Non-Religious Argument Against Abortion

[Stone Island]

At what point would you (or Marquis) argue a "biologically human fetus"'s right to a future outweighs a woman's right to control her body? Are women then just biological incubators? Should we forbid that women drink (or should I personally abstain from alcohol) on the off-chance that I'm pregnant and don't yet know it? If 4-cell embryos do indeed have the right to a future, then it would be morally corrupt for a woman to do anything that would jeopardize a potential foetus?

You would have to weigh the complete destruction of a future like ours against the loss of complete control of one's body for 9 months (give or take) in the extreme case. Most women don't lose complete control of their bodies.

Indeed, if carrying the fetus to term is likely to kill the mother, thus causing the complete destruction of her future, it would be morally permissible to abort the fetus.

I don't know about morally corrupt, but it would certainly be morally problematic. On the other hand, we allow wide latitude on the question of how people are to raise their children before we involve the authorities or force of law. Is child protective services too invasive?

I don't know if "right to a future" is the correct terminology. The fetus shares with us a characteristic that makes it wrong to kill us. Non-persons don't have "rights" in the way I understand the use of that term.

 

[Stone Island]

Women are morally responsible if they are raped?
Women are morally responsible if their partner lies about his use of protection?
Women are morally responsible if the condom breaks?

Edited to add: Women are morally responsible if they think that they can't get pregnant the first time, because their socio-economic background did not provide sufficient sexual education?

I agree with tkingdoll that abortion ceases to be a philosophical argument when there's a parasititic organism growing in my womb.

No. Yes. Yes. Yes.

In any case, it's not the fetus's fault the woman was raped. Non-persons are morally blameless for the actions of persons. The fetus is morally blameless and abortion destroys a future all the same.

Can you lie about using a condom? I never tried it. In any case, everything else equal, women know what the possible consequences of sex are. You ought to be responsible for your actions and destroying a future to make up for a mistake seems odd to me. Under our current legal culture, if the condom broke and the woman decided to keep the baby, I would be on the hook for 18 years. I'm not terribly troubled by that notion and I don't consider it an infringement of my rights. Should I?

Oh, and finally, the case where everything isn't equal, as in many things, I can't see why ignorance is an excuse to destroy a future.

 

[Rasmus]

You a morally responsible for your actions and for the consequences of your actions.

Empty words.

Unless, of course, you object to all and any kinds of medical treatment for accidents. A broken leg may very well be the consequence of a decision to go on a skiing trip.

How does it follow that I should not have it fixed, that I should not do something against the pain?

Why have fire brigades? Surely, burning houses are a consequences of building them in the first place?

 

[Michael Redman]

I do know, however, that a biologically human fetus, which is not a person, has a future like ours.

No, you don't know that. It might. It might not. But, of course, the same could be said of sperm and eggs, bacteria, or a pile of organic molecules. Is it wrong to destroy them?

 

[Stone Island]

Empty words.

Unless, of course, you object to all and any kinds of medical treatment for accidents. A broken leg may very well be the consequence of a decision to go on a skiing trip.

How does it follow that I should not have it fixed, that I should not do something against the pain?

Why have fire brigades? Surely, burning houses are a consequences of building them in the first place?

I don't think any of what you said makes any sense and I don't think it has anything to do with anything that I said. Are you saying people ought not be responsible for their actions? Perhaps I'm wrong. Maybe you can explain it to me.

 

[Stone Island]

No, you don't know that. It might. It might not. But, of course, the same could be said of sperm and eggs, bacteria, or a pile of organic molecules. Is it wrong to destroy them?

You're right. It might. Just like I (or you) might have a future. People do on occasion drop dead suddenly. Accidents happen, after all.

As to the others, I don't think that they do have futures like ours. They haven't passed a threshold that a fetus has.

 

[cyborg]

People who worry too much about the absolutes of what is "wrong" and "right" about some moral issue and too little about what they want as far as the consequences of their actions are missing the point in my book.

Therefore you must ask yourself the question: what is it I actually want to achieve

Is it to ensure the success of the human process of reproduction at all other costs?

They haven't passed a threshold that a fetus has.

Where you place your arbitrary line is arbitrary.

Humans are a collection of atoms - you can only invent extra importance for this collection: you cannot divine it.

 

[sthomson]

They haven't passed a threshold that a fetus has.

What threshold?

Edited to add: Are you an Objectivist?

 

[tkingdoll]

You a morally responsible for your actions and for the consequences of your actions.

That is your opinion based on whatever you choose to define as moralistic behaviour, which is something that in the real world varies from culture to culture, and even person to person. The only time one definition of morality is relevant is when law is being made. Other than that, it makes absolutely no difference to anything what you think moral responsibilities are. As long as I act within the law of the land then I am free to disagree with you and neither of us can claim our morals are 'right'. So, I disagree with you. I am not 'morally' responsible for the future of a human life if I get pregnant, if by 'morally responsible' you mean 'must choose for it to survive'. I am responsible for the outcome of the pregnancy, yes, because the fetus is inside me, but that outcome could be abortion if I so choose. I have no problem, morally, with the concept of abortion.

If I wanted to allow strangers to dictate what my morals are, I'd join a church.

Your desire to un-ring the bell, as it were, does not justify the destruction of a fetus's future, especially because it is you, not the fetus, which is responsible for the fetus's coming into being.

Actually, it does. I am already here, living a life. My future would be royally screwed up if I had a child. My business would be bankrupt if I had to take time off to give birth, my business would suffer. My future, my plans, my desires, my happiness, all absolutely trump those of an as-yet-unborn person's. It's precisely because I'm responsible for the fetus coming into being that makes me able to decide whether it gets to screw up my life or not. This is called 'choice'.

Again, why is viability a definitive moral characteristic? Why are you uncomfortable at the point of viability?

Er...because at that point it's not about me any more. And the law agrees with me. If we are saying that the law is based on a moral consensus then that answers your question.

 

[Stone Island]

What threshold?

Edited to add: Are you an Objectivist?

Excellent question. I don't know. I'm not sure where the bright line is. 6 minutes, 6 weeks, 12 weeks, 16 weeks? Again, it's a future like ours which separates a fetus that it would be morally wrong to destroy from a bag of chemicals that doesn't have a future like ours. Remember: personhood, viability, or potentiality are not part of this discussion because Marquis does not make use of them and explicitly rejects their use.

Objectivist? Oh God, no. When I was 16 and an idiot I have to admit, I was. Now I'm just a doctoral candidate in political science with an amateur interest in moral philosophy.

 

[Stone Island]

Humans are a collection of atoms - you can only invent extra importance for this collection: you cannot divine it.

Is it morally wrong to kill us? Why or why not?

 

[cyborg]

Is it morally wrong to kill us? Why or why not?

Well that would be the question.

 

[Stone Island]

That is your opinion based on whatever you choose to define as moralistic behaviour, which is something that in the real world varies from culture to culture, and even person to person. The only time one definition of morality is relevant is when law is being made. Other than that, it makes absolutely no difference to anything what you think moral responsibilities are. As long as I act within the law of the land then I am free to disagree with you and neither of us can claim our morals are 'right'. So, I disagree with you. I am not 'morally' responsible for the future of a human life if I get pregnant, if by 'morally responsible' you mean 'must choose for it to survive'. I am responsible for the outcome of the pregnancy, yes, because the fetus is inside me, but that outcome could be abortion if I so choose. I have no problem, morally, with the concept of abortion.

If I wanted to allow strangers to dictate what my morals are, I'd join a church.




Actually, it does. I am already here, living a life. My future would be royally screwed up if I had a child. My business would be bankrupt if I had to take time off to give birth, my business would suffer. My future, my plans, my desires, my happiness, all absolutely trump those of an as-yet-unborn person's. It's precisely because I'm responsible for the fetus coming into being that makes me able to decide whether it gets to screw up my life or not. This is called 'choice'.

Er...because at that point it's not about me any more. And the law agrees with me. If we are saying that the law is based on a moral consensus then that answers your question.

Is philosophy possible?

I'm not a legal positivist. What the laws says is not necessarily consistent with what is morally right or wrong. I think that we judge the law in light of what is determined to be right and wrong through philosophical reasoning.

You might read Plato's Euthyphro for more on this theme.

 

[Stone Island]

Well that would be the question.

I say yes, it is wrong to kill us. Why? Because it destroys our future (which deprives us of things of value). If something had a future like us then it would be wrong to kill them too. Fetus are among the things that have futures like us.

 

[cyborg]

I say yes, it is wrong to kill us. Why? Because it destroys our future (which deprives us of things of value).

On what basis is that value quantified?

If something had a future like us then it would be wrong to kill them too. Fetus are among the things that have futures like us.

By what measurement do we entail similarity of consequence?

 

[Stone Island]

On what basis is that value quantified?



By what measurement do we entail similarity of consequence?

On the same basis any future plans, actions, hopes, dreams, or considerations of mine are quantified.

What do you mean?

 

[Michael Redman]

Again, it's a future like ours which separates a fetus that it would be morally wrong to destroy from a bag of chemicals that doesn't have a future like ours.

You can obviously define "having a future like ours" as whatever you wish in order to support the point you decide to claim is the moral line.

I can claim that all living things have the potential to evolve into persons, having futures like ours, and therefore killing any living thing is destroying futures like ours.

I can also claim that a thing is not imbued with a future like ours until it is a live born person and developed to the point it can sustain itself, and therefore it is OK to destroy until that point.

Choosing one over the other, or something in between, is arbitrary.

 

[tkingdoll]

I'm not a legal positivist. What the laws says is not necessarily consistent with what is morally right or wrong.

LOL. Then what is? What you say? What's the objective measure of morality?

Laws don't make themselves. Someone (ideally, someone who democratically represents the opinions of the population) decides what should or shouldn't be illegal based on what that person, a group of people, or the population, thinks is or isn't morally right.

So...how are you deciding what's morally right or wrong? Is it morally wrong for me to abort a fetus even if I can't afford to feed it? Is it morally wrong for me to abort a fetus if having the baby means my other children will suffer?

There is no objective morality. There's only emotions driven by empathy, and those differ from person to person, culture to culture.

I get my personal morals from my empathy. Some people get theirs from their religion. Where do you get yours?

 

[cyborg]

On the same basis any future plans, actions, hopes, dreams, or considerations of mine are quantified.

And that basis is?

What do you mean?

If you base your decisions on the morality of killing on the value of an object for its own future then you should be able to describe how one can assign such a value such that we can determine when killing is and is not moral.

 

[Stone Island]

And that basis is?



If you base your decisions on the morality of killing on the value of an object for its own future then you should be able to describe how one can assign such a value such that we can determine when killing is and is not moral.

The things in my future are like the things in my past and I valued the things in my past so I'm likely to value the things in my future assuming they are the same kinds of things or better. If I didn't have a past but only had a future my future would still have a value whether I knew it or not because we know that my future is like the future of other beings which have had value.

Well, we know that everything else equal, my future has a value. Other people can describe this value. We say things like, "Oh, he had such a bright future, too bad he was hit by a bus." Of course, people with advanced cancer that has spread to major organs know that they don't have much of a future and that they aren't likely to draw much value from that future. We can say that generally people's future have values without describing in detail every aspect of that value.

It's not important, I think, whether I value my future or not. The 14-yr old girl who was deceived by her neighbors on myspace and committed suicide didn't value her future. I think she was mistaken. We can be wrong in our judgment of our future. I may not know that I have late-stage cancer and that tomorrow I'm going to wake-up with a headache and that the next 6 months are going to be a hell of pain and suffering.