Irrefutable pro-life argument

[adriancombe]

A related thread was closed before anyone presented this argument.

Most advocates of abortion will claim it is not possible to know for certain whether the preborn fetus is a person with rights. Very few, if any will stats they know for a fact it is not - precisely because, by their own lights, such a certainty cannot exist. A pitfall of relativism, but I digress.

The point is, if you are out hunting deer, and you see a movement in the brush, at what point are you allowed to shoot it? As soon as possible so you make sure you get it? Or do you have to wait and see for certain whether it is a person. This answers itself.

 

[Nozzferrahhtoo]

Most advocates of abortion will claim it is not possible to know for certain whether the preborn fetus is a person with rights.

I am actually one of the ones who does suggest this to a point. My position, unfortunately for me, lands me almost half way between pro-choice people who support the 24 weeks abortion in the US and Pro-life who aim for 0 weeks. However my essay, rather than reproduce it entirely here, should you be in any way interested is found at:

atheist.ie/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1554&start=0

 

[Doc_Keele]

Not irrefutable at all.
The argument for pro-choice doesn’t hinge on whether or not the unborn child is a person with rights.

 

[JimG]

I am actually one of the ones who does suggest this to a point. My position, unfortunately for me, lands me almost half way between pro-choice people who support the 24 weeks abortion in the US and Pro-life who aim for 0 weeks. However my essay, rather than reproduce it entirely here, should you be in any way interested is found at:

atheist.ie/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1554&start=0

But 24 weeks is not the limit for legal abortion in the U.S. Abortion is legal throughout nine months of pregnancy as long as one can cite a health reason of any kind. According to Doe v Bolton, it could be anything.

The pro-abortion view does not seem to be willing to consider any sort of cutoff point at all. What the mother desires is the only deciding factor. If she wants to give birth, the child lives. If not, the child dies.

 

[LittleSoldier]

But 24 weeks is not the limit for legal abortion in the U.S. Abortion is legal throughout nine months of pregnancy as long as one can cite a health reason of any kind. According to Doe v Bolton, it could be anything.

The pro-abortion view does not seem to be willing to consider any sort of cutoff point at all. What the mother desires is the only deciding factor. If she wants to give birth, the child lives. If not, the child dies.

I put it this way: if the mother desires to give birth, the unborn within her womb is a child. If the mother doesn’t want it, the unborn within her womb is not a child.

The same nonsensical argument can be used replacing the word “child” with the word “person.”

It either is a child or isn’t a child.
It either is a person or isn’t a person.

It makes no difference what the mother thinks.

And a brand new human being begins at conception.

Holy Mother, please keep
all unborn children safe today.

 

[LittleSoldier]

A related thread was closed before anyone presented this argument.

Most advocates of abortion will claim it is not possible to know for certain whether the preborn fetus is a person with rights. Very few, if any will stats they know for a fact it is not - precisely because, by their own lights, such a certainty cannot exist. A pitfall of relativism, but I digress.

The point is, if you are out hunting deer, and you see a movement in the brush, at what point are you allowed to shoot it? As soon as possible so you make sure you get it? Or do you have to wait and see for certain whether it is a person. This answers itself.

Thank you for starting this thread. I was unhappy to see the other one closed. I didn’t realize it had close to 1,000 posts.

I like this argument. Of course, using science, it is clear to me that a new life is formed at conception, even if that new life is not wearing a red jacket and hat and rustling around in the brush.

Holy Mother, please keep
all unborn children safe today.

 

[JimG]

I put it this way: if the mother desires to give birth, the unborn within her womb is a child. If the mother doesn’t want it, the unborn within her womb is not a child.

The same nonsensical argument can be used replacing the word “child” with the word “person.”

It either is a child or isn’t a child.
It either is a person or isn’t a person.

It makes no difference what the mother thinks.

And a brand new human being begins at conception.

Holy Mother, please keep
all unborn children safe today.

I agree with you. Strangely enough, there are some on the pro-choice who also agree with you, to the point of acknowledging that in abortion, a unique living human being is destroyed. They still support abortion as a mother’s choice.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

The pro-choice proponents are like people sitting in a theater waiting to see a play. They will ‘suspend belief’ in reality for the duration of the play. They know they are sitting in a building in AD 2010 and are not present in, say, 19th century Oklahoma where the “corn is as high as an elephant’s eye.” They know that the people on stage are actors. But that doesn’t stop them from ‘pretending’ or ‘enjoying’ the play.

The pro-choice people know that the child in the womb is a child. But that doesn’t stop them from ‘pretending’ that the fact that a child is present in the womb ‘does not matter’. It doesn’t stop them from pretending that abortion is all about ‘the rights of the mother’. They can sit there and contemplate that living human being in the womb and condemn him/her to death without a qualm because they have very successfully ‘pretended’ that the ‘choice’ of the mother is the ‘real issue’, and the child in the womb is no more real than a play on a stage. The only thing ‘real’ to them is the woman they see, not the child in the womb who is ‘hidden.’ That’s why so many of them will blanch at seeing pictures of children in the womb. For a brief, searing second they ‘see’ the child as a person. . .and that really upsets them. And so they’ll ratchet up the hype and drag out all the theatrical props to paint the woman alone as being hated and persecuted by pro-life people (which is untrue but unfortunately too many fall for this lie.)

Pro-life people care for both the mother and child. In fact, we care for the mother so much that we want to help her not only to have (and to raise) that child (however she may choose, in that she may choose adoption), but we also want to save her from the ghastly mistake of being complicit, often without her understanding, in the death of that child.

 

[LittleSoldier]

I am actually one of the ones who does suggest this to a point. My position, unfortunately for me, lands me almost half way between pro-choice people who support the 24 weeks abortion in the US and Pro-life who aim for 0 weeks. However my essay, rather than reproduce it entirely here, should you be in any way interested is found at:

atheist.ie/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1554&start=0

I have taken the following quote from your website:

Take someone who says life begins at conception. However the cells that go into creating a human being are “alive” also. The contradiction is if life BEGINS at conception then if the cells that go into creating a human are alive what has BEGUN here? For something to BEGIN something has to either start that was not there before, or has to restart after being stopped. This is what BEGIN means. However this clearly hasn’t happened! What is new that wasn’t there before? Not life clearly as the cells before conception are alive. What has stopped here and then started again? Nothing, unless you want to pretend the two cells die at conception and then come alive again anew. So no dice here!

What has been added at conception that was not there a SPLIT second before that. And a split second before that.

You state that “the cells that go into creating a human being are “alive” also.” The cells are “alive,” but not “a life.” There is a huge difference here. The ovum contains a genetic sequence that, when fertilized by a spermatozoan, will form a new, unique genetic sequence (and by unique I mean that it differs from the DNA sequence of both mother and father). The cells that form a new life are useless by themselves. Left to their own they die. The ovum is flushed out during menstruation; the spermatozoan dies. There is no other choice, unless the two combine. And if they do combine, what is formed does not die but grows and grows and develops, going through the stages that all human beings go through; that is, unless something happens to stop the growing and development, such as an abortion.

Comparing ova and spermatozoa to a fertilized ovum doesn’t make sense.

So, nothing has been “added” but something has changed. Once that ovum is fertilized by the spermatozoan, there is now a unique DNA sequence. This new DNA sequence will control every physiological aspect of the human being for the rest of his life.

What is “new” is a new life.

Holy Mother, please keep
all unborn children safe today.

 

[LittleSoldier]

I agree with you. Strangely enough, there are some on the pro-choice who also agree with you, to the point of acknowledging that in abortion, a unique living human being is destroyed. They still support abortion as a mother’s choice.

I find that strange, also. I have some quotes (from a previous thread) which demonstrate this sort of logic: Yes, it is a human being but it’s still OK to kill it.

Bizarre!

Holy Mother, please keep
all unborn children safe today.

 

[adriancombe]

Not irrefutable at all.
The argument for pro-choice doesn’t hinge on whether or not the unborn child is a person with rights.

All the abortion advocates I have met or heard of assume it is not a person with rights. What is the basis for your statement? And by the way, even if it were true, it would not constitute a refutation - at best it would be an attempt at avoiding the argument, but not a way of overcoming it.

 

[flyingfish]

A related thread was closed before anyone presented this argument.

Most advocates of abortion will claim it is not possible to know for certain whether the preborn fetus is a person with rights. Very few, if any will stats they know for a fact it is not - precisely because, by their own lights, such a certainty cannot exist. A pitfall of relativism, but I digress.

The point is, if you are out hunting deer, and you see a movement in the brush, at what point are you allowed to shoot it? As soon as possible so you make sure you get it? Or do you have to wait and see for certain whether it is a person. This answers itself.

It would if the fetus was the only consideration in the equation, but it’s not. The other factor is the woman, her health, her life, her happiness. Denying abortion on the basis of a “maybe”, would mean harming a woman who we definitely know is a person.

I’m not prepared to screw up someone’s life just because the fetus might have a mind, when there is no evidence that it does.

 

[Masters_Servant]

I am actually one of the ones who does suggest this to a point. My position, unfortunately for me, lands me almost half way between pro-choice people who support the 24 weeks abortion in the US and Pro-life who aim for 0 weeks. However my essay, rather than reproduce it entirely here, should you be in any way interested is found at:

atheist.ie/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1554&start=0

The problem I see is this. If science were able to create life of any kind for even a few moments, they would be celebrated and probably receive a Nobel prize for such an achievement. Talk a bout celebrating life; there would be a huge celebration, but when it comes to humans the same standard doesn’t apply…so the question is why? Gets down to how one views humans and most people blame humans for their problems and societal problems and therefore something that is not considered desirable. So the easy way out is to make an issue where one does not exist, which is when does life begin when the answer is obvious. Add in the religious aspect of the issue, then the god-hating & god-denying people crawl out of the woodwork and use a woman to allow for the killing of human life. These are the same types that say a woman has the right to choose, then in the same hypocritical tone tell everyone else how much water they can use to flush a toilet, what kind of light bulb we must use and what type of fuel we can use or can’t…so it is a matter of it is “my way or the highway”.

 

[adriancombe]

It would if the fetus was the only consideration in the equation, but it’s not. The other factor is the woman, her health, her life, her happiness. Denying abortion on the basis of a “maybe”, would mean harming a woman who we definitely know is a person.

I’m not prepared to screw up someone’s life just because the fetus might have a mind, when there is no evidence that it does.

Invalid argument. The question is not the evidence but the lack of certainty. The moral principle is only a genuine threat to survival can overcome this uncertainty. In the hunter analogy, this would be the threat of starvation for self and possibly others. In the expectant mother, this would be a genuine medical danger of death, e.g. an ectopic pregnancy, in which case the principle of double effect applies.

Also, I note you claim to be ‘not prepared to screw up a woman’s life’ despite the very real chance that abortion is in fact murder; however, this is an example of the fallacy of false dilemma. Many women with unexpected pregnancies have found joy through childbirth and child rearing or adoption, and many women with abortions have afterwards perceived their lives as ‘screwed up’. There is nothing in your position to warrant risking shooting whatever is in that bush.

 

[adriancombe]

It would if the fetus was the only consideration in the equation, but it’s not. The other factor is the woman, her health, her life, her happiness. Denying abortion on the basis of a “maybe”, would mean harming a woman who we definitely know is a person.

I’m not prepared to screw up someone’s life just because the fetus might have a mind, when there is no evidence that it does.

Incidentally, and I maintain this is not key to my position, but it is not true that there is no evidence the preborn has a mind. See here:

birthpsychology.com/lifebefore/earlymem.html

and here:

johnjames.com.au/psychotherapy-vanishing-twins.shtml

 

[flyingfish]

Invalid argument. The question is not the evidence but the lack of certainty. The moral principle is only a genuine threat to survival can overcome this uncertainty. In the hunter analogy, this would be the threat of starvation for self and possibly others. In the expectant mother, this would be a genuine medical danger of death, e.g. an ectopic pregnancy, in which case the principle of double effect applies.

Also, I note you claim to be ‘not prepared to screw up a woman’s life’ despite the very real chance that abortion is in fact murder; however, this is an example of the fallacy of false dilemma. Many women with unexpected pregnancies have found joy through childbirth and child rearing or adoption, and many women with abortions have afterwards perceived their lives as ‘screwed up’. There is nothing in your position to warrant risking shooting whatever is in that bush.

I think your analogy as a whole is problematic. What does hunting correspond to? You’re hunting non-humans but maybe see a human? Maybe I’m tired, but I just don’t see why it is a good way to view abortion.

I think the main issues here are

1. What is a person,
2. How far does our right to control what happens within our bodies, where our blood goes etc. extend

I personally identify personhood with the presence of a mind.

A fetus either has a mind or not. If it doesn’t have a mind, I have no issue at all with abortion for whatever reason the woman feels like. If it has a mind, then I wonder how far the woman’s right to control whether she lets another person use her body extends. In that case, I would say health and life exceptions only for consensual sex, and any reason whatsoever for rape.

 

[adriancombe]

I think your analogy as a whole is problematic. What does hunting correspond to? You’re hunting non-humans but maybe see a human? Maybe I’m tired, but I just don’t see why it is a good way to view abortion.

I think the main issues here are

1. What is a person,
2. How far does our right to control what happens within our bodies, where our blood goes etc. extend

I personally identify personhood with the presence of a mind.

A fetus either has a mind or not. If it doesn’t have a mind, I have no issue at all with abortion for whatever reason the woman feels like. If it has a mind, then I wonder how far the woman’s right to control whether she lets another person use her body extends. In that case, I would say health and life exceptions only for consensual sex, and any reason whatsoever for rape.

I’m not sure why hunting should have to correspond to anything. Not every analogy consists wholly of analogs.

What is a life is precisely the uncertainty. It is the uncertainty about life that prohibits acting as if you did have certainty.

Rape is not an issue - two wrongs do not make a right! The only factor rape contributes is the reminder of the need to avoid more violence, i.e. abortion.

The fact that the baby is in the woman’s body does not mitigate murder. If anything the fact of unique dependence heightens the obligation to protect.

 

[LittleSoldier]

I think your analogy as a whole is problematic. What does hunting correspond to? You’re hunting non-humans but maybe see a human? Maybe I’m tired, but I just don’t see why it is a good way to view abortion.

I think the main issues here are

1. What is a person,
2. How far does our right to control what happens within our bodies, where our blood goes etc. extend

I personally identify personhood with the presence of a mind.

A fetus either has a mind or not. If it doesn’t have a mind, I have no issue at all with abortion for whatever reason the woman feels like. If it has a mind, then I wonder how far the woman’s right to control whether she lets another person use her body extends. In that case, I would say health and life exceptions only.

If the presented analogy is so poor why did you use it to advance your argument? Or did the analogy suddenly* become* a poor analogy because your attempt was shown to be fallacious? A poor analogy doesn’t change.

The presence of a mind is a poor definition of a human being or “person” - a mind is a characteristic that a human being develops as she grows. Every single human being alive today began life at conception. No exceptions. Then as the human being developed and grew, her mind developed and grew, just like her hands and liver and spleen and skeletal system developed and grew. Her mind will continue to develop and grow long past the time she has gone through the process of birth. That’s why there are two “soft spots” in the skull at birth - they allow the brain to increase in size, along with giving the skull elasticity to help during her birth.

If an unborn baby already had the characteristics that some pro-abortionists claim she needs to be a human being, to be a “person,” she would burst out of her mother without even being born. Humans start off small and that is for a good reason. This is the way human beings reproduce. It works well, at least if left to its own devices. The child is protected and nourished inside her mother’s womb until she is ready to be protected and nourished outside of her mother’s womb.

It’s been this way for a long, long time. That’s because it works.

Our right to control our own bodies stops when another human being will be injured and/or killed. I can swing my fist around as much as I like but if it hits your face, my action is morally wrong. Abortion is never appropriate.

Holy Mother, please keep
all unborn children safe tonight.

 

[flyingfish]

Rape is not an issue - two wrongs do not make a right! The only factor rape contributes is the reminder of the need to avoid more violence, i.e. abortion.

The fact that the baby is in the woman’s body does not mitigate murder. If anything the fact of unique dependence heightens the obligation to protect.

I think rape makes a difference. If the baby has a mind, and the woman consented to sex then I think she is obligated to carry the baby to term unless doing so presents a risk to her health or life.

But if the woman was raped, then she didn’t consent to sex, and so has no obligation to allow the fetus to use her body to grow.

 

[flyingfish]

The presence of a mind is a poor definition of a human being or “person” - a mind is a characteristic that a human being develops as she grows. Every single human being alive today began life at conception. No exceptions.

I don’t believe we have souls, and I don’t believe human beings are special by virtue of being human. I think it’s our minds that make us special. Without a religious framework, I don’t see how you can use anything other than a mind to define personhood.