But I am not arguing that we should eat chicken - I am arguing that eating a chicken and eating a foetus are morally equivalent assuming said act does not impugn the rights of the “owner” of either chicken or foetus (which would rarely be the case in the latter).
Now, as to “why not allow termination of newborns and geriatrics”, I repeat that
Even if no suffering was caused to these entities themselves, such entities will in almost all cases have a relative who would very definitely suffer through their death, and suffering in general would occur due to the possibility that “I might be next”. This is most certainly not the case with chicken-like foetuses, and I admit this is entirely arbitrary on my part.
Those probabilities merely illustrated my point, JT: I base my arbitrary threshold on brain function, not survival. I assure you that whatever you base yours on is similarly arbitrary given the “no special status” of a just-fetilised egg biologically speaking.
I actually have one quick question for minty and others:
Do you support legislation that outlawed abortions in cases after the child has brain function? Is that the point where you are comfortable deciding the rights of the unborn life may outweigh the rights of the woman?
Hamlet, it wasn’t rape, it was an accident. You just slipped onto the relevant needles and tools in the perfect order to perform the procedure. I wasn’t even there. (Besides, you were wearing really tight pants and looked like you wanted it…)
In any case, you din’t chose to become pregnant, neither was it forced upon you. It just happened.
That’s because our bloody definition of woman is that they bear the children! :smack:
Adoption still requires a woman to endure the physical discomfort and financial expense of carrying a pregnancy to term. If she doesn’t want the thing in her body no one else has the right to force her to keep it. Period.
Like I said, abortion is a perfectly ethical and responsible way to deal with an unintended pregnancy.
I didn’t say all pro-lifers were misogynist, I said many of them were. I have personally escorted a a young woman to get an abortion through a mob of anti-abortion zealots screaming obscenities at her and calling her a slut. The girl had been raped by her step-father. Don’t tell me there was no misogyny at the root of that harassment.
Adoption is not always a viable or desirable option for reasons I have stated above and for other reasons.
This doesn’t really rebut my point does it?
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Your rights are not in conflict with a dog’s right not to be tortured. If we are admitting that a fetus is not a person then I can see no reason why a non-person be given preferential rights over a woman who indisputably is a person.
BTW, for those who are willing to make an exception in the case of rape, how would you determine if a woman was truly a rape victim or not? Who would decide? What would stop any and all women from claiming that they were raped in order to get a legal abortion?
Actually, WHY would you make a distinction between a rape victim and any other form of unwanted pregnancy? Surely it wasn’t the embryos fault that its mother was raped, why should he/she/it suffer for it?
Really? Why not use a alien abduction scenario? Or maybe a woman who sat on a wet toilet seat and accidentally got pregnant? Or a woman who went to store to buy underwear for her man, but didn’t know what size it was, so she asked the store manager, who had the same build as her man, for help, but he had been in the back watching porn right before and had a hair trigger, so when he tried on the underwear, he accidentally ejaculated into the underwear, and then wrapped it up and sold it to her for below cost, and she went home and, to surprise her man, put on the underwear and greeted him at the door wearing only Saran Wrap, stilletto heels and the underwear, and she, though a virgin, accidentally became pregnant? How bizarre of a scenario do you want to make?
As unbelievably far fetched your example is, I’m assuming the point you are going for is whether the actions and volition of the woman in becoming pregnant have some relevance to the determination of whether she should be legally allowed to obtain an abortion. I think it does.
Actually, you’re wrong, that was not my point at all so a big “fneh!” to you! Considering for extremely far fetched and ludicrous my example is I do however see how my point wasn’t communicated (even though I think it is hiding in there). If YOU by some freakish accident/voodoo magic/divine intervention/alien abduction scenario got pregnant, you being a man, should you be allowed to abort?
Not sure if this is bullshit or not but wasn’t there a case during the Civil War in which a soldier got part of his nutsack shot off and the bullet carried into a house where it struck a woman in the abdomen and impregnated her?
Should that woman be allowed to get an abortion? (if the story isn’t bullshit)
That’s the thing though, Stoneburg, it doesn’t “just happen” very often. The majority of the time a choice is made and the consequences should be delt with in a way that does not destroy the life that is the consequence of the action. I have no idea what the talk of definition has to do with anything.
SentientMeat I am calm, though I did throw in a couple of “!” in the last post More of disbelief than anger.
I don’t know what the “side of caution” means. Alphabet soup for “I don’t want to kill them because it will make someone sad?”
(Minty, I lost your post and I’ll have to go ack and look at it after I post this one) What I think you said was that “humanity” isn’t the only factor that comes into play in abortion. I think it may be. We eat animals and such, but we don’t kill people’s pets unnecessarily. We don’t feel too bad about the random chickens that end up at ButterBall, but if someone had a pet chicken and we cooked it, I think there would be legal consequences. So what it boils down to is that if a woman is ready to deal with the emotional stress of abortion then we should let her do that since she is the only one with emotional ties to it? Sounds fishy to me.
Both of you are missing the point I think. I don’t care how a child is created. Accident, rape, incest, whatever. A child is created and should be allowed to live. As someone said, it’s not the embryo’s fault so why punish it?
Nope, a man has no more right to kill an unborn child than the mother.
In mine, and many others view, the “thing” you so quickly dismiss, has rights also. Am I to understand from your position that you would have no problem with a woman obtaining a completely elective abortion in the 39th week of the pregnancy?
Am I? Because I’d hate to explain it to my wife that I’m a misogynist because I believe that people should consider the rights of the unborn in determining the propreity of abortion. Let me know.
What, precisely was your point? That you love chickens? That you hate Colonel Sanders? Please explain.
Please explain.
And I can see a plethora of reasons. Although a fetus is not a complete “human being” does not mean it cannot or should not be entitled to the right to continue to live. And that right can outweigh the right of a woman to terminate it.
Legally, how would I? Maybe by requiring prompt reporting of the rape. I certainly wouldn’t require a conviction of the offender for rape before allowing a LEGAL exception. And maybe have a judge decide. And there would be no way, other than the woman’s own ethics and legal sanctions, to stop a woman from lying. Oddly enough, that’s true for everyone.
Fneh? You are really gonna get it from the moderators if you continue to use such vulgarity in Great Debates. I’m totally offended.
To answer: My view of the legality and morality of abortion holds regardless of whether it is me, any man, or any woman.
And, for those playing along at home, just transpose my response to Stoneburg’s who is most definitely not Jim B, example to Diogenes magic, impregnatable bullet example from the Civil War.
In the case of such a late pregnancy I would rather have the attending physician simply induce labor and deliver the live infant. The baby can then be turned over to the state and put up for adoption. The end result would be the same for the woman and no ethical dilemna would arise.
I have never seen anything in your posting history to suggest that you are misogynist or that your pro-life position is rooted in hostility towards women. I was addressing a specific attitude about women expressed by another poster that strikes me as patronizing and sanctimonious (i.e. that women with unwanted pregnancies have been somehow irresponsible or immoral). I was not making a blanket characterization about all pro-lifers. I deliberately used the qualifier “many” so as to avoid a sweeping generalization.
If you look at the post I was responding to in that statement you will see that I was parodying the implied assertion that something is a person because “I think” it is a person.
Well, since we basically have a legal system which assumes that the rights of human beings always supercede the rights of non-human beings I think that you would have the burden to show why an exception should be made in the case of abortion. You say you can think of a “plethora” of reasons why a non-person’s rights should ever supercede the rights of a person. What are some of those reasons.
This response seems incomplete to me. How long should a rape victim wait before she can get an abortion? What methodology would be used by the judge to determine if she had been raped?
You are aware, are you not, that in the case of incest many victims will be too afraid to report such crimes which would increase the likelihood of these victims seeking out illegal and less safe abortions? Does that give you any pause?
I guess you are talking about me being misogynist Diogenes. That’s ridiculus and insulting.
Some women who have unwanted pregnancies are irresponsible. Some are just unlucky. They rolled the dice and they came up pregnant. Sex is a calculated risk. They took the risk and now they should deal with the consequences of that risk. No? then explain why.
They don’t become immoral until they decide to kill their child for no reason better than “I don’t want it.”
“Rather” is an interesting word. I think it would be safe to say, everybody would “rather” that abortions don’t happen, but that doesn’t tell much about thier feelings about the legality or morality of it. With that in mind, would you fight legislation that required the woman to have to undergo medical procedures that would do everything to ensure the viability of the child outside the womb as opposed to allowing the woman to insist upon a medical procedure that would result in the death of the unborn life? Or should the decision to actually terminate the life remain solely the woman’s choice, regardless of whether the unborn was viable or not.
I don’t agree with your premise, you still should not starve your dog to death, even though it is a non-person. In addition, the law constently weighs the kinds of rights involved in making determinations, and not just the status of the entity holding those rights.
The fetus is life. It is not yet a “human being”, but it is also more than a bunch of tissues. It is, by it’s very nature, a unique form of life. As such, it is entitled to protection from a decision that would terminate it’s life. Morally, it is wrong to terminate that life, whether it is the product of rape, a broken condom, or an irresponsible party girl on her fifth abortion. However, from a legal standpoint, the specific rights of the mother need to be weighed in the decision. And I don’t believe a woman’s right to complete bodily integrity is sufficient to allow the termination of a life. This does not mean I do not value the rights of a woman to control her body, nor does it mean I do not respect a woman’s right to choose in other parts of her life. However, when that choice violates the rights of an unborn life, it’s wrong.
You want me to write a complete legislation for you? Well, the precise language, etc. would, of course, be up to debate, but I think I would require that, in order to obtain a legal abortion under the rape exception, the victim report the rape to a law enforcement body, along with the identity of the rapist, or show good cause as to why there was no report. She would be required to swear, under oath, that she was raped, and supply a DNA sample. If, within a reasonable degree of certainity, the judge finds there was, indeed a rape, she could order that the woman be allowed an abortion. There would also be additional punishments for lying under oath about the rape. In addition, I would allow law enforcement to, if they wish, obtain DNA samples for the purposes of investigation into the allegations of rape.
Now, in practice, you would see many things happen. The number of reported rapes would skyrocket. The judicial system would be additionally burdened. And women would lie. Bad things indeed, but not worse than the loss of life through abortions.
The idea that any woman would be forced to seek out illegal abortions is troubling to me, regardless if it is the product of incest or not. And there would be instances of tragic circumstances where women will be seriously injured or die seeking an illegal abortion. I do not believe it would be as prevalent as some think it would, but it does concern me greatly. And, given time, I think it would decrease as less and less women have unwanted pregnancies.
I’d also legislate that the State provide free contraception devices on demand, and increase spending and training into the necessity and use of contraceptives. It is a poor person who would deny that.
Not a dodge? Are you kidding? What would you call it?
Why?
Sez you.
The discussion is not on the law. It is a discussion of the morality of the law.
I say it’s immoral to kill in most cases, and you say it can be done on a whim. Burdon of proof is on you.
I think in the case of a late term pregnancy that the right of the woman to terminate the pregnancy is not in conflict with ethical concerns over the life of the fetus. I would not oppose legislation which mandated that doctors do whatever they could to preserve the life of a healthy fetus if a woman seeks to terminate the pregnancy at a very late date. IOW, no the woman should not have the right to insist on the death of the fetus if the fetus can be removed without killing it. Once it is out of her body, her own rights are no longer an issue.
I think you’re missing my point about resolving conflicts between the rights of persons and non-persons. If a person was trapped in a room with a dog and no food it would not be considered unethical or illegal for the person to kill the dog and eat it. If he kills the dog and eats it for fun, that is different.
You haven’t explained why a fetus is a more “unique” form of life or why it merits more consideration of “rights” than a chimpanzee. It seems to me that you’re making somewhat of a tautological assertion here. A fetus deserves special rights because it is special. Why is it special?
Argument from assertion. You know better than that. I don’t accept that it’s immoral.
Obviously you don’t believe a woman should have total autonomy over her body, at leat in the case of pregnancy…and you still haven’t made a case for why an “unborn life” should trump the rights of person.
I can see a number of obvious problems with such a scenario, the most obvious of which is that such legislation would have the effect of scaring away a number of legitimate victims who would not want to be subjected to humiliating examinations, suspician and legal threats. I think the rquest for DNA is also unrealistic since we’re not talking about prosecuting rapists but aborting pregnancies. The victims are usually not going to be aware that they are pregnant until weeks or months after the rape. How are they supposed to provide NNA evidence at that point?
Also, what would constitute a “reasonable degree of certainty” for a judge? Rape is one of the hardest crimes to prove under any circumstances. Are you willing to simply let judges make ad hoc decisions about whether a woman has been raped or not based on a subjective personal opinion? What if a judge says no and he’s wrong. In that case we would be victimizing the woman even further by effectively calling her a liar and forcing her to carry the child of her rapist.
I disagree. I think the prospect of rape victims being forced to either carry pregnancies to term or to seek out black market abortions is far worse than the termination of a few non-sentient zygotes.
More of disbelief than anger.