Who are the people exacting this political price? In order for there to be negotiation on this point, somebody must believe that certain baby murders should continue to be allowed while others are banned. People like the Governor of Oklahoma.
People who believe, if a babe is conceived via a particular impure act, it is fine for the mother to murder it.
Sure, but we don’t usually stretch such compromises to the point of tolerating actual deliberate murder in a subset of cases.
For example, if we want people to stop killing unarmed burglars who are fleeing the burglary scene, we just make it a law that you can’t use deadly force against somebody running away and posing no threat to you. Yes, I know you’re mad that he turned over your house and took your stuff, but suck it up, buttercup, you’re not allowed to shoot him while he’s running away.
We don’t attempt to compromise that position by saying to the outraged householders “Tell you what, bro, if the fleeing burglar smashed your antique crystal punchbowl or something else really valuable, then we’ll make an exception allowing you to deliberately murder him.”
That sort of extreme devil’s bargain is not generally considered legitimate negotiation in “the art of the possible”. Not even by politicians.
But you are coming at that from the wrong side. Abortion is currently mostly legal (and rightly so, except the “mostly” should go away). So the anti-choice folks need to chip away at it.
So, if it is legal to shoot a fleeing burglar in all cases, you might start to change that by saying “in all cases except where all he did was attempt to break down your door”. Once that is passed, you can add rising dollar amounts to the lethal force right.
Sorry for the delay, life and all… but…
I don’t believe I’ve used the term murder, which is only a legal construct. And a aside I do believe there are circumstances that consent/lack of would be the dividing line between murder/not murder legally (in general terms not related to abortion). One example I could think of is scuba diving, a person may consent to an emergency accent situation where another diver shuts off the air supply requiring an emergency accent. With consent I can see that be not murder, without consent, just turning off their air, would most likely be murder (if they die). So yes consent/lack of consent can be a determining factor and again because murder is a legal construct.
The reason I get to kill you is because you are living off of me without my consent and I have the right to have that situation remedied. If there was a transplant operation or an artificial womb that would be an alternative. But without that option you reduce a woman to a walking womb that anyone can impregnate and she has no choice, barbaric.
You infer by this that women are not capable of being responsible with their choices, which is very insulting. yes easy out if possible, if she gets a curable STD then it gets cured, but taking another life to get her out of a self inflicted condition she does not desire, but her actions directly created is a non-starter.
Murder seems to have to be intentional (though killing a police officer even unintentionally, is murder in some states), avoidable is legally questionable in certain circumstances as well, innocent also as well. So your definition does not meet the legal definition 100%.
This is why I refrained from using the term murder, but in abortion we are talking about taking a human life. So is it ‘reasonable and justifiable’ to end someone’s life is the question, in which I point to ‘consent and consequences’ as the determining factor as I see it (due specifically to the circumstances of a child in the womb and interdependencies with their mother.
Yes consent can be withdrawn at any point, but consequences can not be reversed by withdrawing it. You still have consequences of actions from consensual sex. Since those consequences were directly caused by one’s own action, and knew pregnancy is a possible outcome of such action, it thus can not be considered ‘punishment’ at least not by society. Perhaps it can be looked at as self punishment or punished by God/gods/the devil etc.
I would say the counter argument would be more like:
Preventing many murders by passing a law that is likely to pass is better than preventing no murders by trying to pass a law that is sure to fail to pass. Small steps, etc.
And it is not an attempt to control woman’s bodies, but to stop infantizing them, let them be considered adults.
Murder is literally called out as one of the Ten Commandments (often mistakenly referred to as a prohibition on killing which is silly; righteous killing is rampant in the Bible). As a Christian I consider the term more than a legal construct, or at least more than a secular legal construct.
I think whether or not you consider abortion to be murder, and whether or not it is murder under certain circumstances, this seems to be the main disagreement between those who are opposed to the legality of abortion and those advocating for reproductive rights.
In what sense is it infantilizing women to respect their bodily autonomy?
The whole debate if the Bible really says thou shalt not murder or thou shalt not kill shows that looking at it from that perspective gives an answer as clear as mud, and again it comes down to legalism. And let’s not forget what Jesus said, being angry at another is murder. So I don’t see any traction there in the abortion issue in terms of murder.
We are talking the morality of ending a life in a particular way and asking if it’s justifiable. This is why I’m not using the term murder as to the respect of abortion, but just bring up the term because so many of you are.
I am not talking about their bodily autonomy. I’m taking about her mental capacity to make adult decisions and being able to handle the consequences of her decision in an adult capacity. Giving her a do-over or a take back that takes another life is treating her like a child. It is a total insult to women that a woman can not make her own decisions and accept the potential consequences of them.
Now that is some authentic frontier gibberish right there.
We have the technology to have as many do-overs as we want. Legislating that women are not permitted to use the do-overs that are immediately and readily available is an affront to everything a technologically advanced civilized society stands for.
As a woman who gave birth about a year ago, I invite you to fuck right off with that patronizing bullshit. Denying me autonomy over my own body because of your bizarre spiritual beliefs is what’s infantilizing. After a tragic miscarriage, carrying my own child, feeling him kick inside the womb, holding my husband’s hand while we ushered new life into the world, it has become more clear than ever how wrong it is to prevent women from choosing abortion. It’s such a visceral and intimate and agonizing experience that can ruin your body and your life forever. Thank God it’s preventable. That’s not even getting to the widespread social and health benefits and preventing the suffering of an unwanted child.
I’ve been spending a lot of time engaged online with new mothers. It’s been a fascinating experience. The desire to force women to give birth dovetails nicely with a larger cultural trend of fetishizing maternal suffering in general. I think it has always existed in the religious set, but the notion has bled into the secular world what with the rise of “natural parenting” among upper middle class white women. (Women should give birth without pain medication, women should breastfeed at any personal cost, women should co-sleep with their children, spend every waking moment with them, and anticipate their needs before they even cry, the mother and only the mother can meet the child’s needs, the more the mother suffers the better parent she is, etc.) Women often take on this mantle for themselves, that in order to have value they must sacrifice their health, sanity and pieces of their identity in the interest of the children. The result is quite devestating on the mother’s psyche and has no measurable benefit to the child.
This is just more of the same. Women must always suffer in the interest of the children. It’s sad, archaic nonsense. But I’m sure it makes you feel better to pretend you have our best interests in mind. Sorry to be so blunt, but that just pissed me off. You could at least be honest about your motives.
Just to be clear, I’m pretty damned happy as a Mom, and I attribute that not only to Wee Weasel’s wonderful temperament but to the fact that I gave up the Mommy martyr complex pretty early on. And it’s fine if mothers choose to breastfeed, give birth without medication, whatever, but their value does not depend on it.
Non-existent entities don’t get to impose punishments or consequences on human beings. The very suggestion that they do is abhorrent to all rational adults. And the notion that other people get to impose them on behalf of the non-existent entities is even more disgusting to rational adults.
Hi Spice_Weasel. Thank you and just to restate what I put above I am playing devil’s advocate here, it is not my belief, but I have to admit it was at one time (till God showed me I was dead wrong). I did hesitate a bit and considered relinquishing my role here as devil’s advocate knowing how emotional this issue can be, however since this is the pit and I don’t want to treat women with kid gloves and infantize them, I have made the decision to do the jerk thing and continue. I do feel for your miscarrage, but the devil calls…
That’s exactly what you are doing, you have ability of autonomy over your own body to have any substance put up inside you, that does not relief you of the consequences of your choice. But taking a life for your ‘regrets’ is morally wrong, more so because your free will decision bring that person into being.
You seem to be the one that is offering some bizarre spiritual believe here, not me, mine is based on morality, not spirituality. On responsibility, on accepting women as adults capable of making decisions that can bear consequences and not using a ‘out’ that depends on taking another person’s life.
Your own words confirm that the person inside the womb is indeed a person, your own child by your own words, actively doing something.
Yes thank God women have choices when it comes to putting foreign substances up inside them that could create a person, and a mind of a adult who can make such decisions for themselves to allow that or not.
Also any act can ruin one’s life forever, it’s the risk/reward quotient of life. But just because you chose an act which resulted in a undesirable outcome does not mean you should be able to simply take another life, that is morally wrong, disgusting and almost a ‘goddess’ like attitude towards other humans, in that death of others is fine to make yourself feel better about what you have done.
Also I am not saying a woman must raise the child. As soon as the child is safely and legally (in the US) delivered it can be handed over no questions asked. In fact a woman has about 6 months to decide that (state depending), drop an unwanted child off at any hospital, police station, or fire station and walk away, society will take care of that child.
There is simply no excuse as to why women can’t bear adult level responsibility for their choices.
That says it all. Peace out.
If that were the case there would be no justification for the use of the word punishment. It’s simply the moral consequences of action and choice.
It’s like I’m reading a romance novel.
Nothing remotely romantic about that depiction.
Eh, slap Fabio on the cover, it’ll sell.