Pointless pro-choice statements

[Purple_Junebug]

Any ‘pro-choice’ statement (or argument) that talks of abortion being a woman’s issue is genuinely ridiculous.

There are always a minimum of two other people involved other than the mother: the father and, most importantly, THE BABY!!
It is a human right (to life), not merely a woman’s right (to control the body God has given her).

I’d also like to add that the whole “It’s my body, my choice” idea doesn’t really make sense because its not “your body” that is being affected when you get an abortion, its the baby’s body.

 

[Filius_Prodigus]

The Hippocratic Oath is 2500 years old; there aren’t very many bronze age beliefs we hold onto and that oath is typically amongst those we don’t and I would say for good reason but that’s not really germane here. The secular reasons is that people who don’t believe in gods–or those who believe in different gods or even some who believe in your God–don’t agree that a human life has rights from the moment of conception and many of us don’t even think it is intelligible to attribute rights to a non-viable fetus. Attempts, therefore, to forge Catholic philosophy into national law are misguided for many reasons–both internal and external to Americanized democracy–but most notably on First Amendment establishment grounds.

I would also say that you have it flipped around; you shouldn’t need a secular reason to support abortion but a secular reason for a coercive law outlawing abortion (and life/personhood/rights begin at conception isn’t secular).

Why isn’t it secular? Simple maths: It’s alive; it’s human; it’s unique. Ergo, killing it is killing a human. No God(s) involved.

 

[Filius_Prodigus]

I’d also like to add that the whole “It’s my body, my choice” idea doesn’t really make sense because its not “your body” that is being affected when you get an abortion, its the baby’s body.

Right you are. It’s not your body, it’s another’s body. Proof? DNA test: it’s not your DNA, it’s someone else’s unique DNA. As unique as yours or mine or anybody else that lives or has ever lived on Earth.

 

[The_Reginator]

I used this example above, if there is philosophical doubt whether a cow is a person (i.e. the bearer of the right not to be killed) then we should all stop eating meat until the discussion is settled?

Hearing this argument (over and over) I’m curious how proximate the potential killing has to be for it to be morally significant. Diamonds are the cause of all manner of death in Africa so should engagement jewelry be cultured, imitation or laboratory grown? Should SUVs–or any gas powered vehicle–be outlawed because of the deaths oil has caused in the Middle East? I’m not trying to be belligerent here but I’m curious because especially in a global economy we are tangentially–knowingly or not–tied to all manner of atrocities and I would be interested to hear how far moral culpability reaches in your view.

Those examples were not relevant to the topic at hand. There was no secondary intent to loop it back around to the abortion question. I was–and am–curious how proximate would the potential killing would need to be before moral complacency is in play in the general case.

I don’t want to get too far off topic Thomas, but I’ll try to give you an answer to your question about how proximate an activity has to be for an individual’s or society’s moral culpability to be applicable.
Be forewarned, I haven’t given this anywhere near as much thought as the abortion issue, so I can’t say a great deal here.
The potential killing would have to be rather direct. A side effect cannot hold the same weight as an intended harmful action.
Murdering a specific is not the same as drunk driving. When a drunk gets behind the wheel of a car he/she is not doing so in order to kill anyone.
The use of a gas-guzzling, polluting vehicle is not done in order to ruin the planet and cost lives.
Moral complacency, to my mind at the moment anyway, is more of a sliding scale – it varies according to the chance of doing harm. (Drunk driving would be far worse than using a gas lawn mower. There is far more direct danger in one than the other. Abortion is done with the intent to kill, even if the motives may come from compassion.)

Also: In your ‘if a cow might be a person’ analogy, if we have a doubt to its ‘person-hood’ we would be wrong to kill and eat it.

[An aside: I read online the other day about someone saving and eating foetus parts!]

 

[Marc_Anthony]

But you called aiding the violinist ‘mere inconvenience’ which hardly seems apt.

I still hold thatin a society where everybody had their heads screwed on straight, you would have to help the volinist.

What you would personally do was never at question; you may very well be a better man that most of us (and with a name–I hope–inspired by a great stoic philosopher I hold out hope that you are) but the question at had is staying attached to the violinist morally obligatory for everyone and I think we can agree it is not.

Thanks for the compliment (I think it’s a compliment anyway, and I’m taking it as such even if it isn’t!) but I think the only reason it’s not morally obligated to everybody is that people have their priorities messed up.

Apparently. If, however, you find the argument specious nothing was binding you to answer without questioning/refuting the assertions of the hypothetical as I am doing with your “parallel.”

I did write a long post about why I disliked the hypothetical.

All you said about my parallel is that it’s like asking you, “Would you beat your wife?”.

I don’t even see how that refutation makes sense. I honestly don’t.

 

[ThomasToo]

I did write a long post about why I disliked the hypothetical.

All you said about my parallel is that it’s like asking you, “Would you beat your wife?”.

I don’t even see how that refutation makes sense. I honestly don’t.

Your long post is lost to my memory in the face of your alleged moral obligation to remain attached to the violinist.

I said it was like asking ‘have you stopped beating your wife?’ There are worlds of difference there… Further, I said more than that. Your situation it’s counter-factual. The reality of, well, reality is that we do have places to give unwanted born children. To try and set up a situation where we do not is beyond the pale of feasibility.

 

[ThomasToo]

I don’t want to get too far off topic Thomas, but I’ll try to give you an answer to your question about how proximate an activity has to be for an individual’s or society’s moral culpability to be applicable.
Be forewarned, I haven’t given this anywhere near as much thought as the abortion issue, so I can’t say a great deal here.
The potential killing would have to be rather direct. A side effect cannot hold the same weight as an intended harmful action.
Murdering a specific is not the same as drunk driving. When a drunk gets behind the wheel of a car he/she is not doing so in order to kill anyone.
The use of a gas-guzzling, polluting vehicle is not done in order to ruin the planet and cost lives.
Moral complacency, to my mind at the moment anyway, is more of a sliding scale – it varies according to the chance of doing harm. (Drunk driving would be far worse than using a gas lawn mower. There is far more direct danger in one than the other. Abortion is done with the intent to kill, even if the motives may come from compassion.)

Thanks. I won’t press it beyond your more than generous response which helps in my insight.

Also: In your ‘if a cow might be a person’ analogy, if we have a doubt to its ‘person-hood’ we would be wrong to kill and eat it.

We who (re: having doubt)? The philosophical consensus? So too, we who (re: wrong in killing)? Individuals? Society as a whole?

If we’re talking about the killing of beings that may be–not that they could be not but that we do not know–persons then isn’t the safest course to set up laws protecting them? Surely if Catholics argue that abortion should be illegal because fetuses may be–as above–persons then the parallel seems obvious and logical consistency would require outlawing the production of beef.

 

[ThomasToo]

Why isn’t it secular? Simple maths: It’s alive; it’s human; it’s unique. Ergo, killing it is killing a human. No God(s) involved.

The moral principle that all human life–even as a single cell–has the right to life comes from your theology.

 

[vz71]

The moral principle that all human life–even as a single cell–has the right to life comes from your theology.

Not at all. It comes from logic.

Every human being has the right to life. It is illogical to try to define further and seperate out some humans for death.

 

[Prophesy]

Why isn’t it secular? Simple maths: It’s alive; it’s human;
it’s unique. Ergo, killing it is killing a human.* No God(s) involved*.

The moral principle that all human life–even as a single cell–has the right to life comes from your theology.

Sometimes I wonder about the literacy of others. Thomas, you can go on and on and say that it comes from our theology which the realization that all human’s have inherent dignity can be a push to be aware of that (but if that’s all it takes emancipation as well as the fundamental human rights are also founded in theology). But that ignores two groups:

Pro-Life Atheists- they exist, I was having a burger with a few last night.

Catholics for Choice- a group which isn’t pro-life despite claiming our theology

-Prophecy

 

[colmcille1]

Sometimes I wonder about the literacy of others. Thomas, you can go on and on and say that it comes from our theology which the realization that all human’s have inherent dignity can be a push to be aware of that (but if that’s all it takes emancipation as well as the fundamental human rights are also founded in theology). But that ignores two groups:

Pro-Life Atheists- they exist,** I was having a burger with a few last night. **
Catholics for Choice- a group which isn’t pro-life despite claiming our theology

-Prophecy

Prophesy, are you sure those burgers weren’t endowed eith personhood a la Thomas’ argument?!!
(Sorry, all, I couldn’t resist a bit of harmless fun!)

 

[st_lucy]

Pro-Life Atheists- they exist, I was having a burger with a few last night.

-Prophecy

here is there group.

 

[crazzeto]

The point of a statistic like that (be it made up or otherwise) is that no man–whether he is for or against the legal protection of abortion rights–will ever need to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term nor will he have to so much as consider such a question in the first person.

I think a somewhat decent parallel would be the opinions of non-Catholic on the question of the ordination of women to the (Catholic) priesthood; they’re not involved in the situation and don’t–or rather shouldn’t–really get a sa\

Of course in the end the gender of those who support either cause doesn’t matter. Because fundamentally this is a question of a person, and their right to survive. Whether or not a pregancy is considered “convinent” really just doesn’t matter when a human life is at stake.

Naturally both Church and Government will do all they can to lessen the hardships involved, and certainly more outreach is always a better thing. But the question, fundamentally is not that of the convience to the mother. Rather, it’s about the life she bares in her womb.

 

[Prophesy]

here is there group.

That’s one of them. There are more like it.

-Prophecy

 

[Prophesy]

Prophesy, are you sure those burgers weren’t endowed eith personhood a la Thomas’ argument?!!
(Sorry, all, I couldn’t resist a bit of harmless fun!)

Much to tasty to bother considering. Om nom nom nom. =p

-Prophecy

 

[BlueSapphire]

Life is precious, from the Womb to the Tomb!

 

[ThomasToo]

Sometimes I wonder about the literacy of others. Thomas, you can go on and on and say that it comes from our theology which the realization that all human’s have inherent dignity can be a push to be aware of that (but if that’s all it takes emancipation as well as the fundamental human rights are also founded in theology). But that ignores two groups:

Pro-Life Atheists- they exist, I was having a burger with a few last night.

Catholics for Choice- a group which isn’t pro-life despite claiming our theology

-Prophecy

Theology or philosophy I could (and probably should) have said…

Atheists who oppose abortion exist, as you’ve said, but they are exceedingly rare.

Catholics for Choice differ with you on many theological (and philosophical) issues; their theology differs from yours most notably on the question of personhood in utero.

Regardless of whether we call it theology or philosophy–and acknowledge the differences between the two–the fact of the matter is that you can’t get from the factual is of ‘this being is genetically human’ to the moral ought of ‘genetically human beings oughtn’t to be killed’ simply with biology and without refuge to philosophy/theology (see more about the is/ought dilemma at secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem or your local library).

If you look back a few pages, vz71 was insistent this jump was not required and that the principle in the moral ought was self-evident… That approach is not intellectually rigorous or, frankly, intelligible or persuasive.

 

[Marc_Anthony]

Your long post is lost to my memory in the face of your alleged moral obligation to remain attached to the violinist.

I said it was like asking ‘have you stopped beating your wife?’ There are worlds of difference there… Further, I said more than that. Your situation it’s counter-factual. The reality of, well, reality is that we do have places to give unwanted born children. To try and set up a situation where we do not is beyond the pale of feasibility.

Well, reality is that I’ve never heard of a single person who’s been kidnapped by music lovers and hooked up to a sick violinist.

It’s a hypothetical, not a real situation. And like you once said to me about the violinist argument, I have to assume that the only reason you’re not answering is because you can’t.

As for your original brain stem argument, as I’ll refer to it, I’ve already pointed out why I think that it’s not valid, because that logic could be applied to sleeping and comatose people.

 

[Marc_Anthony]

Theology or philosophy I could (and probably should) have said…

Atheists who oppose abortion exist, as you’ve said, but they are exceedingly rare.

Catholics for Choice differ with you on many theological (and philosophical) issues; their theology differs from yours most notably on the question of personhood in utero.

Regardless of whether we call it theology or philosophy–and acknowledge the differences between the two–the fact of the matter is that you can’t get from the factual is of ‘this being is genetically human’ to the moral ought of ‘genetically human beings oughtn’t to be killed’ simply with biology and without refuge to philosophy/theology (see more about the is/ought dilemma at secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem or your local library).

If you look back a few pages, vz71 was insistent this jump was not required and that the principle in the moral ought was self-evident… That approach is not intellectually rigorous or, frankly, intelligible or persuasive.

Correct! A debate in philosophy is required.

 

[ThomasToo]

Correct! A debate in philosophy is required.

Wait a tick… we’re agreeing on something. I don’t know how to feel just now…