The argument of "pro-choice" is bullsh*t.

[begbert2]

@Polerius

@ZPG_Zealot

Since we are spinning hypotheticals. What if a lactating woman was trapped in a cabin with tons of hard tack and a enemy soldier who was paralyzed and his teeth have been pulled out (i.e., he can’t eat any of the food)? Is she required to breatfeed him?

Actually, this is a good question, and the other person doesn’t even need to be an enemy soldier.

A woman is trapped in a cabin (e.g. snowed in) with another grown adult, and the only way for the other grown adult to stay alive is if this woman breastfeeds him/her (he is injured and can’t chew).

She refuses to do so and the person dies.

I’m not sure what the law says about this and if the law would have something different to say if the other person was a baby you just gave birth to.

In the united states, you can’t even be forced to house that [friendly] soldier. You are legally allowed to throw him out on his ass in the snow to freeze to death.

Whether that’s moral or not is another question - but that’s between the woman and her own self.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Voyager

The question is should we respect a woman’s decision that her fetus is not a person until it leaves her womb. Does the state have an interest in protecting that person at any point before it exits her womb?

You are now begging the question of personhood. Since there is no scientific way to define personhood, you can’t say that a state is protecting a person at any point during a pregnancy. I’ll make an exception for viability, since that terminates the pregnancy without killing the now viable fetus, which seems to me to be roughly equivalent to the rule that you should give your unwanted baby up for adoption, not kill it.

I’ll repeat where I stand because people (not you) seem to think I want to abolish all abortion.

First trimester, get an abortion every day, I may not like it but I don’t think the state can stop you

Second trimester, you can get an abortion if you want but the state make your doctor offer you a sonogram and adoption counseling

Third trimester, you cannot get an abortion unless you would otherwise end up dead or disabled.

[begbert2]

@Damuri_Ajashi

Second trimester, you can get an abortion if you want but the state make your doctor offer you a sonogram and adoption counseling

You reveal yourself - this has dick-all to do with protecting developed fetuses. You are on a moral crusade and nothing more.

[ZPG_Zealot]

@DirkGntly

@ZPG_Zealot

Uterusess aren’t just carrying spaces for feti. Feti have to take (steal) nourishment from the woman’s body in order to grow. The unfertilized egg that began the fetus was created by the women’s body. So yes, the fetus is a cannibalistic organ stealer if the mother did not consent to its creation or gestation.

Not true. The woman’s body reacts to the presence of the fetus by changing hormone levels in order to properly nourish the fetus without nutritive detriment to the female “host.” A fetus is not, in the strictest sense, a “parasitic organism,” and to claim such disregards the finer scientific nuances of the definition of parasitism (which is a bit more in depth than what you find in a dictionary entry for “parasite”). A healthy pregnancy does not “injure” the woman, though it is inconvenient, and presents some permanent changes to the woman’s body. Change, however, does not equal “injury.”
In the event that the female “host” is unable to properly nourish the fetus, the fetus typically “self-aborts,” rather than continuing to be a detriment. This is one of the reasons caloric intake instinctively increases for the woman, and why pre-natal vitamins are encouraged, though not always necessary.

Taking bodily fluids for your own consumption from someone without their consent constitutes theft even if you don’t cause “injury”. A person who believes they are a vampire can take blood from another for a very long time as long as they do not take enough to cause death. However anyone doing this against the will of blood donor is committing a crime.

[Polerius]

@begbert2

In the united states, you can’t even be forced to house that [friendly] soldier. You are legally allowed to throw him out on his ass in the snow to freeze to death.

Is this the case only for soldiers or for any person who is not related to you?

Is the law different if this is your relative? (husband, kid, etc)

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Whack-a-Mole

@Damuri_Ajashi

Nope I don’t get why its murder if i kill the fetus and its not murder if you do it. The fetus is either a human being or it is not. It sounds like youa re saying taht it is a human being as far as everyone else is concerned but NOT a human being as far as the expectant mother is concerned.

If you smash your car windshield with a baseball bat is it a crime? (No)

If I smash your car windshield with a baseball bat (without your approval) is it a crime? (Yes)

Are you saying that a fetus is your property so you can do with it as you will?

Is that still true if the fetus is viable?

I mean we all agree that a woman should have unrestricted access to abortion during the first trimester and while I think we can add a few speedbumps to abortions in the second trimester, I don’t think we can prevent women from having abortions in the second trimester. So every argument i am making is about the thrid trimester (I don’t know if i have made that clear enough).

I have some trouble with the notion that a viable fetus is the property of its mother.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@DianaG

The consistency is that as long as it’s in my body, I get to make all decisions regarding it, which means that you killing it makes it murder if I have decided it should live.

I hear what you’re saying but I don’t see how you are consistently defining murder. its either murder for noone or murder for everyone regardless of who commits the act. why does the fact that it is in your body make it any less of a murder?

[begbert2]

@Polerius

@begbert2

In the united states, you can’t even be forced to house that [friendly] soldier. You are legally allowed to throw him out on his ass in the snow to freeze to death.

Is this the case only for soldiers or for any person who is not related to you?

Is the law different if this is your relative? (husband, kid, etc)

IANAL, but I believe that trespassing is still a crime, which anybody is allowed to enforce if they can. (Though only in castle doctorine states can you kill them directly rather than merely evicting.)

If you have legal custodianship over an individual, though, you would probably be required to ensure that they had shelter. However you’re not automatically custodian over everyone you’re related to - I believe that you can evict your estranged adult sibling, for example. And I’ll note that custodianship is a legal artifice - which currently is not granted to fetuses. They do not count as dependents on your taxes, for example.

[Marley23]

@Polerius

@begbert2

In the united states, you can’t even be forced to house that [friendly] soldier. You are legally allowed to throw him out on his ass in the snow to freeze to death.

Is this the case only for soldiers or for any person who is not related to you?

@Third Amendment to the Constitution

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

@Polerius

Is the law different if this is your relative? (husband, kid, etc)

To be honest this whole thing is rather silly, since there might be neglience issues and in a few states, good samaritan laws might apply. The Constitution doesn’t make any exceptions but that only restricts the federal government’s ability to require a person to house a soldier. Laws requiring citizens to help a person in need or laws against depraved indifference or manslaughter don’t magically go away just because a soldier is involved. Some other laws would be involved if you’re dealing with a legal minor - I think that could include a soldier younger than 21, but I’m not sure. I am sure there is no law requiring a wife to house her husband. You must have heard of separations.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@DirkGntly

It is this potential of personhood which I feel trumps any subsequent choices after the initial choice is made to engage in procreation (barring the exceptions I have already stated). Once procreation has occured, who are you to deny the potential personhood simply because you can’t be inconvenienced? If you made the choice to procreate, then you are responsible for the consequences (and this is true of men, too).

Who are you? The person who owns the involved uterus, I’d assume.
And sure, she can be held responsible for the consequences. She can take responsibility for getting herself to the clinic for an abortion. What you’re describing involves using pregnancy and childbirth to teach women a lesson. You’ll show THEM!

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Voyager

@Damuri_Ajashi

Noone ever said that pregnancy is a minor inconvenience.

Bull. Those opposed to abortion at any time, even abortion pills, clearly think women should be forced to carry a child all nine months instead of having a simple procedure or even a pill. Either they consider this a minor inconvenience or they are for causing great suffering for their position.

OK let me rephrase, noone in this thread calls it a minor inconvenience. You can go argue with those wachkos standing outside of clinics if you want but I’m not presenting their arguments.

@Damuri_Ajashi

I have not seen one single poster say “life begins at conception” what I have heard are concerns about abortions after viability or perhaps the second trimester, every pro-lifer so far that has stated an opinion has said that they would not restrict first trimester abortions (they may have some concerns but those concerns would not override the factors that favor liberal rules on abortions during the first trimester.

@Voyager

The OP made no mention of viability. That is just a strawman introduced later. As far as I can tell, there are no pro-lifers in this thread - pro-lifers in my experience don’t support abortion in the first trimester. They push this third trimester crap not because it is a big problem (1,000 out of how many pregnancies) but because the bigger the fetus the more outrage can be generated.

I thought you could append to your Op if things weren’t clear. 1000 out of I don’t care how many. If its not a big problem then you why do you have such a problem with it?

@Voyager

Unless you have some scientific basis for setting the cutoff point, what argument do you have against those who say personhood begins at conception or perhaps implantation? You talk viability but then by sleight of hand you slip in 16 week numbers which isn’t anywhere close to viability.

Well the end of the first trimester correlates approximately with when the fetus starts moving.

The end of the second trimester correlates approximately with viability.

I wasn’t trying to be sneaky. I do mean third trimester but I couldn’t find any stats for third trimester. I thought I was pretty clear about the stats being for the 16th week and I assumed people could do simple math.

[Whack-a-Mole]

@Damuri_Ajashi

@Whack-a-Mole

If you smash your car windshield with a baseball bat is it a crime? (No)

If I smash your car windshield with a baseball bat (without your approval) is it a crime? (Yes)

Are you saying that a fetus is your property so you can do with it as you will?

Is that still true if the fetus is viable?

I mean we all agree that a woman should have unrestricted access to abortion during the first trimester and while I think we can add a few speedbumps to abortions in the second trimester, I don’t think we can prevent women from having abortions in the second trimester. So every argument i am making is about the thrid trimester (I don’t know if i have made that clear enough).

I have some trouble with the notion that a viable fetus is the property of its mother.

You asked why it is the woman can terminate the pregnancy legally but you can’t (against her wishes). I was merely pointing out that there are a lot of things you can do legally to the things under your control that I cannot legally do.

I noted earlier that I have zero problem with banning third trimester abortions except for medical necessity.

The woman has plenty of time to choose in the first 14 weeks or so. Once her decision is made then that’s it. There are all sorts of things we can choose to commit ourselves to and once committed cannot easily back out of. If in the third trimester and she does not want the baby then she should deliver it and put it up for adoption. Frankly a third trimester abortion, as I understand it, practically amounts to delivery of the baby so not like she is more put out than otherwise by delivering it alive.

[ZPG_Zealot]

@Damuri_Ajashi

@DianaG

The consistency is that as long as it’s in my body, I get to make all decisions regarding it, which means that you killing it makes it murder if I have decided it should live.

I hear what you’re saying but I don’t see how you are consistently defining murder. its either murder for noone or murder for everyone regardless of who commits the act. why does the fact that it is in your body make it any less of a murder?

Intent. The purpose of the abortion is to remove the fetus from the woman’s body as expediently as possible. That it causes a fetus to expire is irrelevant. Just as I can’t compel you to donate blood, kidneys, etc. or perform unpaid labor on behalf of my existence, you shouldn’t be allowed to compel a woman to incubate a fetus against her will.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@begbert2

@Polerius

It is amazing to me in how little time society can go from a state where no woman is allowed an abortion, where millions of women resort to back-alley abortions with a coat-hanger and many die in the process, where reasonable people say “This is ridiculous, we should protect all these women and provide the right to abort before the fetus becomes a baby/attains personhood/attains consciousness/becomes viable/whatever” to a state where people are nonchalant about chopping up viable fetuses and vacuuming them out.

Humans are monsters.

It’s hard to judge intent on the internet, so I’ll give you a pass - but I think that “nonchalant” isn’t precisely the right word for it. What’s actually happening is that we’re mocking the idea that electively aborting viable fetuses is something that will happen at all. It’s an absurdly small nail to hang an argument on; it would be an obvious strawman if it weren’t for the fact that some people are actually making the argument.

This viable fetus crap is a bad joke - it’s nothing more than a blatant set up for goalpost movement. Damuri Ajashi is not wringing his hands in concern over the hordes of viable fetuses that are pulled out and tossed scraeming into the meat grinder. No, he is actually just hunting for a gotcha: specifically he wants us to say “well we’re not that extreme”. And thus having gotten us to concede that circumstances might matter, he would then proceed to declare that we had conceded the argument and that now he can rule women’s bodies from second trimester on, or first trimester, or conception, or wherever he feels most comfortable on his manufactured slippery slope.

Suffice to say, we’re not buying his load of crap. A fact which appears to disturb him greatly.

I don’t know if I’m the one getting all upset in this thread. and i don’t know wtf you are talking about. how am I playing gotcha?

[Der_Trihs]

@DirkGntly

@ZPG_Zealot

Uterusess aren’t just carrying spaces for feti. Feti have to take (steal) nourishment from the woman’s body in order to grow. The unfertilized egg that began the fetus was created by the women’s body. So yes, the fetus is a cannibalistic organ stealer if the mother did not consent to its creation or gestation.

Not true. The woman’s body reacts to the presence of the fetus by changing hormone levels in order to properly nourish the fetus without nutritive detriment to the female “host.” A fetus is not, in the strictest sense, a “parasitic organism,” and to claim such disregards the finer scientific nuances of the definition of parasitism (which is a bit more in depth than what you find in a dictionary entry for “parasite”). A healthy pregnancy does not “injure” the woman, though it is inconvenient, and presents some permanent changes to the woman’s body. Change, however, does not equal “injury.”

However, injury and general stress does equal “injury”, and that’s what happens in pregnancy. The mother and fetus aren’t neatly accommodating to each other like you are saying; they fight each other on a biochemical and cellular level. The fetus for example attacks the mother’s uterine blood vessels, to consume the muscles controlling blood flow and prevent the mother’s body from throttling it down; this can result in blood pressure problems (preclampsia). Pregnancy is so stressful in large part because mother and fetus are essentially fighting the whole time. And of course pregnancy and childbirth can cause permanent damage of all sorts, not just “changes”.

[Polerius]

@Marley23

@Polerius

For fucks sake… Aren’t DianaG et al saying that the personhood of the fetus is unimportant?

You’re not talking about a fetus, you’re talking about a baby. At that point you’re dealing with an actual person, not a being of debatable personhood.

People in this thread have argued that a 60 year old man would fall under their argument and be ripe for an “abortion” under the hypothetical mentioned on page 1, so if an adult male does not affect the “it’s my body and I don’t have to use it to support any other person” argument, why would a baby?

You’re also comparing breastfeeding to pregnancy. Breast feeding generally doesn’t cause a variety of health problems, and pregnancy sure as hell can. Do you think you can make a serious argument about abortion and take pregnancy out of the equation entirely?

The people using the “it’s my body and I don’t have to use it to support any other person” argument in this thread did not mention that this right to their body is based on the fact that pregnancy is difficult and potentially dangerous.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Marley23

@Damuri_Ajashi

Pre-birth and post-birth is a bright line of nothing other than birth.

Correct. And since we need to draw a line somewhere…

and why is that line any more reasonable than the ridiculous line set by extrem prolifers (at conception)

Except that the baby is existing on its own, without assistance from the woman’s body. It’s breathing, performing bodily functions, and so on. And the fetus isn’t doing that. It may be capable of doing it by the end, but until birth, it isn’t.

And what if it is viable.

I keep reading posts saying that there are no elective abortions of viable fetuses and have not seen any links.

People who don’t think abortion is murder usually have the same issue, so I don’t think that’s it. And saying “some point during gestation, it becomes murder” does not resolve anything either. It’s just an assertion.

Well is it an assertion youa gree with? I am trying to find out if everyone who is jumping down my thoat for wanting to prohibit abortion after viability thinks that you should be able to abort up to the moment of birth or if I’m just rubbing people the wrong way (apparently my posts tipped someone over the edge into full blown abortion on demand when they weren’t there to begin with).

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Marley23

That’s a new one: if a tree has an abortion in the forest and no one is around, does it make a noise?

Polerius, your question doesn’t shed any light on the issue. You’re just asking if it’s okay to do something wrong if nobody finds out about it. Most people would say yes, it’s still wrong in most circumstances. It’s no different from any other mother except there are no witnesses. Who said the rightness or wrongness or abortion had anything to do with the mother’s proximity to a supermarket?

And how the hell would that situation be legal? Murder in an isolated area is still murder.

I think he is trying to point out that in that isolated situation, where there is nothing else to feed the baby with can she withhold her milk and let her baby starve.

I think the answer is that a mother has a duty of care to her children that strangers do not have towards one another. The duty of care generally has not been applied to fetuses (otherwise you probably wouldn’t see pregnant women smoking carettes and doing shots)

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Der_Trihs

@Damuri_Ajashi

I don’t think you can ignore either the woman’s right to choose or the fetus’s right to live.

Except that a fetus only has a “right to live” if you use a definition that is tailor made for the sole purpose of justifying outlawing abortion. When it comes to a fetus, suddenly we are supposed to ignore brain function, personhood, anything like that and treat a mindless thing as being so valuable that it justifies reducing women to cattle.

How does the process of birth change the fetuses brain function?

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@ZPG_Zealot

2). From a legal standpoint, how are you going to go about proving the woman was even capable of breast-feeding the baby? Just because a woman gives birth does not mean her mammary glands automatically work.

Yeah, half the women I know did not produce enough breastmilkn in their first month to feed their baby.