America transitions into Gilead

[BobTheCoward]

I had another thought about this:



Getting into an argument about this was probably a mistake because "whether abortion is right or wrong" isn't actually the right question to ask. At least it isn't the primary question that I'm concerned with. It's "whether abortion should be illegal or legal and under what circumstances". Even if, for the sake of argument, Marquis is correct that "Abortion is Wrong" as a metaphysical matter, the question remains as a separate legitimate question of public and social policy. Because there are other wrongs and considerations to balance it against. What is in the overall best interest of society as a whole?

I think you have a bigger philosophical hurdle of how can you even answer the question what is in the interest of society.

 

[Sideroxylon]

Fair enough, I guess.

But I tend to see physical burdens as social burdens. If you're drowning and I try to save you, I don't get to change my mind halfway through because the physical burden is too inconvenient. A firefighter doesn't get to opt out of carrying people from a burning building because "lol people are heavy".

Anyway, if your criteria is "sharing the body", does that mean you would allow abortions of convenience up until the moment of birth?


Technological advance and social safety net don't seem to be well correlated in fact or fiction. The Soviet Union was plenty advanced, with nuclear power plants, probes to other planets, supersonic aircraft, space stations, computers, etc. But their social services were pretty bad even by the standards of the day.

The Klingons have warp drives, teleporters, and cloaking devices. But are their social services up to your humanitarian standards?



Well. If you don't make it mandatory, you'll have conscientious objectors who opt-out. Hell, even if you do make it mandatory, you'll still have people opting out. Look how well that works with vaccination and home schooling.

Then there's all the idiots who think they want to breed, and then change their mind halfway through. Or who kept meaning to reverse the reversal but never get around to it, and go on having sex anyway. Even in a world of condoms, easy-access birth control, and the old standby of abstinence, we still seem to need abortions of convenience on the regular. I don't think foolproof technology is going to be the right answer for solving human problems.

Analogies, huh.

 

[Puppycow]

I think you have a bigger philosophical hurdle of how can you even answer the question what is in the interest of society.

I'm a consequentialist and a utilitarian.

 

[BobTheCoward]

I'm a consequentialist and a utilitarian.

The issue is the measuring.

 

[phiwum]

Reducing the entire moral equation down to hypothetical possible futures ignores too many other reasons why murder is wrong. If you murder an adult human, that person is already an actual fully formed human being, not a fertilized egg that is programmed to grow into one in the future. The human being almost certainly has a family, friends, perhaps dependent children and/or colleagues, all of whom will be impacted by their loss. Nobody is going to miss that zygote in the same way or have their life altered because some person who hadn't been born yet in any case isn't born. Certainly not more than its mother.

So murder is not wrong solely because it deprives a person of "a future like ours" but for many other reasons as well that do not apply to a fetus.

Sure, but blame my presentation, not Marquis's writing. He makes clear that murder is wrong for many reasons, but the primary victim is clearly the person murdered, not his loved ones, and the primary reason is the loss of a future like ours.

Abortion doesn't share all the factors that make murder wrong, but it shares the most significant factor. At least that's Marquis's argument.

If you're concerned that I'm not accurately conveying Marquis's argument clearly enough (and honestly, you probably should be), I can email you a scan of his article. It's a brief read. Of course, if not, that's fine too.

 

[phiwum]

I had another thought about this:



Getting into an argument about this was probably a mistake because "whether abortion is right or wrong" isn't actually the right question to ask. At least it isn't the primary question that I'm concerned with. It's "whether abortion should be illegal or legal and under what circumstances". Even if, for the sake of argument, Marquis is correct that "Abortion is Wrong" as a metaphysical matter, the question remains as a separate legitimate question of public and social policy. Because there are other wrongs and considerations to balance it against. What is in the overall best interest of society as a whole?

I think that if abortion is just as bad as murder, then abortion ought to be illegal. If somehow we determined that making murder legal would reduce murder rates and make it safer for killers (don't ask how, I got no story for that), it would still be the wrong public policy. There is simply something wrong about saying that the state regards murder as acceptable, since legalized murder provides benefits lacking in illegal murder.

Now, it's a silly hypothetical, but I hope you get my point. The failure to recognize fundamental human rights as essential is, first, wrong morally speaking and, second, probably produces strongly negative effects that are hard to predict.

Back to abortion, those who think that abortion is like murder would say that legalizing abortion is dehumanizing, leading to generations who fail to value human life in an appropriate way and, yes, of course, wrong.

 

[phiwum]

I'm a consequentialist and a utilitarian.

Ah, that explains your previous post.

Well, if you take a utilitarian view, the whole discussion of moral rights is pretty difficult to take seriously. They don't particularly fit into your moral theory. And, of course, in that case, the only question that matters is the one you just asked: what is the outcome of legalized abortion compared to illegal abortion?

Hard question to answer, obviously, but I'd think a plausible case could be made that legalized abortion would produce a better outcome than the alternative.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Alabama lawmakers explicitly don't worry about IVF.
Why would a fertilized egg in the lab not count, but a just fertilized one in the womb does?

 

[Lambchops]

Wow. I'm actually adding "A 12 year old rape victim being forced to carry to term is a BAD THING" to the list of things I've managed to find people to be contrarian over.

Yeah, this is insane.

I don't know what to say to that. Or actually I do, but I don't wanna get banned.

 

[Roboramma]

I would say that the right to life is basic.

I would say that the right to choose whether some other life continues is not basic at all, but rather complex and debatable.

I would say that both the right to life and the right to autonomy over one's own body are both pretty basic. When the two come into conflict I can see why reasonable people can end up disagreeing.

 

[The Don]

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.

Looks like a feature of the federal system to me. States which want to ban abortions can do so (subject to those laws being ratified by SCOTUS - something that appears more likely right now), those which want the right to choice can have it.

There are some things where the country has decided that a certain right is fundamental enough to be determined at a national level. The civil rights and womens rights movements over the last 60 years or so have expanded that list. It seems that the backlash against it, the election of Trump is a symptom of this, is trying put some or all of those rights back in play.

 

[Roboramma]

I always have to bring this up in this topic.

Abortion rates have been dropping like a rock in the last few decades. After Roe V Wade in 1973 there was about a decade long uptick in abortions but then from the early to mid-80s to now basically that rate has been steadily falling to the point that there are fewer abortions being performed now then before Roe V Wade.

And since the good old United States likes being the statistical outlier in a lot of things both good and bad, this isn't some fluke. Worldwide that trend holds.

The country with the most abortions per X number of women per child bearing age? Pakistan. The one with the least? Switzerland.

If you actually care about there being fewer abortions, make them legal. The only difference is the legal ones are safer.

We've traded a lot of dangerous, illegal abortions for fewer overall abortions and safer abortions. Who's not winning in this scenario?

This really needs to be emphasised more.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Looks like a feature of the federal system to me. States which want to ban abortions can do so (subject to those laws being ratified by SCOTUS - something that appears more likely right now), those which want the right to choice can have it.

There are some things where the country has decided that a certain right is fundamental enough to be determined at a national level. The civil rights and womens rights movements over the last 60 years or so have expanded that list. It seems that the backlash against it, the election of Trump is a symptom of this, is trying put some or all of those rights back in play.

'States' want to control abortion laws in the country. If you think all they want is states' rights to have their little religious islands amongst the bigger sinful country, you don't have your eyes open. This isn't about states' rights. This is about religious extremists and the people promoting them because they are one issue voters who will vote for their right wing policies.

 

[Lurch]

This whole matter of the morality of abortion, I fear, will ever remain an intractable problem. Simply because it involves the clash in rights of a fully developed human carrying inside her an absolutely dependent, developing human-to-be. In such a conundrum, I lean toward the woman herself as the most competent authority on what is best for her (along with her doctor.)

As a man, I get really steamed by other men moralizing against women on matters completely outside their own direct experience. It's bad enough when some women engage thus. But men, please; STFU.

 

[Minoosh]

Alabama lawmakers explicitly don't worry about IVF.
Why would a fertilized egg in the lab not count, but a just fertilized one in the womb does?

Because it's not in a pregnant woman. There's some who think test-tube babies don't count because God said (paraphrase) I knew you in your mother's womb. So fertilized eggs are not yet in their mother's womb.

There's also a verse about the damages a man can claim if someone causes his wife to miscarry. It's a financial penalty. Not life in prison.

 

[Puppycow]

If we take it off the table, how should one settle whether abortion is permissible? One still needs some argument about what feature is relevant for having a right to life. Rejection of this particular pro-life argument doesn't entail that abortion is okay. It leaves the question unsettled.

Then perhaps if the question is unsettled, the government should not impose a particular view on everyone, and leave it to the conscience of the person who will have to live with the consequences.

 

[uke2se]

I always have to bring this up in this topic.

Abortion rates have been dropping like a rock in the last few decades. After Roe V Wade in 1973 there was about a decade long uptick in abortions but then from the early to mid-80s to now basically that rate has been steadily falling to the point that there are fewer abortions being performed now then before Roe V Wade.

And since the good old United States likes being the statistical outlier in a lot of things both good and bad, this isn't some fluke. Worldwide that trend holds.

The country with the most abortions per X number of women per child bearing age? Pakistan. The one with the least? Switzerland.

If you actually care about there being fewer abortions, make them legal. The only difference is the legal ones are safer.

We've traded a lot of dangerous, illegal abortions for fewer overall abortions and safer abortions. Who's not winning in this scenario?

The people not winning are the same people pushing to make abortions illegal. It's evangelical men who are used to be in charge over women, and who feel that their God gave them the role as the leader of the household. They think women who end up pregnant outside of wedlock are sluts that ought to be punished, and that having an abortion while married is an affront to God who told them to procreate.

They are simultaneously worried about being outbred by "inferior races" which would result in whites being in the minority.

In short, the losers in your scenario are white supremacist Christian men.

 

[Brainster]

If you actually care about there being fewer abortions, make them legal.

I'm trying hard to figure out how that could possibly be true; it seems to me like you are just using post hoc reasoning.

 

[Roboramma]

Then perhaps if the question is unsettled, the government should not impose a particular view on everyone, and leave it to the conscience of the person who will have to live with the consequences.

I think he was saying that that one argument doesn't settle the issue, not that it isn't settled by other arguments.

 

[uke2se]

I'm trying hard to figure out how that could possibly be true; it seems to me like you are just using post hoc reasoning.

It's based on historical data, which has already been explained.

Hand in hand with legal abortions go better sexual education and less stigma for the use of contraceptics. All of this has been shown to be related.