No, that’s an immoral one.
I can appreciate where the anti-abortion people come from. They sincerely believe that a zygote is a human being. But it seems like they cannot see where the pro-choice people come from. I for one honestly don’t believe that a zygote is a human being. It isn’t a matter of scientific proof or of religious faith- plenty of intelligent people are on both sides of the issue as are plenty of religious people. There is no clear consensus and there probably never will be. It’s also my opinion that very few people have ever changed their minds about the matter and no amount of name-calling on either side is going to change that. So there is no point in anti-abortion people trying to convince pro-choice people that abortion is murder, and the reverse is equally pointless.
Once we expect women to carry fetuses to term, what else will we do? Mandate that women should get pregnant? Force single women to give up their children because they need “a mother and a father”? Force widows to give up their children? Take away the children of gay parents? Give rapists paternal rights. Oh, wait, 31 states already do. That’s a majority!!
I’ve heard anti-abortion protestors endorse these very things. Welcome to the 1950’s, baby.
Another red herring. One can believe a zygote is a human being or not, but that’s completely irrelevant to the abortion debate. No one ever “aborts” zygotes.
I changed my mind, I used to be a pro-choice atheist (a long time ago).
So your decision to adopt religion and change your mind at some point in your life means that everyone else has to also? Why must everyone else do what you do and believe what you believe? Why the need to force the rest of society to comply with your personal ethics? Even you haven’t always complied with your current set of personal ethics. What if you change your mind again, does society have to follow suit as well?
In my opinion, you’re atypical. It’s been my experience that people don’t change their mind on this issue.
Are you saying that every time you to sleep an entirely different person wakes up?
The point is there was a person who went into a coma, and the person who wakes up will share an identity with that person.
As far as the amnesiacs go I’ve never heard of someone who was in a coma and whom it could be determined conclusively that when they woke up would have no connection what so ever of their past to the point that they would be wake up like a new born baby, so its hard to determine what should happen in that case.
But to make it simpler I would assert that if Dr Evil in a science fiction manner made an adult clone of Agent Powers, whose mind was a blank slate with no memories or identity printed on it, and whose mind had not been turned on, I would have no problem ethically with the termination of such a clone before it had been turned on.
The question is why do we feels strongly about not killing people but have no problem destroying rocks, killing weeds, or excising tumors. The reason is that identify with the sentient part of the human, or what the religious would call the soul. It is this soul that makes a person a person rather than just a husk of meat. Current science seems to point in the direction that whatever it is that the soul or consciousness is it seems to reside in the brain and come out as some emergent phenomenon from the complexity of the brain. So lack of brain means lack of complexity means lack of soul means just meat.
Now of course you could argue that I might empathize with an embryo because at one point we were all embryos before we became sentient, and so as the bumper sticker says “Be glad your mother didn’t abort you” but this could easily be changed to “Be glad your mother had sex”, yet conservatives don’t seem to advocate as much sex as possible as early as possible, despite the fact that that would lead to even more beautiful babies.
The truth of the matter is that religious conservative’s opposition to abortion come in too forms. First, they desire to punish illicit sex, and see unplanned pregnancy as a way to do that. Secondly in order to fit their theology there must be a bright line between having and not having a soul. The idea that a soul could gradually develop over the 9 months of gestation, so they make their bright line a fertilization. But their personal discomfort over the realities of science is no basis for law.
Why should the law presuppose a physicalist understanding of thought (which a lot of us consider to be absurd and self-contradictory) over a dualist one?
If you really want the law to stay neutral between the two perspectives, and not to side explicitly or implicitly with either one, then the law should err on the side of protecting the embryo and/or fetus, since we are not sure if it’s a person or not.
My personal ethics says that rape and murder are wrong, so I suppose I shouldn’t impose that on other people either?
If an embryo is a person, then no decent person can say “I choose not to kill them, but it’s OK if you choose otherwise”. No more than we can do the same if someone chose to believe that Jews, Black people, etc. were not persons.
Tell me something, Airbeck, and try to answer truthfully, within the parameters of the question: if you believed that someone was about to kill a baby (“baby” by YOUR definition of it) - would you sit back and say “Well, they don’t think it’s a baby, so how could I impose my view on them by preventing the killing? Why should THEY comply with my personal ethics?”.
The rest of society also agrees that rape and murder are wrong, that’s why we have laws against that already. The rest of society does not agree with you about abortion, and that’s why it is currently legal. Your analogy is therefore empty. Your attempt to compare anyone that doesn’t agree with you as rape and murder apologists noted though.
You say ‘If an embryo is a person’, so right there is the issue, that’s a big “if”. Many people do not agree with you. Why is your opinion more important than anyone else’s. Why should everyone be forced by law to live according to your principles. Principles you admit you have not always had. Again I ask you, what if you change your mind again, should our laws regarding abortion be defined by whatever you personally feel at that particular time? You’ve held different views on this issue in the past, yet you feel that you are qualified to force everyone to submit to what are simply your current views on the issue? How do you not see this as a problem? You don’t like abortion, and you think its murder, then fine don’t have one, and advocate to your loved ones not to have one. But you do not get to have final say for all of society on something that you admit is a transient position. You may feel completely certain about your current beliefs on this, but didn’t you feel sure about your previous beliefs then as well? I understand that you feel strongly about this, but simply having strong feelings about something doesn’t give you the right to impose your feelings on everyone else.
I would call the police on them and say I think someone is about to kill their baby. Why don’t you just call the police about someone you suspect to be having an abortion. What would the police tell you on that phone call?
You do not get to force your beliefs on me or on anyone else. Period. This is still America right?
I am against abortion simply because I feel it is murder. I don’t do anything about it, I don’t protest or bitch I simply accept the law as it is written. The problem I have with this is that it bothers me and makes me feel less as a human being because I am not doing anything. The only way I can accept it and still live with myself is to chalk it up as a moral issue and try to assume the fetus is not suffering in the process. Even with that it leaves me as a human being with one part of myself I don’t like so much.
(Emphasis mine.)
In such a circumstance I would hope that I would have the good sense to realize that the definition I held was, at best, pushing the bounds of what others are willing to accept and is not shared by a very large segment of the population, many of whom might be a lot smarter than I am and a lot more knowledgeable about the biological sciences. I would therefore conclude that my definition is a subjective and personal one, and that there were cogent arguments on the opposing side. And therefore as much as I would vehemently oppose abortion, I would realize that the law has no place intruding into matters of subjective personal faith, especially matters that have significant real-world implications for women everywhere.
In such a matter of faith, there’s a vast difference between mounting a crusade to convince others of your supposed enlightenment, and lobbying for laws to impose this supposed enlightenment on everyone.
You’re weaseling out of the answer. The police would tell me there is no law against that killing. But that is the point - I want there to BE a law. And YOU are calling it “forcing your beliefs”. Is any law “forcing beliefs” or just the ones you don’t like?
Congratulations, you’re pro-choice.
Yup. Read my post above. That’s where you cross the ethical line.
Because it’s one that’s backed up by facts and meat. Since everybody can and does have a different opinion and viewpoint on the “transphysical” side of things, it is and should be irrelevant in making laws.
It is possible to prove a six-week fetus does not feel pain, for example. Physically prove it, in a way that is not open to interpretation. Hopefully with a pig fetus ;), because it involves jamming electrodes into the proto-brain then trying to hurt the rest of the fetus, like, a lot. Which of course won’t work, but I shouldn’t think an electrode in the brain’s good for future development.
What proof or even circumstancial evidence can you put forward that your notion that thought is possible without a brain is anything but fanciful tosh ?
The neutral perspective is one that does not rely on the supernatural in any way whatsoever. Since the “doubt” you’re trying to inject in this aspect of the debate relies on the supernatural, it is not neutral. It’s also somewhat insane, but that’s neither here nor there.
I’m not weaseling out of the answer. You just don’t like the answer because it doesn’t give you those sweet sweet internet points you were looking for.
The ones society doesn’t agree with. You want this law, yet you cannot have it because society does not agree with you. Some people want there to be a law making it illegal to be homosexual. Some people want a law forbidding people from owning certain guns. People advocate laws all of the time, but just the fact that someone wants a law doesn’t mean that law must therefore be passed. If society was on your side, you would have your law. But it is not, so you cannot.
This is where we are. You can try to change the public opinion on this via advocacy if you like, but you cannot just force everyone to believe what you do. This is not a theocracy.