"Pro-life" and "pro-choice" are both stupid expressions

Great Debates
221

[QUOTE=Stratocaster]
You really need me to acknowledge that abortion eliminates the risk of being pregnant? Really? That’s the important point you want to establish?
[/QUOTE]

Since it negates the whole “assuming the risk” non-starter, yes, I’d like that.

[QUOTE=Stratocaster]
I guess it depends on your perspective. Based on the same facts, I’d say a fetus is not capable of being anything other than innocent.
[/QUOTE]

Then so are rocks, cheese, and the planet Mercury. “Innocence” is a meaningless signifier then.

The central point, the thing you are assuming and have yet to argue for, is that innocence trumps choice. Why it does this, is not something I’ve seen you explain. Even if its axiomatic to your belief system, it still needs stating so we can be on the same page. I mean, it should be clear, but I’ll state it outright now - in my belief system, innocence isn’t automatically a moral trump. I always ask “innocent* of what*?” To me, there’s no general “innocence”.

[QUOTE=Stratocaster]

I’m discussing human innocence.
[/QUOTE]

You’re assuming the complete humanity (which I’d consider equivalent to personhood) of the foetus, then. Remember, to some of us on this side of the argument, the conflict is between Human Mother and Potential Human Foetus. Assigning the foetus human-equivalent levels of innocence (as opposed to, say, the level of innocence of the lipoma I’ll have excised next week) is heading in that petitio principii direction I mentioned before.

222

[QUOTE=MrDibble]
Since it negates the whole “assuming the risk” non-starter, yes, I’d like that.
[/quote]
Um, okay. After giving this a great deal of thought, I will now grudgungly admit that someone who gets an abortion is no longer pregnant. That do the trick?

Not when one applies it to a humna being, I would suggest.

I offered innocence as a qualifying consideration in any moral decision. What I would offer is that “choice” in terms of an abortion is generally a lesser right, relative to another’s right to live. Though no right is absolute, no right exists without the right to live. Not sure how much more of an argument I can offer, since it is as axiomatic to me as “choice trumps innocence” seems to be for you.

I understand that position, though I don’t agree with it. I do understand that if I believed a fetus a valueless blob of tissue, the abortion debate would be very easily settled.

223

Let’s say a new virus is released into the world. Everyone who gets it dies within six months. But a doctor discovers that, if a person with the virus is hooked up to someone without it for nine months, they should be okay. People begin to volunteer for the hookup–some altruistically, some for cash, some prisoners who are offered release after being unhooked.

You get hooked up to a person eight months after the start. When people start getting unhooked a month later, most of the people are okay. However, some of the hookups cannot be unattached. Some of the people (well & sick) die when unhooked. Most of the survivors are okay, but some are better than okay and breaking sports records all over the place, making strides in medicine and science, solving world problems, etc. Some are becoming the stuff of horror movies–deranged psycho flesh-eating killers. Some of the well people are discovering they have serious after affects, even death, two or three months after being unhooked.

You decide you no longer want to take the risk and want to be unhooked right away. The doctors tell you your person will surely die, and you might suffer physical and emotional effects from being unhooked early (you don’t know if that is true or not). Do you again to stay hooked? What if you die when being unhooked, or your person becomes a serial cannibal or something worse? Or a brilliant physician?

224

Best. Analogy. Ever.

At least for one point, I’ll concede that any pregnancy that turns the woman into a flesh-eating psychopath should give us all serious pause.

Seriously, though, I concede that the danger of a pregnancy ought to be factor, though I strongly suspect we’d disagree on where to draw the line. If there is imminent danger of loss of life for the mother that can be alleviated by abortion, we need to consider that. The unborn child’s life is not more important than the mother’s. Short of that line, as a rule, I wouldn’t agree that the mother’s right to eliminate potential risks is greater than the very real loss of life that will occur by taking all those risks out of play.

Again, though, I may have to rethink this policy when we find ourselves up to our necks with postpartum cannibalistic zombies. :wink:

225

The cannabalistic killers are actually some of the virus suffering survivors. Jeffrey Dahmer had a mother who could have aborted him (and a very high percentage of serial killers are adopted).

226

[QUOTE=Annie-Xmas]
The cannabalistic killers are actually some of the virus suffering survivors.
[/quote]
So should we abort everybody, just to be safe?

May I have a cite for the last part of this? And even if it’s true, that’s of course not the same as saying a very high percentage of adopted people are serial killers.

227

[QUOTE=Stratocaster]
So should we abort everybody, just to be safe?
[/quote]

No, but we should stop thinking that every women who aborts a fetus is abortion a person who will only be a positive influence on the world

Cite. Adoptees are only 2- 3% of the general population, but 14% - 16% of known serial killers are adoptees. Woman who cannot have abortions and cannot keep the child are forced into letting it be adopted, which leads to an increased factor of becoming a serial killer.

228

[QUOTE=Annie-Xmas]
No, but we should stop thinking that every women who aborts a fetus is abortion a person who will only be a positive influence on the world
[/quote]
Who suggested such a thing?

Thanks. I will reserve judgment, though, given the cite provided (with its “Abolish adoption” links). Not saying it’s wrong, just saying I’ll keep looking. And, I’ll point out again, even if it’s true, this means that the percentage of adopted people who are not serial killers closely approachs 100%.

229

[QUOTE=Annie-Xmas]
Cite. Adoptees are only 2- 3% of the general population, but 14% - 16% of known serial killers are adoptees. Woman who cannot have abortions and cannot keep the child are forced into letting it be adopted, which leads to an increased factor of becoming a serial killer.
[/QUOTE]
The cite you linked to shows no evidence that adoption causes people to become murderers. It is full of anecdotal evidence that shows only correlation, but not causation.

230

[QUOTE=Stratocaster]
Seriously, though, I concede that the danger of a pregnancy ought to be factor, though I strongly suspect we’d disagree on where to draw the line. If there is imminent danger of loss of life for the mother that can be alleviated by abortion, we need to consider that. The unborn child’s life is not more important than the mother’s. Short of that line, as a rule, I wouldn’t agree that the mother’s right to eliminate potential risks is greater than the very real loss of life that will occur by taking all those risks out of play.
[/QUOTE]

So, referring back to Annie-Xmas’s analogy, you would be alright with forcing the person to stay “hooked up”? What if the person didn’t specifically sign up for the “hook up”?
LilShieste

231

[QUOTE=LilShieste]
So, referring back to Annie-Xmas’s analogy, you would be alright with forcing the person to stay “hooked up”? What if the person didn’t specifically sign up for the “hook up”?
[/QUOTE]

This was the stumbling block for me, too. Rather than volunteering for a “hook-up”, it’s as if you could be going about your life normally and then abruptly discover one day that you were hooked up, and the hooking had occurred five weeks earlier. While the hook-up so far has been so subtle that you hadn’t even noticed, it’s going to get a lot more intrusive and obvious as the months go by, and even after the unhooking, society will consider you obliged financially and emotionally to the hooker. Do you accept the hook-up or do you want the option of un-hooking?

232

[QUOTE=LilShieste]
So, referring back to Annie-Xmas’s analogy, you would be alright with forcing the person to stay “hooked up”? What if the person didn’t specifically sign up for the “hook up”?
[/QUOTE]
Is the person with the virus going to turn into a cannibalistic pyschopath if he survives? I need to know that first.

233

[QUOTE=Stratocaster]
Is the person with the virus going to turn into a cannibalistic pyschopath if he survives? I need to know that first.
[/QUOTE]

Of course, there’s no way of knowing. Also, of course, that’s not very relevant.
LilShieste

234

[QUOTE=LilShieste]
Of course, there’s no way of knowing. Also, of course, that’s not very relevant.
[/QUOTE]
You wouldn’t feel that way if someone was gnawing on your shinbone, believe me.

235

[QUOTE=Stratocaster]
Um, okay. After giving this a great deal of thought, I will now grudgungly admit that someone who gets an abortion is no longer pregnant. That do the trick?
[/QUOTE]

Nope - it doesn’t address my question: what “risk” is being assumed?

[QUOTE=Stratocaster]
Not when one applies it to a humna being, I would suggest.
[/QUOTE]

I would suggest you define “human being” first.

[QUOTE=Stratocaster]
I offered innocence as a qualifying consideration in any moral decision.
[/QUOTE]
consideration, yes, final arbiter, no.
[QUOTE=Stratocaster]
What I would offer is that “choice” in terms of an abortion is generally a lesser right, relative to another’s right to live.
[/QUOTE]

“Another” what? Potential person? So potential people have rights now? This right to life of the not-yet-a-person arises from what?

[QUOTE=Stratocaster]
Though no right is absolute, no right exists without the right to live.
[/QUOTE]

I don’t agree. You may be trying to say “no right is guaranteed without the right to life”, but it’s a) not the same thing and b) still needs the question “why does the foetus have that right?” answered, rather than just assumed.

[QUOTE=Stratocaster]
Not sure how much more of an argument I can offer, since it is as axiomatic to me as “choice trumps innocence” seems to be for you.
[/QUOTE]

So your axiomatic stance is “foetuses have the right to life”? That makes for a very short debate, if the life-rights of the foetus are one of the antecedents. Makes the whole argument circular on your part, if your premises are “foetuses have the right to life” and “right to life trumps choice every time”.

[QUOTE=Stratocaster]
I understand that position, though I don’t agree with it. I do understand that if I believed a fetus a valueless blob of tissue, the abortion debate would be very easily settled.
[/QUOTE]

I don’t believe foetuses are valueless blobs*, just less-valued than certain other things, like a woman’s choice. I assign the foetus the value its mother chooses for it, and that as a potential human, not the full human value you seem to.

*I’ll do you the kindness of assuming you weren’t actually erecting a straw man here

236

[QUOTE=MrDibble]
Nope - it doesn’t address my question: what “risk” is being assumed?
[/quote]
I’m sorry, I honestly don’t know what you’re asking. I don’t know how to answer it. Are you asking me if a woman who becomes pregnant has no real pregnancy risk because she can always abort it? What does that have to do with my contention that the fetus has not willingly assumed any risk?

Any of us who are distinct humans with a linear unity of identity that begins and progresses from the moment of conception.

Um, yes.

You’re begging the question. What makes this a potential person? I assume no such thing.

No right is meaningful without the right to live. That’s self-evident, isn’t it? The mother’s right to self-determination, for example, is meaningless if she hasn’t the right to live. And I’ve already told you that I consider it axiomatic that living human beings, for the most part, have the right to continue living. Why do you assume otherwise? Is it simply axiomatic for you?

And the debate is advanced somehow if we assume the antecedent is that the fetus has lesser rights?

That’s convenient but silly, isn’t it? How can the unborn child’s inherent value be a function of the mother’s mood at the moment?

Very kind of you indeed. I’ll point out that it is a sentiment advanced in this very thread, and I used this as a reference point to show I understood that position though I don’t agree with it.

237

[QUOTE=Stratocaster]
That’s convenient but silly, isn’t it? How can the unborn child’s inherent value be a function of the mother’s mood at the moment?
[/QUOTE]

Well, an object at auction only has whatever value the bidders feel like bidding, which is affected by their moods. If there’s an undefined “inherent” value to the fetus, I guess there’s also an undefined “inherent” value to the rights of the mother. Through careful analysis, favouring the former over the latter doesn’t accomplish anything - even if told the fetus had greater value than her control over her own life, a determined woman will seek an abortion anyway - and creates more problems than it solves.

It’s all well and good to label abortion immoral, if that’s how you feel, but that’s a far cry from ignoring the reality of the situation.

238

[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers]
Well, an object at auction only has whatever value the bidders feel like bidding, which is affected by their moods. If there’s an undefined “inherent” value to the fetus, I guess there’s also an undefined “inherent” value to the rights of the mother. Through careful analysis, favouring the former over the latter doesn’t accomplish anything - even if told the fetus had greater value than her control over her own life, a determined woman will seek an abortion anyway - and creates more problems than it solves.

It’s all well and good to label abortion immoral, if that’s how you feel, but that’s a far cry from ignoring the reality of the situation.
[/QUOTE]
I have no illusion that banning abortions will eliminate the practice. I do believe, however, that it will minimize it, and so do you or you wouldn’t be concerned at the possibility.

239

[QUOTE=Stratocaster]
You wouldn’t feel that way if someone was gnawing on your shinbone, believe me.
[/QUOTE]

Of course I’d worry about it then! But that probably wouldn’t surface until the Terrible Twos anyway. And by then, one’s choices are further limited.
LilShieste

240

[QUOTE=Stratocaster]
I have no illusion that banning abortions will eliminate the practice. I do believe, however, that it will minimize it, and so do you or you wouldn’t be concerned at the possibility.
[/QUOTE]

No, I don’t think abortions will be minimized with strict abortion laws (and I’m curious about your basis for believing so), just that a lot of people are going to end up punished for no good reason and I think my government’s law enforcement resources should be spent elsewhere.

Besides, your statement doesn’t make any sense. It implies I want abortion numbers to be high for some reason. If some form of perfect contraceptive was introduced tomorrow and unwanted pregnancy rates plummeted as a result, so would the number of abortions. The possibility doesn’t concern me in the least, except to say it would be a good thing because fewer women would be subject to the small but inescapable risks associated with abortion.