Abortion wars are heating up ahead of November midterms - Polidicks

Well I mean it's a life, but it isn't a person. But 20 minutes away implies contractions have begun and the water has broken, so an abortion isn't really feasible.

To be fair, her body is what's forcing her to give birth. She can give birth without the Hospital's involvement whatsoever. The Hospital isn't forcing her to give birth; the fact that the baby is coming out does.

Why does that make a difference to you in what you consider to be person or not? If a life is about to come out of the body, that sounds like it's a person, and your own definition isn't nearly as strong as you think it is.

Abortion should be legal for those that want it/need it but I don't think late abortions should be allowed unless there's an emergency reason for it. The mother has the right to choose but I feel like there comes a point when it's basically a baby waiting to come out. If the child can survive outside the body with basic medical care, abortion should not be an option. I'm not at liberty to say when that point is, however. Since I'm no expert on the matter. To me it's a gray area but I believe in liberty so it should be legal. But I don't agree with people who sterilize the issue to the point where they make it seem like a fetus is something that wont become a human should you leave it to it's own devices. An acorn isn't a tree but it will become one if you let it in most cases. A fetus isn't a person but it will become one if you let it in most cases. Regardless of what stage, abortion is denying a life a chance. So if you're going to do it, you should do it as early as possible. The overall societal benefits of not having unwanted children end up in broken homes or adding more children to the massive number of children who are homeless and in Foster Care, who may end up in crime or generally increasing poverty is why I think it can be a positive thing to have available. But I think it's a very serious thing and shouldn't be marginalized or encouraged as a form of birth control (I know it generally isn't, but let's not get there). It should always be a last resort option, taken with heavy consideration.

It's all trying to put concrete rules and logic on inherently ambiguous processes. It should be the mother's choice if they want to bring a baby into that environment. A good point, I don't think late-term abortions are that much safer than say a C-section. And I really don't consider the foetus at all when it comes to a woman's bodily autonomy: Woman > Foetus erry' time. This is because it's at a crossroads of the woman's bodily autonomy, and personhood. If you could ~magically~ teleport an otherwise ready to be birthed out of the mother, then yeah I'd argue that's a person at that instant - same with a C-section. However a woman should not be forced to have any medical procedure (C-Sec) - thus, a removed baby is a person, and a dead foetus isn't. A woman can have an abortion for a foetus inside of them, but not a baby outside of them. A baby outside of them has personhood, a foetus inside of them is at the whim of its host. And yeah, the order of things matters: If I inhale, and then put water into my mouth, that's fine, but if I put water into my mouth and inhale, that's gonna suck.

Should a mother be forced to donate her organs/blood to keep a child on life support alive? This isn't a question about ethics or about what someone should or should not do, the question is about government reach. Should the government have the right to FORCE a woman to donate her blood and/or her organs to keep a living non-fetus child alive? If they shouldn't have the right to do so after the child is born, they shouldn't have it before the child is born. Personhood doesn't enter the equation, it's purely about bodily autonomy and you don't even have to go further than that. If you want to force a woman to maintain a pregnancy then you're saying that an unborn child has some rights that a born child does not, which to me at least is a baffling statement.

One should indeed do it as early as possible. The issue is that my argument (that abortion should be avail at any time for any reason to any woman*) is simply a result of some pretty basic and agreeable bodily autonomy rights. A pregnancy will very likely result in a reasonably healthy birth, I'm not arguing against that. I'm saying a woman should have bodily autonomy, and have total rights of if she's going to give birth or not - up until that baby is actually born which then it's no longer a bodily autonomy issue, since that baby isn't inside and dependent on its host. Most people are just icky'd out by stuff like ID&E, which to be fair I certainly am to, this is the procedure after all: Feticidal injection of digoxin or potassium chloride may be administered at the beginning of the procedure to allow for softening of the fetal bones or to comply with relevant laws in the physician's jurisdiction. During the surgery, the fetus is removed from the uterus in the breech position, with mechanical collapse of the fetal skull if it is too large to fit through the cervical canal. Decompression of the skull can be accomplished by incision and suction of the contents, or by using forceps. If the fetus is in a vertex presentation, forceps can be used to turn it to a breech presentation while in the uterus (internal version). I dunno' about you, but that doesn't sound like a party to me. But being icky'd out by something doesn't mean I have the right to tell someone they can't do it, this is like 2008-level gay-rights concepts here.

It isn't "2008 gay rights concepts" actually and equating it to that is silly in my opinion. This is personhood, and the very definition of life we're talking about. You have a very black and white view on this apparently, I don't want to tell any woman what they can and cannot do, and don't plan on doing so. But I have ethical concerns about you just declaring that life that is fully developed can and really should be promptly destroyed without any thought. I'm not for it being an option, but it honestly should be thought about a lot more than you just hand waving away any thoughts, concerns, criticisms or issues with your particular perspective here.

I have thought plenty about it. My conclusion: rights of a female adult > 'rights' of a foetus.

i do believe they should, but I also believe it’s complicated because you agreed that abortion just before birth isn’t any less agreeable to you despite the implications about the definition of life. I don’t think life should be disregarded like that. Why is that so hard to get? Why isn’t that a consideration? I totally do want the woman to have autonomy but I also can’t ignore that it’s a person before birth at a time you’d be fine with calling it not a person. You see this as a simple issue. I don’t think it is. Please feel free to disagree but I don’t think being blind to that issue is fair to the argument

I find it viscerally disturbing, but I also find stuff in my own body like this disturbing. I don't think it's a simple issue, I think the options given certain moral viewpoints (I.E women have complete bodily autonomy) result in a very small subset of conclusions, yes. I understand that, and I've considered it - and it's why I state the baby is a person as soon as they're outside the womb (generally), however I value the woman's autonomy much higher than that of a foetus.

Well, if you want the woman to have autonomy then you can answer my hypothetical above, should a woman be forced to donate blood/her organs to keep her child alive when they are outside the womb?

This is why people are asking to have a discussion about the line, and why your responses are seen as largely inadequate. I'm not, and most reasonable posters on the side of pro choice, have not stated they want to restrict a womans right to her own body. I don't, I don't think OvB does, but I think all of us have brought up a point that you say you're considering, but based on how you phrase it I don't really believe you do. A birth, vaginal or cesarean, is not the only qualifier of what makes a person out of a fetus. This is my central issue with your point. I don't want to control anyone, I don't want to enact laws that control people, but if we're going to make laws about abortion, we're also creating legal precedents across all other fields of what a person is, and when a person is a person. I think that line deserves to be more than a "Birth by vaginal or cesarean methods".

Says what necessarily? We don't live in a universe that gives us these answers, we are the ones that come up with these hard lines and definitions of what is and isn't right. Makes the most sense to me, it's the point where the autonomy of a mother ends, therefore personhood can begin proper (note: personhood is not adulthood, a child is still resided over by their parent until they reach the age of majority in their respective country). Obviously the definition will need to be slightly more broad by the time we have artificial wombs and genetically engineered babies.

You are not getting across why this is cut and dry or why legal precedents being set as simply as you’re doing is going to work out well. I do think this is a woman’s choice and her autonomy shouldn’t be questioned. I also think that what constitutes a person at the final trimester, and especially towards the end is a morally grey issue that literally determines who is human and what human life is. Sorry that I take that question a bit differently than you do and don’t regard it so cut and dry.

Not really though, humans have many legal definitions in many jurisdictions and contexts. As far as I'm aware, in present day USA, children are given their birth certificate (and SSN) after birth, not while in the womb - so my logic isn't even too far a jump from that. Then why can't she get an abortion at any time for any reason? Then can we force the woman to carry the foetus to term? Or have a c-section? If we deny abortion, we are implicit in the former, and also revoking absolute bodily autonomy.

These things aren't comparable for a number of reasons: Donating your organs and being pregnant isn't the same thing. Pregnancy poses very little risk to the human body, and while it is a strain on it to go through a pregnancy, you have to consider that it's both temporary, completely normal, and also a condition that, for the most part, the woman decided to take on; and since we're talking ultra late term abortions, a condition she didn't decide to terminate earlier (I realise this raises the question of withdrawing consent and so on - but basically there are many examples of things in life where it isn't possible, morally or realistically, to withdraw consent). Saying personhood isn't a sticking point is daft: The reason we don't "abort" newborns is because we think they are people, so of course the question of when that fetus becomes something akin to a person is important. I don't think ultra late term pregnancy is that dissimilar from caring for a newborn (or a child in general) in that you are limited in what you can do in life, since you need to care for the child. In both cases adoption is also a perfectly viable alternative. Let's set up a thought experiment: Imagine a baby was somehow - by your choice - placed in your care. It's dependent on you in every way; for food, warmth and care. Now, you're alone with this child, and you have to carry it for a few weeks until you could potentially give it to someone else's care. It poses a small elevated risk to your own health as you make your way toward your destination. Would you be justified in leaving that baby somewhere - or even kill it - on the road simply because it was causing a physical strain on your body, as well as a minuscule additional risk to your life? No, of course not. We as human accept that sometimes the only morally right thing to do is to accept a little risk to yourself to save someone else, even at the expense of your own (bodily) autonomy. Now you might not be convinced by this example, but it should very clearly show that whether that child is a person or not matters a lot for your moral culpability. If the child had anencephaly, for example, it's hard to argue you'd be wrong in burying it somewhere along the way. Furthermore, you might say that since the child isn't inside you, the situation is a different, because when it's inside your body, bodily autonomy trumps anything. What I want to show, and what I think I have shown, is that when it comes to bodily autonomy, something being inside your body or not is not the relevant question; whether something is dependent on your body or not is. Lots of external things are obvious violations of your bodily autonomy, and whether the violations are external or internal doesn't in themselves necessarily decide the severity. Being sold into slavery is for example much worse than getting circumcised. In conclusion, I don't think your bodily autonomy is the important point; we already accept that ethical and moral directives can trump your bodily autonomy (caring for someone who cannot care for themselves, at little or no risk to yourself), and that bodily autonomy can be violated by things both internal and external. By consequence, the important point must be when the fetus/baby gains some semblance of personhood, not whether the baby is inside of you or not. And as an aside, yes, if we didn't live in a world of readily available third-party blood/plasma transfusions, I'd think the parents would be morally unjustified in not donating their blood to their child (in safe quantities). If you refused to do that you're either part of some crazy sect or a sociopath. Similarly I think the vast, vast majority of parents would donate a kidney to save their child. Here there's a difference in the sequence of events as well; in a late term pregnancy, getting an abortion is an active choice on your part to end what arguably constitutes life (with a large chance of success), whereas in case of your child getting sick enough to need an organ transplant, saving the life of the child is the active choice, and the end result is much less certain (kidney transplants don't last forever). It's also possible to find an unrelated donor, whereas you are the the only one who could carry that baby to term.

Donating your organs and being pregnant isn't the same thing. Pregnancy poses very little risk to the human body, and while it is a strain on it to go through a pregnancy, you have to consider that it's both temporary, completely normal, and also a condition that, for the most part, the woman decided to take on Irrelevant, the severity of a medical procedure has no bearing on whether the government should have the right to legally force you to do it at gunpoint. Saying personhood isn't a sticking point is daft: The reason we don't "abort" newborns is because we think they are people, so of course the question of when that fetus becomes something akin to a person is important. I don't think ultra late term pregnancy is that dissimilar from caring for a newborn (or a child in general) in that you are limited in what you can do in life, since you need to care for the child. In both cases adoption is also a perfectly viable alternative. Not even part of my point. Imagine a baby was somehow - by your choice - placed in your care. It's dependent on you in every way; for food, warmth and care. Now, you're alone with this child, and you have to carry it for a few weeks until you could potentially give it to someone else's care. It poses a small elevated risk to your own health as you make your way toward your destination. Would you be justified in leaving that baby somewhere - or even kill it - on the road simply because it was causing a physical strain on your body, as well as a minuscule additional risk to your life? No, of course not. We as human accept that sometimes the only morally right thing to do is to accept a little risk to yourself to save someone else, even at the expense of your own (bodily) autonomy. We're not talking about what's morally or ethically justified. If I was given an actual baby then I would take care of it. If the government forced me to have a baby surgically grafted to me, I wouldn't accept it. This is irrelevant to my hypothetical. Now you might not be convinced by this example, but it should very clearly show that whether that child is a person or not matters a lot for your moral culpability. If the child had anencephaly, for example, it's hard to argue you'd be wrong in burying it somewhere along the way. This is so roundabout that it doesn't even fit into the analogy, you're making a big false equivalence fallacy right out the gate. The reason the life support analogy works is because it boils the entire question down to the bare essentials: We have a mother and we have a child Should the mother be forced by law to provide her body to the child If fetuses and babies have the same rights under law, then the only syllogistical answer that follows is that no, the mother should not be forced by law to provide her body to the child. Furthermore, you might say that since the child isn't inside you, the situation is a different, because when it's inside your body, bodily autonomy trumps anything. The point of my hypothetical is to completely remove the element of "inside" versus "outside" In conclusion, I don't think your bodily autonomy is the important point; we already accept that ethical and moral directives can trump your bodily autonomy (caring for someone who cannot care for themselves, at little or no risk to yourself), and that bodily autonomy can be violated by things both internal and external. The analogy is completely daft, as I said above. If I was given a baby and the ONLY choice I had was to either care for it or kill it, I would care for it. Does that make it right for the government to force me to care for a baby that I don't necessarily want to care for? I think even you'll see that the answer is no. And as an aside, yes, if we didn't live in a world of readily available third-party blood/plasma transfusions, I'd think the parents would be morally unjustified in not donating their blood to their child (in safe quantities). If you refused to do that you're either part of some crazy sect or a sociopath. Read my post again... It's not a question of morality or ethics, it's about government reach, as I said. If a mother decided that she didn't want to go to daily blood transfusions to keep a child alive then there is/should be no mechanism which legally forces her to do so.

Becoming pregnant is a choice. Not terminating your pregnancy in due time is a choice. Going into labour, which is a perfectly normal bodily function, is not something the government forces you to do, your body does it all on its own just fine. You're saying personhood isn't a sticking point, so you're wrong. First of all, yes you are talking about what's morally or ethically justifiable. Is it ethically or morally justifiable to accept some violations of bodily autonomy? This is what you're arguing. And good thing babies aren't surgically grafted to people by the government? You're not even arguing the point. That was a point about what constitutes personhood, and what importance it has to which ethically acceptable options you have. You're completely ignoring the fact that the government isn't forcing you to do anything. You seem to think that committal to a choice you've made must necessarily always be a violation. This is obviously not the case in the real world. If you go to the top of Mount Everest, you've had every chance to turn around, and at some point, it's no longer morally justifiable to send out a rescue team for you, because too many lives would be risked. Let's now say you yourself brought someone reliant on you to the top without their consent - you've had every chance to let them get off lower down the mountain, but you decided to commit for the summit with them. Of course, if it's necessary to leave the other person behind up there to save your life, it's the right course of action; but if the amount of risk to you is minuscule, leaving them behind at the summit would be morally reprehensible (and probably worthy of jail time). Especially since you had every chance of letting them off lower down the mountain. So there is a certain point where you have to commit to a choice, and should be punished for straying from it, unless extraordinary circumstances come into play. Sometimes you can even be punished for something you're not responsible for - at least here in Denmark, not calling for an ambulance if you're the sole person noticing someone with a heart attack is punishable. This is because we accept that calling an ambulance is a minuscule effort on your part, even though it's in principle a violation of your autonomy. Government reach is a question of morality and ethics. Bodily autonomy is a question of morality and ethics. You think forcing a mother to go through daily blood transfusions to keep their child alive would be morally wrong, and that's fair enough, but the idea that it's not a question of morality is kinda laughable.

Anyone saying that "post-birth abortions" i.e murdering babies will be a thing or using them as an argument should be banned, its moronic and has nothing to do with the discussion because its such a brick munchingly stupid suggestion.

Yeah good thing I'm not saying that (and I haven't seen anyone else arguing it).

I didn't say you did and I know no ones said it but everytime I've ever seen an abortion thread on forums one of them appears at some point

Fair enough, sorry for getting defensive.

Nah i'd be the same if i thought someone was saying i'd said it

this is not entirely true. depending on the circumstances going through a pregnancy can cause great injury or even be fatal

If a fetus has a soul then abortion is basically an express ticket to heaven AFAIK.

In most Western countries the maternal death rate is around 5-10 deaths per 100.000 live births. The US is a complete outlier at ~25 deaths per 100.000 live births. Still, this is only about 2.5 the risk of dying in a car crash in any given year, and if the US could get their act together, it'd probably be equivalent to one. The risk of injury is obviously higher, but still, the risk is completely insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Especially since we're discussing very late term abortions, which I doubt are without risks themselves. The most important thing is to make abortion as available as possible to anyone as early as possible. This is where the US fails - the US has much more "liberal" rules when it comes to when you can get an abortion, but both education as well access to abortion is lacking in a number of states. Even then, I'm only in this discussion from a philosophical standpoint - the fact of the matter is that even if we were to allow abortions basically during labour, basically no one would utilize that option.

Since the child is only a product of the cells of both the father and mother, if either one of them were baptized, wouldn't the child technically also be baptized since they're just developing cells of their mother in the beginning? Now that I think of that, I believe that's the case.

Thats not how it works. You gotta be baptized after you're born or else you'd only ever need to baptize the first couple. Everyone after would be "covered." Many believe if you're not baptized you'll not go to heaven.