Not if you consider its brain function irrelevant to the issue, as I do. It’s a simple topology problem - “Is it Inside, or Outside?”
No, the more sensible line is when it’s no longer inside another person.
My bad; I should have specified that we were discussing humans, or potential humans.
Is there even such a moment? I would imagine they kick in somewhat gradually.
Well, the legal concept of “positive duty” does exist. If it’s her child or she has some preexisting legal responsibility to it, then she is legally bound to protect it, and I don’t quite see the relevance to an abortion debate.
Sensible in what way? As a matter of practicality, few doctors are likely to perform a purely elective late-term abortion. How many abortions do you think your proposal will actually prevent? I’d be disinclined to accept your demarcation because it serves no purpose except to impose a restriction that could later be expanded. It’s a compromise that has no value except to weaken one side.
It might become clearer if we recall that I originally posed the scenario in response to MrDibble’s agreement/endorsement of your post:
See, you’re saying that the pregnant woman has the absolute right to opt out of the role as host, causing the demise of the fetus. I was wondering whether (and why or why not) you would consider the mother of a newborn infant to have the right to opt out of the role as parent, causing the demise of the infant.
Had you not explicitly stated that the issues of peronhood and sentience were irrelevant, I would not have wondered this; since you did say that though, I think the desert island scenario is approximately equivalent, or at least closely analogous.
Could you explain why the fetus/baby’s orientation with regard to a body cavity is a sensible moral guideline for whether or not it is acceptable to destroy/kill it?
Not to hand-wave aside your words, but I don’t understand where practicality and pragmatism comes into it (or why they come into it before moral ambiguity that has to be resolved). I’m not proposing considering a brain-function demarcation because it will “prevent pregnancies”, but because it may (or may not) be the point where a fetus becomes what we would generally recognize as a person. The moral issue must be cleared up, and then the pragmatism can fill in around it.
Sure, she can opt out. Many venues have foundling drop-off laws and virtually all of them have adoption laws. She can’t simply kill the infant, though. Using birth as a demarcation is pretty easy. As for the highly artificial well-stocked desert island scenario… I look forward to a real-world test case because it’s currently too hypothetical to affect my stance.
Fercryinoutloud! she’s on the desert island precisely because that puts her in a position that is more analogous to that of a pregnant female carrying a non-viable fetus; i.e. her decision to opt out will inevitably cause the demise of the infant. There is nobody to adopt.
If you would prefer it as an abstract question, with no hypothetical desert islands:
-Can a mother of a newborn infant ‘opt out’ of parenthood if that decision will inevitably cause the demise of the infant? If not, why not?
Making it a moral rather than a medical issue is what clouds it in the first place. In fact, trying to get a moral consensus on the issue only guarantees it’ll remain a deadlock forever, whereas pragmatism allows to examine what is and isn’t possible (as opposed to what we wish was possible in an ideal world) and we can make compromises from there, attempting for the best mix of individual freedom and the needs of society. I’m biased toward the former, but I recognize the necessity of the latter.
Anyway, these posts of yours are starting to make me suspect any of three things:[ul][li]You’re pro-choice but doing a moderately-effective job of playing devil’s advocate - presenting a weak pro-choice argument in order to draw out stronger ones.[/li][li]You’re pro-choice but feel guilty about it, and are hoping others will give you a relaxing rationalization[/li][li]You’re not really pro-choice at all.[/ul][/li]
Just my opinion, for what it’s worth.
To be honest, I’m not sure we can even debate within the same plane, so to speak, given our approaches. I don’t really understand how morality can’t feature-- unless we’re going to go with a completely utilitarian worldview.
I’m pro-choice, but based on a fairly arbitrary (IMO) demarcation. I’m trying to explore the spectrum of possible demarcation sites and find one that is justifiable.
I don’t equate a fetus with a baby (mostly because one is inside a human host and the other is not), so the comparison doesn’t hold. If she can’t legally hand off her responsibility to an infant in the absence of a legal framework (i.e. on a desert island), the legal responsibility remains with her.
Of course, if she’s absolutely and totally outside all legal frameworks, she could just kill the infant anyway.
I need more information. How do you suggest this scenario works? The newborn has a metabolic disorder and can only digest the milk of its mother? I’m hard-pressed to imagine any other way the mother’s continued presence is absolutely critical to the infant’s survival without coming back to the desert island scenario - where mother and infant are physically isolated.
So fercryinoutloud, give me something to work with.
Except that this doesn’t seem to gel with your previous comment of “I don’t care if the fetus is a person or not. I don’t care if the fetus is sentient or not.” What’s the difference between a fetus and a helpless baby, if we purposely ignore the issues of personhood and sentience?
Of course, but that’s irrelevant, since we’re discussing how things ought to be, not how they currently are
I don’t see what’s wrong with the desert island scenario, and I certainly wouldn’t expect you to treat any other hypothetical more seriously, but anyway, why is an example even necessary? I’m asking you for an exposition of your principle, not a specific application of it.
Not if you’re both 54 it doesn’t. 
In slight defense of kanicbird, it is not a good idea to set up a system of laws that practically force people to lie to exercise their rights. To get away from abortion, in New York, the last non no-fault divorce state, men set up fake affairs at which they are caught by private eyes all the time in order to have cause for a divorce. This is damn stupid. I could conceive of a situation where women make rape charges, in full cooperation with men, and then refuse to testify or cooperate with the prosecution, leading to prosecutors not even bringing charges. The really bad thing would be if some real rapists got off because of a high percentage of false charges.
There are a lot better reasons to be pro-choice, but I can see this one without accusing anybody of being a slut.
Let’s see. The CDC reports a little more than 850,000 abortions a year in the US. The number of third term abortions is usually touted to be 1.4% so that’s about 11,900. Or, to put in another light, almost six times as many 20+ week fetuses a year as total service men and women killed in Iraq as of October of last year - 2000 - which is another number people get worked up about. In the grand scheme of things both numbers are quite small, but it’s hard for most people not to see at least one, if not both, as compelling and unacceptable. I find both sorrowful, though I fully admit that the loss of a soldier is (usually) a lot more devastating to those left behind.
Your numbers are wrong. That 1.6% number is for so-called “late term abortion” (not a medical term) which is somewhat of a tendentous phrase used to refer to abortions after the 20th week. The third TRIMESTER doesn’t occur until the 28th week and abortions in that TRIMESTER are exceedingly rare (something like 1/16 of 1%) and are only performed out of medical necessity (often when to the fetus is already dead). Elective abortions in the 3rd trimester are illegal in most states and most doctors would not be willing to perform them in any case.
Everything with pro-choice, by consenting to sex you are chosing to assume the risk of pregancy and the responsibility to that life you may create. Now if for some reason you think that the way you create offspring is to eat a fish with your mate and don’t understand that sex has the possibility of pregnancy then you did not chose. If you didn’t chose then you can have your offspring killed during the time it is dependent on you by having it removed.
I don’t think it’s possible to find a universal moral stance on this issue (or any issue, really) but if you’re looking for argument pro-choicers can use to try to make sure abortion remains legal, you’ve been given several which are simpler and probably more effective than what you proposed in the original post.
And how many of those were, as I said, purely elective? Frankly, I bet virtually all of them were for compelling medical reasons (I’ll grant that a handful may have been elective) so putting on a ban wouldn’t save 11,900 babies; it might just kill 11,900 women and their babies. Congratulations.
It gels just fine; you simply jumped to a conclusion. I’m only ignoring the “issues of personhood and sentience” as they relate to a fetus. Since I don’t equate fetuses with babies (the primary difference being whether or not one is located inside the body of a person), why should I equate the personhood of a fetus with the personhood of a baby?
My principle on this issue is that a woman who does not wish to remain pregnant should not be forced to do so when a safe medical solution exists. Similarly, any person (male or female) who faces a significant self-inflicted health problem (even a self-limiting one that’ll clear up on its own after nine months or so) should not be legally blocked from getting a simple treatment solely to teach them “responsibility for their actions.” The value to society of aborted fetuses (whose own mothers don’t want them) is not great enough in my opinion to justify this level of intrusion into personal freedom.
No, she’s willing to assume the risk that she may have to take responsibility for a pregnancy. Terminating a pregnancy is one perfectly acceptable way of taking responsibility for it.
Sounds like ignorant women get a pass while knowledgeable women get punished. Great.