America transitions into Gilead

[The Great Zaganza]

- It already sorta is. Abortions past the point of viability are astonishingly rare and almost always involve health issues.

- That being said the problem is that number is not exact so we as a society just can't deal with it, and it's going to keep getting moved back as tech advances. It's not unreasonable to think that within a decade or so a fetus will never be "not viable."

That is my point: it is downright irresponsible to leave it to politicians to determine when to abort and when to carry to term: it should always be up to the doctor and patient.
Medical guideline would apply, of course.

 

[Belz...]

Now, I'm pro-choice, but like Phiwum, I cannot adequately articulate why

Which of course raises the obvious question: why are you on the pro-choice side if you can't explain why you're on the pro-choice side?

What if the baby is premature (say 7 1/2 months) and "you can take it out and it can breathe and live on its own"?

Well according to the compromise I reached, you could not abort absent impotant medical considerations. And even then, just plop the kid out and hope for the best.

I'm not a pro-abortion fanatic. I don't really care either way. The compromise above is because I don't think I should get worked out about removing a clump of cells from the person incubating them, and I definitely don't think killing a newborn is ok. So where's the cut-off point? That's the one that made the most sense to me.

 

[JoeMorgue]

It don't care if it's philosophy, religious, legal, or about the pinch hitter rule in baseball, vague feelings of unease you can't explain and only apply in one very specific situation and not anywhere else it would logically also apply don't have a place in the discussion, much less in controlling someone else's life.

I don't get the "Okay but admit abortion is at least a teeeeeeeeny bit bad" bone we're being expected to throw.

 

[phiwum]

The pro-life argument seems to rely on an axiom that human life is fundamentally different from all other life. Whether the axiom is derived from religion, or just someone's gut feeling doesn't really make a difference. At the beginning it is in fact just a small clump of cells without a functioning brain. If you throw away the assumption that because it is human it is fundamentally different from every other animal, it has less self-awareness than a fly. Nobody remembers what it was like to be a fetus because the brain hasn't begun to work like a human brain yet. I do think, if you are going to get an abortion, do it sooner rather than later. But nobody's opinion about whether it's right or wrong to abort at 6 weeks or 12 weeks or 20 is an objective fact. It involves an assumption that may as well be religious. Beliefs about morality that come from a religion are no less or more valid than those that come from a gut feeling. It's when one person tries to impose their's on another that I object. If you think abortion is morally wrong, fine. Then don't have an abortion. But imposing that on someone else is no more reasonable than imposing a religious doctrine on them. Let each person answer the question for themselves.

tl;dr: if a religious belief is not a good reason to make abortion illegal then neither is someone's subjective opinion about morality.

I don't regard the pro-life position as being necessarily tied to a speciesist concern for humans. Marquis's argument is definitely not speciesist. I don't know any other philosophers who have written arguments against abortion.

I tend to think some moral arguments are better than others and the fact that there is a difference of opinion doesn't reduce moral arguments to being no better than religious beliefs.

 

[phiwum]

Why is the logical limit not the point at which a fetus could survive outside the womb?

What is the argument in favor of that point? Does it have unfortunate consequences for conscious humans requiring life support? What does "surviving outside the womb" mean? No extraordinary medical intervention (like life support) or something else?

None of these questions should be taken as a rejection of that being the right point, but we need some good argument why it's right.

 

[phiwum]

It don't care if it's philosophy, religious, legal, or about the pinch hitter rule in baseball, vague feelings of unease you can't explain and only apply in one very specific situation and not anywhere else it would logically also apply don't have a place in the discussion, much less in controlling someone else's life.

I don't get the "Okay but admit abortion is at least a teeeeeeeeny bit bad" bone we're being expected to throw.

Who expects that? Not me.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

What is the argument in favor of that point? Does it have unfortunate consequences for conscious humans requiring life support? What does "surviving outside the womb" mean? No extraordinary medical intervention (like life support) or something else?

None of these questions should be taken as a rejection of that being the right point, but we need some good argument why it's right.

In accordance to doctors, it would shift depending on available medical technology. And yes, that would over time push the standard limit for abortions early and early.

 

[phiwum]

In accordance to doctors, it would shift depending on available medical technology. And yes, that would over time push the standard limit for abortions early and early.

Okay, so abortion ought to be legal until the point that the fetus can survive outside the womb with whatever medical technology is available.

One argument against that as being the rule is that viability isn't really all that relevant to our intuitions (I first read it in Tooley's "Abortion and Infanticide" I think, but I'm not sure). Consider the following situation. A fetus is somehow miraculously conscious and communicative but not viable. The argument says that no one would really consider viability as the determining factor. Any conscious, intelligent and communicative (so we know he's conscious) being surely has a right to life regardless of whether it is viable or not.

Now, obviously it is a fantastic thought experiment, but I think I agree that I wouldn't regard viability of an undeniably intelligent being the determining factor for rights to life. This doesn't mean that the right to life necessarily entails that aborting this fantasy fetus would be wrong. Maybe that right is outweighed by other concerns, but the right must be figured into the moral reasoning.

Thus, viability by itself can't be the source of the right to life. (Tooley takes the radical position that infanticide is not morally wrong because the infant doesn't have a right to life either, but his argument requires more writing than anyone here probably cares to read and need not distract us.)

 

[JoeMorgue]

Again women should not have to wait over control over their own bodies while you dot every "i" and cross every "t" in your Philosophy 101 essay problem.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

It makes no sense to imagine something that cannot happen.
An abortion is the decision of the pregnant women not to carry the child to term. Depending on viability, this might or might not require the termination of the pregnancy.
But the state simply has no right to force a person to risk their health.

 

[3point14]

I s this accurate...?!?!


https://www.newsweek.com/under-alab...-perform-abortions-rape-victims-could-1425939

"...rape in the second degree is considered a Class B felony, punishable by 20 years or less, meaning that if a rapist were to be found guilty of second-degree rape, the maximum sentence would be nearly 80 years less than the maximum sentence imposed on doctors who have carried out an abortion, including in cases involving the rape of a child. "

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Yes

 

[JoeMorgue]

I s this accurate...?!?!


https://www.newsweek.com/under-alab...-perform-abortions-rape-victims-could-1425939

"...rape in the second degree is considered a Class B felony, punishable by 20 years or less, meaning that if a rapist were to be found guilty of second-degree rape, the maximum sentence would be nearly 80 years less than the maximum sentence imposed on doctors who have carried out an abortion, including in cases involving the rape of a child. "

On paper yes. As to how it would practically pan out with the nightmare complex web of how sentencing actually works is at best something we can only guess at.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

The explicit reason is that rape is not that bad if the rapist marries the victim.

 

[theprestige]

Again women should not have to wait over control over their own bodies while you dot every "i" and cross every "t" in your Philosophy 101 essay problem.

That's okay. I will ask you dot just one "i":

At what point in her pregnancy should a woman cede control over her body to the state?

 

[ponderingturtle]

On paper yes. As to how it would practically pan out with the nightmare complex web of how sentencing actually works is at best something we can only guess at.

Well the rapist would likely get probation and the doctor would get many decades, got to go with the will of the voters after all. Of course they are going to make a point of punishing the doctor. And rapists quite often get a slap on the wrist.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

Okay, so abortion ought to be legal until the point that the fetus can survive outside the womb with whatever medical technology is available.

One argument against that as being the rule is that viability isn't really all that relevant to our intuitions (I first read it in Tooley's "Abortion and Infanticide" I think, but I'm not sure). Consider the following situation. A fetus is somehow miraculously conscious and communicative but not viable. The argument says that no one would really consider viability as the determining factor. Any conscious, intelligent and communicative (so we know he's conscious) being surely has a right to life regardless of whether it is viable or not.

Now, obviously it is a fantastic thought experiment, but I think I agree that I wouldn't regard viability of an undeniably intelligent being the determining factor for rights to life. This doesn't mean that the right to life necessarily entails that aborting this fantasy fetus would be wrong. Maybe that right is outweighed by other concerns, but the right must be figured into the moral reasoning.

Thus, viability by itself can't be the source of the right to life. (Tooley takes the radical position that infanticide is not morally wrong because the infant doesn't have a right to life either, but his argument requires more writing than anyone here probably cares to read and need not distract us.)

The counterfactual assumption makes this too iffy. Nevertheless, I also reject viability as the driving criterion because the definition of a rights-holding human, in my view, involves that person coming into existence; i.e., becoming experientially aware, somewhere in the 26-30 week range. I'd definitely cut off at 24 weeks or a tad sooner to be safe. Further, viability may suddenly change even just prior to birth or during birth, times at which I'd advocate trying to save the now-baby.

Same definition I use for euthanasia at the other end of the journey.

 

[BStrong]

We don't have to settle every question to settle this one.

Women shouldn't be kept as state mandated incubators while we wring our hands over every trolley problem variation.

Agreed 100%

 

[TragicMonkey]

For me the question hinges not on viability but on burdening another being. An unwanted pregnancy is parasitical upon the hosting mother. She can terminate the pregnancy on the grounds of its negative impact upon her own body, not because she or anyone can decide whether it's sufficiently personlike or not. Were the fetus to leave her body on its own she wouldn't be allowed to then kill it, as the burden had been removed already.

Which again means technology will resolve this. As soon as unwanted fetuses at any stage of development can be beamed out via teleporters that's how unwanted pregnancies will be handled. Although hopefully by then we'll have infallible birth control so the situation won't arise much.

 

[theprestige]

For me the question hinges not on viability but on burdening another being. An unwanted pregnancy is parasitical upon the hosting mother. She can terminate the pregnancy on the grounds of its negative impact upon her own body, not because she or anyone can decide whether it's sufficiently personlike or not. Were the fetus to leave her body on its own she wouldn't be allowed to then kill it, as the burden had been removed already.

A born child is still a burden on somebody, though. It may have left its mother's body, but the mother is still on the hook to support it for another decade at least.

Maybe I don't quite understand the policy you're arguing for here. It seems to me that if a post-partum mother has a moral burden to care for her child, that cannot be discharged by killing it, a pre-partum mother may in fact have the same burden.

Which again means technology will resolve this. As soon as unwanted fetuses at any stage of development can be beamed out via teleporters that's how unwanted pregnancies will be handled.

Unless the unwanted fetus is teleported to someone who's going to raise it and care for it, it's just a fancier form of abortion.

Although hopefully by then we'll have infallible birth control so the situation won't arise much.

As long as humans are involved, it won't be infallible.