A question for the pro abortion people

Discussion in 'Abortion' started by logical1, May 18, 2019.

  1. Meta777

    Meta777 Moderator Staff Member

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    Your logic is a bit flawed here. After-all, one can't claim trespassing if they invite a person over to their home and then lock them inside. Right?
    And they couldn't claim self-defense after handcuffing themselves to another person. Even if their life were endangered by the situation somehow,
    a self-defense argument might make a little more sense then, but even so, if the person claiming self-defense also contributed to the creation of that dangerous situation (e.g. by handcuffing an otherwise non-threatening person to themselves), then at the very least that person shares in the responsibility for creating such a situation in the first place, and ought to be held accountable for it.

    Pregnancy and abortion in essence involve a similar situation to the above. Because a fetus does not ever consent to being conceived, nor does a fetus conceive itself of it's own volition, rather its conception is a result of the actions of its parents - including the would-be mother... actions which generally (though not always) are under the complete control of those parents. And just like a trapped person shouldn't have to suffer simply for what their captor did to them, so too should it be that an unborn baby should not be expected to suffer for the irresponsibility of its would-be parents.

    Having said that though, if an abortion takes place at a point in time when a fetus is incapable of suffering, or when it has not yet even developed the necessary mental capacity for things like that, then all of the above quickly becomes a moot point. After-all, there's really no sense in protecting via law or bestowing rights upon an entity in which Mental Life has yet to begin... And protecting entities with the mere potential for Mental Life is just as senseless, which is why when it comes to abortion, I personally believe that any cutoff point to its legality should be placed at one of the following points (gestational) based on Pain Perception and Mental Life/Consciousness:

    -Thalamic Afferents (Week 20): Because its been theorized that connections between afferents may be capable of pain transmission
    -Thalamocortical Fibers (Week 23): Because a fetus cannot suffer feel or perceive pain without Thalamocortical Fibers
    -Thalamocortical Fibers (Week 29): Because a fetus cannot suffer feel or perceive pain without Functional Thalamocortical Fibers
    -Pain Perception Dvmnt (Week 23-29): Because a fetus cannot suffer feel or perceive pain without Functional Thalamocortical Fibers
    -Pain Perception Dvmnt (Week 20-29): Because this is the period in which a fetus develops the structures necessary for pain perception
    -Mental Life (Week 29): Because fetal consciousness cannot and has not been observed to occur before this point

    So what are your thoughts on that Ritter? And what are your thoughts on the more popular cutoff point of Viability (Week 24), which coincidentally happens to occur at around the same time as the Pain Perception and Mental Life milestones? Also, not sure if I asked you before, but I'd also be interested to read your thoughts on this compromise proposal that we came up with a while ago here at politicalforum following a ranked vote on the subject:

    http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/pf-abortion-reform-compromise.550627/
    From your recent posts, it was sort of sounding as if you felt there shouldn't be any restrictions at all on abortion. If that really is the case, would you then be opposed to the abortion cutoff points I mentioned before? And even if they aren't quite your ideal, do you think you could at least accept a proposal such as the above as a compromise on the issue?

    -Meta
     
  2. Ritter

    Ritter Well-Known Member

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    Since abortions are used to terminate unwanted pregnancy, it is contradictatory to regard the fetus as a guest. The real scenario here is not an invited guest whom you lock inside your home. The real scenario would be a burglar invading your house and chaining himself to your body demanding you take care of him or else he calls the police and tells them you did this to him.

    No one person has a right to live inside another person's body and no one person has the right to live of another person's body.

    Ending an unwanted pregnancy is not murder in any logical or moral sense of the word. It is self-defense.


    You seem to think it is the fetus who gives birth to the mother. Your logic is entirely upside-down; What has actually happened is not that the mother has handcuffed someone to her, but rather that someone else has handcuffed themselves to her demanding compensation in the form of love and food for no other reason than existing.


    I really do not get why you keep bringing up the ridiculous example of handcuffing a non-threatening person to oneself - A pregnancy is the exact opposite! It is the fetus that chains themselves to the woman and it is everything but a non-threatening situation to the woman.

    Yes, not taking responsibility for your sexuality has disastrous consequences and a man who unwillingly makes an equally unwilling woman pregnant are to be shamed for acting in a way that contradicts their goals. Absolutely. Abortion, however, is not part of the pronlem.

    Is that simply a moral preference of yours or is it a principled opinion you are prepared to stay behind no matter what?

    Cutoff-points are always arbitrary and speculative. Why 24 weeks and not 23 weeks and 4 days? Why not 25 weeks?

    These government-mandated limits are pushed not in concern for the parent(s) and the unborn, but rather to satisfy the hubris and megalomania of the political leaders themselves. I have no medical training and would prefer if those with knowledge were left to decide. The market can solve this dilemma much better than anyone else.

    I really do not see where the compromise in this suggestion lies. It is a Pro Life solution and all I can say is; good luck finding middle ground with Pro Choicers by suggesting abortion should be restricted to a dubiously picked time in the pregnancy.

    Do I think there should be no restrictions at all on abortion? Well, ideal would of course be if there would not have to be any abortions in the first place. However, we do not live in that ideal and my honest answer to your question is that I don't know. I trust Abortion Clinics have the expertise to decide when it is tight and when it is not. Competition between Abortion Clinics would then allow the market to set the ideal cutoff period - Maybe it will be 24 weeks or maybe just 24 days. I have no clue.

    What you have suggested is not even a compromise. It is Pro Life policies with a pinch of sugar.
     
    Last edited: Mar 25, 2020
  3. Meta777

    Meta777 Moderator Staff Member

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    On that point you're wrong I'd say. Burglary implies that the person invading your home did so with intent.
    When it comes to being conceived in another's body, a fetus has no such intent, it has no choice in the matter at all actually,
    because without a functioning brain or consciousness to begin with, it is incapable of choosing.
    In other words, the fetus has no control over the matter.

    The to-be mother on the other hand does have some control, assuming no outside interference.
    Except in cases of rape, she has some control over the process that would lead to the impregnation.
    And in general she also has control over when where and if the resulting life is to be terminated. That is to say, she can choose (if misguided policies do not get in the way) to terminate that pregnancy before it becomes an issue of contrasting rights... that is, before Mental life/Consciousness and pain perception develop in the fetus. Waiting 'till after that point to do so is another spot of irresponsibility on the mother's part imo if she had the opportunity to do so before.

    When it comes to the fetus's right to not be killed though, whether its wanted or not shouldn't matter if its reached a point where we might qualify it for that right. As going back to the trapped house guest example, let's say you invited them over locked them in and then lost the key all by mistake somehow. How would that happen? Doesn't really matter, perhaps you were drunk. Does that automatically give you the right to kill them at will just because you now prefer they weren't there? The point I'm trying to make is that no it does not. You might be justified in killing if your own life becomes endangered by the situation somehow, but to the extent that the situation was created through your own negligence, you ought to be held accountable for that imo if it results in the death and or suffering of another conscious being who was without fault.

    Actually, I don't think that at all.

    A being with no brain cannot "demand" anything of anyone. Nor can one without a consciousness/free-will.
    Perhaps after its born it will "demand" such things, but again, as a fetus it cannot make such choices.
    As for who's handcuffing themselves to who, ask yourself again, who is it who has conscious control
    over the creation of the situation? It ain't the fetus, that's for sure, because prior to conception,
    not only does it not have a consciousness… it doesn't even exist at all!

    The way I see things, blaming a fetus for its own creation inside of a womb is much the same
    as blaming a rock someone chunked into a lake for splashing up water. It just doesn't make any sense.

    It is my opinion on what the moral principle should be.
    If you're asking if I'd ever consider changing my mind,
    I'm always open to that if someone comes along and
    makes a compelling argument to the contrary.
    But I haven't seen such an argument yet.

    -Meta
     
  4. Meta777

    Meta777 Moderator Staff Member

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    Arbitrary suggests that something is not based on any firm foundation or meaningful justification.
    I would agree that a lot of points that people tend to discuss on this subject are indeed arbitrary,
    but its incorrect to say that a cutoff point must be arbitrary. The one's I noted in fact are based
    at a high-level on two concepts, that of Mental life/Consciousness and of Pain Perception.

    At a lower lever, they stem from points in development when certain structures form within
    the brain of the growing fetus. Not every fetus develops at the same rate of course.
    If that slight lack in absolute determinability is an issue, then that's what upper
    and lower bounds are for. If needed, rather than choosing a single cutoff point
    both upper and lower bounds can be used at the same time to create a range
    instead, such as is the case in two of the suggestions I posted.

    As for Viability (Week 24), naturally I don't think its quite as good of a justification
    as the ones I use, but at the same time I would not call that one arbitrary either.
    It at the very least has a clear definition denoting its meaning medically speaking:
    i.e. the point at which a fetus has at least a 50% chance of survival if born at that time.

    That proposal is the middle ground. At least among those who participated in the vote.
    It was constructed by tallying the results of the vote, which consisted of ranked options.

    During those discussions and the vote we had members from across the spectrum on this issue, from those who would have preferred abortion be outlawed from the point of conception to those who wanted it to be legal all the way up through birth. We even had some who, like you, wanted it to be decided on a case-by-case basis by the medical community, that was actually one of the options in the vote. Of those positions, the consensus that lay between them all was that contraceptive availability should be improved and that the cutoff should be at 24 weeks with exception for life/health of the mother etc. and all the rest. That was the compromise we came up with.
    Whether everyone can agree with that compromise is another matter.

    -Meta
     
  5. yguy

    yguy Well-Known Member

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    From this we may reliably infer that modern women are too dehumanized to perceive adultery as the dehumanizing behavior it clearly is.
    Obviously that's nothing like the real scenario, as unborn children don't invade a womb any more than a hamburger ever invaded my guts.
     
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  6. FoxHastings

    FoxHastings Well-Known Member

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    Is that why MEN are so dehumanized ?
     
  7. XploreR

    XploreR Well-Known Member

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    If I gave you the individual components of a computer, but disassembled, would you regard that as a completed product? Would it be "a computer." A fetus has all the components of a human being, but it remains in formation, but incomplete as a "human being," until it is capable of sustaining its own bodily life functions without reliance on another human being. When it can, it's a human being, with all the rights & privileges available to all other human beings. That crucial turning point is regarded as about 6 months into the pregnancy, although in some individual cases, that time frame may vary. But giving an undeveloped, unfinished fetus the same rights & protections as a baby after birth, causes more problems than it solves, & endangers the rights of humans already under the protections of our Constitution.
     
  8. XploreR

    XploreR Well-Known Member

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    A question for the pro abortion people
    I am Pro-Choice. I'm not acquainted with any "Pro-Abortion" people. Where did you find them?
     

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