Pro-life Atheists: An Argument to Oppose Abortion

[Warm_blood]

Why does the multi quote function never work around here? Ugh.

Nate, to address your points:
[ol]
[li]Since religion is not at the root of your anti-choice beliefs, just what is your rationale that justifies your views? Because you just “feel” that life begins at conception due to the fact that fertilized cell has the potential to become a person? Are you aware that the medical community does not share your consensus that personhood should start at conception, which means your argument can’t be said to be established fact? Do you understand how this cripples your position on this topic?[/li][li]Are you opposed to male masturbation for the same reasons? Or any non-procreative sex? After all, all those wasted spermatozoa were on the path to personhood too.[/li][li]I don’t know why you would make a distinction between zygotes grown in a tube vs.one grown in a womb. Why should the environment make a difference in their personhood according to you?[/li][li] Eating meat is not biologically ingrained in us. We don’t need it to survive. So try to rationalise it all you want, it is glaringly hypocritical to scream “pro-life” yet support the slaughter of actual living beings for consumption.[/li][/ol]

@nate

I think elective abortion is one of those things we look back on 1000 years from now and wonder how we were so barbaric.

I think your mindset is one we will look back on 1000 years from now and wonder how we were so backwards.

[nate]

@Kimstu

What type(s) of birth control? Would you include IUDs, contraceptive pills, and the so-called “morning-after pill”, for example? All of those (which are the most effective and reliable widely used birth control methods) work by not only decreasing the chances of fertilization but by preventing uterine implantation if fertilization does occur.

Since you insist on assigning full human personhood to a pre-blastocyst from the moment of fertilization onward, how would you justify supplying free birth control via methods that would inevitably sometimes kill such “persons”?

Or would you ban the use of such birth control methods, as you advocate banning elective abortion? If so, how would you counteract the loss of available contraceptive effectiveness and the inevitable increase in unwanted pregnancies?

Neat and tidy abstractions about arbitrary assignment of personhood to cells have real-world consequences if you apply them consistently. You can’t duck the consequences by just wistfully imagining some future millennium when all the problems will hypothetically have been solved.

There are a lot of methods of birth control. There are birth control medicines that prevent an egg from dropping or the sperm from getting to the egg. These methods are consistent with my views. “Morning after pills” are virtually the same as an abortion.

Look, I completely understand the human tendency to not value a clump of cells as human life. We are not wired that way. I don’t think our brains are capable of that sort of empathy, so it’s really tempting to have some cut-off where we declare this life is sacred because it’s human-like, but it’s OK to discard this other potential life because it’s a clump of cells, or it’s too early for brain activity, or whatever non-human trait this organism has. My view is that if we value any human life, we need to value all stages of human life to be consistent. And, to repeat, I can’t think of a more logical start to human life than the moment of fertilization.

[Novelty_Bobble]

@nate

I think elective abortion is one of those things we look back on 1000 years from now and wonder how we were so barbaric.

If there are still unwanted pregnancies in 1000 years then there will still be the need for abortion.

I don’t think it would be practical to make it illegal as there would have to be exceptions for the health of the mother and that would ultimately be a subjective decision.

How would you justify the mother’s health coming before the child and why? if they are both equally “people” then what it your rationale?

I do think using abortion as a form of birth control should be illegal. In order to get an abortion, there should be a doctor involved in the process that will vouch for the medical necessity of it. So, yes, I’d like it to be illegal but with exceptions.

would you allow mental trauma to count towards “medical necessity”?

[Warm_blood]

@Bricker

I object to the term “pro-choice,” as a euphemism for “pro-certain-dead-unborn-children.”

So how about we refer to each side by the term they choose to use themselves?

False equivalence. Pro-choice only means pro-letting women decide for themselves if they wish to terminate a pregnancy or not, which is literally their stance. It doesn’t impugn the opposing side’s intent. Pro-life implies people who want abortion to be available are fundamentally opposed to life (which isn’t true). It’s a subtle manipulation tactic, a way of undermining their stance by communicating something disreputable about them.

“Pro-lifers” should brand themselves as what they really are— anti abortion/anti choice. Besides, I feel that calling yourself pro life on the grounds that you are opposed to abortion is highly disingenuous if you don’t campaign as ardently for the rights of those outside who exist outside the womb. So many pro lifers are pro-death penalty, pro-war, anti-gun control, anti-welfare programs that aid the poor, anti-certain minority groups, etc. Calling these people “pro-life” is simply laughable.

[Trinopus]

@Chronos

OK, then, we’re agreed: You can’t act against the fetus’s body to have an abortion, even at the cost to your own pregnant body.

I always find it depressing when someone says, “So, we’re agreed,” and then says something with which I absolutely do not agree. It seems to me to be an extremely weak argumentative tactic.

I happen to believe that a woman can, may, and should act against the fetus in her body, if that is her personal choice and desire.

However, I’m happy to note that, “OK, then, we’re agreed” that the L.A. Raiders are the best sports team in the world.

[nate]

@Novelty_Bobble

If there are still unwanted pregnancies in 1000 years then there will still be the need for abortion.

Not to get sidetracked, but this isn’t necessarily true. I can easily imagine an AI designing and building a flawless artificial womb and the methods to transfer the zygote to it. But who knows, it’s hard to predict tomorrow let alone 1000 years from now.

How would you justify the mother’s health coming before the child and why? if they are both equally “people” then what it your rationale?

I think everyone has the right for self-preservation and if treating a deadly condition of the mother would seriously injure or kill the child, well, it would be her right. To hijack the analogy elsewhere in this thread, if someone came into your house and you decided to shoot them because they are inconveniencing you, that would be murder. If they were threatening your life, it would be self-defense.

would you allow mental trauma to count towards “medical necessity”?

That’s a broad description so I don’t know.

[running_coach]

@nate

There are a lot of methods of birth control. There are birth control medicines that prevent an egg from dropping or the sperm from getting to the egg. These methods are consistent with my views. “Morning after pills” are virtually the same as an abortion.

Look, I completely understand the human tendency to not value a clump of cells as human life. We are not wired that way. I don’t think our brains are capable of that sort of empathy, so it’s really tempting to have some cut-off where we declare this life is sacred because it’s human-like, but it’s OK to discard this other potential life because it’s a clump of cells, or it’s too early for brain activity, or whatever non-human trait this organism has. My view is that if we value any human life, we need to value all stages of human life to be consistent. And, to repeat, I can’t think of a more logical start to human life than the moment of fertilization.

Got a few examples? I’ve never heard of any medication that works that way.

[Kimstu]

@nate

There are a lot of methods of birth control.

Yes, there are. You don’t seem to understand very clearly how some of the most popular and effective methods work, and are apparently somewhat resistant to learning the facts about them.

@nate

There are birth control medicines that prevent an egg from dropping or the sperm from getting to the egg. These methods are consistent with my views.

Did you miss the part where I pointed out some of these methods, specifically the very widely used hormonal contraceptive pills and IUDs, mostly prevent fertilization in the ways you describe but also prevent implantation of a fertilized egg, in the rare but statistically inevitable occasional cases where they don’t succeed in preventing fertilization?

@nate

“Morning after pills” are virtually the same as an abortion.

By your criteria, so are IUDs and birth-control pills, in the occasional cases where they fail to prevent fertilization but do succeed in preventing uterine implantation.

So please clarify for us: Do you advocate banning hormonal contraceptive pills and IUDs and similar forms of contraception on the grounds that they occasionally cause what you regard as (medically unnecessary) abortions of a fertilized egg? If not, how do you reconcile that with your stance that a fertilized egg is a fully human person? If so, how do you propose to cope with the consequences of banning some of the most widely used and effective forms of birth control?

@nate

I don’t think our brains are capable of that sort of empathy, so it’s really tempting to have some cut-off where we declare this life is sacred because it’s human-like, but it’s OK to discard this other potential life because it’s a clump of cells, or it’s too early for brain activity, or whatever non-human trait this organism has.

And you have evidently fallen for that temptation, hook, line and sinker. For instance, you refuse to consider a sperm or ovum cell as “sacred” human life, but you arbitrarily decide that their combination does count as human life. The “bright line” that you’re trying to impose on human personhood simply doesn’t exist in a biological sense.

@nate

My view is that if we value any human life, we need to value all stages of human life to be consistent.

But that’s not what you’re doing. You’re arbitrarily selecting a particular instant in the combination and development of reproductive tissue and declaring that the “stages of human life” begin right there and nowhere else. Like I said, there’s nothing wrong with your holding that position as a personal belief; the problem is with your continued insistence that it has some kind of objective validity.

@nate

And, to repeat, I can’t think of a more logical start to human life than the moment of fertilization.

You’ve demonstrated very clearly that this is much more about your personal belief system than any sort of consistent logic.

[nate]

Kimstu, if you agree at some point a non-human organism becomes human, when does that point occur? I’m completely aware this a continuous process but there are distinct stages, so please, if you were forced to pick a moment, what would it be?

[Kimstu]

@nate

Kimstu, if you agree at some point a non-human organism becomes human, when does that point occur?

I don’t agree at all that “at some point a non-human organism becomes human”, because all human cells are human all the time. I would say that the continuous process of fetal development gradually transforms some human cells into what we as a society consider a human person, with certain societally recognized rights.

@nate

I’m completely aware this a continuous process but there are distinct stages, so please, if you were forced to pick a moment, what would it be?

But I’m not “forced to pick a moment”. Nothing in biology, logic or any other rational and empirical discourse requires me to pretend that there’s some single “switch moment” in human development between nonperson and person.

Of course, I recognize that we as a society need to come up with some arbitrary template for the development of human personhood for the sake of legal consistency. No such template will accurately represent the complexity of the development process, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need one to operate with as a social species. So here’s a sample of successive points on such a template that I think succeeds reasonably well in representing the facts of development in allocation of personhood:

Isolated gametes (sperm and ovum cells): Not human persons, but with higher potential for personhood than other types of human cells. This is partly why, for example, destroying somebody’s sperm cells in a sperm bank would be considered a more serious harm than, say, destroying their blood cells in a blood bank.

Zygote cell (fertilized egg): Also not a human person, but with higher potential for personhood than isolated gametes.

Monozygotic embryos (identical twins, triplets etc that separate from single zygote): Potential to become distinct human persons, but may re-coalesce into potential to become single human person if one embryo/fetus starves/absorbs the other(s).

Fetus around viability: Personhood potential sufficiently advanced to attain some legal rights as individual person. E.g., no termination of pregnancy except for medical reasons. Rights still not comparable to those of born child (e.g., no individual legal identity, no right to life if negatively impacting health of mother, etc.), but greater than those of pre-viable fetus.

Infant at birth: Full human person, although with restricted rights compared to adults. We’re all on the same page henceforth. At least up until…

Brain-dead individual: Human person with individual legal identity, but drastically diminished personal rights. In particular, no right to life if maintenance of life requires physical support system.
And by the way, now that I’ve done my best to answer your question informatively and completely, how about answering mine concerning your position on popular birth control methods such as pills and IUDs?

[nate]

@Kimstu

I don’t agree at all that “at some point a non-human organism becomes human”, because all human cells are human all the time. I would say that the continuous process of fetal development gradually transforms some human cells into what we as a society consider a human person, with certain societally recognized rights.
But I’m not “forced to pick a moment”. Nothing in biology, logic or any other rational and empirical discourse requires me to pretend that there’s some single “switch moment” in human development between nonperson and person.

Of course, I recognize that we as a society need to come up with some arbitrary template for the development of human personhood for the sake of legal consistency. No such template will accurately represent the complexity of the development process, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need one to operate with as a social species. So here’s a sample of successive points on such a template that I think succeeds reasonably well in representing the facts of development in allocation of personhood:

Isolated gametes (sperm and ovum cells): Not human persons, but with higher potential for personhood than other types of human cells. This is partly why, for example, destroying somebody’s sperm cells in a sperm bank would be considered a more serious harm than, say, destroying their blood cells in a blood bank.

Zygote cell (fertilized egg): Also not a human person, but with higher potential for personhood than isolated gametes.

Monozygotic embryos (identical twins, triplets etc that separate from single zygote): Potential to become distinct human persons, but may re-coalesce into potential to become single human person if one embryo/fetus starves/absorbs the other(s).

Fetus around viability: Personhood potential sufficiently advanced to attain some legal rights as individual person. E.g., no termination of pregnancy except for medical reasons. Rights still not comparable to those of born child (e.g., no individual legal identity, no right to life if negatively impacting health of mother, etc.), but greater than those of pre-viable fetus.

Infant at birth: Full human person, although with restricted rights compared to adults. We’re all on the same page henceforth. At least up until…

Brain-dead individual: Human person with individual legal identity, but drastically diminished personal rights. In particular, no right to life if maintenance of life requires physical support system.

Thanks for posting your thoughts on that. The difference between your and my “template” would be to simply move your fetus legal rights statement to the zygote stage. You seem to be suggesting that the fetus should have limited rights, so why do you choose that “stage”?

On your earlier diatribe about not being forced to pick a moment, as I tried to convey (badly, I guess), I know the biological process is continuous, I’m asking at what point between a clump of cells and a born baby do you believe it becomes human, as in obtains personhood, has human rights. Which you did eventually answer that way, so no harm, no foul.

And by the way, now that I’ve done my best to answer your question informatively and completely, how about answering mine concerning your position on popular birth control methods such as pills and IUDs?

I’ll concede acceptance of birth control methods that, when the primary method fails they prevent implantation. I really do lump the the process of the fertilization of the egg to the zygote being implanted as the beginning of a human life with legal protection. I’ve said this earlier in regards to the question on whatabout fertilized eggs in test tubes. Non implanted eggs are non-potentials, they never had a chance.

[Kimstu]

@nate

You seem to be suggesting that the fetus should have limited rights, so why do you choose that “stage”?

I gave examples of lots of different stages which IMHO involve different degrees of personhood. Which stage in particular are you asking about?

@nate

I’ll concede acceptance of birth control methods that, when the primary method fails they prevent implantation. I really do lump the the process of the fertilization of the egg to the zygote being implanted as the beginning of a human life with legal protection.

Have you been going through this entire discussion without realizing that fertilization and uterine implantation generally occur several days apart? You have repeatedly insisted that you consider the most “logical start to human life” to be the “moment of fertilization”, and now you start waffling about a multi-day “process” of fertilization to implantation?

You’re the one who was so insistent about there being a single “moment” for recognizing the start of human personhood, and about the choice of that “moment” being the actual fertilization of the egg by the sperm. Are you now backing off from that position?

Because if not, and you are willing to “concede acceptance” of birth control methods that sometimes prevent fertilized eggs from implanting, then by your own standard you are condoning the murder of human persons.

@nate

I’ve said this earlier in regards to the question on whatabout fertilized eggs in test tubes. Non implanted eggs are non-potentials, they never had a chance.

So you don’t actually believe that the start of human personhood and rights is the moment of fertilization, despite having proclaimed that as your belief multiple times during this thread? Prior to implantation, they are merely “non-potentials”?

In which case you should be just fine with accepting the “morning-after” pill, as it merely destroys a non-implanted fertilized egg, which you now say you don’t consider a human person.

For someone who insists so strongly on wanting to make “logical” choices about pre-born personhood and rights, you sure seem to be having a lot of trouble stringing together any kind of logically coherent argument.

[Brown_Eyed_Girl]

@nate

It doesn’t matter how the conception happened, I’m just trying to weigh the suffering of a rape victim carrying an unwanted child of the rapist with abortion.

The second clause of this statement conflicts with the first clause of this statement. If you’re weighting suffering of a victim of rape higher than the suffering of another pregnant woman, then the conception event does absolutely matter to you.

Of course it’s not the fault of the baby/embryo, and if I had to weigh the survival of the embryo to the terrible suffering of the woman carrying, I’d have to go with the survival of the embryo as the timeless right thing to do.

Who determines the level of suffering as a result of the pregnancy the woman is undergoing? Presumably we’re talking about emotional suffering unless you believe that rape creates a unique kind of physical suffering associated with pregnancy than does non-forcible conception. So, if we explore suffering associated with pregnancy, we can agree that women may feel emotional distress about pregnancy arising from an undesired sexual encounter. But what about the emotional distress created by an unwanted pregnancy in any other circumstance? Say, a fifteen year old with very rigid or religious parents suffering from intense anxiety of a threat to her future and relationship with those parents. Or a single mother with two other children who knows that she can neither afford unpaid time associated with pregnancy/delivery/recovery, nor the resulting cost of supporting yet another child. Is it really up to you to determine what is an acceptable level of emotional suffering?

And again, if you truly believe that aborting a fetus/zygote is murder, why is the emotional suffering of one justification of that murder? Is there any other instance in which emotional suffering of one person justifies the murder of another?

[Novelty_Bobble]

@nate

I think everyone has the right for self-preservation and if treating a deadly condition of the mother would seriously injure or kill the child, well, it would be her right.

So the mother has the right to self-preservation and the ability to exercise it but the unborn child, even though you see it as having the same rights as the mother, does not?
That does not seem to follow-on from your insistence seeing each fetus as a human, it is quite clear that the mother’s rights trump the rights of the fetus and that seems to be entirely in line with the thinking of us on the “pro-choice” side of the argument.

[nate]

@Kimstu

I gave examples of lots of different stages which IMHO involve different degrees of personhood. Which stage in particular are you asking about?
Have you been going through this entire discussion without realizing that fertilization and uterine implantation generally occur several days apart? You have repeatedly insisted that you consider the most “logical start to human life” to be the “moment of fertilization”, and now you start waffling about a multi-day “process” of fertilization to implantation?

You’re the one who was so insistent about there being a single “moment” for recognizing the start of human personhood, and about the choice of that “moment” being the actual fertilization of the egg by the sperm. Are you now backing off from that position?

Because if not, and you are willing to “concede acceptance” of birth control methods that sometimes prevent fertilized eggs from implanting, then by your own standard you are condoning the murder of human persons.
So you don’t actually believe that the start of human personhood and rights is the moment of fertilization, despite having proclaimed that as your belief multiple times during this thread? Prior to implantation, they are merely “non-potentials”?

In which case you should be just fine with accepting the “morning-after” pill, as it merely destroys a non-implanted fertilized egg, which you now say you don’t consider a human person.

For someone who insists so strongly on wanting to make “logical” choices about pre-born personhood and rights, you sure seem to be having a lot of trouble stringing together any kind of logically coherent argument.

Regarding your 1st question, I’m referring to the stage you describe as viable fetus. For some reason you assign legal rights to the fetus at this stage, but not before. So as long as the fetus could not survive outside the womb, it’s OK to kill it? Is that where you draw your line?

Yes, I believe human life starts at the moment of fertilization, but obviously the life requires implantation to survive. So if someone chooses to use birth control whose primary effect is to prevent fertilization but also has the side effect of making the womb uninhabitable, I’m OK with that.

So in the defense of my logic regarding this, I don’t understand the objection, that the beginning of a new life or lives is a fertilized egg. Is that logical? It is to me. Some bring up why I don’t think it begins earlier and why sperm or ovum is not sacred, and I think that’s pretty obvious.

You state that viability outside the womb is when we should declare it a human with rights, which is not crazy, but it is also not logical. The fetus can survive outside the womb but now, by law, I must carry it? Yesterday I could have killed it but today I’m forced to carry to term?

[nate]

@Novelty_Bobble

So the mother has the right to self-preservation and the ability to exercise it but the unborn child, even though you see it as having the same rights as the mother, does not?
That does not seem to follow-on from your insistence seeing each fetus as a human, it is quite clear that the mother’s rights trump the rights of the fetus and that seems to be entirely in line with the thinking of us on the “pro-choice” side of the argument.

Yes, but the difference is the degree to which the fetus is harming the mother. To me there is a distinction between, “oops… got pregnant, don’t want the child, well I’ll have an abortion” and a mother having some form of cancer that can’t be contained without also harming the fetus. One is justifiable as self-preservation while the other sees the fetus as inconvenient.

[Novelty_Bobble]

@nate

Yes, but the difference is the degree to which the fetus is harming the mother. To me there is a distinction between, “oops… got pregnant, don’t want the child, well I’ll have an abortion” and a mother having some form of cancer that can’t be contained without also harming the fetus. One is justifiable as self-preservation while the other sees the fetus as inconvenient.

Excluded middle. In order to test your thinking on this you have to go for something more ambiguous than the feckless teen or the tragic terminal mom. Don’t make the choice so easy and uncontroversial for yourself…

How about the non-cancer mom who doesn’t need fetus-damaging treatment but will nevertheless will be paralysed or killed by carrying a child to term?
How about the clinically depressed woman, otherwise healthy but presents a clear suicide risk if unable to terminate?

These are hard, hard cases and tragically there are many more examples out there. I suggest that by exploring those more deeply you might clarify where you truly draw the line when considering an embryo’s “personhood” and how and under what circumstances it is to be over-ridden.

[Chronos]

Quoth Trinopus:

I always find it depressing when someone says, “So, we’re agreed,” and then says something with which I absolutely do not agree. It seems to me to be an extremely weak argumentative tactic.

I happen to believe that a woman can, may, and should act against the fetus in her body, if that is her personal choice and desire.

So, why did you earlier post "You may disagree with it, but it is perfectly coherent. It’s my body, and you cannot act against it…even at the cost to your own body. ", if that’s not a position you agree with? Because one example of that position, if one posits that the fetus is a person, is that abortion should not be allowed.

[nate]

@Kimstu

Where you’re going off the rails is in trying to claim a superior level of “sense” or “logic” for your beliefs about the assignment of personhood. You may find it satisfying or appealing to declare that personhood begins at the moment of fertilization, but there is nothing uniquely meaningful in a logical (or biological) sense about that moment.

This quote is from an older post, but I want to respond to it anyway. I’m not claiming I have a superior level of “sense” or “logic” for my beliefs. I haven’t always thought this way and perhaps I’ll think some other way in the future, but right now I’m at a loss to explain why, during a human’s life, we choose to allow the ending of said life if it is early enough. Those that think we should allow abortion tend to think the fetus’s legal rights start sometime during gestation, but when? Why can’t this be pinned down? Your answer to this is your “template” for assigning human rights to a fetus, but you provide no answer to why one day a fetus can be terminated and the next day it can not.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@nate

This quote is from an older post, but I want to respond to it anyway. I’m not claiming I have a superior level of “sense” or “logic” for my beliefs. I haven’t always thought this way and perhaps I’ll think some other way in the future, but right now I’m at a loss to explain why, during a human’s life, we choose to allow the ending of said life if it is early enough. Those that think we should allow abortion tend to think the fetus’s legal rights start sometime during gestation, but when? Why can’t this be pinned down? Your answer to this is your “template” for assigning human rights to a fetus, but you provide no answer to why one day a fetus can be terminated and the next day it can not.

I’ve found this to be the main reason to not bother to try to pin down some arbitrary point in gestation where fetal rights attach. What’s the point?