America transitions into Gilead

[phiwum]

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.

I have already addressed that point when you first raised it.

 

[Hellbound]

We just need a reality show where the audience can vote for which fetuses (feti?) shoudl be saved and which can go.

 

[phiwum]

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.

The point of the fantastic hypothetical is to test whether one's stated principle really matches their moral intuitions. If the principle seems to produce strongly counterintuitive results in some hypothetical situations one should consider whether the principle really reflects his views or not.

 

[phiwum]

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.

Judith Jarvis Thomson produced an argument along these lines, though her conclusion was a bit more nuanced. It's a good read, easily accessible, if you're interested.

 

[JoeMorgue]

The point of the fantastic hypothetical is to test whether one's stated principle really matches their moral intuitions. If the principle seems to produce strongly counterintuitive results in some hypothetical situations one should consider whether the principle really reflects his views or not.

"Hi I'm a twelve year old raped by their father and now I'm pregnant."
"Okay what are your opinions on what happens when I fire Zeno's Arrow from the Ship of Theseus into Plato's Cave?"

This is just Bobbing with more words, an appeal to some arbitrary categorization we have to treat with absolute consistency above all else.

My only "moral intuition" is to do things that do the most real world good and it matches up with my "states principles" just fine.

 

[TragicMonkey]

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.

Social burdens are not the same as physical burdens.

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.

It's just about sharing the body, for me. All the rest is a different situation.

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.

I'm presuming a society advanced enough to have teleporters would also have pretty good social services.

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

Opt-in fertility (i.e., everyone's sterilized at birth and the procedure is temporarily reversed when people want to breed) would be as close to infallible as to make no difference.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...and yet the vast majority of people elected support the views of those so-called religious fanatics. Gerrymandering would only be a factor if the parties had differing policies in the state w.r.t. abortion.

You are ignoring the problem: the word, 'vast'.

A small majority supports making abortion illegal, not a vast majority. And the larger the population polled, i.e. the country instead of the states passing these laws, the majority supports pro-choice laws.

 

[phiwum]

"Hi I'm a twelve year old raped by their father and now I'm pregnant."
"Okay what are your opinions on what happens when I fire Zeno's Arrow from the Ship of Theseus into Plato's Cave?"

This is just Bobbing with more words, an appeal to some arbitrary categorization we have to treat with absolute consistency above all else.

My only "moral intuition" is to do things that do the most real world good and it matches up with my "states principles" just fine.

This approach of your utterly fails to settle disputes. A pro-lifer could just as well say, "I have convictions that abortion is murder and we can't wait for a perfect argument while thousands of fetuses are killed." Indeed, this may well be the view of the majority of folk in Alabama. Nothing you've said gives your personal view any priority over theirs.

If abortion is murder, then the most real world good is to end the practice. If it isn't, then the most real world good is done by ensuring it is safe and legal. Your disregard for addressing any actual arguments or applying clear reasoning is nothing more than an insistence that of course your opinion is correct and important and why the heck would anyone disagree?

Sorry, Joe, but I don't regard this as a particularly reasonable approach. I tend to think that, if morality matters at all (and I reckon everyone up in arms about the horror of the new Alabama bill thinks it does), then careful thought is preferable to a rejection of principles. Careful thought hasn't settled the issue, not by any means, but it beats eenie, meenie, miney mo.

 

[GlennB]

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.

There will never be a good argument that leads to 'right'. 'Right' is an unattainable ideal. There will always be a pragmatic compromise or an absolute ban.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

....

So, while I don't agree with the pro-life position, I understand it fairly well and don't think it's a stupid position to take nor that pro-lifers are motivated by misogynism. (I'm sure some are, but some people are just bad people.)

If this were true, why do these people want to make abortion illegal when legal, safe and rare is a goal which will actually decrease abortions, while the evidence is that making abortion illegal only makes it less safe?

Same with defunding Planned Parenthood, how does that decrease the number of abortions?

The first goal of making abortion illegal isn't to prevent abortion. It's some kind of perverse satisfaction labeling people as criminals.

 

[BobTheCoward]

If this were true, why do these people want to make abortion illegal when legal, safe and rare is a goal which will actually decrease abortions, while the evidence is that making abortion illegal only makes it less safe?

Same with defunding Planned Parenthood, how does that decrease the number of abortions?

The first goal of making abortion illegal isn't to prevent abortion. It's some kind of perverse satisfaction labeling people as criminals.

It is a deontological ethical position.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

This is obviously a question that everyone with an opinion on abortion must answer, not just the pro-life camp. Why, indeed, is the living thing before viability or birth or the second trimester or whatever okay to kill but the living thing after that not okay?...

Why is it OK to force a woman to get an illegal, less safe abortion but it's not OK to fund pregnancy prevention?

Effective Planned Parenthood and ineffective abstinence only campaigns come to mind.

 

[Ziggurat]

"Hi I'm a twelve year old raped by their father and now I'm pregnant."
"Okay what are your opinions on what happens when I fire Zeno's Arrow from the Ship of Theseus into Plato's Cave?"

This is just Bobbing with more words, an appeal to some arbitrary categorization we have to treat with absolute consistency above all else.

My only "moral intuition" is to do things that do the most real world good and it matches up with my "states principles" just fine.

This approach of your utterly fails to settle disputes. A pro-lifer could just as well say, "I have convictions that abortion is murder and we can't wait for a perfect argument while thousands of fetuses are killed." Indeed, this may well be the view of the majority of folk in Alabama. Nothing you've said gives your personal view any priority over theirs.

I'd say the problem is even more extensive than that. Even if you don't accept the abortion is murder approach, it's still not cut and dry.

Joe's hypothetical strikes a little close to home, because that is what happened to a relative of mine. She was raped by her father, and became pregnant. And her father took her to get an abortion. The abortion didn't save her from anything. It enabled the father to conceal what he did, and to keep doing it. He got away with raping her for years, and many years later she committed suicide. I don't know for sure that things would be any better if she had carried the baby to term, but I also don't know that they would have been any worse.

 

[Ziggurat]

Why is it OK to force a woman to get an illegal, less safe abortion

Who is forcing women to get illegal abortions? Are gangs running around, kidnapping pregnant women, and performing abortions on them against their will?

 

[phiwum]

If this were true, why do these people want to make abortion illegal when legal, safe and rare is a goal which will actually decrease abortions, while the evidence is that making abortion illegal only makes it less safe?

Because if you think that abortion is murder, you don't think that the appropriate response is to make it state-sanctioned and safe murder, even if it decreases the number of abortions.

Same with defunding Planned Parenthood, how does that decrease the number of abortions?

Defunding Planned Parenthood is a matter of not wanting taxpayers to fund abortions. If I thought it was murder, then I too would think it's beyond the pale that I'm forced to fund it.

Note: I am strongly against the defunding of Planned Parenthood. I'm just saying that I can understand why pro-lifers favor it. Even if the taxpayer money doesn't go directly to abortion services, the fact that they receive it frees up other money for those services.

The first goal of making abortion illegal isn't to prevent abortion. It's some kind of perverse satisfaction labeling people as criminals.

Sure, because them folk are just plain evil.

 

[Babbylonian]

This approach of your utterly fails to settle disputes. A pro-lifer could just as well say, "I have convictions that abortion is murder and we can't wait for a perfect argument while thousands of fetuses are killed." Indeed, this may well be the view of the majority of folk in Alabama. Nothing you've said gives your personal view any priority over theirs.

All of this is why the Supreme Court ruled that abortion was about an individual's rights. There is no conflict once you've accepted that a person has the right to choose what happens in their body. In other words, all of your philosophical handwringing is irrelevant because it should be none of your ******* business.

 

[JoeMorgue]

This approach of your utterly fails to settle disputes. A pro-lifer could just as well say, "I have convictions that abortion is murder and we can't wait for a perfect argument while thousands of fetuses are killed." Indeed, this may well be the view of the majority of folk in Alabama. Nothing you've said gives your personal view any priority over theirs.

If abortion is murder, then the most real world good is to end the practice. If it isn't, then the most real world good is done by ensuring it is safe and legal. Your disregard for addressing any actual arguments or applying clear reasoning is nothing more than an insistence that of course your opinion is correct and important and why the heck would anyone disagree?

Sorry, Joe, but I don't regard this as a particularly reasonable approach. I tend to think that, if morality matters at all (and I reckon everyone up in arms about the horror of the new Alabama bill thinks it does), then careful thought is preferable to a rejection of principles. Careful thought hasn't settled the issue, not by any means, but it beats eenie, meenie, miney mo.

And this is why navel gazing is useless, it always leads back to a limp dishrag "Oh well we can't say for sure...." And I find apologetics as much or more distasteful then then the things they are apologizing for.

Neither I, the 12 year old rape victim, or the law does or should give a Hersey Squirt about your moral conundrum.

I can say "Hey here's a radical idea, a raped 12 year old shouldn't be forced to carry her rapist's child to term" without showy moral hairsplitting. You apparently cannot. I think my logic and my morals are coming out on top on this one.

 

[phiwum]

Why is it OK to force a woman to get an illegal, less safe abortion but it's not OK to fund pregnancy prevention?

Effective Planned Parenthood and ineffective abstinence only campaigns come to mind.

I think that effective pregnancy prevention would be a bipartisan issue if not for the fact that the biggest provider also provides abortion services.

Look, please understand that I'm not supporting the pro-life position. I'm just arguing that I don't think that the claim abortion is wrong is obviously stupid and when you try to see it from the perspective that abortion is like murder, you can understand their actions without attributing them to malice, misogyny and evil.

And, if they would take the time to see that the pro-choice side is not obviously stupid, they would not regard their opponents as evil baby-killers.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Who is forcing women to get illegal abortions? Are gangs running around, kidnapping pregnant women, and performing abortions on them against their will?

By not allowing women access to legal abortion, (g) you are pretty much forcing that on them as the only option.

Again unless "Hey 12 year old just carry your daddy-rapists child to term" is a viable (no pun intended) option you can't ban abortions, only the legal and safe ones.

 

[phiwum]

All of this is why the Supreme Court ruled that abortion was about an individual's rights. There is no conflict once you've accepted that a person has the right to choose what happens in their body. In other words, all of your philosophical handwringing is irrelevant because it should be none of your ******* business.

I never thought that the right to privacy argument was very persuasive. If the fundamental question is whether or not a fetus has a right to life, how the heck is privacy concerns of the woman all that relevant?

A genuine question: Is euthanasia of those in a permanent vegetative state legal in every state? If so, was this because of laws passed or because of family members' right to privacy to decide what to do with their loved ones?

Let me take this line of reasoning back. I still don't like the argument in Roe v. Wade, but I have been dragged off the point I originally attempted to make here. That point is merely that the right-to-life argument isn't obviously stupid and that if you look at things from the perspective that a fetus is a person, most of the positions by the pro-life camp are fairly reasonable.

But I think your argument here isn't at all the kind of argument I was trying to dispute. You're right that no amount of philosophical babbling have settled this question and the law can't wait. This is a kind of settlement, though, of course, it would also be a kind of settlement to say that we ought to minimize damage done legally in the state, so abortion should be outlawed. Your argument is not at all dismissive of the other side as ignorant Bible thumpers, so I don't think I really have a beef here.