I know that. I was referring to what you quoted, not your response. I generally agree with your response.
How many victims of domestic abuse currently reside in your home?
If the answer is zero, I’m guessing you could give a shit about the domestic violence issue then…right?
Otherwise, why not put your money where your mouth is?
(unless you care to admit to a certainly level of hypocricy here)
Aren’t we dancing around the OP’s point? Assume for a moment that this 24-week-old unborn child could survive outside the womb. Make that a completely hypothetical cicumstance if you prefer. Can the mother abort this child, for this reason or any other reason, when it’s possible to deliver a viable baby?
It seems to me that the “my body, my decision” argument collapses if it’s possible to actually deliver the kid. At that point, IMO, it has become a “Well, yeah, it could be outside my body, but, y’know, I really don’t want to have to deal with this kid’s problems” argument, and that would be as strong as it would be if the child were already born–which is to say, not very. This is an interesting question the OP posed, I think.
Sorry if I missed this, but I’m interested in a pro-choice response to this specific question. Assume you needn’t keep baby inside the sovereign realm of your bod. Given that option, do you still get to say junior dies, as opposed to just being delivered? And if the answer is yes, junior dies, how is that substantially different than killing, say, a toddler for similar health-related problems? What moral justification exists that would not for a toddler?
When someone invents a way to have Junior teleport himself outside the womb so the woman doesn’t have to go through a childbirth process she doesn’t want to go through, I’ll rethink my position.
Custody of a toddler could simply be transferred to someone else. Not so with a fetus.
**I’m sorry, but don’t abortions take place somewhere in the vicinity of said womb?
Nonsense! Once the child is born, he’s a born child, woontcha say? Custody of infants is transferred all the time.
Oh, OK, I understand now.
What has that to do with it? It’s my womb, and my choice whether to put it through abortion or childbirth.
Eh? I’m talking about custody of fetuses, not infants.
The date may not be arbitrary, but the criterion of viability is.
How “viable” is a newborn infant? Left uncared for, it will survive maybe a few days. A living fetus removed from a womb will survive for minutes, so again we are left with an arbitrary line.
**Indulge me, if you don’t mind. Assume for a moment that delivering the child is no more or less dangerous or invasive than an abortion. Would you answer the same?
Is your right to do whatever you want with your body so sacrosanct that it can not be limited in any way, even if there is no real effect on your sacred bod in permitting the child to live?
Certainly there are other effects on a woman in permitting a handicapped child to live–e.g., the responsibility of caring for a special-needs child (or transferring custody elsewhere). The question is whether or not those issues give the mother moral standing to kill the unborn child when the child could be permitted to live. Remember, whether the child lives or not still results in satisfying the mother’s supposed right not to have to nurture an unborn child within her body any longer than she’d prefer.
Again, I just wanted some clarification (and I’m still interested in other pro-choice perspectives).
Eh? Perhaps you should read my hypothetical more closely. I’m not talking about custody of fetuses. If the child can be delivered, then transferring custody is not an issue.
Who will raise the child?
I’m not ruadh, but I am pro-choice. If the fetus can live outside of the woman’s body, if the woman will have no obligations toward it, and if delivery is no more dangerous or invasive, then I’d have no problem requiring delivery instead of abortion.
Um, induced labor instead of abortion? This is a nice way of compromising, but in reality, I don’t think it’s that appealing an option. You’re forgetting that a kid delivered that early, while it may have a great chance of survival, also is fairly sure to suffer permanent disability as a result - not to mention that the state (presumably) will have to foot the bill for care for the child, which is an enormous amount of money.
I don’t think you can go halfway on this. Either you can’t have an abortion (except in case of medical necessity) past 24 weeks (or whatever arbitrary line is chosen as the point of viability) or you can have one if you like. Inducing labor to deliver a kid early, and likely leaving it disabled, is certainly medically unethical and a rather bizarre thought.
No doubt folks will claim that having an abortion amounts to killing a kid, and that’s unethical too, and you have a good point. But in my opinion, no matter what we have an arbitrary line - conception? Well, many (most?) conceptions don’t lead to pregnancy anyway - and the fetus certainly isn’t conscious at that point. Twenty-four weeks? There’s no line you can draw that determines when exactly a kid is viable, and as we’ve seen, that seems to necessitate induced labor and a state-funded effort to save a kid who’s going to be damaged by the experience.
Birth seems like the logical choice to me. As I said, I think all these lines are arbitrary, but at birth the question of fetal viability is solved (or at least moot), and I buy into the whole “let every child be a wanted child” philosophy. As long as the thing’s inside mama, it don’t got rights of its own. It’s a pragmatic view - I don’t see a better solution, even though this one’s not without its problems. But I think a woman does have a right to decide what happens inside her uterus, whether or not her reasons seem sound to everyone else.
Well, many (most?) conceptions don’t lead to pregnancy anyway - and the fetus certainly isn’t conscious at that point.
Huh?
If sperm and egg have met, you’re pregnant. AFAIK nobody has ever tried to say otherwise. They may say that “it’s not a baby” but there’s never been any doubt as to whether or not you become pregnant when conception happens.
I’m sure Excalibre is referring to the fact that most egg/sperm unions end in spontaneous abortion, no doctor or coathanger needed.
Actually, it’s quite possible to argue the woman isn’t pregnant at that point. Yes, a sperm and egg have fused - but for there to be ANY chance of a baby 40 weeks down the road, the zygote must now successfully implant itself into the uterine lining. A high percentage of them fail to do so - and the woman never knows about this failure. Not only would she show no symptoms of pregnancy and test negative on a pregnancy test during the 3 days or so in which the zygote existed, her peroid that month won’t even be late. If no one, including the woman herself, never had the slightest clue that a conception occurred, is it really reasonable to say she was pregnant?
It’s more a linguistics issue than anything else. What do we mean when we say someone’s pregnant?
If it is in any way dangerous or invasive it is the woman’s right to decide whether or not to do it.
After the child is delivered, transferring custody is not an issue. Before the child is delivered, it is.
The question is ‘it okay to abort a fetus if there is a know defect’ is a tough one, but I counter with “If the baby is born with a defect we do not decide to kill it then.” Why does it matter if the baby is in utero?
It is easy to dicuss this complex issue, but if you have to make the decision yourself you then you realize how difficult it is to play “GOD”.
My story;
My wife went into labor at 20 weeks. They doctors suppressed the labor for 2 more weeks and then one morning as i stood bleary eyed in the hospital watching the doctor examine my wife he anounced the baby was coming. We rushed to delivery and that is when I was asked what I wanted the staff to do. Either let my son die by not doing anything or apply heroic actions and attempt to preserve his life. My wife was not in any condition to assist in this descsion and I had about 5 minutes to make up my mind. I realized that is was not mine to make, but God’s. My son would die if we just stood there doing nothing.
My son spent 4 months in th NICU. He weighed 20 ounces at birth. The week before his actual due date his retinas detached due to a condtion the preemies get called ROP. He came home on his due date and is blind. He devloped normally over the next 2 years, was walking and starting to talk, he just could not see. He then started having siezures that took 2 years to get under control by putting him on a ketogenic diet and is now back on track developmentally though he is only at a 2.5 year old level.
My marriage suffered under this strain and we are now divorced. My son takes alot of our time, he sees therapists on almost a daily basis, I need to learn brail etc. Was this worth it? If I knew what my life would be like now would I have said no let him go? These are tough questions, but I can still say that my son is a blessing and I would not have been able to let him die knowing what my life is now. I can honestly say this because when my son walks over to me and tickles my toe and falls down laughing I am the happiest man around. When we wrestle and roll around on the floor, his squeals of laughter are true music.
So, out of curiosity, who’s gonna foot the bill for the NICU stay and other special care this severely premature infant with birth defects is going to need? Who’s going to raise this damaged child that’s been brought into the world? People aren’t exactly crowding around three deep to adopt special needs children, you know. So if we force women to give birth and sign away parental rights instead of aborting, what happens to these kids then?
Hmm. So if all your if’s were true except the second, it’s OK to kill a child who could otherwise live. You realize, then, it’s no longer a “my body, my choice” issue, correct? It’s an “I get to kill a kid who could otherwise live because I don’t want to have to deal with him” argument. I’ll ask again, how’s that a different moral circumstance than an unwanted toddler, once the child is delivered?
Am I misunderstanding your position?
**You’re dodging, I think. If an abortion is no more dangerous or invasive, that’s the hypothetical question on the table; it’s not just a question about performing a particular invasive procedure. IOW, for a woman who has already decided that she will no longer nurture an unborn child in her body–she’s getting rid of the kid, the question is how. She can achieve her objective, and the child can still live. Does she still get to say that junior dies?
Seriously, I’m interested in the moral foundation for a pro-choice belief system within this hypothetical. Do you answer the same in that specific circumstance?
I’m sorry, can this really be that confusing? You can’t offer as an argument to this hypothetical that transferring custody of an unborn child isn’t possible when the hypothetical specifically allows for the possibility that the child can be delivered if the mother chooses to do so (transferring the custody of infants happens all the time).
I’m not dodging at all and I do see it as a question about performing a particular invasive procedure. Just as I have a right to decide I want my left ear pierced and not my right ear pierced, I have a right to decide whether I want to have an abortion or give birth.
Apparently, because I really don’t understand where you’re going with this and why. My point is that once a child is born, a woman who wishes to transfer custody of it can simply walk away from it. But she can’t simply walk away from a fetus she’s carrying. This is why there is a difference between aborting a fetus you don’t want and killing an infant you don’t want. In the latter case, you do have a noninvasive choice.