On abortion, homosexuality, strangers, meddling, and personal belief

Great Debates
1

This may not be a GREAT debate, as it leans more towards the philosophical, but I’ve been struggling (a little, it doesn’t consume me much) with the part of the foundations of my beliefs. Furthermore, I suck at deep OPs, so bear with me.

Before I start, a caveat - this is not a thread for debating the pros/cons of abortion, homosexuality, or any other topic that comes up. Nor is it a thread about my beliefs about these subjects, so don’t come down on me for them. It’s about the particular line of reasoning that I use to partially support my beliefs.

I am pro-choice, and, for lack of a phrase (“pro-homosexuality” doesn’t work), believe that homosexuality is a natural phenomenon and that homosexuals should be treated the same as any other person. Anti-bigotry, perhaps.

Anyway, whenever I hear pro-lifers or anti-gay people (PL/AGers) explain their positions, one of my immediate reactions is to wonder exactly how a random stranger having an abortion, or the fact that a random stranger is gay, really affects at all a PL/AGer. Does the actual act of an abortion, no matter where it takes place, or the fact that 99.9999999% of the people who have an abortion will have zero direct interference/consequence in the life of that PLer, affect the PLer’s life? In fact, the PLer will not even be aware at all that an abortion has taken place in 99.9999% of the cases. So how can any individual abortion actually matter, actually affect someone, if s/he didn’t even know it happened.

Along similar lines, an AGer who lives in City A. The fact that Jill Doe, who lives on a different continent, whom the AGer doesn’t even know exists, is gay. How on earth can this fact have anything to do with the AGer’s life?

In other words, they don’t. Much of my belief system in these cases lies than in the concept of “Stop worrying about other people’s lives, get on with your own.” So what if someone you don’t even know has an abortion, so what if that person is gay. It doesn’t, in any way, shape or form, affect your life.

Ergo - PL/AGers, stop meddling. It’s none of your business.

Great, right?

The problem I see is that this same line of reasoning could apply to rape, murder, or, to be honest, just about any action of an individual, or a couple/small group. Think about it. I don’t know anyone who’s been raped, for instance. So rape doesn’t affect me personally. And the fact is that if some woman on the other side of the country gets raped tonite, a crime I will never hear about, it will have zero affect, even indirectly, on me.

So - are the ‘philosophical’ underpinnings of my stance on abortion/homosexuality wrong? Is my comparison incorrect? Is there some social construct wherein the activities of unknown people do matter? And if so, on which side of the line do the things mentioned above lie?

Phew. Long. I’ll be mildly surprised if people even get to the end of this.

2

If a woman has a baby in secret and then throws it in a river while it’s asleep it doesn’t affect you either. Still rightly punishable by imprisonment and/or psychiatric treatment.

The difference between homosexuality and abortion in trhis debate is…well, homosexual acts don’t end with the extinguishing of a human life. As long as Pro-lifers (of which I am one) believe that there are legitimate victims they will go on “meddling.”

3

All public life is a dance along the line of public versus private business. At what point must society remove itself? At what point must it intervene?

For myself, I believe the old line of “does it harm someone else?” works fairly well for most cases. Abortion is not one of those cases, because it is firmly lodged on precisely that point. Is a baby, a living human being, actually being harmed by the process? If so, does that harm outweigh the harm a definite human being might face birthing and supporting it?

Homosexuality, on the other hand, comes down solidly on the side of “no harm”. So long as any sexual act or relationship remains within the realm of the safe, sane, and consensual, the government has no business meddling. Attempting to persuade someone towards your view of morality on the subject should never involve use of the law.

4

Neither homosexuality nor abortion harms another person (regardless of the fantasies of pro-choicers). Murder and rape do. It’s just that simple.

So no, your philosophy is not inconsistent.

5

pro-lifers, I mean. Regardless of the fantasies of pro-lifers.

6

Ten shiny guineas to the first person to spot Diogenes’ typo.

[sub]20 if you spot anything remotely original[/sub]

7

Damn and blast, he’s given the game away folks.

You could at least have used spoiler tags, dude.

As regards your post, care to present some fact to back up that opinion?

8

Diogenes, all hail to your Freudian slip!

You were closer to the truth the first time G

9

Bah. I’ll bet a 3 month old baby feels plenty harmed while it’s being sucked out of it’s mothers womb.
Don’t think a fetus is a person? Punch a pregnant woman in the guts and see what they charge you with. Many jurisdictions will refer to it as* “…the unborn baby”* on your murder indictment.

10

It wasn’t supposed to be original it was supposed to be true.

But I’ll restate it with my editorializing set aside. We can agree that homosexuality harms no one. If you believe that abortion does not harm another person then your philosophy is consistent. If you believe abortion does kill a person, then you’re inconsistent.

Anyway, live and let live as long as others do no harm is what I’m getting at.

11

A three month old baby has been out of the womb for three months.

Conservative politicians can use whatever language they want in their misogynistic legislation. “Partial-birth abortion” is a phony term too. That doesn’t mean either instance has any real meaning.

12

You know what I meant.

13

Hey folks! Are we forgetting the OP’s proviso here?

If you can’t handle that caveat, find your own thread eh?

14

Priam is right, and it’s my fault, I started it. I was the first to inject a political opinion into the thread. Mea culpa.

15

Thanks Priam

The more I thought about it, the more I think I should extend my definition of stranger - it doesn’t have to be someone you’ll never see or even know about. Two men walking down the street pass by you; or, for the more controversial topic, you hear about the lady from the mailroom 12 floors down who’s going in for an abortion. You never cross paths with these people. So how, exactly, do their actions bear upon your life?

I see in the few responses a vague consensus on some sort of sliding scale, where the x-axis represents various actions. Say we start from the left w/ homosexuality, move to abortion, then theft, rape, murder. The plane that this line lays in is ‘society’ or ‘social morals/ethics’ or something. The slider itself represents you - to its left lie the actions that don’t have any bearing on society, to it’s right are the actions that do (in your opinion).

Me, I’m somewhere just to the right of abortion.

Now, more confusingly, is the fact that there is a ‘warp’ in the line - that is, the more constricted the ‘plane’ of society becomes, your slider may move. For example, if the ‘society’ consists of your friends and family, your feelings may be different.

So, next question - is that ‘valid’. In my case, were my (example only) girlfriend to be pregnant and want an abortion, maybe I’d move to the left of ‘abortion’ on the scale.

If I do that, am I then being inconsistent?

More importantly, am I rambling? It’s late here…

16

The way I read the responses (and the way I see it personally), is that homosexuality doesn’t appear anywhere on that sliding scale of ethics. Abortion may or may not, depending on your beliefs.

Here’s how I see it: The basis of my morals is that it’s wrong to cause harm and suffering. There are lots of grey areas (like causing harm indirectly, or by inaction), and there are situations where you have to cause some harm to prevent a greater harm, but that’s the basics. So, actions which don’t cause harm can’t be immoral.

I also believe that all human beings have some basic rights, and that other living creatures have fewer rights. To me, harming human beings is a lot worse than harming non-humans, and a lot of actions which would be immoral if done against a human being can be OK when done against non-humans. (Yep, I’m a specicist. :slight_smile: )

And thirdly, we have a right and a duty to care about harm done to others, including complete strangers. (I won’t claim that I’m anywhere near living up to my ideal - I give a little money to charities, write a few letters in human rights campaigns occasionally, and vote for parties which work towards greater international solidarity, but that’s it.)

So, whether you fall in love and/or have sex with men, women, both, or neither is none of my business. Just like it’s none of my business whether you spend your spare time reading books, collecting stamps, or painting yourself with pink body paint while watching Disney films. I may or may not share your tastes, but that’s not relevant from a moral point of view. Neither homo/hetero/bisexuality nor choice of hobbies appear anywhere on my sliding scale of ethics.

Abortion is, to me, a point on that sliding scale. It does cause harm to something which isn’t sentient, and isn’t (IMO) a human being, but it is (IMO) alive, and does have a potential for becoming a human being. On the other hand, not having an abortion may cause greater harm to someone who is a human being. So in sum, I end up with abortion being morally OK. Not unproblematic, but mostly OK.

I have no problems understanding that others weigh the abortion issue differently, and decide that it is immoral, and that it’s their moral duty to work towards fewer abortions. If their morals say that fetuses should have a right to life, they have a right to meddle on the behalf of those fetuses, just as it’s my right to meddle on the behalf of political prisoners or torture victims I’ve never met.

17

Did you mean to mis-use the English language to manipulate the conversation? A three month old baby is one that was born three months ago. What you are refering to is a three month old fetus. A fetus is no more a baby than an chicken egg is a baby chick.

18

As far as the OP goes, I marvel at the “bravery” of a lot of the anti-choice people sometimes. Some of them claim that they are against abortion because it is murder, but some of the methods used are the most cowardly you can imagine. Clinics get anonymous threatening letters in the mail and occasional anonumous real personal attacks. In a children’s parade held yesterday here in Portland, Oregon, a van with tinted windows drove down the parade route without permission and displayed large pictures of what were perported to be aborted fetuses to the poor kids, speeding off when parents tried to find out who they were. Websites hosted by these people have displayed so called dead or alive"wanted posters" of doctors, which anyone could see was an attempt to get people to murder. I could go on and on about the cowardice of some of the anti-choice proponents without having to go into whether or not their argument about abortion being murder is correct or not.
What If my brother were to go about hitting people along side the head with a baseball bat whenever he thought they were doing something wrong, and the only answer people got from me about the subject was,“Sure, maybe he shouldn’t hit people along side the head with a baseball bat, but he does have a point!”? Would you continue the conversation with me, or walk off in disgust?
Or, in other words, is that a mote in your eye, or are you just glad to see me?

19

If someone believes that abortion is murder, it logically follows that they will do all they can to prevent it. Since this particular form of murder is fairly legal, rather than call the police, they take other actions. Not that I necessarily follow that line of thinking.

20

I’d like to add a few more items to the list:

  • drugs
  • gambling
  • bigomy/polygomy
  • eating pork
  • listening to rap music

rexnervous, there are people out there that believe with all their hearts that some things are evil, and the likewise the people doing those things are also evil. And it is up to them to do everything in the power to stop the percieved evil.

I think its as simple as that. In their heads they demonize the things they don’t agree with (or don’t understand) and from that insist that it be illegal.