Man I hate the anti-abortion side.
I don't really think that throwing down arbitrary lines of when the fetus is a human or not is feasible, and that it's pretty much a degree of murder morally.
But it's still worth legalizing it for patient safety, and if you really want to curb abortion, you need to give out birth control like hot cakes. I'd even go as far as to recommend stuff like IUDs be made freely available and encouraged for teenagers to get. (Maybe vasectomies too, but I hear that reversing those is awful.)
But most of these fucks are extremely anti-sex ed and think abstinence-only is viable so RIP
It really shouldn't be as big an issue as it is. If you consider yourself a free nation, and want to be regarded as such, make abortion easily available to all women. It should be their choice, not some dusty relics in Congress who act like high and mighty messengers of God, and then turn out to be massive hypocrites.
But that line absolutely has to be drawn. If not, could I kill a 5 year old and consider it an abortion? Fuck no. It's clearly a human. But at the same time, a 5 week old fetus isn't. This is something that NEEDS to be defined.
As for myself, I am perfectly fine with abortions. But we need to do the best we can to ensure it's actually a fetus, and has not crossed the line into sentient human being.
We can't make that a line because it's not something we can know without basically doing a million totally unethical experiments
I don't think third trimester abortions should be legal outside of medically required scenarios, up til that point I think it should be a womans choice as all other metrics leave the fate of her body in other peoples hands and decision making processes something most of us would oppose being applied to us.
I agree with the second part, but not the first. We can, without unethical experiments, generally get a good sense of when the majority of fetuses turn into sentient beings. Even if it's a couple weeks off, it's not as big of an issue as it being an all or nothing thing.
I've been waiting for years to hear a good argument against the right to have an abortion. I'm still waiting.
Something worth discussing would be giving life a medical definition, which there currently isn't if I'm not mistaken. Death is medically defined, so do you think it would be reasonable to apply the standards for death towards a definition of life and then work from there?
We already have that line, it is the commencement of brainstem activity at around 22-24 weeks.
In Sweden the latest you can get abortions is week 14, which to me is a bit short. Personally I think abortions should be allowed freely and without a doctor's approval until week 20 or so, which is the general gestation milestone where a fetus develops the ability to feel pain (if I recall). That said, I think abortions should also be allowed past that point if necessary (ie. medical reasons that could hurt the mother).
Spoilers, there isn't any.
"Its unethical since it involves killing the baby! I mean I heard thats its just a ball of cells but it has the potential to become a living, breathing human being! Do you have no respect for your fellow man!?
Now if you excuse me, im going to go vote for lowering the minimum wage, cut healthcare, and for the death penalty!"
Basically all of it. Before that, it's a a whole lot of cells, but they're not doing anything except following a genetic plan. When the brainstem becomes active, that's when information is being transmitted, and the body is beginning to support itself for the first time. And even if you want to argue that's not enough, does it matter so much in a black and white context? We should at least allow abortions before brainstem activity, and if someone wants to allow it for post-brainstem activity, they can debate that, but I wouldn't support it unless they have some very good irrefutable evidence in their favor. But for the time being, the brainstem line has medical backing and there's nothing really philosophical about it, the morality and philosophy only come in if you want to try and figure out when exactly after the brainstem does a person become a person.
It's alive the entire time, what matters is whether it's a human being or not. And why do you choose that brain activity to hone in on? Brain activity itself begins at 5 weeks in
We also don't really use that for other cases either, your family/spouse can end your life even if your brain stem is fully intact.
when you are capable of tossing out the science of when a person is a thinking thing, then anything that prevents a baby from being born becomes an abortion. that's why you don't see "free and abundant birth control" on the GOP platform, they push for otc birth control but thats to get rid of the medical coverage of it thereby limiting its availability
Abortions should be allowed up until the birth, basically.
I posit that bringing disabled individuals into the world should be avoided, this can be genetic, or ones that developed during gestation. The issue is either these can't be tested until later in development, or the tests can take months to come back conclusive, or they are true developmental flaws that crop up later. In all situations, the complication can generally only be discovered VERY late into foetus development, and I don't think a mother should be forced to bring such a person into this world.
Furthermore, lets say an accident happens, happy expecting mom and pop, mom is stay-at-home, and pop is the good 'ol breadwinner - they're expecting their child in the next few weeks, and then pop gets hit by a car, or has a heart attack, or stroke; either way he dies. Should mom be forced to carry a child that will have no parent, and a family with no stable income? I don't think so.
Because of these reasons, I think a woman should have total autonomy to get an abortion whenever she wishes, for any reason.
How is it a hard concept that it's the woman's body growing the baby, she should be allowed to decide what they want. If they are so hellbent on women having kids they should figure out a way to set guidelines to what would qualify for an abortion i.e: a rape baby, the death of the mother, the possibility that there is something wrong with the child that the parents don't have the means to care for, but this should/would need to be set by a counsel of women only. Men shouldn't have a real say in how a woman controls her body. Hell I don't even think what I am saying is 100% right because I wouldn't know the pain and the stress of having a thing grow inside you.
Bottom line: It's a woman's body, she should be allowed to do as she wants with her body.
I think this is ethically grey material that is very hard to come to hard line conclusions on which to base legal precedent.
I don't personally believe that people would get abortions "Just because" so I don't worry about that, but there are people like that in the world as evidenced by some reports of actual people who have gotten repeat abortions constantly when in all honesty, other methods of prevention could have been used and the procedure could be avoided.
There is a lot of things to unpack, and discuss that are complicated moral implications from the statement you make about disabled individuals. First, is that a thing we as a society will accept, that individuals with disabilities from birth are to be cast aside before birth so as to entirely avoid their existence? How do we deal with that? You're making a large choice for many people that I don't think everyone would agree with, and I don't believe the logical argument you could make about that would entirely over-ride the moral and ethical issues of removing them from society entirely. I personally don't know where to stand on that issue, as I would not personally want the burden of taking care of a child suffering from that if I didn't have to, but I also would feel very uncomfortable about only being able to offer them a stunted version of the experience we call life. It's more complicated than you make it to be, and not a decision I feel legislation should be used to make. it's a very dangerous precedent to set.
As far as accidents go where a person is left with a child they can't bear alone due to totally unforeseeable circumstances, that's complicated and maybe there should be an option, but at that stage there are a variety of options a person has, I don't know if removing abortion as an option in those situations is feasible, or fair. But at that stage there is the value of the life of the fetus, while unborn at this stage it is highly developed and there are certainly moral issues with just terminating it at that stage as it is not yet independent but it does feature qualities of life and sentience and at that point you're in dubious territory.
While a fetus is at a relative stage lacking development many of the moral quandaries aren't as significant and the issue of the mothers independence over her own fate is weighed heavier, and for a lot of well founded reasons. But at late stages, I don't see it as clear cut and I don't know if it is that easy to make that call.
I choose that because it is the medically accepted start of life, and I trust that scientists and doctors would be able to accurately make that call. Moreso than an activist or pastor or politician, anyway. The brainstem controls a huge number of vital functions though, in addition to being the conduit for all the information the body produces to the brain. Seems reasonable to declare activity in that sector is most significant.
Says who?
The sperm in your nut or the ova in your ovaries are both alive. Being alive is just characterized by the capability of growth, homeostasis, maintenance, etc..
For abortion purposes IIRC doctors generally work off of fetal viability, and not whether it's alive or not, or at the very least, that's what Roe V. Wade dealt with. This isn't really a thing you can just cleanly answer with science alone.
By that logic we're reaching an impossible standard because the human body routinely "kills" both of these in large numbers.
I wasn't the one using life as the barometer for whether it's a morally neutral/good act or not tho.
Abortion Wars sounds like the worst gameshow ever.
The law should stay out of it, it's a perfectly fine and sometimes necessary medical procedure, women should have access to it (at any age) for any reason, and the law should stay away.
Most people don't just get abortions for shits and gigs, it's generally a step of last resort. And even if they did, so what - its not your body - its their choice. ( And in-fact, is probably better for you for tax reasons).
I'm not making that decision (here and now at least), and I totally agree that that conversation is indeed very complicated, and is actually pretty interesting.
I'm for letting women make that decision for themselves, and why I want the law to stay away, and let women make the choice.
As I'm trying to argue, moral subjects on abortion largely shouldn't be enforced by the government, a mother should be able to make that decision herself, and her own morals should be what drive that decision.
I'd argue the well-being of the mother is A. more important than the foetus, and B. is going to impact a born baby anyway.
Birth is dangerous AF, especially in America; so especially in situations where a mother might not have any support - abortion is the safest option.
It's in this argument that the nihilist perspective I think is the best perspective to have. Life seems to be a fairly common thing as far as we know, it's certainly spread far and wide on our own planet. It's just an emotional response to having our own young pulled out of the womb. Funnily enough it's the same people that care about this particular subject that rarely give a shit about children in a foreign land being killed or dying from war or starvation on a daily basis.
Me even being the nihilist that I am care about subjects such as that, it's just embarrassing for the human race.
I feel like completely dismissing the other side doesn't actually help convert people into supporting abortions.
There are plenty of reasons that appear to be valid that aren't just instantly dismiss-able; if somebody's moral axioms say that "abortions == baby killing" then you aren't going to convince them otherwise by going "NO YOU ARE WRONG", you need to meet them at that point and then show them why even within their own moral framework their arguments don't pan out. You will extremely rarely convince somebody to change an axiomatic belief by directly challenging the axiom, even more so if you're just saying that the axiom is flat wrong/stupid.
Pretty much this.
Except, I think any third trimester abortion that isn't some sort of emergency would be the exception.
Less than 1.5% of abortions happen after 20 weeks. The vast majority, even when you exclude medical reasons, have serious reasons for getting an abortion. 80% fit into at least 1 of 5 basic categories, and that's not including other possible reasons.
Furthermore, 94% of those (again, excluding medical reasons, which bumps the percent up higher) have reasons why they waited that long, such as money issues or not realizing their pregnancy until then.
Further still, even Fox News says that only about 100 abortions a year are performed after 24 weeks (although this was 2003).
I would imagine the vast majority of those 100 (if not all of them) are for some emergency, medical or otherwise.
Legislation that bans abortions after a certain point may simply be worsening already bad situations, forcing women with emergency situations to wait even longer as they sift through red tape or travel to a different state, or completely stopping them from having an abortion they need (and certainly had reasons for waiting that long for).
Ironically, they make things worse for both the woman and the fetus, as every day that passes makes the abortion process riskier and is one day of more brain development.
I honestly don't know if that's an insult or a compliment but I agree with you 100%.
It was an insult, concepts of good and bad (as in, thinking an action or person is morally good or bad) develop pre-speech in infants. Right and wrong as concepts are inherently a part of our psychology. Now, what right and wrong "are" is up for debate, but declaring that there is no difference between right and wrong is to attempt to divorce yourself from an intrinsic part of humanity and human psychology.
I can gaurantee you that your perspective would dissolve into ash if somebody held a gun to your head, or the head of a loved one.
I'd never argue they would hold in any situation even close to that, I can't even walk past a homeless person without giving them food or money.
Regardless, nihilism has a good point in terms of general perspective of issues.
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