Is abortion morally acceptable

[E.E.N.S]

No, the political ramifications of abortion was merely a digression. It was not the thrust of the argument. I am mainly interested in the question whether abortion is morally acceptable.

I will define abortion as the termination of a human (as in species) who is in the womb. I do not know if making abortion illegal would render chemical abortion and IUD’s illegal. People will use those methods if surgical abortion is illegal.

To answer your question, using your own definition of abortion, is that abortion is about as morally acceptable as killing any other innocent human being.

 

[E.E.N.S]

Enforcing laws against drunk driving is easier than laws against abortion.

How so?

But even if that were the case, so what? Let’s say that enforcing laws against murder is harder than that of speeding - should we then drop the law making murder illegal?

 

[ncgolf]

No, I find it hard to enforce morality on the public. Enforcing laws against drunk driving is easier than laws against abortion.
:

What a baloney answer …

 

[JimG]

Then what is a “human” in the ethical sense? What makes one a “human”? I only ask this to avoid any biological distinctions.

Why avoid biological distinctions? We all know when a new individual of the human species has its beginning. The ethical position is: all human beings deserve protection. Let us not kill off either the young, the old, or the disabled, or anyone else. That’s the moral position.

 

[JimG]

I like Peter Singer mainly because he donates 20% of his salary to Oxfam and Unicef and I think he cares about the welfare of humanity.

The I presume you also liked Mother Teresa as well as the nuns of her order, who donate 100% of their lives to the welfare of humanity.

 

[Ham1]

The problem is that a fetus is not “a sentient human being”. If it is “a sentient human being” then it would unequivocally be immortal.

I already said that my aversion to abortion is that it reflects the selfishness of humanity, not because it is immoral.

I do not find this argument compelling against abortion. A similar argument was addressed in Dawkins’ book The God Delusion.

Thanks for responding.

Sentient is defined as: “1. having the power of perception by the senses; conscious.” Perhaps you could make a case for a very newly conceived child as non-sentient, but certainly after several weeks the unborn child is sentient.

It still seems problematic that you have constructed an ethical system whereby the value of a person/object is determined solely by another (in the case the parent). So for you humans have no intrinsic value. At what age then, does the child have value independant of his parent?

How can you possibly be bothered by others selfishness? No offense, but who are you to say that they are acting selfishly? They are acting in their best interests which is their decision. In a utilitarian ethical system, you don’t really have the right to be bothered by their selfishness. So, I say, no it’s not the selfishness that bothers you, that doesn’t make sense. It must be something else that bothers you.

I’m sorry you don’t find the last point compelling. Neither of us will ever know because those people are all dead. Whether several of them could have say, cured cancer, will never be known by us. I can’t prove that they would have, but you can’t prove that they wouldn’t either.

 

[system]

The morality of abortion has nothing to do with whether or not women will get them law or no law. It has everything to do with a society that tells women it’s all right for their boyfriend or husband or employer to force her into getting an abortion because they will not support her and her child if she doesn’t. .

Della - that may be the case in some abortions, but I would guess that more often the woman is making the decision and the man may never even know about it.

I’ll agree in principle that a woman can be put in a bad postion by a boyfriend or husband, but do not put 100% of the blame on those “evil men.” In many cases the man has no idea and it is the woman exercising “her rights.”

In either case - it still takes two to tango

 

[ribozyme]

It still seems problematic that you have constructed an ethical system whereby the value of a person/object is determined solely by another (in the case the parent). So for you humans have no intrinsic value. At what age then, does the child have value independant of his parent?

No Singer’s definition of “person” does not require that. He uses the characteristics to determine whether one is a person or not.

How can you possibly be bothered by others selfishness? No offense, but who are you to say that they are acting selfishly? They are acting in their best interests which is their decision. In a utilitarian ethical system, you don’t really have the right to be bothered by their selfishness. So, I say, no it’s not the selfishness that bothers you, that doesn’t make sense. It must be something else that bothers you.

I do have a right to be bothered by it, but my main point is that I do not have a right to say that abortion is immoral. I am mainly bothered by the way that they view them as merely an inconvience.

 

[dafalax]

If you want to be utilitarian, why do you care about eliminating inconvenient people? You know, if a 2 month old fetus isn’t a person because they can’t think, then people born mentally handicapped shouldn’t really count as persons either. Why don’t we eliminate them?
The reason the selfishness bothers you is because you realize there is no way to staunch the flow once you start justifying the elimination of certain nonperson humans. What happens in the future once we’ve rid ourselves of the elderly, the retarded, and anyone with genetic disorders, are we really going to stop? What happens if you’re in a car wreck and become paralyzed from the waist down? Better off you so you’re not a selfish burden to your family.
Why does the selfishness bother you anyway? People are going to be selfish no matter how many laws you enact trying to protect people from their ‘natural’ selfish inclinations, so why force your morality on them? I think you may be starting to ask the right questions in life and realizing that Christianity may not be as abhorrent as the alternative.
P.S. You can tell yourself it’s the selfishness that turns you off to abortion, but i know the sight of a fetus getting it’s brain sucked out gets to you, too, you big softie.

 

[dafalax]

P.P.S. Why don’t you have the right to say abortion is immoral? What is morality to you, anyway? Don’t you believe in right or wrong? If you’re too scared of being Christian to admit that murder is wrong, then why does selfishness bother you? You’re saying that it bothers you that the selfish murders bother you? You have some pretty big problems in that you’re trying to deny your God-given conscience. If evolution gave you that conscience, maybe you should listen to it. It’ll help us propagate the species.

 

[JMJDevotee]

I do have a right to be bothered by it, but my main point is that I do not have a right to say that abortion is immoral. I am mainly bothered by the way that they view them as merely an inconvience.

You do have a right and more importantly a moral obligation to speak out for those who kill innocent lives. I know if someone had come to me before I walked into that clinic and talked to me, I probably would not have gone through with my abortion.

If you don’t speak out, don’t vote against abortion, you are allowing many more children to be murdered.

Pax Vobiscum

 

[ribozyme]

P.S. You can tell yourself it’s the selfishness that turns you off to abortion, but i know the sight of a fetus getting it’s brain sucked out gets to you, too, you big softie.

Are you being sarcastic with that remark? I sincerely dislike abortion… the sight of blood is unpleasant to me, but it is not my main reason for finding abortion unpleasant.

I did appreciate your other comments though.

 

[JimO]

The main point here is that I dislike abortion, but I now find myself powerless to argue that it is morally wrong when I discuss this with my fellow secular humanists. My dislike about abortion does not reflect utilitarian ethics, but it is merely my subjective opinion.

Unfortunately, if one does not believe in God and in absolute truth handed to mankind by God, then morality has a strictly human origin, is pliable, and subject to either the majority opinion or to the whims of whomever holds sway over a people. I would agree that strictly from an agnostic perspective, it would be hard to argue against abortion in a world where the human species is maintaining a healthy population. But, if there is no God, no afterlife, and thus, no eternal consequences and no real meaning to anything other than what we create in our own minds during our brief existence, then it doesn’t really matter whether abortion is morally acceptable to you, or me, or anyone else. It is difficult to argue any morality in the absence of God.

However, that is not what I believe. As a Catholic, I would interpret your reaction to abortion as evidence of God’s influence on you, or, if you will, evidence of God’s very existence. He infuses us with a sense of the moral law so that most people “just know” when something is simply wrong, even in the face of modern attitudes that would tell us otherwise. I often wonder at the phenomenon I would term “the dead end of self indulgence.” I see so many people in a form of denial about their own mortality, trying desperately to drown out the despair with entertainment, work, pleasures, etc. only to ultimately find that self indulgence is hollow and empty. On the other hand, I see people who sacrifice, suffer, give to others, and live lives of self giving, who face death with peace and joy. These people have found something.

I heard a scientist quoted recently. I can’t repeat the exact quote but he basically said that in the laboratory when exercising his mind, he simply cannot believe in God. However, when he goes into the mountains and looks around he “just knows” that God exists. Reason (the mind) is only part of our make up, a part of the “whole person.” We use our mind analytically, but we don’t use it to express our love, just like we can’t approach a scientific problem with emotion. However, some things engage the whole person - the mind, the emotions, the will, the body and, if you will allow, the soul or spirit. When we “just know” something, I believe that we are engaging the whole person, which might explain why you are put off by abortion even though you cannot make a reasoned argument against it. We are meant to encounter God with the whole person. When we try to encounter Him with our minds alone or our emotions alone, we fall short.

Sorry for the rambling. I hope I’ve said something useful.

 

[yessisan]

I will not intend to convince people of accepting that abortion is morally acceptable; but I do think that abortion is morally acceptable. I think the tolerence of abortion is a natural consequence of adhering to a secular ethical system like utilitarianism.

If you don’t like it, then why do you think it is morally acceptable? Is it morally acceptable to murder someone just because or for any reason? No, so, then why do it to an unborn baby! Maybe our society has accepted it, but it doesn’t mean it’s morally acceptable. I think you a better wording would be socially acceptabe, but it’s still wrong.

I don’t know if your opinion has to do with your age. Teenagers usually don’t see the world as the rest of us do (meaning the adults), maybe that’s a reason why you think that way. I feel that teenagers don’t have the mental capacity to accept the fact that it is wrong to kill an unborn baby. Even if the goverment says that creature is not considered a baby, to God it is. Teens are self-focused and don’t really think things through, well, even adults don’t.

I still think it’s wrong morally and every way.

 

[Ham1]

No Singer’s definition of “person” does not require that. He uses the characteristics to determine whether one is a person or not.

I do have a right to be bothered by it, but my main point is that I do not have a right to say that abortion is immoral. I am mainly bothered by the way that they view them as merely an inconvience.

Ok, as to your first comment…the value is clearly based not on developmental characteristics but on the “worthiness” as judged by the parent. If two women are 16 weeks pregnant and one wants to abort and the other cherishes her child, the only difference between the two is the judgement of the mother. Singer would not argue that the mother who wants her baby has a baby that is worth nothing. It is worth something precisely because she desires it. Your philosophy and Singer’s agree on this point. My point is that it becomes extremely problematic to contruct an ethical system with such a subjective principle. I’d appreciate if you would respond to the question I posed to you (not to Singer): “At what age then, does the child have value independant of his parent?”

To the second point, it is extraordinarily odd for you to be bothered by the rightful autonomous decision of another person. You claim to be bothered by selfishness, but in a utilitarian secular ethics, to not be selfish would be stupid (if not impossible). A utilitarian should act in his own self interest. If that self interest necessitates abortion why should it trouble you? Are you troubled also when a mother selfishly chooses to give birth to her child? Both the mother who aborts and the mother who gives birth are choosing morally (in your view) in their own self interest. Why should one bother you and the other not? No, your rationale of “selfishness” causing your distaste for abortion doesn’t ring true. It must be something other than selfishness that is causing your unease.

 

[wcknight]

I hope abortion never become morally acceptable. Unfortunately it has for far too many already.

It is legal now and that is a gross injustice to the unborn. IF all of our society ever accepts abortion as morally okay, then we will have succumbed to evil and failed as a society to uphold the laws of God. “Thou shalt not kill”, applies to the unborn as it does to the eldrly, the handicapped, and anyone else.

If we get to the point of treating human life as virually valueless then we will have become like the Nazis of WW2. All life is a gift from God, when we toss it aside so easily, we are insulting Him directly.

 

[Ham1]

No Singer’s definition of “person” does not require that. He uses the characteristics to determine whether one is a person or not.

I do have a right to be bothered by it, but my main point is that I do not have a right to say that abortion is immoral. I am mainly bothered by the way that they view them as merely an inconvience.

Ok, as to your first comment…the value is clearly based not on developmental characteristics but on the “worthiness” as judged by the parent. If two women are 16 weeks pregnant and one wants to abort and the other cherishes her child, the only difference between the two is the judgement of the mother. Singer would not argue that the mother who wants her baby has a baby that is worth nothing. It is worth something precisely because she desires it. Your philosophy and Singer’s agree on this point. My point is that it becomes extremely problematic to contruct an ethical system with such a subjective principle. I’d appreciate if you would respond to the question I posed to you (not to Singer): “At what age then, does the child have value independant of his parent?”

To the second point, it is extraordinarily odd for you to be bothered by the rightful autonomous decision of another person. You claim to be bothered by selfishness, but in a utilitarian secular ethics, to not be selfish would be stupid (if not impossible). A utilitarian should act in his own self interest. If that self interest necessitates abortion why should it trouble you? Are you troubled also when a mother selfishly chooses to give birth to her child? Both the mother who aborts and the mother who gives birth are choosing morally (in your view) in their own self interest. Why should one bother you and the other not? No, your rationale of “selfishness” causing your distaste for abortion doesn’t ring true. It must be something other than selfishness that is causing your unease.

 

[Aleii]

I don’t know if your opinion has to do with your age. Teenagers usually don’t see the world as the rest of us do (meaning the adults), maybe that’s a reason why you think that way. I feel that teenagers don’t have the mental capacity to accept the fact that it is wrong to kill an unborn baby. Even if the goverment says that creature is not considered a baby, to God it is. Teens are self-focused and don’t really think things through, well, even adults don’t.

I still think it’s wrong morally and every way.

I strongly disagree with dismissing someone’s ideas based on their age. This is also a big problem that the elderly face, people say that they are out of touch with the world therefore their thoughts shouldn’t really count because they “don’t think the way the rest of us do(meaning the adults)”. There’s a big portion of adults who don’t agree that abortion is wrong either, so I don’t know how you can say the OPs dissenting views are due to his age? Yessisan, why are you even participating on this thread if you think the OP “doesn’t have the mental capacity to accept [certain views]”?

Children don’t see the world the same as teenagers. Teenagers don’t see the world the same as adults. 20 year olds don’t see things the same as 40 year olds. 40 year olds don’t see things the same way as 75 year olds, etc… One of the benefits of having this forum be accessible to all is to get a variety of opinions, bounce ideas, and learn. If you don’t like having teenages post here, then don’t respond to the thread, instead of going out of your way to attack them.

 

[Alterum]

ribozyme –

You may be interested in a somewhat famous article entitled “Why Abortion is Immoral” by Don Marquis. In it, Marquis argues – from an entirely non-religious standpoint – that the vast majority of abortions are gravely wrong. (Here’s the JSTOR link, if you have access: links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-362X%28198904%2986%3A4%3C183%3AWAII%3E2.0.CO%3B2-T ).

Briefly, Marquis argues that killing is wrong because of the effect it has on the victim; namely, it deprives the victim of all the experiences and enjoyments of his future. The terminally ill may be despondent because they are unable to do what they had hoped they would do in the future; the death of the young is terrible because they are deprived of their whole future, whereas the death of the old is not so awful because they have already lived most of their lives.

Marquis argues that murder is one of the worst crimes because it is a severe deprivation of one’s future. If we accept that killing is wrong, at least, because it deprives someone of a valuable future, then we must also hold abortion to be wrong. It does the same thing.

(I don’t agree with Marquis on a number of points but the article makes for a good read.)

 

[wjp984]

You, know, and I don’t want to offend anyone here since I am being stereotypical, but I heard that if you have enough money, anything goes in some of the third world countries. So, if I don’t like you and want to murder you, I can jsut drag you to some other cou try or place where I can get away with it. Then I can bribe whoever is in charge to keep quiet about what I just did if anyone happened to catch me. The point is abortion is murder and we have laws against murder. People still murder people even though it is illegal. Of course people will still have abortions if it is made illegal and they can face the consequences.