At what stage is abortion immoral?

[uruk]

Maybe so, but the point of the example is to say that we cannot reasonably expect people not to open their windows. There might be a risk that a people seed could drift into the window, but can we really expect people to live life in a manner so as to avoid any potential undesired outcome? Leaving the house, getting in the car, taking a shower, these are all potentially dangerous activities we all participate in daily. Our choices to participate in them are not governed by our fear of the potentially disastrous outcomes.

As I mentioned in another post we live in a society where people want to live in a world with no consequenceses or responsibilities. Sorry but the world just ain't so.
We take risks everyday. We have to accept those risks and the consequences they entail if we want to "live". "Them's the breaks kids".

To me, saying that the best way to not get pregnant is to abstain from sex is analogous to saying the best way to not get into a car accident is to never get in a car. That may be true, but for most people, its simply not practical. So what do you do? You take reasonable precautions when partaking in activities that have known risks. There really is nothing more you can do.

But sex and driving are two very different things.
We have to drive or ride to get to work or where ever we want to go to do what we want or need. Despite how much we want to, we do not have to have sex. Sex, biologicaly speaking, only serve one purpose (two actually depending on the species). One is procreation, the other is parent bonding. The act of sex is the start of the process of making babies. When ever you have sex with the opposite sex you are risking pregnancy, even with contraceptive. You have to accept the risk and responsibilities of those actions.

well, at least today you only have to accept the risks. The responsibility has been legislated away. The best way would be to give the baby up for adoption. Why should the baby not be allowed to continue it exist simply because the parents made an oopsie?

Some see that as acceptable. I do not. Even if it were to happen to me (If I were a female, that is)

We tend to have sex more for pleasure. Again does it seem right or moral to not allow the fetus the chance to contuinue existance simply because you lost the roll of the dice while having some fun? Isn't there a saying "It's all fun and games untill somebody gets pregnant?"

If you do not see that as a problem maybe you sould at least take some time reconsidering your views. Do you have this particular view out of not wanting to be inconvienanced and the desire to avoid responsibility? Do you take lightly the termination of a potential person?
And if you don't, does terminating that potential person just payment for having your fun?

And just to elaborate on the violinist, we can modify the scenario to make the person partially responsible, and the moral evaluation is no different. Suppose you were well aware that the Society for Music Lovers was looking to kidnap someone to hook up to the violinist. In leaving the house, would you not be taking partial responsibility, knowing there is a chance you could be kidnapped and hooked up to the violinist? Still, despite your partial responsibility, you have no duty to the violinist.

Well, there is the issue of the legality of what the SfML is doing. But I do not see how the violinist scenario relates to the issue of preganacy. I try to read back for the violinist analogy and respond accordingly.

So don't get me wrong - I think that couples who become pregnant bear the responsibility of the pregnancy, but I don't see how responsibility changes the morality of it. Permissible actions are permissible regardless of how you are put in the situation of making a choice to take those actions. I don't see how the mode of conception (forced or consensual, intentional or not) has any bearing on whether an abortion wrongs the fetus or not. This is what we are discussing here, right? The question of, at what point in a pregnancy, if any, does a fetus become wronged by an abortion?

One of the endevours of life is to continue to exist. So even if there is no brain yet, the cells that are dividing and on thier way to becoming a baby strives to exist. Rather it does those things that lead to conintuing its existance. In adults it manifest itiself in to the survival instinct or the desire to keep on living. So on some bio-chemical level those cells "want" ,for lack of a better word, to live. It is a function of DNA if you want to look at it more pragmaticaly.

On that level the fetus or zygote is wronged. On a philisophical or metaphysical level, the potential person, or the person that may have been, has been wrong.

Give whatever wieght you want to "potential" people. But when you terminate the gestation process you end any chance of the zygote of ever developing into a person.

I personaly feel that is wrong on some level. But it is a personal opinion.

However, I think that getting caught up in these details is irrelevant. It's much the same as an argument as to whether a fetus is a person or not - it misses the point entirely. Personally, I like to look at things in terms of duties. The question of morality is (whether you took precautions or not): do I have a duty to allow another person to use my body to their end?

It depends on the situation. We all have duties to each other as part of a functioning society. We all give up some rights inorder that we may coexist.
It also depends on what you define as a duty.

The Declaration of Independance suggests that if we have the ability to do some thing we have the duty to do that thing.

If someone needs your blood, in some way you do have a duty to offer your blood, be it for society, religion or personal conviction. There can be a difference between duty and obligation, and legal coersion.

 

[uruk]

But, but..
Taking the steps to avoid planting the seed is also "immoral"..
Were at's the line between dogma and sanity?

You can't end what never been started. And I do not give religious dogma much wieght.

 

[I Ratant]

You can't end what never been started. And I do not give religious dogma much wieght.

.
Celibacy kinda ends the species.
No sex unless married doesn't work out all that well.
The "friendliest thing two people can do" is very popular.
What's a good work-around?

 

[kerikiwi]

We have to accept those risks and the consequences they entail if we want to "live".
No, we do not have to accept enforced pregnancy as a punishment.


You have to accept the risk and responsibilities of those actions.
No, you don't. Risks can be mitigated. They do not have to be accepted as a punishment.

The best way would be to give the baby up for adoption.
Certainly babies can be given up for adoption. Embryoes can't.

Again does it seem right or moral to not allow the fetus the chance to contuinue existance simply because you lost the roll of the dice while having some fun?
Yes, perfectly right and moral, just as it is right and moral to deny the sperm the chance to fertilise the egg.

If you do not see that as a problem maybe you sould at least take some time reconsidering your views.
If you see that as a problem maybe you should at least take some time reconsidering your views.

Do you have this particular view out of not wanting to be inconvienanced and the desire to avoid responsibility? Do you take lightly the termination of a potential person?
Why should unwanted consequences not be remedied? Why do you want people to be punished for accidents? There is no such thing as a potential person. It is only an idea. Do you regard a sperm and an egg which have not yet met as a potential person? If not, why not?

And if you don't, does terminating that potential person just payment for having your fun?
Since there is only the idea of a potential person, yes, preventing it from becoming a person is just payment for having fun.


On that level the fetus or zygote is wronged. On a philisophical or metaphysical level, the potential person, or the person that may have been, has been wrong.
On that level the sperm and egg are wronged when not allowed to meet.

Give whatever wieght you want to "potential" people. But when you terminate the gestation process you end any chance of the zygote of ever developing into a person.
See above.


The Declaration of Independance suggests that if we have the ability to do some thing we have the duty to do that thing.
Really? So we have a duty to kill and rape and steal and destroy?

 

[GlennB]

My attitude to human foetuses is the same as my attitude to animals. The greater their complexity and the greater their capacity for self-awareness and suffering, the greater my concern for their welfare.

I don't care one iota what happens to an ant or snail in my garden bonfire, frankly, though I would not go out of my way deliberately to hurt one.

I do care a lot what happens to dogs (say).

Somewhere along that spectrum there's a broad fuzzy area and I have no clue how to resolve the moral difficulties that crop up therein.

Drawing lines in the abortion issue based on whether the foetus could survive with or without assistance seems artificial though. That is - I suspect we see the 'survival' thing as something that is reasonably definable and we latch onto it because drawing that particular line relieves the moral pressure on us.

 

[Bill Thompson]

Age 2

 

[theprestige]

I'm not quite sure what you're saying in the first paragraph, but it looks like you don't understand the difference between an embryo with two X-chromosomes and a grown human female capable of reproduction. If that's the case, I can't explain any further.

A five year-old female has two x-chromosomes, is not a grown human female, and is not capable of reproduction. It does, arguably, have a will of its own, and might object to being killed. Is aborting it immoral, or not?

What about a two year-old? Self-willed? Morally abortable?

What about a two week-old? Self-willed? Morally abortable?

Why do you even make will a factor at all?

And why, when questioned about your decision to make will a factor, do you ignore the question and instead make the extreme difference between an embryo and a fully mature human being the factor?

 

[I Ratant]

...
The best way would be to give the baby up for adoption.
Certainly babies can be given up for adoption. Embryoes can't.

.
The number of Right to Lifers lining up for adoption of unwanted embryos seems to be...... zero.
.

Again does it seem right or moral to not allow the fetus the chance to contuinue existance simply because you lost the roll of the dice while having some fun?
Yes, perfectly right and moral, just as it is right and moral to deny the sperm the chance to fertilise the egg.

.
Tubes can tied. I've financed a couple of those.
.
For preventing future unwanted pregnancies.
.

 

[uruk]

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Celibacy kinda ends the species.

That is unless you want to have a child. then celibacy is not needed

No sex unless married doesn't work out all that well.

Which is why we are forced to give abortions like hotcakes. Nobody likes to excercise personal responsibility in this country. Everybody wants to do whatever they want and not have to pay the consequences. In a perfect world everybody would excecise personal responsibility, but we don't live in a perfect world. So there you have it.

The "friendliest thing two people can do" is very popular.

So that means we should do it without reguard for the consequences? Welcome to America. But seriously The reality is that when you have sex you are risking preganacy. Unless one of the partners is sterile, an unwanted pregnancy is a probability.

What's a good work-around?

That's right, always looking for a work around. A quick fix. Avoid responsibility. There is no work around the solution is simple but difficult to impliment because we all have this attitude of entitelment.

Just grow up and take responsibility for your actions rather than going for a quick fix. Your life will be better for it.

 

[I Ratant]

....

That's right, always looking for a work around. A quick fix. Avoid responsibility. There is no work around the solution is simple but difficult to impliment because we all have this attitude of entitelment.

Just grow up and take responsibility for your actions rather than going for a quick fix. Your life will be better for it.

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Protection works quite well.
Preventing both pregnancies and STDs.
Education on the use of the many means of protection would be a lot better than the common blanket prohibition against such, with some blue nose pharmacists refusing to provide any, and some religions dead set against -any- protection.
The Catholics for instance that practice the rhythm method are called... "parents".

 

[kerikiwi]

Just grow up and take responsibility for your actions rather than going for a quick fix. Your life will be better for it.

You really sound as if you want people to be punished for having a sex life.
To take steps to avoid unwanted births is taking responsibility.

 

[MikeMangum]

Well I can cite another example that Thomson offers up in the very same article. Suppose that there are 'people seeds' that float around in the air and into people's windows. They take root in your carpet and grow into people. So, obviously, if you don't want these people seeds, you can merely never open your windows. But of course, people like to open their windows. So suppose there are screens specifically designed to keep the seeds out, and you install these screen at great expense. You are aware that there is always the possibility of a defective screen, however remote. You open your windows and in drifts a people seed and takes root. Do you have a duty to allow it to grow, and subsequently be responsible for raising the person?

Except for one very obvious thing, pregnancies don't "just happen". Those analagies have 1 thing in common: they attempt to remove any sort of responsibility for the pregnancy from the equation..."a seed just blew in the window, and she became pregnant."

No, two people chose to engage in one very specific act, and act which has the possibile consequence of the female becoming pregnant. Pregnancy is not the result of some failure of omission, like not closing your windows, it is the result of a singular and specific act of commission.

 

[Ziggurat]

I say fine, a fetus is a person, but tell me why a person has the right to leech off of my body, just because that person needs to. And moreover, tell me why denying that person the right to leech off of my body is murder. Any takers?

Because except for cases of rape, you put them in that position of dependency through your choices. And to abort them, you aren't simply failing to save them, you are actively taking steps to end their life.

Imagine you're walking along a bridge, and someone next to you slips and starts to fall over. You seem to be arguing that you don't have any absolute obligation to grab them before they fall. OK, fine, we'll accept that for now. But what if you pushed them, they grabbed onto you as they fell, and they are now hanging over the edge. If you pry their fingers off your arm, you can't just claim that they had no right to hold onto you. You killed them. You committed murder.

Whether or not a fetus is a person is absolutely critical to the question of whether or not abortion is murder. I don't know if there is a good answer to the question, because I don't think personhood is really a dichotomy. But you can't get out of addressing that difficult moral question with what amounts to a slight of hand to disguise the fact that you created the situation and you're taking active steps, not simply refraining from action, when you abort a fetus.

 

[kerikiwi]

what amounts to a slight of hand to disguise the fact that you created the situation and you're taking active steps, not simply refraining from action, when you abort a fetus.

How the situation came about is irrelevant to the question of whether abortion is morally acceptable, unless you are using the denial of the right to abortion as a punishment, in which case the status of the foetus is also irrelevant.
Abortion is right or wrong in and of itself.

 

[Ziggurat]

How the situation came about is irrelevant to the question of whether abortion is morally acceptable

Only to the extent that entrope's argument is irrelevant. Within the context of the argument he tried to make, agency definitely matters. I may not have a moral obligation to save someone who is in peril because of the actions of a third party or random chance, but I do have a moral obligation to save someone who is in peril because of the deliberate choices I made.

 

[jillianbean]

I just read an article about a law someone in Utah wants to pass making miscarriages illegal. Meaning if they suspect that a woman has done something willfully to miscarry the baby, they can send you to jail. Drinking, fall down the stairs, car accident, whatever. At what point do they make male masturbation illegal? Every time ejaculation occurs and doesn't involve procreation, then you're responsible for the death of millions of sperm!

 

[Sun Countess]

A five year-old female has two x-chromosomes, is not a grown human female, and is not capable of reproduction. It does, arguably, have a will of its own, and might object to being killed. Is aborting it immoral, or not?

How can a five-year old child be aborted? It's not living in a womb at that point.

What about a two year-old? Self-willed? Morally abortable?

What about a two week-old? Self-willed? Morally abortable?

Any child who's been born cannot be aborted as a matter of definition. Why do you bring this up? I said:

I would argue that abortion is only immoral when it's forced upon a woman against her will.

Did I need to specify that I was referring to a pregnant woman in this scenario? That's why I stated there was a difference between a grown woman of reproductive age and a female fetus.

An abortion is always immoral if it's forced upon a pregnant woman against her wishes.

Is that clearer? I'm happy to clarify further, as I still don't see why you brought up female children being killed by their mother, since that scenario has nothing to do with either pregnancy or abortion.

 

[uruk]

We have to accept those risks and the consequences they entail if we want to "live".
No, we do not have to accept enforced pregnancy as a punishment.

Who said anything about punishment. See, that is the attitude of those who seek to avoid taking responsibility for thier actions. It is not punishment. It is taking control over your own life and owing up to the consequences of your actions.

There are alot of things enforced upon us. Some by culture, some by government, Some by the necessity of making a living, and some by our choice and actions.

Unwanted pregnancy is a consequence of having sex, protected or otherwise. Aborting the unwanted pregnancy is a cheat. It is avoiding the consequence of sex. Some do not see that as a problem. They place no value on the fetus. It's just a group of nondescript cells to them. They are engaging in a logical fallacy, but there is no law against that. In fact there is no law against abortion. But that is not the question. The question is one of morality. I see abortion as immoral not illegal. It is legal because our weak nature and tenadancy toward making bad choices makes it so. A lesser of two evils if you will.
in a perfect world, abortion would not be necessary.

You have to accept the risk and responsibilities of those actions.
No, you don't. Risks can be mitigated. They do not have to be accepted as a punishment.

Risks can be reduced but not eliminated. And again there is that attitude of seeing accepting responsibility as punishment .

The best way would be to give the baby up for adoption.
Certainly babies can be given up for adoption. Embryoes can't.

Unless the embryo is allowed to develop in to a baby. That way you don't have to abort the fetus.

Again does it seem right or moral to not allow the fetus the chance to contuinue existance simply because you lost the roll of the dice while having some fun?
Yes, perfectly right and moral, just as it is right and moral to deny the sperm the chance to fertilise the egg.

Sperm and ova are gammetes. They do not individualy contain the necessary number of chromosomes to produce a human being. A sperm by itself will not produce a human being. An ova by itself will not produce a human being. Only when the gametes fuse and the chromosomes combine does the DNA have the complete information to produce an individual human being.

It is less immoral to prevent the sperm and ova to combine than it is to terminate the zygote once the DNA has combined.

If you do not see that as a problem maybe you sould at least take some time reconsidering your views.
If you see that as a problem maybe you should at least take some time reconsidering your views.

I have and do reconsider my views. I have though about this subject for many years. I have read many source of information on both sides of the issue and my views have changed and evolved over the years as I have thought about this subject. I did not arrive at my views quickly nor haphazzardly.

Do you have this particular view out of not wanting to be inconvienanced and the desire to avoid responsibility? Do you take lightly the termination of a potential person?
Why should unwanted consequences not be remedied? Why do you want people to be punished for accidents? There is no such thing as a potential person. It is only an idea. Do you regard a sperm and an egg which have not yet met as a potential person? If not, why not?

There are many definintions of remediating consequences and accidents. You can accidentaly kill someone playing with a loaded gun, you did not intend for it to happen but you engaged in an activity which made it a possibility. If you did not play with the gun you would not have accidentaly killed the person. Do you think it is ok for there to be no consequnces for the action? Do you think that just being sorry will take back the bullet from the persons head? Do you thinkthe victims family should just ignore the loss of thier loved one because it was "just an accident"? That action had consequences. A person died, loss was suffered by those close to the person killed. Not to mention the legal consequences.

an accidental pregnancy is not the same as accidentaly killing some one but it is not without it's consequences. Going through an abortion is not a walk in the park nor is it without it's own set of consequences.
And it does involve the termination of life. Even if you think a zygote is just a collection of cells, the cells were alive and could have devloped into a human being given the opportunity.

I do not consider individual sperm and ova as potential people. The potential for viability only exists after the sperm and ovum have merged and the genetic material combined to form a unique indiviual DNA sequence in a zygote. That is the "arbitrary line" I have drawn of where a human life begins. I feel this "line" has some scientific evidence to support this assetion.

And now wecome to the "potential person". A potential person is not a real person. The existance of that person depends on many factors including wether the "person" is not terminated in his fetal form. There are many reason why a fetus may be terminated. Either by natural/environmental reasons, illness, non-vialble mutation or by intention. Noone can tell if any given individual zygote or fetus will be aborted by natural means or illness. But you can always tell when a fetus will be aborted by intentional abortion.

So for the sake of this argument we will focus on the case of intentional abortion and make the assumption that if not for the abortion the fetus would have developed to full term.


The value of a "potential" person is related to the economic concept of opportunity cost. If you want to look up the definition of opportunity cost look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost the short of it is that when given a mutually exclusive choice there is a loss that is incurred depending on the choice. For example: lets say you have three hours of free time. You can either choose to study for a test for three hours and have the chance to make a high grade or you can work for three hours and make a few extra bucks. If you choose to work you gain a few bucks but you loose the opportunity to pass or make a good grade on the test. If you choose to study, then you loose the money you could have made by working. Now the losses are only potential loss. they technically do not exist but the loss can still have an effect.

In the case of choosing to study, the money you could have made was only "potential" money, the money does not exist, yet the loss of the potential money can still affect you.
Let's say a situation came up where you could have used the money at that moment, such as gas or an emergency. You could have potentially had the money but you made a choice which left you without that money.

In the case of abortion, the parents or parent avoids the responsibility and trouble of having to carry the fetus to term and either raise the child or give the child up to adoption. But we loose whatever that potential person may have or could have contributed or offerd to society or his parents or to another individual. You could argue that we could have doged a Hitler or Jeffery Dahmer bullet but then we could have also denied the world an Einstien or DaVinci. We would never know.

This argument is a little hard to make in a world where there is over three billion people. Quantity would seems to devalue human life. Is that a good or bad thing? I feel that abortion devalues human life even further. Do we not believe that all human life is equaly important; young and old? Our idealistic rhetoric seems to say so. But we also seem to be a hypocritical lot also.

And if you don't, does terminating that potential person just payment for having your fun?
Since there is only the idea of a potential person, yes, preventing it from becoming a person is just payment for having fun.

So terminating life, or more specifically, preventing a fetus from developing into a fully formed human being is ok just so long as it does not interfere with having fun.

Human life keeps getting cheaper all the time.

On that level the fetus or zygote is wronged. On a philisophical or metaphysical level, the potential person, or the person that may have been, has been wrong.
On that level the sperm and egg are wronged when not allowed to meet.

Sperm and an egg is not quite the same thing as a developing fetus with a complete, unique, combination of chromosomes. A sperm, by itself in a womb, will not developed into a human being. An Ovum, by itself in a womb, will not develope into a human being. But if you combine the chromosomes of the sperm and the egg and place it in a womb, then you have a much different story

Give whatever wieght you want to "potential" people. But when you terminate the gestation process you end any chance of the zygote of ever developing into a person.
See above.

See above.

The Declaration of Independance suggests that if we have the ability to do some thing we have the duty to do that thing.
Really? So we have a duty to kill and rape and steal and destroy?

The Declaration of Independnace says we have a duty to rape and destroy? Where doe sit say that.

That "some thing" mentioned in the document meant defending the rights of the people, ameliorating injustice, etc.

But I think you knew that already.

 

[kerikiwi]

Unwanted pregnancy is a consequence of having sex, protected or otherwise. Aborting the unwanted pregnancy is a cheat. It is avoiding the consequence of sex. .

Unwanted pregnancy may be a consequence, but aborting the pregnancy is not 'a cheat'. It is taking control of the consequences. To say it is 'a cheat' quite cleasrly implies that you think there should be some kind of punishment for having an unwanted pregnancy.
Why the hell should we not change the consequences, or avoid unwanted consequences?

 

[uruk]

.
Protection works quite well.
Preventing both pregnancies and STDs.
Education on the use of the many means of protection would be a lot better than the common blanket prohibition against such, with some blue nose pharmacists refusing to provide any, and some religions dead set against -any- protection.
The Catholics for instance that practice the rhythm method are called... "parents".

By "quick fix" I meant abortion.
Contraceptives work for the most part, I've used them myself, but they are not 100% effective.

I am by no means saying that people should abstain from sex. What I am saying is that there are risks associated with sex for those who do not want to or who are not ready to become parents. If you choose to engage in behaiviours associated with those risks then be prepared to accept the consequences of those risks.

I feel that it is far less immoral to give up an unwanted child for adoption than to abort the fetus.

I am also not saying that we should make abortion illegal. In a perfect world there would be no need for abortion. The issue I am addressing is the morality of abortion.