Abortionism and Moral Decline

follow up to Abortion video

Category:

Education

Tags:

• abortion
• ron paul
• NOW
• libertarianism
• feminism
• capitalism
• christianity

[onyomi]

I don't necessarily hold that position myself and am leaning towards saying that abortion is immoral in cases except rape (because the mother did not have a choice in creating the dependency situation and so cannot be demanded to take responsibility for it) and danger to the mother's health, if not necessarily something I want a government involved in banning. Just curious to see how you'd respond to that conventional notion of when a person becomes a person.

[lengthyounarther]

@onyomi all of the personhood and developmental arguments boil down to being totally arbitrary. So I tend to favor the stricter purly genetic definition. aka its alive and its a homo sapien. Life is important enough that I would bias in that direction.

[onyomi]

I understand that most people in society thinking one thing doesn't necessarily make it right, as in the case of the Aztec sacrifice example, but given that where to draw the line for personhood is vague and not scientifically determinable (at least not yet), might it not make sense to follow social convention in this case in terms of deciding when exactly someone becomes a person? Social convention in most of the world seems to be a person's not a full-fledged person till out of the mother.

[onyomi]

Very persuasive arguments--I especially like the comparison to how we err on the side of caution in the case of the other end of life.

What would you say to someone like Bill Maher who says that we know society doesn't view a fetus as a person since we don't give them any official documents (SS# etc) till after they're born, don't usually name them till after they're born, don't hold a funeral after a miscarriage, and so on?

[lengthyounarther]

@straffsats glad to foget that very dangerious and false argument. I have emotional reservations about animals but to answer your questons I do not see killing an animial, even ones like dogs, chimps, or whales as worse than killing human embyoes. And again your studiously avoiding the questions I keep raising that show how your justifications for abortion would apply to newborns also, or be totally arbitrary.

[straffsats]

@lengthyounarther Alright, forget my argument ad populum. Can you give me your thoughts about animals, AIs etc!? Would you rather kill an adult chimp than a test tube with a fertilized human egg? If so, why do you only grant the human species the right to life? Also, would it be permited to kill me if I were to transfer my mind into a robot? If you really think that only human life is "sacred", how would you motivate that to an alien? It's not based on some universal principle.

[lengthyounarther]

@straffsats forgive me but I dont find the 'its what most people think' argument. Majoritarian views are demonstrably false. It troubles me that you cannot estabilish a principal determining when homicide is justifiable and when its not, other than 'what most people think'. I suppose if we decide to kill off hte jews or blacks your will be fine with that just so long as 'most people think so'.

[straffsats]

@lengthyounarther But the distinction between human and non-human DNA is also arbitrary. Especially viewed from an evolutionary perspective as it changes over time. Furthermore, most people I've talked with agrees that killing an adult chimp is worse than killing a one celled human embryo. Would it be ok to kill me if I could transfer my mind to a robot? If not, then it's not the DNA that's (most) important but other characteristics.

[resincoatedlungs]

I'm not pro-life or pro-choice, just pro-abortion. I love them. They're delicious.

[straffsats]

@straffsats In areally poor situation I would not condemn a woman for killing her young, but I would do it in a rich country. Likewise I'm against killing a fetus which can survive outside the mother's body. My position is not "rational", but conforms with the views of most people I know. To conclude, it's alright to kill a blob of human cells, but not an advanced embryo (and chimps etc). Having human dna as a criteria for rights is arbitrary but understandable evolutionary.