Opinions on abortion?

Post Reply New Topic

I have quite extreme pro-choice views.

When I was a child, I wanted meat-eating to be made illegal. Killing an innocent being to sustain yourself is immoral.

I've grown up and learned about the world, and I accept that other people eat meat and restricting them is not worth the fuss. On balance, eating meat is probably a social good. While some animals suffer, it has nutritional value and people enjoy eating it. Restrictions would criminalise a lot of people for no gain.

There is no reasonable standard by which killing an embryo is worse than killing a chicken.

There is no reasonable standard by which killing a foetus is worse than killing a cow.

Come to mention it, there is no reasonable standard by which killing a newborn is worse than killing a pig.

I'm prepared to listen to pro-life arguments from vegetarians, who are at least putting their money where their mouth is, but not from meat-eaters. Or if you are a meat-eater, then you can also say that you want meat to be made illegal, or that you're fine with abortion up to 24 weeks and fine with people eating insects but not chickens.

Even then, I'd argue that the social benefits of abortion on demand strongly outweigh the rights of a non-person.

Furthermore, late stage abortions can be pretty horrific. Just the nature of the thing; either you're going to give birth to a dead body, or you're going to have a very invasive medical procedure performed upon you. IMO anyone who is prepared to go through with such a thing has a very good reason and I shouldn't question it.

I don't accept a "baby's rights" defence against infanticide, either. I will accept "there's probably someone who would be upset by the death", "the chances of sex-selective infanticide are too high", "it's hard to work out when an individual does gain rights", and "practically speaking, nobody would be willing to carry it out" (and it would have to be a medical procedure, to stop malicious destruction driven by spite or accidental murder), so I'm not in a big rush to legalise it (it would be somewhere below legalising incest on my list of priorities). I just wouldn't be intrinsically concerned for the infant the way I would if an adult had their right to life violated.

Could you think of a way to frame this which is an attack on an ideology rather than its adherence?

Forget about self-determination, that can't apply to most toddlers, I just mean the right not to be killed or to some measure of protection. Again, I'm afraid it is not obvious to me why a body has to be self-sustaining for that to be so.



Yes, conception or thereabouts seems to be the only reasonable place thus far to draw the line for the beginning of human life.

Life certainly begins at conception. But at that stage there's no reason to prioritise the individual ahead of the bacteria which die every time you swallow.

There's a point at which lives become worth valuing, but I think attempts to pin down exactly when that is are a fool's campaign. Reasonable people could come to a range of possibilities. In practice I think most people use birth for humans and "pet" animals, but discriminate against "food" animals.

I don't know how else to explain my position than how I already have done so. If what is obvious to me (that the fact that a fetus physically relies on its mother's body to survive means that the mother's autonomy takes primacy and it is her determination what happens to the pregnancy) is not also obvious to you, what else is there to say?

But ideology is just words without someone to believe in them. Those words lack cruelty without a human being to justify them, and put them into action.

Arguments like these make me wonder why pro-lifers aren't also for mandatory organ donation.

After all, if your biological material can be used to extend the life of another human, why shouldn't it be required?

For some reason that is recognized as a silly argument, but that a woman should be required to incubate a fetus against her will because of the "right to life" of that fetus is not equally recognized as silly. I wonder what the reason is?

*Liked.

I think it's wrong and unnatural. I believe in the sanctity of every human life from conception until natural death.

The analogy doesn't quite work, the donation has already been made in a way. It's more akin to trying to retrieve a kidney you have already donated, when there are no other donors available (I would be interested if someone tried to argue that as a moral right, I don't actually have a strong position on organ donation).

Edit: I know this immediately invites the question of rape back into the discussion, so how about a thought experiment? You are the victim of that legendary urban myth, waking up in a bathtub of ice to find your one of your kidneys missing. The police track down your kidney, it has been sold on the black market to a poor family that can't afford to legal medical treatment. You can if you wish retrieve your kidney from the person it now resides in, but they will certainly die, their family spent all their savings on the black market organ. You ponder the moral course of action...

If we're talking about the "sanctity of human life," then I'm puzzled as to why organ donation isn't mandatory. If we can violate one person's right to bodily autonomy via forcing them to remain pregnant. then I don't see why individuals shouln't be legally compelled to give blood/organs/tissue to assure the survival of another human being, especially when the donor is legally dead.

Hehe you've deftly avoided my challenge. The two things are subtly different. Is it right to take back an organ you've already donated (whether you chose to donate in the first place or not)?

Mandatory organ donation would be like forcing women to become pregnant. Once they are pregnant however, once organ donation has occurred, the rules change, because there are now two bodies in the equation.

There's the derogatory generalisation again.



It's your opinion. You're arguing from stances, not from principles. It's a lazy, partisan genetic fallacy which you frequently fall back on to ad hom people on this forum when you lack an actual argument.



And again! I don't think you're even aware you're doing it.

Not quite. Science has already offered solutions, and there's an objectively measurable improvement over time of our ability to preserve the lives of prematurely delivered babies through incubation.

We've already successfully transplanted sheep fetuses into artificial wombs, and successfully matured them to the point at which they were able to survive on a ventilator - just as we do with premature births of human babies.

I have faith in human ingenuity, but the science has already provided plenty of evidence.

I think it's important to reiterate that I'm content with the existing legal compromise we have regarding abortion - in the UK they're legal up to the age of 24 weeks, but this is based on outdated medical knowledge and will almost certainly be revised within the next decade or two.

You're under absolutely no obligations, MissChess. I'm sure most of us can relate to the difficulties you're describing. Even if you never get around to posting in this thread again, you have at least managed to contribute to the discussion in a constructive and thought-provoking way.