Is Abortion Ethical

[Raider5678]

I'm interested in how you guys see this. Personally I think its wrong(go figure) and I can't understand how people feel it is right, ethical, or why it should even be legal.

Edited November 7, 2016 by Raider5678

[StringJunky]

I'm interested in how you guys see this. Personally I think its wrong(go figure) and I can't understand how people feel it is right, ethical, or why it should even be legal.

Be good to add an 'I'm ambivalent' or 'Have mixed feelings' option.

 

It's not something one would be happy about but it can be justifiable in the minds of those contemplating it and I support them in that decision.

 

It is not ethical to bring a child into an unhappy or impoverished environment, if the parent(s) feel that way, based on some arbitrary metric of absolute moral 'rightness' without consideration for the consequences to the child or the parent(s).

Edited November 7, 2016 by StringJunky

[Delta1212]

This is one of those things where I perfectly understand both perspectives and don't see any means of resolving them, because they were each founded on fundamentally different assumptions about the nature of the world and value judgments that don't, I think, have an objectively discoverable answer.

 

If a fetus/zygote/whatever stage abortion is allowed at for the sake of conversation is a person, then abortion is murder and it is a monstrous practice to allow it.

 

If it is not a person, then preventing women from having access to the procedure and instead forcing them to have a child against their will, with profound consequences for their health and future well-being, is a monstrous practice.

 

There is not really a middle ground, and I don't think there exists a point where you can point to a developing human and say "Yeah, it's definitely a human with rights that override the aforementioned concerns of the mother."

 

A line has to be drawn somewhere, and different people draw that line at different times and for different reasons, and the fact that the line is a moving target is something that hasn't changed much throughout history.

 

I don't know where the line should be drawn, although I do think it's best placed at some point after the time when egg meets sperm, rather than the precise moment of conception. There isn't anybody home at that point, but the fact that that is even a criteria for making the decision is a value judgement on my part, not really an objective assessment of anything.

 

I will say that, if someone thinks abortion is murder, that making exceptions for rape and incest is horrifyingly inconsistent and I don't see how that can be justified ethically. You are either admitting that an abortion isn't really murder, but you're going to ban it anyway, which falls afoul of the second ethical problem I brought up. Or else you are saying that it is ok to murder children for the actions of their parent or parents. It's an ethical half-way point that places itself in the worst position from both viewpoints.

[StringJunky]

 

 

A line has to be drawn somewhere, and different people draw that line at different times and for different reasons, and the fact that the line is a moving target is something that hasn't changed much throughout history.

Yes and it's futile, ultimately, because any line in a continuum - which is what human development is - can only be arbitrarily placed.

Edited November 7, 2016 by StringJunky

[Phi for All]

I don't know where the line should be drawn, although I do think it's best placed at some point after the time when egg meets sperm, rather than the precise moment of conception. There isn't anybody home at that point, but the fact that that is even a criteria for making the decision is a value judgement on my part, not really an objective assessment of anything.

 

Objectively, I would point to the inability of law enforcement to investigate every suspicious miscarriage reported (Should the mother have been at the gym? Was she risking her child's life when she became vegan? I told her NOT to use cleaning products!). Life beginning legally at conception would be a nightmare.

 

And if you can push the line away from conception, there may be other equally good reasons to push it further, to cover more situations. Ethically, this is a situation where you MUST concede to both sides of the issue. Personally, I think you can only be wrong about this if you take the OP's position, or one where you allow abortion a day before birth. If you're at an extreme end on this, you're ignoring a whole lot that's important.

[Raider5678]

Be good to add an 'I'm ambivalent' or 'Have mixed feelings' option.

 

It's not something one would be happy about but it can be justifiable in the minds of those contemplating it and I support them in that decision.

 

It is not ethical to bring a child into an unhappy or impoverished environment, if the parent(s) feel that way, based on some arbitrary metric of absolute moral 'rightness' without consideration for the consequences to the child or the parent(s).

58 million deaths(I'll call them deaths, you can call them what ever you like), out of 58 million, don't you think they could have contributed to society? What if Jonas Stalk had been aborted? Abraham Lincoln? Elon Musk? If it was inevitable they were going to die, then abortion is simply preventing health problems to the mother. Other then that its ending the life of someone who never had a chance. This is a first world country. Impoverished environments here are often nothing compared to other countries. I hate to be mean, but if your just going to kill it, why would you get pregnant in the first place?

Ethically, this is a situation where you MUST concede to both sides of the issue.

I would disagree. I'm not saying its wrong to abort a quite literally dying baby anyways to prevent health problems, I'm saying its wrong to abort a child who is inevitably going to be born and eventually become an adult. Whether poor or rich, its still a person.

[Delta1212]

 

Objectively, I would point to the inability of law enforcement to investigate every suspicious miscarriage reported (Should the mother have been at the gym? Was she risking her child's life when she became vegan? I told her NOT to use cleaning products!). Life beginning legally at conception would be a nightmare.

 

And if you can push the line away from conception, there may be other equally good reasons to push it further, to cover more situations. Ethically, this is a situation where you MUST concede to both sides of the issue. Personally, I think you can only be wrong about this if you take the OP's position, or one where you allow abortion a day before birth. If you're at an extreme end on this, you're ignoring a whole lot that's important.

 

Oh for sure. There are plenty of legal and practical concerns, and practically I think drawing the line at the point where the fetus is viable outside the womb, thus allowing for a delivery, would make sense.

 

But legally, practically and ethically are all quite different things. There are things that I think are not necessarily unethical on a case-by-case basis that for practical reasons need to be illegal as part of a larger class of unethical behaviors because allowing for exceptions undermines the ability to enforce the law in cases where there is an ethical breach. And I think there are things that are unethical that for practical reasons can't and shouldn't be illegal for similar reasons of practicality running in the opposite direction.

[DrmDoc]

Yes and no, depending on the circumstance. If the circumstance is to escape responsibility for one's actions, then no it's not ethical in my opinion. However, if the circumstance involves sparing the life of the mother, rape, incest, or fetal abnormality that confers an insufferable life on the child and mother, then yes abortion may be ethical. I do not support the idea of life at all cost nor do I support the idea of men making decisions about this issue of women's health regardless of a man's contribution to that state. I support the idea that women are capable of making the right decisions for themselves and should be allowed to do so.

[Delta1212]

58 million deaths(I'll call them deaths, you can call them what ever you like), out of 58 million, don't you think they could have contributed to society? What if Jonas Stalk had been aborted? Abraham Lincoln? Elon Musk? If it was inevitable they were going to die, then abortion is simply preventing health problems to the mother. Other then that its ending the life of someone who never had a chance. This is a first world country. Impoverished environments here are often nothing compared to other countries. I hate to be mean, but if your just going to kill it, why would you get pregnant in the first place?

I would disagree. I'm not saying its wrong to abort a quite literally dying baby anyways to prevent health problems, I'm saying its wrong to abort a child who is inevitably going to be born and eventually become an adult. Whether poor or rich, its still a person.

 

Two points there: "What if great person X had been aborted?" is not a terribly convincing argument, because the same applies to history's greatest monsters as well. I'm not, mind, saying that abortion should be legal "because what if Hitler had been aborted" so much as "This isn't really an argument that is particularly relevant or that supports one side over the other." If laws and circumstances were different, history would be different, and in rather unpredictable ways. Maybe plenty of people who would have been great were aborted throughout history and robbed us of a paradise on Earth. Maybe even worse monsters than actually lived were would have sprung from an aborted pregnancy and the human race was saved from a nuclear holocaust by abortion. It's a fruitless what-if that focuses on outcomes instead of the core ethical issue, and then posits that one side has better outcomes than the other with no actual support for the claim.

 

It is, in effect, making a utilitarian argument that relies on results-based premises that more closely align with the case for abortion (drops in crime rate in the generation following the introduction of abortion, presumably as a result of fewer children being born to parents incapable or unwilling to care for them, for example) and it does a bad job of making that argument. I would steer clear of going down this track if you're against abortion on ethical grounds. It does you no favors.

[Raider5678]

 

Two points there: "What if great person X had been aborted?" is not a terribly convincing argument, because the same applies to history's greatest monsters as well. I'm not, mind, saying that abortion should be legal "because what if Hitler had been aborted" so much as "This isn't really an argument that is particularly relevant or that supports one side over the other." If laws and circumstances were different, history would be different, and in rather unpredictable ways. Maybe plenty of people who would have been great were aborted throughout history and robbed us of a paradise on Earth. Maybe even worse monsters than actually lived were would have sprung from an aborted pregnancy and the human race was saved from a nuclear holocaust by abortion. It's a fruitless what-if that focuses on outcomes instead of the core ethical issue, and then posits that one side has better outcomes than the other with no actual support for the claim.

 

It is, in effect, making a utilitarian argument that relies on results-based premises that more closely align with the case for abortion (drops in crime rate in the generation following the introduction of abortion, presumably as a result of fewer children being born to parents incapable or unwilling to care for them, for example) and it does a bad job of making that argument. I would steer clear of going down this track if you're against abortion on ethical grounds. It does you no favors.

I was more going along the path of, inevitably there would have been an extremely helpful person in those 58 million. At least one. And regardless of the depths of being born into a bad family, you can give the child up if you didn't want it. At least it will live, and have a chance.

[Phi for All]

I hate to be mean, but if your just going to kill it, why would you get pregnant in the first place?

This whole part of your argument, the murder part, is really distilled down to this point. Why would anyone who didn't want a baby get pregnant in the first place? The answers are all different, and there are a lot of them.

 

I would disagree. I'm not saying its wrong to abort a quite literally dying baby anyways to prevent health problems, I'm saying its wrong to abort a child who is inevitably going to be born and eventually become an adult. Whether poor or rich, its still a person.

 

You should read what a zygote is, or a blastocyst. They're potential, really, but not people. Not in the way the mother is a person. What you're saying is like insisting that all tree seeds have to become trees, and that a seed deserves the same treatment as a fully grown tree.

 

When you look at life as a constant process, you realize there's no magic at conception.

[Delta1212]

I was more going along the path of, inevitably there would have been an extremely helpful person in those 58 million. At least one. And regardless of the depths of being born into a bad family, you can give the child up if you didn't want it. At least it will live, and have a chance.

 

Well, not inevitably, but yes, there probably would have been good people in there. And just as inevitably (i.e. just extremely probably) there would have been some extremely bad people. There are also lots of people who would not exist if it were not for abortion if we're talking downstream consequences. And there are probably a lot more than 58 million people who would have been born, and possibly some very good ones, if it weren't for condoms and hormonal birth control.

 

This is why the "What-if" or "Who might they have been?" argument falls down. You can run it too far up and down the line of potentialities that exist as a result of any of our decisions. The only way that it has any real impact is if you are relying on the person already accepting the premise that you are talking about a specific individual human that already exists and was killed, rather than a human in potentia that was simply never born.

 

Yes, you make a convincing argument if one accepts that as a premise. But if you accept that as a premise, then abortion is already murder and it's quite irrelevant who or what might have been. If you don't accept it as a premise, then it's a rather meaningless bit of whimsy on par with arguing that you should sleep with every person you meet because what if the child you could potentially have became the next Einstein?

 

 

If you want to make a convincing case for your position, you need to take some time to really get into the headspace of the other side and figure out what exactly it is they believe and why they believe it. If you can't do that, you're very likely to fall into the trap of trotting out arguments that are only convincing if you already agree with the position, instead of arguments that someone who has a different perspective might find convincing.

[DrP]

Pro choice here - how anyone feels that they can demand what someone else does or doesn't do with their own body amazes me. It is typical of the religious types propensity to interfere and try to force their views on everyone else... thankfully the world is changing and this ignorance is being slowly wiped out through proper education and the application of enough ridicule so that people will hopefully see the idiocy of their backward ways. We'll get there in the end as a society.

 

Personally I feel deeply for the plight of young mothers without much hope that have been forced into their situation or have numerous other reasons to not want to have a baby. Yes it is sad - but where do you draw the line? You can use the same argument (for not aborting in case someone good comes along) to actually FORCE people to become pregnant! "But what if your future child is the next Abe Lincon? We better make sure EVERYONE is pregnant and has a baby just in case".... it doesn't hold up.

[Raider5678]

- but where do you draw the line?

Using your logic whenever people decide they don't like their kid anymore. "Welp, he disobeyed me. Better kill him. Its the plight of a young mother."

If you can't do that, you're very likely to fall into the trap of trotting out arguments that are only convincing if you already agree with the position, instead of arguments that someone who has a different perspective might find convincing.

And what exactly are they thinking then? Please, enlighten me.

[DrP]

So where do you draw the line? It is a debate that has been going on for years. Lets use modern day knowledge and understanding in stead of ancient superstition to make our choice.

[Raider5678]

When you look at life as a constant process, you realize there's no magic at conception.

No offense, but then you should also realize there's a difference between a seed and a fetus. And that since its a constant process, said fetus will become a person given some time. Just like a baby becomes a child, a child becomes an adult. By the same logic, that a fetus should not be treated as a fully grown person, neither should a baby.

So where do you draw the line? It is a debate that has been going on for years. Lets use modern day knowledge and understanding in stead of ancient superstition to make our choice.

Lets see. Using modern day knowledge we know that a fetus will eventually become a baby given time and the fact that nothing goes wrong(I know. Ancient superstition, but its what I learned.) Where do you draw the line?

 

I think a good way to look at it was to assume you were forced to have an abortion. Against your will entirely and completely. If a fetus isn't a person, then it can't be considered murder now could it? Your child is dead, sure, but it wasn't a person so who cares?

Edited November 7, 2016 by Raider5678

[Delta1212]

Using your logic whenever people decide they don't like their kid anymore. "Welp, he disobeyed me. Better kill him. Its the plight of a young mother."

 

And what exactly are they thinking then? Please, enlighten me.

That's been a topic of discussion in this thread so far. I think you may need to focus a bit on reading what other people are saying and trying to understand it rather than asserting their points are monstrous and pro-murder simply because they take the opposing view from you.

 

I'm not even suggesting that you actually change your opinion. It's entirely possible to crawl inside the heads of people with fundamentally different, and even outright abhorrent, views without subscribing to them.

 

It does require temporarily withholding judgment and exercising some empathy though.

 

I find analyzing even my deepest held beliefs from a perspective of "What if I am genuinely wrong about this?" on a regular basis does wonders for my ability to discuss a given issue. I don't usually change my mind, ultimately, but it keeps me from getting too bogged down in unhelpful dogma.

[Raider5678]

That's been a topic of discussion in this thread so far. I think you may need to focus a bit on reading what other people are saying and trying to understand it rather than asserting their points are monstrous and pro-murder simply because they take the opposing view from you.

 

I'm not even suggesting that you actually change your opinion. It's entirely possible to crawl inside the heads of people with fundamentally different, and even outright abhorrent, views without subscribing to them.

 

It does require temporarily withholding judgment and exercising some empathy though.

 

I find analyzing even my deepest held beliefs from a perspective of "What if I am genuinely wrong about this?" on a regular basis does wonders for my ability to discuss a given issue. I don't usually change my mind, ultimately, but it keeps me from getting too bogged down in unhelpful dogma.

Ok then, I will try this.

[rangerx]

The same people that call themselves pro-life are the same people who will let you die if you cannot afford health insurance. Also, the same group derides any level of government interference in our lifestyles, yet insist that same government legislate and detain women as incubators for the state.

 

 

 

You can use the same argument (for not aborting in case someone good comes along) to actually FORCE people to become pregnant!

 

Good point.

[Raider5678]

The same people that call themselves pro-life are the same people who will let you die if you cannot afford health insurance. Also, the same group derides any level of government interference in our lifestyles, yet insist that same government legislate and detain women as incubators for the state.

Just to start out, if like other threads your simply going start calling the opposition stupid, retarded, and other assortment of words, I would ask of you to not.

 

Anyways, incubators for the state is your honest view on this subject?

[DrP]

Ok then, I will try this.

 

OK - You are a 13 year old girl - you have been.... OK - I was going to give you a situltion, but I do not want to, what I had in mind was too sickening and I cannot see how anyone in their right mind could force this girl to have a baby.

 

 

 

 

The same people that call themselves pro-life are the same people who will let you die if you cannot afford health insurance. Also, the same group derides any level of government interference in our lifestyles, yet insist that same government legislate and detain women as incubators for the state.

 

 

Quite hypocritical isn't it?

Edited November 7, 2016 by DrP

[Phi for All]

No offense, but then you should also realize there's a difference between a seed and a fetus. And that since its a constant process, said fetus will become a person given some time. Just like a baby becomes a child, a child becomes an adult. By the same logic, that a fetus should not be treated as a fully grown person, neither should a baby.

 

Just like the seed would become a tree. Not all seeds need to become a tree, and it's not unethical to feed baby trees to animals.

 

And babies aren't treated like a full-grown person in real life. There are many restrictions. You can't leave them by themselves in public. You can't hire them to work. They can't vote. Babies are treated differently, and that's not considered unethical.

 

This is another abortion argument that goes nowhere, and ends up contradicting itself.

[Raider5678]

And babies aren't treated like a full-grown person in real life.

You don't honestly think I'm arguing the fact that babies can't vote do you? I'm arguing the ethical dilemma of killing them therefore preventing them from one day voting.

[DrP]

We know - but where is the line drawn!? Right now the law draws a line at a set date after conception. I think that time period is different in different countries.

Edited November 7, 2016 by DrP

[Raider5678]

We know - but where is the line drawn!? Right now the law draws a line at a set date after conception. I think that time period is different in different countries.

And where would you draw the line?