The problem with the Abortion debate

[laylow]

But this kind of appeal to legality or the law is a fallacious argument. I think that’s the name of the fallacy actually.

What is fallacious about it? This is where society currently stands. If you want something changed, then society must be convinced your change is worthy.

 

[Sbee0]

Sbee0:

But this kind of appeal to legality or the law is a fallacious argument. I think that’s the name of the fallacy actually.

What is fallacious about it? This is where society currently stands. If you want something changed, then society must be convinced your change is worthy.

The appeal to law logical fallacy is in the logic that an unborn child cannot possibly be a person because the law doesn’t prescribe what is legally necessary to make it so. That statement is simply not true as the error is in the double meaning of the words “cannot possibly”. Textbook fallacy.

Again, personhood has no place in a debate on this topic with facts and reason rather then emotion.

 

[blackforest]

So which is the more morally unjust: To swat a mosquito or bludgeon a chimp to death. Life is life? Is it not?

The law would disagree with you, as would most of Western civilization.

Ah, but you are talking about ‘someone’. But I don’t accept that a few cells can be described thus.

Whether or not you accept science doesn’t make it true or not, (paraphrasing Neil de Grasse Tyson here). “Someone” is simply a pronoun referring to another human being, which a prenatal organism most certainly is.

These “few cells” are different from the few skin cells that come off my forearm if I brush it or even the billions of sperm that die off after sex. Pre-born humans in the embryonic or fetal phase of development are an entire separate organism, specifically a human being.

And remember that by the time an elective abortion is performed, we’re talking about a lot more than “a few cells.”

 

[Sbee0]

Sbee0:

common tactic of pro choicers to make their position more “acceptable”.

Not a tactic. It is the way they see things. Let’s not associate characteristics to a whole group of people when we don’t know enough about them to do so.

Its a tactic with basis in their beliefs. Pro lifers too have them.

 

[laylow]

The appeal to law logical fallacy is in the logic that an unborn child cannot possibly be a person because the law doesn’t prescribe what is legally necessary to make it so. That statement is simply not true as the error is in the double meaning of the words “cannot possibly”. Textbook fallacy.

Except there is not one quote where I stated “unborn child cannot possibly be a person.” I stated that it is not currently recognized as one.

Again, personhood has no place in a debate on this topic with facts and reason rather then emotion.

Then you still have to explain to me why procedures are not done to attempt to save a zygote by trying to reattach it to the uterus wall (or some other method)? If you use a “natural” argument, it doesn’t fly. People naturally die of cancer, heart disease, heart attacks, stroke, etc. but humans intervene and attempt to save people in those situations. The zygote is obviously treated differently, so my question is why?

 

[Sbee0]

Sbee0:

The appeal to law logical fallacy is in the logic that an unborn child cannot possibly be a person because the law doesn’t prescribe what is legally necessary to make it so. That statement is simply not true as the error is in the double meaning of the words “cannot possibly”. Textbook fallacy.

Except there is not one quote where I stated “unborn child cannot possibly be a person.” I stated that it is not currently recognized as one.

Then I misread your post. If you’re not saying that then seems like it doesn’t really matter if it is or not in this discussion.

Again, personhood has no place in a debate on this topic with facts and reason rather then emotion.

Then you still have to explain to me why procedures are not done to attempt to save a zygote by trying to reattach it to the uterus wall (or some other method)? If you use a “natural” argument, it doesn’t fly. People naturally die of cancer, heart disease, heart attacks, stroke, etc. but humans intervene and attempt to save people in those situations. The zygote is obviously treated differently, so my question is why?

How do you know they aren’t? It’s also tough to compare like this as symptoms can easily and quickly manifest themselves to born people- which isn’t always so on an unborn person until a scan is done

 

[blackforest]

Then you still have to explain to me why procedures are not done to attempt to save a zygote by trying to reattach it to the uterus wall (or some other method)? If you use a “natural” argument, it doesn’t fly. People naturally die of cancer, heart disease, heart attacks, stroke, etc. but humans intervene and attempt to save people in those situations. The zygote is obviously treated differently, so my question is why?

So just as a nit-picking technicality, a zygote is a single-celled human organism. There are multiple differentiated cells by the time implantation occurs.

I don’t believe that medical science has discovered a way to do what you are suggesting, but I think a lot of women would be grateful to have that option.

 

[StillWandering]

Part 1
As an Irish person who was actively involved in the campaign during the referendum, I learned a few things about how people view abortion which very few Pro Life people have even realised. It is to my mind one of the biggest reasons why we lost, and why we keep loosing.

You see actively Pro Life people approach the argument with the assumption that most decent people believe that a person’s life should never be taken. The thing is that most people actively involved on the Pro Choice of the argument think this too. Thus we have vicious arguments over whether or not the unborn is merely a clump of cells, or whether or not it an individual. The abortion argument is thus presented as a rights of the unborn child vs rights of the woman debate.

All the while, a good percentage of the population, and especially of those in the 18-35 age bracket have moved way beyond that. There are substantial proportions of the population, including substantial numbers of Mass attending Catholics, who believe that it is perfectly ethical to take an individuals life in certain circumstances. I saw this, with shock, in how people talked about abortion of the disabled or the sick. Large numbers of people believed that it was “more compassionate to kill the child than to let them suffer”. A mantra I heard a lot was that “we wouldn’t let a dog live like that, so why do we let a child live like that?”, faced with that, the argument that each person has inherent dignity just didn’t cut it with most people.

You find that with everything to poverty to a mother who has too many children. In those cases, people thought it was kinder, more compassionate, to kill the child. One of the most surprising things I heard from Pro Choice campaigners was that they actively, openly, referred to the child as a “baby” and were talking about how wrong it was bringing children into the world in terrible circumstances, convincing people that their’s was the side of kindness, all the while the Pro Life was blustering over the fact that the unborn are babies, something everyone already agreed with. Thrown into the mix, nutters from the USA and the UK arrived with huge pictures of aborted babies and stood outside of hospitals and schools, really upsetting women who had had miscarriages and frightening children.

The most depressing thing about the whole debate was how practising Catholics approached it. Many priests refused to let Pro Life people campaign outside Mass, when we were allowed we were confronted with the image of people holding rosary beads and explaining to us that they “couldn’t force their opinions on others”.The final stick of the knife is that, according to the exit polls, had church attending Catholics held to Church teaching and voted no, the Pro Life side would have won comfortably, settling the question for another generation and saving the lives of countless children.

 

[StillWandering]

Part 2
And before you all start a “Ireland has really gone bad” mantra, I’ve travelled widely, I have spoken to people from every corner of the western world about this matter and its the same everywhere. We Pro Life people believe that we have a silver bullet by getting people to realise that it really is a child, but most people, excepting the ardent Pro Choice SJW sort, already think that. The problem now is a case of moral relativism and materialism. Most people in the formerly Christian world, believe they “cant force their opinions on others” and that its wrong for a child or family to live in relative poverty, to be sick, to be disabled. Faced with that, they believe it is ok to kill them and spare them the suffering.

I dont know how you fix that. Personally, whilst always doing everything I can to maintain Christian ethics and voting on the basis of my values, opposing abortion in every circumstance, am forced to concede a kind of “Benedict Option” approach to this civilization. Beyond a miracle, I cant see a way out.

 

[PetraG]

All the while, a good percentage of the population, and especially of those in the 18-35 age bracket have moved way beyond that. There are substantial proportions of the population, including substantial numbers of Mass attending Catholics, who believe that it is perfectly ethical to take an individuals life in certain circumstances. I saw this, with shock, in how people talked about abortion of the disabled or the sick. Large numbers of people believed that it was “more compassionate to kill the child than to let them suffer”. A mantra I heard a lot was that “we wouldn’t let a dog live like that, so why do we let a child live like that?”, faced with that, the argument that each person has inherent dignity just didn’t cut it with most people.

You have that right. We had the same thing here in Oregon, when the physician-assisted suicide debate was going on. There were people who said if their quality of life was going down, they want the option to commit suicide. They see someone who is suffering or not able to do everything they want to be able to do, people who have to depend on others for the activities necessary for life, and the attitude is: “I’d rather be dead than to be like you.” That is considered compassion.

The other attitude that shocks me is: “I’ll help you pay for an abortion, but I am not going to help pay for you to raise that child. That’s on you.” That is also considered the limits of civil society’s willingness to sacrifice for the needy.

 

[PetraG]

Then you still have to explain to me why procedures are not done to attempt to save a zygote by trying to reattach it to the uterus wall (or some other method)?

I think you know very well that at that stage of our lives we have a diameter in the range of the width of a strand of hair.

Why can’t you claim your unborn child on our tax returns? Why are death certificates not issued in all unborn cases? Legally they are not recognized in the same way. That is the current situation. You can argue for your opinion against that reality, but you can’t deny said reality.

I think you know that there are many persons we recognize as persons with all the rights of persons who would have either been seen as having no right to life or anything else or who would not even have been legally recognized as persons. A “the law doesn’t recognize you as a person, and therefore you aren’t a person” argument is obviously flawed, as is the “if the law allows me to kill you, it can’t be wrong to kill you” defense.

Human morals are supposed to inform and define laws, not the other way around. Not every law is just nor even decent.

 

[LovingWife822]

The Didache - an excerpt
c. 60 - 100 C.E.

1 There are two ways, one of life and one of death; and between the two ways there is a great difference.

2 Now, this is the way of life:…

The second commandment of the Teaching: “Do not murder; do not commit adultery” do not corrupt boys; do not fornicate; “do not steal”; do not practice magic; do not go in for sorcery; do not murder a child by abortion or kill a newborn infant."

 

[goout]

goout:

Begs the obvious objection:
So the child just outside the birth canal is more conscious than the child in the birth canal?

I’m not sure, have any studies been done? How would it be studied?

I dunno. What do you think?
Given that you don’t know, what is the imperative assumption in regard to human life?
Even if you can’t discern the human quality of life at any stage, you can still practice good moral decision making.

We talk a lot about science here. Science is a wonderful tool that guides human beings toward God, or at least toward being our best selves. Science ought to enlighten us, not cause us to throw up our hands when we don’t comprehend all of science.

We don’t have to be scientists, but we can be our best selves. And that would include giving human beings the benefit of the doubt when we aren’t certain.