

[VanitasVanitatum]

I see it as factual.

That doesn’t mean that the words used are justified.

 

[Hume]

Not having the capacity for the moment and not being able to for the moment are the same in the end result.

No it isn’t.

A sleeping person still bears cognition, they’re just asleep. It didn’t “go away”.

A fetus literally doesn’t have the machinery to make cognition work. It’s no more cognitive than your liver.

While they are asleep they don’t so its okay while they are in that state.

You don’t lose the right to make decisions for your body because you’re asleep.

But being tied to another person’s body, they can interrupt your life if they choose to withhold their body. They don’t owe it to you, Van.

 

[Stephen168]

That doesn’t mean that the words used are justified.

I’ll just have to disagree on this point.

 

[Hume]

Eh, we’ve circled 5 or 10 times now anyways, fellas. I don’t think there’s much new earth to plow

 

[VanitasVanitatum]

A sleeping person still bears cognition, they’re just asleep. It didn’t “go away”.

A fetus literally doesn’t have the machinery to make cognition work. It’s no more cognitive than your liver.

Then there is no neccessity for cognition since only the potential for it to be used in the future matters.

You don’t lose the right to make decisions for your body because you’re asleep.

But being tied to another person’s body, they can interrupt your life if they choose to withhold their body. They don’t owe it to you, Van.

Then it’s not being able to act that matters, it is not being able to survive on their own. This also means that it is not that the fetus has no liberty but that the mother has no obligation to keep it in her body. But killing it would violate its liberty so the mother can’t get rid of it that way.

 

[MamaJewel]

Well, yeah. If someone wants to make the argument that there’s some sort of contractual obligation to see pregnancy through - especially given the dangers of it - then yeah. Like any other claim, the claimant must present their proof.

Of this claim I’ve never seen any. Leads me to think it likely does not exist, but I’m open minded.

I suppose you can prove it?

Me, me, me.

There is an unspoken contract between the woman and the embryo/ fetus .
They are both human beings at different stages of their existence and therefore, both have a level of autonomy to their bodies deserving respect. This is assuming the pregnancy, woman, and fetus are all in homeostasis.

Since women don’t perform surgical abortions on themselves, doctors enter the picture.
Doctors take care of their fellow human beings.
First, do no harm.
Do good.

For over 2,000 years, Western medicine was built on these premises.
And most doctors still attempt to practice under this ethical principle.

So even if a woman does want an elective surgical abortion, most physicians are loathe to perform it.
Why?
Because it harms another human being and places the body of the pregnant woman at risk for harm when her body is currently in homeostasis (health balance).

First, ethical doctors don’t harm another human being. Second, with any treatment provided the doctor has to consider the harm that can potentially occur against the good of the outcome. If there isn’t a medical necessity for the abortion, most doctors won’t do one because of the destruction of a human being and additional risks to the woman’s health.

So, just because the law says the woman has bodily autonomy doesn’t mean she is entitled to have medical providers violate the historical ethics of their profession.

I learned this studying human development, medical ethics, and (very) basic law. How did I do?

As such, liberty is the only real recourse when consensus cannot be commonly reached. The individual must choose for themselves as the fetus is not the only object worthy of consideration

And to have real recourse to liberty, one must think of others and the world in which they live when making any considerations for self. Even more so when determinations have life giving/threatening impacts on other living beings, especially humans, and our natural world.

I’m not truly free if I can destroy human life without very serious reason (ie. the immediate direct threat to my own life or to those lives around me).

If there is no unspoken human contract between myself and my fellow humans to respect human life and human dignity, then I am not free. I am living in potential anarchy and the threat of my demise/ autonomy and of those around me, at the hands of more powerful or resourceful individuals, is very real.

If ever you get pregnant, deliver the child in accordance with your views. Afford @MamaJewel the same, please.

Thank you for this.

 

[Rau]

It comes up about every 10th post or so that a woman consents to a baby if she consents to sex. It’s nonsense.

She consents to the possibility of becoming pregnant, because that outcome in an inherent end of sex. I’ve not said she consents to remain pregnant. How many times must this be repeated?

 

[Stephen168]

Intent does not change the purpose of an activity.

Women have sex for many reasons that often do not even have anything to do with what men assume are reasons for sex

Yet, you did not list any of the 'many reasons."
What are some of the reasons women need to have sex?

 

[Elf01]

A fetus has no liberty.

If the mother drinks alchol while pregnant and the baby has medical complications as a result should they be able to sue when they are an adult?

 

[Abrosz]

Total freedom is total tyranny

War is peace! Freedom is slavery! Ignorance is strength! Directly from 1984!!!

But, of course freedom is NOT total. The right of your fist ends where my nose begins.

 

[Hume]

Me, me, me.

Hi mama

There is an unspoken contract between the woman and the embryo/ fetus .
They are both human beings at different stages of their existence and therefore, both have a level of autonomy to their bodies deserving respect. This is assuming the pregnancy, woman, and fetus are all in homeostasis.

I suggest that this contract only exists between the willing pregnant woman and the fetus, as pregnancy and child-rearing are arguably the greatest burdens people can face.

Not to be entered into lightly as it’s truly so perilous.

Since women don’t perform surgical abortions on themselves, doctors enter the picture.

In the modern sense, sure. But there was a Roman abortifacient so popular that they managed to extinguish the plant from existence.

Women have been voluntarily ending pregnancy before term for roughly human history.

Doctors take care of their fellow human beings.
First, do no harm.
Do good.

Well, so long as they pay, right?
Given I think we also have a right to die, I’m a bit at odds with the very selectively enforced Hippocratic Oath.

First, ethical doctors don’t harm another human being.

Not true. A surgeon inflicts great harm with the intent of bringing a greater good.

We allow the woman to abort so as to prevent greater harms.

So, just because the law says the woman has bodily autonomy doesn’t mean she is entitled to have medical providers violate the historical ethics of their profession.

I’ll agree. I don’t think doctors should be forced to do it either.

I learned this studying human development, medical ethics, and (very) basic law. How did I do?

Great! We just have different values.

I’m not truly free if I can destroy human life without very serious reason (ie. the immediate direct threat to my own life or to those lives around me).

I also agree. Abortion is virtually never done flippantly. It’s partly why we employ the contraceptive methods to avoid the debacle of unwanted pregnancy in the first place.

Pregnancy is inherently dangerous and unwanted children are a blight to the family and society, more times than not. That’s a pretty serious set of reasons to me.

If there is no unspoken human contract between myself and my fellow humans to respect human life and human dignity, then I am not free. I am living in potential anarchy and the threat of my demise/ autonomy and of those around me, at the hands of more powerful or resourceful individuals, is very real.

That’s the reality where we often find ourselves. We try to create law to prevent such abuse.

I’m finally tiring of the thread, unless there’s something really juicy, last word is yours betwixt us.

 

[Hume]

Oof, just had two messages I’d worded fairly carefully deleted from the thread.

I enjoy arguing the point, but you can’t beat the censors…

 

[goout]

A fetus has no liberty.

Neither do Jews or Blacks or Tutsis or Hutuus or handicapped people or elderly or Russian peasants under Stalin…or anyone else on the wrong end of a gun for that matter.

Astute observation on your part. In most parts of the world human beings in the womb have no human rights.

 

[goout]

As long as you go on denying human rights for any human being, you deny human rights PERIOD. Because human rights are exchanged for claims to power. And that’s not human rights.
The voiceless get trampled. Today it’s small human beings, tomorrow it’s another group, and another group.
Don’t expect human rights and human dignity if you are willing to deny them to others.

 

[MamaJewel]

Yet, you did not list any of the 'many reasons."
What are some of the reasons women need to have sex?

For love of self or partner.
To have a baby (fertile phase)

To avoid having a baby. (Do it now, even when she’s not “feeling it” so it takes the edge off for him and greatly reduces the likelihood of fertile phase sex later).

Because her religion says she has a marital debt and she can’t or shouldn’t withhold sex from her husband , who has rightful authority over her and their children.

To keep a marriage intact.
To keep a family intact.
To keep a cheating partner from straying again.

To keep a roof over her head and food in her belly.
Or better yet, to keep a roof over her children’s heads and food in their bellies.

To calm a partner down so he doesn’t whip on their children, or beat on her.

To maintain the status quo until she can safely extract herself from the unhealthy relationship.

To get out of an abusive situation with immediate family.
To keep her job.
To advance her job. (want not need)
For that coach purse and designer pant suit she likes. (want not need)

 

[HarryStotle]

The default is always “undefined”.

Morally, that’s liberty. Free moral agency.

Thanks, van!

Free moral liberty is self-contradictory.

Moral implies obligatory. Free and liberty imply an absence of any constraint. If morality is obligatory then it is constraining. One or the other have to take precedence and you haven’t provided any schema by which to determine that.

If liberty and freedom take precedence there are no moral constraints merely those a person accepts. An immoral person could merely claim they don’t accept any constraints.

If morality takes precedence, then liberty is not the default, morality is because morality determines the constraints and freedom can only be exercised within a properly moral system.

The latter makes the most sense because morality presumes autonomous personal responsibility — the capacity and responsibility to act morally as a free MORAL agent.

Freedom or liberty do not presume morality at all, except according to your ad hoc squirrelling in of morality as a way of keeping liberty from becoming immoral. In that case, morality is an afterthought to make liberty presentable — lipstick on a sow, kind of thing.

 

[MamaJewel]

What are some of the reasons women need to have sex?

Because she feels pressured and knows that there will be dire consequences if she says no.
(I had a friend who was shot point blank range in the chest because she wouldn’t date/sex a guy. Eternal rest grant unto her O Lord)

Because her “pa done runned off” and her “mama died”, and now she has 4 younger siblings to shelter and feed. (This was the case of a minor teen friend of mine…I’m old school so there weren’t reporting laws and a back-up system if the state mistakenly let a family fall through the cracks).

To get drugs for her drug addiction.
To distract and/or get a father for a current pregnancy. (especially if it is a mom’s boyfriend or her stepfather that caused the pregnancy)

To try to recover emotionally from the fall-out of a previous forced abortion. (not uncommon for young women whose families force an abortion to go and get pregnant again shortly after that abortion.)

I’ve already gotten my warning, so I’ll probably be banned after writing all that, but I am honestly sharing reasons right out of women’s lived experiences, some of them my very own.

So, Stephen168, please tell me why men need sex?

Maybe I can figure out my bio-donor’s reasons for contributing to my existence.
My mother didn’t make me out of her own genetic material only. The geneticist who went over the DNA test with me confirmed that fact.

PS: and that priest who couldn’t get involved all those years back was the same kind priest who was willing to hear my drive-by confession on Good Friday. That is a new start in a better direction.

 

[HarryStotle]

Hume:

A fetus has no liberty.

If the mother drinks alchol while pregnant and the baby has medical complications as a result should they be able to sue when they are an adult?

This is an interesting situation. According to Hume the mother would have no moral obligation to refrain from drinking alcohol while pregnant because the fetus has no right to expect anything of the mother. Ergo, refraining from alcohol would be merely a pragmatic decision — i.e., she should refrain IF she wants a healthy baby or IF the alcohol might put her personally at risk. The well-being of the fetus isn’t even in the moral calculus, according to Hume’s “liberty” view.

 

[HarryStotle]

? Tyranny is tyranny… it’s cruel, heartless, suppression, evil. Freedom is lifting, honorable, hope! How can you use the words together in the same sentence?

At its most basic, freedom means “absence of constraints.” The tyrant is absent all constraints, including an absence of constraint to act morally.

You are invoking an attenuated definition of “freedom” in order to assume a certain view of it — i.e., that freedom means something positive necessarily.

Freedom is only "lifting, honorable and hope"ful if it operates within a moral framework. Freedom on its own, as a starting point, does not logically imply that framework; it has to bring it in to restrain itself in order to remain moral.

Now I would argue that true freedom assumes virtue in the classic Greek sense of the dunamis (or power or virtue) necessary to act or complete a function. I am only “free” to speak Greek if I have the capacity to speak Greek. However, that view of freedom assumes a nature of some kind — a moral human nature, or an inherent nature to Being Itself (aka God).

Unfortunately, that is not the assumption of Hume in this thread who is arguing liberty is merely freedom from constraint to do whatever you want.

Now, integral to his problem is that he leaves out completely how a free agent is going to determine what it is that they want to begin with — which is where all kinds of determinative forces can come back into play. So his “free person” might in fact be moved by all kinds of impulses, bad motives, shoddy reasoning, social pressures, etc.

However, Hume need not account for those because he assumes — his “null” hypothesis — that the individual is acting “freely” purely by virtue of the fact that the individual is demonstrating action. That is hardly a full accounting, however.