I’m sorry - the definition of “parasite” says nothing about species. The fetus provides no biological benefit to the woman and is indeed a parasite.
In my opinion, this line of argument is garbage. I have stated why - it’s immoral and evil to force people to undergo unnecessary “natural” consequences of their actions. Unless you’re of the opinion that ERs should have their doors closed?
Handwaving does not change the fact that rape victims are counterexamples to your “they asked for it so they deserve to have to suffer through being pregnant as punishment” line of argument. In other words, this is what the debate is about.
It seems that the “women get raped and become pregnant” argument is the pro-choice equivalent of the pro-life “abortion one day before birth” argument. Both are red herrings, since they are so rare that they don’t affect the majority of abortions.
This line of argument assumes that terminating a pregnancy is a negative somehow. It isn’t. It’s the ending of a potential life, but the potential wouldn’t have existed in the first place if two people hadn’t had sex. The fetus is not being deprived of anything beyond an existence it was not aware of in the first place. Abortion doesn’t need to be the first option for terminating a pregnancy but there’s no particular reason to create a bias that it’s worse than condoms or pills.
I guess 'seem’ings can be totally wrong then, because third trimester elective abortions don’t happen at all, and rapes are rather more common than that, unfortunately.
Nice false equivalence though - a proud textbook example of the art.
I don’t get the “parasite” argument for abortion. A one-month-old that is breast fed is just as much a parasite. Good luck getting it to live on its own.
If there were really, truly Russians invading the continental United States and our volunteer forces couldn’t repel them, well, we’d all be fighting anyway. But sure, I would agree that in case of an invasion there could be a draft.
Good thing we had the draft to protect us from those invading Vietnamese, huh? Oh… wait…
And good thing we had the draft during the American War for Independence, huh? Oh… wait…
I don’t want to take this argument much further, but I do think it is related to the discussion. Basically, in support of the pro-choice argument, someone makes a universal claim (“no one can ever tell me what I can do with my body”). If someone can show that this claim is not universally true, then it ceases to be a good argument for the pro-choice position, unless modified by caveats and made non-universal.
And that’s with the favorable goalpost of “third trimester”. You are trying to argue that “abortion one day before birth” is equivalent, which is absurd to the extreme.
Nice try defending the blatant false equivalence, though.
Greater than zero. Unfortunately for both them, and for your argument too.
Fine then I’ll end this - you can be told to get your body off my lawn (as I shake my cane at you from the rocking chair on my porch). It’s always situational. Now let’s stick to talking about situations that have something to do with the thread.
ETA: pretty much no statements are universally true. That’s not a problem for the arguments that use the statements if the they’re true in the situations under discussion.
Now that you point it out, I agree. The “abortion one day before birth” is so rare (possibly never happened?) that it is not the equivalent of the “women get raped and become pregnant” argument, which does happen with some non-zero probability.
I don’t think the statement was made in a way that implied that it was true under some situations (those under discussion) and not true under other situations. It was a categorical “Nobody ever has any right to tell me what to do with my body”, and it was made as an argument in support of her pro-choice position.
It is damn near pointless, isn’t? People, including myself, can get very passionate about abortion. But we NEED this. Abortion is deciding where life begins. Not enough posts in this thread have addressed that.
Some states have no restriction on third trimester abortions so, in theory, a woman could legally ask for one there a day before she would give birth.
That said you have to find someone who will agree to provide the abortion. I am completely unaware of who that might be. Maybe there is some back-alley, unscrupulous doctor who would do it for enough money but doubting it. With the death of Dr. Tiller I think that left two doctors in the US that would perform third trimester abortions in certain circumstances (cite).
I did my part.
Can you cite where women can go in the US to obtain a legal third trimester elective abortion a day before she’d otherwise give birth?
Because abortion isn’t deciding where life begins?
First - it’s not about life. It’s never about life. The sperm is alive, the egg is alive, the tumor is alive. Nobody gives a crap. If it was going to be about life, it would be about “personhood” instead. As has been pointed out.
Second - there are two completely separate and distinct arguments by which a person can conclude that an abortion is alright, and only one of them has anything to do with whether the fetus is alive at all. The other is castle doctorine - “persons on my property may be evicted, period”. If this stance is taken it’s bad news for the fetus, but that doesn’t make it morally inconsistent - many people don’t think that need trumps ownership rights.
But several posters have already addressed why this is not the key issue.