Abortion II

[inked]

If individuals are supreme, Coffeehouse, then by your own progression no individual can impose his/her/its will on another. The zygote/embryo/fetus/baby is demonstrably an individual by scientific data in genetic and embryologic realms.

So, tell me again how it is that a pregnant woman has absolute power over another individual other than by mere power ("I'm bigger and you can't fight back").

And why is it that society has no ability to regulate this behaviour when it regulates much more in regard to human interactions?

I'm waiting for argument rather than simple repeated declaration of your opinion.
Preferably based on science facts, since that how we started and I demonstrated your "facts" in error.

[Curufin]

To me, science has very little to nothing to do with this debate. From the very moment of conception, the zygote/fetus/baby/whatever you want to call it - is the potential for human life. To deny that is ridiculous. It's not suddenly going to turn into a frog at some point.

This, however, does not make me any less pro-choice.

Whether or not the termination of a pregnancy is moral or amoral is also unimportant to me in this debate. Different people will have different sets of moral beliefs that lead them to champion the superiority of the rights of either the mother or the baby, and these are not important to this debate.

Why?

Because we're not talking about declaring abortion immoral, we're talking about declaring abortion illegal. And that brings us to an entirely different set of circumstances. Not scientific, not moral, but based on a person's individual rights..

The fourth Amendment to the Constitution guarantees "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects..." How secure am I in my person if the government has the right to tell me whether or not I can have a baby or not? Or to ask a related yet slightly different question, how secure are you in your person if the government can force sterilization, or if they can withhold the right to contraception?

Let me state again, the legalization of abortion is not about abortion, but about the place of government in our most personal and private lives.

It is not the place of the state to legislate morality, or to force a person to have (or not to have) a baby. It is not the place of the state to legislate on the grounds of moral beliefs that do not hold true for a good percentage of the population. It is not the place of the state to tell me how to live my life, or to decide when I can (or cannot) become a parent. These are the most private and personal of decisions, and I don't think that Congress should be deciding what happens inside my body.

Abortion is, of course, a tragedy, and as someone said before, it is not the only tragedy involved. If Christian and pro-life groups want to counsel these women not to have abortions, to try to help them find a better way, then totally, go for it.

But don't involve the state. It simply isn't their place.

[Rían]

Originally Posted by Coffeehouse

But as we are rational animals we also possess the intelligence to understand when not to abort.

So why don't people agree on this "when"? Is it your opinion that everyone that doesn't agree with you is just irrational?

We know that after a certain time, performing an abortion is inadvisable.

"Inadvisable"?

Oh, nevermind ...

Science will have to make the distinction.

Science gives us information that we hope is correct. What people DO with that information is not "science", it's personal opinion. Science, by itself, CANNOT give us the "correct" answer to this question; it can only give us information that we use to make a decision based on our personal opinions.

But in the end it is, and pay attention this time, her choice.

I'm sure inked knows your opinion about this. But that's all it is - your opinion. You can't make something a fact by just repeating it over and over.

[Rían]

Originally Posted by Curufin

Let me state again, the legalization of abortion is not about abortion, but about the place of government in our most personal and private lives.

It is not the place of the state to legislate morality...

Well, but it does, in many ways. Where people disagree is which moral opinions should be legislated against. And depending upon a person's unproven, unprovable worldview, there are different answers to this.

[Midge]

This drives me crazy!!! I am pulling out my hair while I read arguments that do not agree with mine; I can understand your reasoning, but I do not agree with it! I just feel like NOTHING is happening in this debate but redundancy.

I'll leave it for a while, before I start shouting and saying idiotic things...

But I might be back some day...

[Curufin]

That's a debate, Midge, you can't expect people to agree with you all the time.

But Kudos to you for knowing when you've had enough and getting out before it's too late.

[inked]

"Let me state again, the legalization of abortion is not about abortion, but about the place of government in our most personal and private lives."

Like laws about driver licenses, intoxication, breaking and entering, the military draft registration, purchasing a home, medical care, drug use....

and all those other ways the government doesn't regulate our private lives, C?

[Curufin]

It's a bit simplistic to group all those things together, inked.

Driver licenses, intoxication, breaking and entering, medical care, etc - these are things that affect the public good - i.e., are not personal but societal problems.

Abortion concerns the woman and the woman alone. It doesn't hurt her next door neighbor if the woman has an abortion - unlike the things that you stated. I know that you will say that it will 'hurt' the 'baby,' but that's just something we're going to have to agree to disagree on, as it gets into matters (mostly) of faith and partially of fuzzy, contested scientific knowledge of when a fetus becomes "viable." As I am not a doctor or a scientist (except of the political variety ) I have no right to speak on that matter.

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by Curufin

To me, science has very little to nothing to do with this debate. From the very moment of conception, the zygote/fetus/baby/whatever you want to call it - is the potential for human life. To deny that is ridiculous.

I don't think anyone is questioning whether a child in all its development stages from zygote to baby is human. But IMO there are two other aspects where all the differences in opinion hinge on. One is at which moment in its development we think it is alive and/or an individual. At conception? When it develops an nervous system? When its heart and/or lungs function independantly? When it's born? There is something going for all possibilities, I think, but much of the controversy deals with this aspect.

The second aspect is the degree of potential and how much value we attach to it. An embryo has the potential for becoming an adult individual. I have the potential of becoming a dictator who will force everyone to dig a frog pond in their garden. Nobody is locking me up just yet for that. Any nuclear powerplant has the potential of going Tchernobyl on us. We haven't shut all of them down. An acorn had the potential to become a huge tree, but that doesn't mean I will immediately buy the biggest pot I can find to plant it in. So clearly not all sorts of potentials are deemed important enough to warrant action. We tend to measure and weigh them in a degree. For some people the potential a single cell possesses to become an adult is not enough to value that cell just as we would an adult.

It's not suddenly going to turn into a frog at some point.

Darn, way to crush my hopes.

Originally Posted by Midge

This drives me crazy!!! I am pulling out my hair while I read arguments that do not agree with mine; I can understand your reasoning, but I do not agree with it! I just feel like NOTHING is happening in this debate but redundancy.

Such is the nature of controversial topics. All arguments get exhausted after a while, but opinions will not necessarily have changed. Round and round the debate goes.

If everyone agreed, this sort of topic wouldn't be controversial, now would it?

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

So why don't people agree on this "when"? Is it your opinion that everyone that doesn't agree with you is just irrational?

"Inadvisable"?

Oh, nevermind ...

Science gives us information that we hope is correct. What people DO with that information is not "science", it's personal opinion. Science, by itself, CANNOT give us the "correct" answer to this question; it can only give us information that we use to make a decision based on our personal opinions.

I'm sure inked knows your opinion about this. But that's all it is - your opinion. You can't make something a fact by just repeating it over and over.

You took three consecutive sentences, one leading to another, and managed not to get my point? Impressive!

Calling my opinion an opinion is touching. But these are all opinions, yours as mine. We disagree. I say a woman has the right to choose. You disagree. Deal with it, if you don't want to read my arguments for what they are, so be it

[Rían]

The point is that you don't HAVE arguments, Coffeehouse - you just state your opinions as if they are incontestable fact, and when people rightly question the validity of your statements, you say that they don't "get it".

I'd like to hear your thoughts on my observations on science.

And I think a woman has the right to choose - she can choose to not have sex if she doesn't want to risk getting pregnant. Rape is a special case - the VAST majority of abortions are from consensual sex.

And abortion is NOT only about the woman's body - there's also the baby's body, as well as the man who was involved (why do we hear so little about him?)

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

The point is that you don't HAVE arguments, Coffeehouse - you just state your opinions as if they are incontestable fact, and when people rightly question the validity of your statements, you say that they don't "get it".

I'd like to hear your thoughts on my observations on science.

And I think a woman has the right to choose - she can choose to not have sex if she doesn't want to risk getting pregnant. Rape is a special case - the VAST majority of abortions are from consensual sex.

And abortion is NOT only about the woman's body - there's also the baby's body, as well as the man who was involved (why do we hear so little about him?)

Rian, I have one, single, consistent argument that to me lends the weight on the question of abortion. If you can't handle that argument, that's fine. If you want to offer me a convincing counter-weight then you better offer some insights into why my argument that a woman's right to choose rests on her right to self-determination is wrong. I'm not going to repeat my argument yet again, you'll have to figure it out for yourself (hint: Sovereignty of body)

But save me distortions on what I've written, it makes for a poor strategy.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

Rape is a special case - the VAST majority of abortions are from consensual sex.

So, would you support abortion as a possibility in the case of rape?

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by Curufin

Driver licenses, intoxication, breaking and entering, medical care, etc - these are things that affect the public good - i.e., are not personal but societal problems.

Seat belts affect the public good? It damages the public good to smoke pot, or to wander down Main Street in the nude? I have difficulty seeing how these things are so.

You said that it is a potential human life; well and good! But should that not make it wrong to destroy it? Isn't it wrong, generally speaking, to end a human life? And wrong in such a way that it affects society? I see abortion as having a much larger effect on society, by depriving it of a future member, then an aging hippie lighting up a joint in Haight-Ashbury. This is especially true given the alarmingly low birth rates in the Western world (particularly in Europe).

[Jonathan]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

I see abortion as having a much larger effect on society, by depriving it of a future member, then an aging hippie lighting up a joint in Haight-Ashbury. This is especially true given the alarmingly low birth rates in the Western world (particularly in Europe).

Although not questioning that abortion might lead to lower birth rates, it's not entirely equal to depriving a society of a future member. After an abortion a woman can still deliver a baby at a later time.

[GrayMouser]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

I see abortion as having a much larger effect on society, by depriving it of a future member, then an aging hippie lighting up a joint in Haight-Ashbury. This is especially true given the alarmingly low birth rates in the Western world (particularly in Europe).

So you're going to encourage all those priests, monks and nuns to start having children?

You know what else deprives society of a future member? Banning in-vitro fertilisation.

[Linaewen]

Currently, in my state of Victoria, a bill is waiting to be passed through the upper house of Parliament. It essentially decriminalises abortion (for which no one has been prosecuted for over 20 years), but surprisingly that is not the most controversial issue. There is a huge fuss about one of the provisions, which states that a doctor with a moral objection to performing abortions must refer the patient to someone who doesn't share that objection. So, there is much debate as to whether this constitutes a violation of the freedom to conscience. Critics of the provision say that it makes someone with a moral objection complicit in an action they find abhorrent, like someone opposed to torture being forced to send the torturee (I think I made that word up) to someone else, knowing the consequences.

What do you guys think? Personally, I'm pro-choice, but I think the provision needs to be changed, if not removed. I agree that it does undermine the freedom of conscience. (I also feel that the bill is less likely to be passed with that provision in force, but I don't want to discuss the issue of abortion per se right now).

[Curufin]

I can see both sides on that - it's similar to the controversy here in the US a while back that Walgreen's pharmacists don't have to dispense contraceptives to patients if they have moral objections.

And although I can see both sides, mostly I disagree with this, and here's why. It is not the place of the doctor (or pharmacist) to make moral judgments for the patient. If something is legal, and a patient goes to a doctor/pharmacist requesting a legal procedure, then they have the right to receive that service.

It's not any different in my mind to me having to sell cigarettes at Walgreens - I have a moral objection to people smoking (especially around children, or while pregnant). I don't have the right to refuse the sale of cigarettes.

[Earniel]

I think the provision is not a bad one. I can see the conflict for the doctors, but it also (IMO) avoids another possible moral conflict. If the patient has her mind made up to have an abortion, what would any doctor prefer: That the patient is referred to someone capable or that she goes looking on her own for someone less qualified but more willing to do the abortion where she might end up damaging her health, and instead of one victim you might have two? That's not going to sit lightly on anyone's [Hippocratic] oath either.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Originally Posted by Eärniel

I think the provision is not a bad one. I can see the conflict for the doctors, but it also (IMO) avoids another possible moral conflict. If the patient has her mind made up to have an abortion, what would any doctor prefer: That the patient is referred to someone capable or that she goes looking on her own for someone less qualified but more willing to do the abortion where she might end up damaging her health, and instead of one victim you might have two? That's not going to sit lightly on anyone's Hypocratic oath either.

You'd think not. Yet the common belief among many anti-choice activists seems to be "let the punishment fit the crime"...gets very Old Testament, very fast.