I saw this on a friend's Facebook status today. I personally tend to be a fence-sitter on a lot of issues regarding being pro-life or pro-choice. They seem to bring up more questions then they do concrete answers about what is and isn't moral.
Just to make it clear, I am pro-choice. However, this video reminds me of a conversation I was having with some co-workers a few days ago. One of them, who tends to have views that I don't agree with at all, said that she would have an abortion if she found out that her baby would be disabled, not because she is selfish, but because of issues with quality of life.
I personally find this mindset, and this video, to be somewhat disturbing, even though I can sympathize with the mother. It's difficult to say whether or not this is right or wrong especially since the children can't speak for themselves.
I think there probably are circumstances in which euthanasia really is a just, moral thing to do. I mean, I can imagine some that fit and they're far from unheard of out in the world. They mostly center around adults in greatest distressing pain and suffering from terminal illness with no hope of recovery, aside from miracles.
Where I start to get really uneasy is when it begins to be seriously suggested for things like mental disabilities, or paralysis, or so on and so forth. Before I really sat down and gave it a good think, I forget when but years ago, I thought about it only in a very surface way and reached the typical sort of conclusions, such as 'I'd rather be dead than in a wheelchair', stuff like that. But essays like the one rivka posted, compelling in their own right, also got me to ask the question, "Would I really rather be dead than paralyzed?" And once I really asked myself that I had to say I didn't know-and then to acknowledge that there really are quite a lot of people who are stricken with the sorts of things that are commonly said to be worse than death...but they don't routinely go forth and kill themselves, not even a majority of them, not even a sizable minority-and it seems pretty unlikely to me that the limiting factor is their inability to see it (suicide) done. With plenty of time, a lack of fear of consequences from other human beings, and a strong commitment, I think we would see quite a lot more suicide amongst the afflicted than we do now, which then points to the strong possibility that when something as serious as a life-altering injury or illness strikes at us, we frequently reconsider opinions that we didn't think much about before.
Anyway. All of this is quite separate for supporting the right of person x to decide for person y whether they want to live or not. On the less serious end of the spectrum of mental impairment, nobody can credibly deny that they can live lives with joy, and bring that to others, and make the world a better place by their presence. Further along when it becomes difficult to communicate, well, perhaps we can GUESS the quality of life is so low that it would be avoided by that person if they could, but...seems like a lot of uncertainty. Especially when you consider our attitude towards people with disabilities.
Posted by CT (Member # 8342) on :
I think things are complicated. They are complicated in almost every aspect in this area.
I am certain that the complicated parts least likely to be seen are the sorts of things Rakeesh mentioned: i.e., that when people (even those who thought otherwise before) actually lose particular abilities, they generally don't choose to die -- especially not when they have a chance to talk with others in the same position who have the very basic supports we should be taking for granted as members of a civilized society.
And I know this: when you ask children with disabilities about their own quality of life, they routinely as a whole rank it higher than their physicians do. And higher than do their parents. This has been researched over and over, and the findings are consistent.
There is so much fear about disability. There is so much that is driven by that fear, and it drives decisions, choices, and judgments that people may never even be aware they are making.
This is a powerful, powerful reason for inclusion. Frankly, we should all know enough people who live ordinary lives full of love, joy, anger, frustration, challenge, satisfaction, and the whole gamut of a normal human life -- on the full spectrum of various disabilities and abilities -- that those choices and decisions can be more accurate and based in truth, not fear.
Yes, living with disabilities can be a challenge. Some are more challenging than others. I never want to minimize that. It's good cause to make sure adequate support is available, funded, and common. But those challenges shouldn't be something any of us should be afraid to see clearly rather than filtered through a lens of ignorance, fear, or whatever it is that makes for the disparities of judgment above.
[ May 03, 2012, 07:47 AM: Message edited by: CT ]
Posted by CT (Member # 8342) on :
He's a Canadian who writes a daily blog about what is going on in his life, often to do with disability but sometimes just little snippets of this and that. Ruby (I believe his niece) likes to take rides with him on his wheelchair. He and his partner Joe have their favorite shops and restaurants. (Dave likes a good tea. A lot.)
He travels often because he works as a lecturer and guest speaker or teacher across Canada and, I believe, down in the US as well. He had been working in assistance to those with disability before beginning to use a wheelchair for mobility himself. He has a sharp brain and a keen sense of humor, and he knows how to tell a story.
If you don't know someone well with disabilities, that blog is a pleasant way to get to know Dave. Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:And I know this: when you ask children with disabilities about their own quality of life, they routinely as a whole rank it higher than their physicians do. And higher than do their parents. This has been researched over and over, and the findings are consistent.
This touches on another thing that it seems few people realize. You'll be able to comment on this much more knowledgably than I will, CT, but it seems that quite often when actual studies are done (having read a couple but heard more often of them on documentaries, news reports, etc.) on how humans think before something happens, and what they think after it happens, it seems that often we're actually pretty bad at predicting how we will feel about something, when it's an experience new or uncommon to us. In this case it shows up as people almost never, in fact, preferring death to a life with a disability once the choice is actually presented to them.
Posted by AchillesHeel (Member # 11736) on :
Hi, I was born with a congenitally deformed foot and have lived my entire life in pain.
Life no matter how difficult is still better being... um... alive? rather than killed before birth for being something other than perfect. So in a small way, you all know someone who has always been and always will be disabled. The LGBT community has adopted the phrase "It gets better" but in the case of disabled people that is not always the case. But I can attest that being is whole lot better than never having been, and I say this as someone who was born despite my mother having her tubes tied and was almost not born with the health care to correct my foot as much as they could (my mother had to cooperate with an investigation regarding an ahcccs employee, not fun.) Quite literally I should not have been conceived, I should not be able to walk, and on top of all that some people say that I shouldn't have been allowed to be born the way I am is infuriating.
The very idea challenges my right to live at all.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Well, another of the layers of complexity on this is that very few people think or would at least own up to thinking publically to the idea of aborting a pregnancy because of a congenital foot deformation. But...it really does seem to me that there are more than a few head-fakes in that direction, towards the logical response towards the horror and revulsion our culture often demonstrates towards disability or handicap-out of sight, out of mind. When applied to pregnancy, there aren't many pleasant ways that thinking can turn out.
Posted by AchillesHeel (Member # 11736) on :
This autistic girl at the age of eleven, having never been able to communicate with anyone before or shown any interest in a computer began typing on her own. She now uses a laptop as the bridge between herself and the people she loves, who she has always loved but could never tell them without a computer and a lot of patience on her part.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Euthanasia is one of those snakepit moral issues. It will probably end up being like abortion in terms of how attempts to forbid the practice will invariably drift away and fail.
Posted by AchillesHeel (Member # 11736) on :
Articles from last year about abortions in the U.K. for "sensitive" abortions like cleft palate and club foot. Bluntly put from a man with a club foot, they kill people like me.
quote: As usual, my hope that this news would give rise to a huge outcry among women (especially those who are, or would like to be, mothers) was dashed: in our disposable culture, what's more disposable than a less than perfect specimen? The fact that 2290 abortions for medical problems (including cleft palate and club foot) took place last year seems to be taken as a matter of course: why would a woman, the implication is, wish to spawn a deformed baby? No one points out that there are operations that can fix both cleft palate and club foot; and certainly no one would dare say anything as old-fashioned as "every one is made in God's image and therefore special".
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
If abortion is killing, it's pretty much always wrong. If it's not killing, I don't see why doing it selectively should be a problem.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
Assuming, of course, that "is killing" is strictly binary.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
Or that killing and murder are synonymous. I'm glad to see MPH own up to the distinction, actually. I had forgotten whether you were a hard liner on this issue.
For myself, on the matter of abortion, I am strong a believer in the right of choice obviating the question of moral certitude. A person has the right *not* to harbor another life on her body. That right superseding the rights of that other life. As genuinely tragic as that may be, I think it is the most just system.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
I don't think that it's identical to killing a person, but then I also don't consider babies fully human yet. I do think something that could be describe as it mostly likely being like killing, or mostly killing, with the possibility that it is fully so.
For myself, on the matter abortion, believe almost the exact opposite of you. The right to live (and the evil of killing) eclipses the rights of choice or personal autonomy. As genuinely tragic as that may be, I think it is the most just system.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by Destineer: If abortion is killing, it's pretty much always wrong. If it's not killing, I don't see why doing it selectively should be a problem.
Yeah, I agree with you on this one. (I think I've said this before, too. It's why I have so much contempt for the pro-choice movement, despite largely agreeing with their conclusion.)
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
The existence of particular people with disabilities whose lives are nonetheless worthwhile, does not demonstrate that life is worthwhile for all people with disabilities, which is what is required to show that euthanasia can never be the right thing.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Well, now that we're talking about abortion? Same thing. Attempts to forbid it will fail in a way which will foretell how the battle for euthanasia rights will go.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
quote:Originally posted by Destineer: If abortion is killing, it's pretty much always wrong. If it's not killing, I don't see why doing it selectively should be a problem.
Are you making a distinction between "wrong" and "illegal" here? You might want to say that killing is pretty much always wrong, but it's certainly legal in many situations, mainly involving self defense. Similarly, it might be argued that while abortion is pretty much always wrong, there are a class of cases where it should nevertheless be legal.
It's also worth mentioning that it could be (is) argued that abortion is only killing after a certain point, before which it's not.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:Euthanasia is one of those snakepit moral issues. It will probably end up being like abortion in terms of how attempts to forbid the practice will invariably drift away and fail.
I agree that it's a snakepit issue morally speaking, but I disagree that it's like abortion. With abortion, it seems to me, the central question is, "Is a fetus a human being, and if so, at what point does it become one?" Everyone knows that left alone, at some point if it's not already, it will become human barring less artificial mishaps.
That's not quite the case with euthanasia, in quite a lot of situations where it's bandied about. With many of them, the subject is unequivocally human-the stereotypical case of someone in hopeless agony on their deathbed, or someone paralyzed from the neck down. Some people would suggest euthanasia be permissible in both cases, either if the person asks for it or has made provisions for it prior to the incident-and sometimes even if they haven't.
As for other cases, such as children with mental disabilities for instance, it's different from abortion in other ways. Once it's out, the child that is, we've unquestionably got a duty to protect it-that's fundamental to all humanity, though of course methods differ greatly, and that wasn't always the case. There is no such common ground with respect to fetuses. Furthermore, we aren't talking about, for example, a tiny organism that weighs fractions of an ounce, gestating in a womb. Questions of its humanity in that case are necessarily...difficult.
With an adult or a child suffering from some sort of mental disability, though...well, it's not a question of what makes someone a human being as in the intangibles, self-awareness or something. Or at least, we ARE talking about that, but the answer to that question lies in whether or not the child or adult can be communicated with. It's not some sort of conceptual thing, as with a very young fetus. It's a question of knowing whether the brain in there is working in a way we would call human (and what qualifies as human, too), and how we can find out, IF we can find out.
quote:The existence of particular people with disabilities whose lives are nonetheless worthwhile, does not demonstrate that life is worthwhile for all people with disabilities, which is what is required to show that euthanasia can never be the right thing.
I don't believe anyone here has suggested it cannot ever be the right thing. Furthermore, if 'demonstration of a worthwhile life' is the standard we're going to use before permitting someone(thing) to be killed...well. I don't claim you were suggesting that, bear in mind, but only point it out to highlight a difficulty with your argument.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: For myself, on the matter abortion, believe almost the exact opposite of you. The right to live (and the evil of killing) eclipses the rights of choice or personal autonomy. As genuinely tragic as that may be, I think it is the most just system.
Both are duly complex in implication.
On the one hand, favoring the right to life leads to questions of moral responsibility to others over the self, for example, is it morally just to preserve one's own life or autonomy in any circumstance where that freedom jeopardizes the life of another? Chances are you're going to feel differently depending on the exact circumstances.
On the other, favoring the right to personal autonomy also leads to the same questions: when is it morally unjust to maintain complete control over your own life and body? But ultimately, in my estimation, the less inherently contradictory stance is to favor personal autonomy. Even as both stances contain internal contradictions viz. personal rights and freedoms.
There's also the matter of what you think is morally right, and the way you actually want the law to function. I, for one, find the idea of abortion horrifying. But I also recognize that to not allow it seriously contradicts the basic rights of personal freedom layed out in our system of laws. I wouldn't have abortion outlawed, if only because I think that kind of change in our stance towards personal freedoms would be damaging to that system- even more damaging and morally unjust than allowing abortion. Either way you sit the fence, though, I think you have to cop to some level of taking the bad with the good.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Strider:
quote:Originally posted by Destineer: If abortion is killing, it's pretty much always wrong. If it's not killing, I don't see why doing it selectively should be a problem.
Are you making a distinction between "wrong" and "illegal" here? You might want to say that killing is pretty much always wrong, but it's certainly legal in many situations, mainly involving self defense. Similarly, it might be argued that while abortion is pretty much always wrong, there are a class of cases where it should nevertheless be legal.
It's also worth mentioning that it could be (is) argued that abortion is only killing after a certain point, before which it's not.
Mmmm. I'm always fascinated by those laws that have to do with, and I hope a lawyer will interject the actual terminology used here, the preeminent right of self-preservation.
For example, in some instances, if two people are drowning in the sea, and one is a stronger swimmer than the other, and the weak one is grabbing onto the stronger one to survive, it could be deemed legal, in that context, for the stronger swimmer to kill the weaker one in order not to die himself. It could be read as simple self-defense,but the interesting distinction is that there is no attack involved. The weaker one is simply endangering the other. The practical details can be told a thousand ways, but the fact is that there is a lack of moral certainty about killing in every situation.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: With abortion, it seems to me, the central question is, "Is a fetus a human being, and if so, at what point does it become one?"
It seems to me that that is a fundamental and common misunderstanding of the what that central question of abortion is.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
It's really not, kmbboots. It is the central issue because all other issues, however important they may be, are either relevant or not based on its answer. If the fetus is a human being, then we have to ask whether or not another human being has the right to kill that human being by right of its reliance on its body. We have to decide to what extent, if at all, the human being having been invited in many cases to subsist off another human being's body has any bearing on the question.
If, however, that fetus ISN'T a human being and is instead only a cluster of organic matter, then almost without exception we would all believe we could do as we wished with it. Of course it's the central question, even when it cannot be answered and must be tabled for the time being.
Knowing a little about your politics on issues of foreign policy, health care, and the criminal justice system, it is frankly *very* odd that you wouldn't think the question of deciding whether something is human before killing it shouldn't be central. Bluntly: are you sure that's not because that particular question is potentially much more disadvantageous to your position?
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh:
quote:Euthanasia is one of those snakepit moral issues. It will probably end up being like abortion in terms of how attempts to forbid the practice will invariably drift away and fail.
I agree that it's a snakepit issue morally speaking, but I disagree that it's like abortion.
It is .. in the way I am specifically referencing. That abortion laws have fallen away in a manner that I believe will resemble the process that will advance voluntary euthanasia rights.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
All these comparisons between abortion and euthanasia ignore the central ethical controversy that underlies the abortion debate. When considering abortion, it's critical to recognize that there is a direct and irresolvable conflict between the rights of the fetus and the right of the mother to have sovereignty over her own body.
No equivalent conflict exists for euthanasia and so it's highly unlikely that the debate will follow the same course.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: It's really not, kmbboots. It is the central issue because all other issues, however important they may be, are either relevant or not based on its answer. If the fetus is a human being, then we have to ask whether or not another human being has the right to kill that human being by right of its reliance on its body. We have to decide to what extent, if at all, the human being having been invited in many cases to subsist off another human being's body has any bearing on the question.
If, however, that fetus ISN'T a human being and is instead only a cluster of organic matter, then almost without exception we would all believe we could do as we wished with it. Of course it's the central question, even when it cannot be answered and must be tabled for the time being.
Knowing a little about your politics on issues of foreign policy, health care, and the criminal justice system, it is frankly *very* odd that you wouldn't think the question of deciding whether something is human before killing it shouldn't be central. Bluntly: are you sure that's not because that particular question is potentially much more disadvantageous to your position?
I think that the human/cluster of cells question is unanswerable. It is possibly both. It is certainly potentially human so even if it is a cluster of cells, there are still moral repercussions. This is the question that can be tabled unless we assume that any other being - human or not - has a right to use another human being's body - blood, tissue, organs - without their permission and whether such a right should be legally enforced.
quote: All these comparisons between abortion and euthanasia ignore the central ethical controversy that underlies the abortion debate. When considering abortion, it's critical to recognize that there is a direct and irresolvable conflict between the rights of the fetus and the right of the mother to have sovereignty over her own body.
No equivalent conflict exists for euthanasia and so it's highly unlikely that the debate will follow the same course.
Exactly right, Rabbit.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: It's really not, kmbboots. It is the central issue because all other issues, however important they may be, are either relevant or not based on its answer. If the fetus is a human being, then we have to ask whether or not another human being has the right to kill that human being by right of its reliance on its body. We have to decide to what extent, if at all, the human being having been invited in many cases to subsist off another human being's body has any bearing on the question.
If, however, that fetus ISN'T a human being and is instead only a cluster of organic matter, then almost without exception we would all believe we could do as we wished with it. Of course it's the central question, even when it cannot be answered and must be tabled for the time being.
I didn't see this before my last post but I'd like to address it now. The question of whether (or to what extent) a fetus is human is an important part of the abortion controversy, but it is not the central issue.
There are several major flaws in your line of reasoning.
First, you are arguing a false dichotomy. A fetus does not have to be either a being deserving of full human rights or a lump of cells of no moral consequence. A fetus can deserve some moral consideration even if its not the same moral consideration as an adult human. Most people recognize an intrinsic value to life, even if its not human life. A lot of people, very likely most people, consider killing of any living being to be an ethical issue. Everyone I know personally, considers wanton destruction of non-human life to be unethical. Even the people I know who are avid hunters consider killing an animal to be unethical unless you make good use the meat and skins. Despite all the hyperbolic rhetoric about "killing babies", I have yet to meet anyone who looks on abortion with the same degree of horror they have for infanticide or who believes that a woman who has an abortion should receive the same sentence as a murderer. Conversely, I suspect that anyone who claims they can see no difference between a fetus and a mole is either dishonest or willfully ignorant.
But that isn't the central problem with your argument. All moral or ethical controversies arise as a result of a conflict between moral imperatives. Moral dilemmas are therefore always about compromise. They are always about weighing and balancing two sides of an equation. The central issue can not be about the absolute value of one side of the equation. It is inherently about the relative values of the two sides. People can always argue that one side has no value at all or that the other is of infinite value, but that tends toward irrational indefensible conclusions. If there were not genuine value on both sides -- the controversy would never have arisen.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote: It is certainly potentially human so even if it is a cluster of cells, there are still moral repercussions.
An adult human is also a cluster of cells. Unless you believe in an immortal spirit, every living thing is just a cluster of cells. So what? Many people believe life has intrinsic value even though they believe life is nothing more than chemical reactions.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: No equivalent conflict exists for euthanasia and so it's highly unlikely that the debate will follow the same course.
My comparison is not saying it is going to follow the same course, except in the most general sense.
As in, I think there will eventually be a roe v. wade moment that brings forth in this country the legal right of patients to request drug-enduced euthanasia, rather than the much more arduous ways we already permit patients to voluntarily end their lives, simply by sort of pretending they aren't-really-euthanasia-in-some-sense (for instance, patients may voluntarily refuse food and water in order to dehydrate to death — VRFF is available and practiced in hospices here).
And that, if you follow the lessons learned in the general changing of attitude and the waning of the steadfast (and usually theological at their core) objections against the practice through generations, I believe one will find many parallels between the two struggles.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:I think that the human/cluster of cells question is unanswerable. It is possibly both. It is certainly potentially human so even if it is a cluster of cells, there are still moral repercussions. This is the question that can be tabled unless we assume that any other being - human or not - has a right to use another human being's body - blood, tissue, organs - without their permission and whether such a right should be legally enforced.
Fair enough. I didn't mean to suggest that it must necessarily be completely human or not at all human, but I communicated badly there. I also think it's very possible it might in fact (if there can be a clear cut fact for something such as this) a shading of organism/human.
But in any event, it's still the central question, even if it's tabled. Nobody anywhere seriously questions the right of a human being to, say, get a breast reduction or enlargment, or lipo suction-because it's their body and the stuff they're removing is just human tissue of one kind of another. Even in totally cosmetic cases.
The reason it's the central question is that it is the one that has to be asked first: is a fetus human, and if so, to what extent, and how do we know that? The question cannot be answered outside of faith or belief, it's true, but it's still the first one we have to ask. Once that question is dealt with, either by tabling it or answering it, then we start to decide when and to what extent one human being has the right to end another's life if they are using their body to survive.
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quote:First, you are arguing a false dichotomy. A fetus does not have to be either a being deserving of full human rights or a lump of cells of no moral consequence. A fetus can deserve some moral consideration even if its not the same moral consideration as an adult human. Most people recognize an intrinsic value to life, even if its not human life. A lot of people, very likely most people, consider killing of any living being to be an ethical issue. Everyone I know personally, considers wanton destruction of non-human life to be unethical. Even the people I know who are avid hunters consider killing an animal to be unethical unless you make good use the meat and skins. Despite all the hyperbolic rhetoric about "killing babies", I have yet to meet anyone who looks on abortion with the same degree of horror they have for infanticide or who believes that a woman who has an abortion should receive the same sentence as a murderer. Conversely, I suspect that anyone who claims they can see no difference between a fetus and a mole is either dishonest or willfully ignorant.
Yup, like kmbboots you're right. I worded that badly. As for wanton killing of non-human life being considered unethical...well, it really does depend on what we deem wanton, doesn't it? Without a doubt, us human beings are killing vastly more pigs, chickens, and cows than we need to survive. I mean, by staggering overwhelming proportions, particularly in the developed world. But very few people consider that an ethical problem-the closest most people get is considering the treatment of those animals before we kill them for leisure eating an ethical consideration.
quote:But that isn't the central problem with your argument. All moral or ethical controversies arise as a result of a conflict between moral imperatives. Moral dilemmas are therefore always about compromise. They are always about weighing and balancing two sides of an equation. The central issue can not be about the absolute value of one side of the equation. It is inherently about the relative values of the two sides. People can always argue that one side has no value at all or that the other is of infinite value, but that tends toward irrational indefensible conclusions. If there were not genuine value on both sides -- the controversy would never have arisen.
True enough, but I think perhaps you misunderstood what I meant about central questions-which is my fault, given my wording. I didn't mean that it was the central question in the sense that it was the only problem whose answer had any relevance. I meant it was the central question in the sense that the answer to that question determined whether or not almost all of the other questions even come up. If we are to answer that we cannot know if a fetus is a human being, or that it is a blend between human and animal organism-both very valid arguments, IMO, which I actually agree with-then the very real, pressing question of when one human being may cause the death of another by stopping it from using its body comes into play, whether it was invited or not.
But if the answer to the first question is 'no, it's completely a non-human organism', if a person thinks that, then if they really believe it they won't even have to ask other questions-the woman may morally do exactly as she likes with the fetus, just as she may decide at any point to have her breasts reduced or enlarged, or her tummy tucked, or her nose narrowed, or her kidney donated, or so on and so forth.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
Some of us don't put "humans" in any special category. Framing the question in "human-vs-non-human", or even "special blends" still brings in a lot of assumptions. So does framing it in terms of "rights exist." I believe rights are a useful social construct, but they aren't "real", and are definitely not sacred, inalienable things that you can't compromise on when necessary.
I'm not sure I can summarize my framework here, but the relevant question for me is something like "does the fetus have preferences about the world yet?" I only care about things that care about things.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
Even that framing is somewhat problematic Raymond. You need to spell out more details.
People who are asleep don't really care about things while they're asleep, but they will care about things when they wake up. Fetus' will eventually care about things too.
Also, it may be argued that certain organisms can experience pain and pleasure, but who don't "care about things" in any meaningful way (beyond those in the moment experiences). i.e. - pain objectively causes them suffering, but they don't have the capacity to reflect and think, "man, this suffering really sucks". they have no ability to contemplate counterfactuals, etc...So how you're defining "care" is also important.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:I meant it was the central question in the sense that the answer to that question determined whether or not almost all of the other questions even come up.
You could just as easily argue that the central question is whether a woman should have the right of sovereign control of her body. If you believe women should not have that right, then all the other questions don't even come up. Either argument ignores the fundamental moral complexity of the issue.
quote:But if the answer to the first question is 'no, it's completely a non-human organism', if a person thinks that, then if they really believe it they won't even have to ask other questions-the woman may morally do exactly as she likes with the fetus, just as she may decide at any point to have her breasts reduced or enlarged, or her tummy tucked, or her nose narrowed, or her kidney donated, or so on and so forth.
No. Deciding that the fetus is a completely non-human organism is not equivalent to deciding it deserves no more moral consideration than a kidney. We have laws governing what you can do to your pet cat or dog and no one is arguing that they are human organisms. The question of whether or not a fetus is a human being is not the same as the question of whether it deserves moral consideration.
Scientifically, the fetus is not a part of the woman's body. It is a genetically distinct individual being. Even if it is not yet human, it is not equivalent to her kidneys.
And if you want to get technical, we have all kinds of laws and regulations governing elective surgery and the donation of kidneys. A 16 year old girl could not legally have a mole removed without permission of a parent or guardian. The question of parental consent for abortions (a point of major controversy) does not depend at all on the question of whether the fetus is human.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
quote:Originally posted by Strider: Even that framing is somewhat problematic Raymond. You need to spell out more details.
People who are asleep don't really care about things while they're asleep, but they will care about things when they wake up. Fetus' will eventually care about things too.
Also, it may be argued that certain organisms can experience pain and pleasure, but who don't "care about things" in any meaningful way (beyond those in the moment experiences). i.e. - pain objectively causes them suffering, but they don't have the capacity to reflect and think, "man, this suffering really sucks". they have no ability to contemplate counterfactuals, etc...So how you're defining "care" is also important.
I'm aware of that. Also aware that my moral framework is still hazy and contradictory, even if I did take the time to write it all out. I'm not sure I even believe in a "continuous self".
But the point is, there's nothing special about human DNA that factors into my moral schema. Just some qualities that feature more prominently in humans than other animals. I definitely ascribe fetuses less personhood than an adult chimpanzee.
The "are you a person while you're asleep" issue is problematic. But if we care about "potential people" who have never been people at ALL, then even drawing the line at conception is arbitrary.
[ May 07, 2012, 02:38 PM: Message edited by: Raymond Arnold ]
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:I only care about things that care about things.
Is this really true or just poorly articulated? I know that I care deeply about many things that are very unlikely to care about things.
For example, I care a great deal about the health of our planet, even thought I don't expect the planet cares whether we destroy it or not. I am continually awed at the beauty and complexity of our planet. I find mountains, rain forests, coral reefs, deserts and glaciers to be things of intrinsic worth. I care about them even though I have no expectation that they care about themselves.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: The "are you a person while you're asleep" issue is problematic. But if we care about "potential people" who have never been people at ALL, then even drawing the line at conception is arbitrary.
Sure, I don't mean to imply that potentiality is some sort of trump card at all. Only that it's a consideration that needs to be sorted out. I'm not entirely unagreeable to the point your pushing at, but I think the care formulation, as you've presented it so far, is ambiguous. When do they need to care? How much? I can make all sorts of decisions for my child that they don't care about now, but that they will greatly care about later, some of those decisions are going to be considered more wrong than others. Like selling them into slavery. Or promising them in marriage. etc...
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
The big problem I see with the "care" formulation is that it is genuinely impossible to determine with any certainty whether anything other than myself "cares" and what they really care about.
I think its a reasonable presumption that when something behaves the way I would when I care, its likely that that thing cares, but I know the converse is unlikely to be true. Even when we are talking about other human beings who share my language, it's often difficult to determine what a person really cares about. If you can't communicate with a thing, even with body language, what chance do you have of determining whether it cares. How could I even begin to guess whether or not a tree cares if it's cut down?
I think its a reasonable presumption that a new born baby cares. It's ability to communicate is limited but it is sufficient to let its parents know when it is hungry or uncomfortable. I'm also quite comfortable presuming that a newly fertilized egg does not "care" what happens to it. What I'm uncomfortable with is my ability to determine at what point between fertilization and birth a baby begins to care enough that it might warrant me being concerned about what it wants or how I might determine what it wanted.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
quote:Is this really true or just poorly articulated? I know that I care deeply about many things that are very unlikely to care about things.
Poorly articulated. I considered how much of my moral scheme I wanted to go into (because it really doesn't condense down into a useful soundbyte). Rather than predict which qualms people would have with it and address them, I decided to post the simplest one and then respond to criticisms as they came.
One extrapolation from "I care about things that care about things" is that I also care about the things other people care about.
quote: I'm not entirely unagreeable to the point your pushing at, but I think the care formulation, as you've presented it so far, is ambiguous
While I could narrow it down somewhat, I don't have a non-ambiguous answer. Any rule I've come up with resulted in contradicting moral intuitions that seemed clearly wrong to me.
The closest rule I can think of is that once an agent exists (with preferences), then I care about its future preferences.
(If you have a framework that you think is similar to what I'm aiming at, but you consider better developed, I'd like to hear it)
((I'm trying NOT to dedicate too much time to this while I'm at work, I'll probably write something better thought out later tonight))
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:My comparison is not saying it is going to follow the same course, except in the most general sense.
As in, I think there will eventually be a roe v. wade moment that brings forth in this country the legal right of patients to request drug-enduced euthanasia, rather than the much more arduous ways we already permit patients to voluntarily end their lives.
If you are talking strictly about terminally ill but mentally competent patients who choose to be euthanized, then I agree that it is likely that our society will most likely legalize euthanasia at some point in the not too distant future.
If you are including cases like the one in the OP, where a parent or guardian wants to euthanize a disabled but not terminally ill person who is unable to communicate their own desires, then I disagree.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: (If you have a framework that you think is similar to what I'm aiming at, but you consider better developed, I'd like to hear it)
I do have a developed framework, but I fear that posting it here will lead to the same problems you've come up against. Either I have to devote an inordinate amount of time to do it justice (which I'm just not willing to do), or I have to post the soundbites, which will necessitate defending them against the criticisms that pop up from trying to simplify ethics down to short phrases.
The best short soundbite that I could come up with would be something like "minimize harm," but that's not very useful without more context. Also even that's misleading, since while I used to consider myself a utilitarian (where that would make more sense), I've recently moved over to a (type of) virtue ethics framework, where ethics is focused on the agent and developing into a certain type of person. Under that sort of framework, "is abortion right/wrong?" is no longer even the proper question to ask. Though the question of whether it should be legal is still incredibly important.
If you're interested, just message me through facebook. I have some essays (some longer, some shorter) that I could share with you.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
Messaged you. For now, my snarky criticism of your hastily articulated soundbyte:
quote:The best short soundbite that I could come up with would be something like "minimize harm,"
Isn't minimizing harm easiest achieved by nuking the entire planet? Seems to me you'd want to at least by maximizing [insert hazily defined good quality].
The actual foundation of my framework is something like "maximize median preference satisfaction," (when taking time to seriously consider issues), but to save cognitive resources, come up with simple deontological rules that loosely approximate median-preference-satisfaction.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
I have a very falliblistic picture of knowledge and morality. We have no direct access to or correspondence to the truth or what is right. So we can never have certainty that we're doing "the best" thing, or the "the right" thing. On the other hand, we can more reliably know "what not to do". My picture of both knowledge and ethics is engaging in a process of action selection that more reliably moves us away from error, i.e. - try to be less wrong. Also, I didn't define harm above, which I recognize is problematic, but my notion of ethics is definitely not about preference satisfaction.
A more accurate soundbite for me would be something along the lines of: act in such a way that you are striving to develop into the type of person who is living a life of flourishing (read: eudaimonia). Where defining flourishing would necessitate fleshing out some notion of human ontology, rooted in our biology and psychology and the social nature of our being.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
I suspect most people would (at least upon reflection) desire eudaimonia. I've only learned the phrase recently, a while back I considered myself a "happiness maximizing utilitarian." Essentially I meant "eudaimonia" when I said happiness, but I didn't articulate this well and a lot of people got upset.
Some people very definitely DON'T want to be happy, or at least care about other things much more. I don't think it's my place to tell them what they *should* want.
I also don't really see personal flourishing as a "moral" issue. It's an important issue, and having a world where everyone did their best to flourish would be a much better world. But I think "morals" should be about how you interact with other people, as opposed to how effectively you pursue your own interests.
(Many people are happiest if they treating other people well, participting in and improving their community, etc. But not everyone. Some kinds of introverts, some people on the autistic spectrum, etc)
And none of that really seems informative about the rights of fetuses, or non-communitative disabled people.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
This is why I didn't get into the soundbite thing! I see no contradiction in saying that my personal flourishing depends in large part on how I interact with other people. Similarly to how while I believe utilitarianism is not feasible, I still believe that *consideration* for the consequences of our actions might be one of the most important aspects of ethics.
Also, remember that I mentioned that how flourishing was going to be defined was going to necessitate fleshing out some notion of human ontology, dependent on our biology and psychology and the social nature of our being. Flourishing is not an entirely self defined thing, there are ways we can be in error of our own ontology, or at least a possible ontology, even if we don't know it, even if we believe we are pursuing happiness and succeeding in flourishing.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
Heh. Yay for attempts to simplify morality.
Posted by Darth_Mauve (Member # 4709) on :
I think both of these debates have another central-core issue. Does what you believe to be moral give you the right to interfere with my body?
If you say yes, that what I believe to be morally right means I must take steps even if that interferes with your body, then Abortion and Euthanasia can be proscribed by the government, and those who follow "Pro-Choice" must stand down.
If you say no, that my body is my responsibility, and another person can not force changes to my body to fit in with their ideas of morality, then society has can not stop Abortion or Euthanasia.
On the other hand, neither can they enforce it.
On the other hand, isn't Abortion in itself, a forcing of one's morality upon the fetus's body? Hence, if you say, "No--I can not force my morality on another person's body" also mean you can not force your choice on the fetus?
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
sort of in response to Darth_Mauve:
One thing that drives me nuts is Pro-Choice people (often friends of mine) who argue that "abortion is wrong, but it's a choice, and you don't have a right to take that choice away."
This completely misses the point that *we have all kinds of laws that restrict choice*. The whole point of a legal and moral system is to restrict choices that harm others. If you believe abortion is murder, then of course you should be campaigning to stop it, the same way you should be campaigning to stop regular murder if it were legal.
[ May 08, 2012, 04:41 PM: Message edited by: Raymond Arnold ]
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Which would make sense if the regular people who got murdered were living inside your body.
DM, then why can the fetus force its "choice" on you?
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
I disagree with the pro-life people. The point is, if you *actually* think murder is happening, dismissing it as "choice" is hardly persuasive.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: I disagree with the pro-life people. The point is, if you *actually* think murder is happening, dismissing it as "choice" is hardly persuasive.
Well, pro-choice people who think it's tantamount to murder could still have a leg to stand on in cases of rape, I think. Where they didn't invite the human being into a state of being reliant upon them for life, but instead had it forced upon them.
But yeah, outside of that, I think you're right. If you believe that fetuses are humans and should have the rights of humans, and are also pro-choice, those are pretty fundamentally contradictory.
On topic, my probably-predictable thoughts are: If the person's preference is to die, euthanasia is okay. I don't have any moral objection to suicide, assisted or not. But if that's not their preference (or they can't communicate what their preference is)... probably better not to murder them.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit:
quote:My comparison is not saying it is going to follow the same course, except in the most general sense.
As in, I think there will eventually be a roe v. wade moment that brings forth in this country the legal right of patients to request drug-enduced euthanasia, rather than the much more arduous ways we already permit patients to voluntarily end their lives.
If you are talking strictly about terminally ill but mentally competent patients who choose to be euthanized, then I agree that it is likely that our society will most likely legalize euthanasia at some point in the not too distant future.
If you are including cases like the one in the OP, where a parent or guardian wants to euthanize a disabled but not terminally ill person who is unable to communicate their own desires, then I disagree.
The legal right of patients to request euthanasia is what I'm talking about here exclusively. While not impossible, a future of medical euthanasia forced on others would be far different to talk about hypothetical development patterns (and would probably come about only following crisis conditions).
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: I disagree with the pro-life people. The point is, if you *actually* think murder is happening, dismissing it as "choice" is hardly persuasive.
Well, pro-choice people who think it's tantamount to murder could still have a leg to stand on in cases of rape, I think. Where they didn't invite the human being into a state of being reliant upon them for life, but instead had it forced upon them.
But yeah, outside of that, I think you're right. If you believe that fetuses are humans and should have the rights of humans, and are also pro-choice, those are pretty fundamentally contradictory.
No they aren't . What other humans have a legally enforced right to use your organs, even if they need it to live?
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
Of course there's no directly analogous situation, Kate. But it's not terribly hard to imagine one.
Let's say you captured someone and had complex sci-fi surgery performed on the two of you, without his consent. Now he only gets nutrients through you, and he can't move on his own, you have to drag him around. He's completely beholden to you. And at any time you can cut a cord that will kill him and leave you alive.
Do you think that cutting that cord would be murder? You just created a situation in which his life depends upon you, and then cut him off. Sounds like murder to me! Maybe you disagree.
Now, if someone else had captured the two of you and performed this surgery against your consent, I can see a case being argued that you should have the right to cut the man off, even though it means he will die, because not doing so forces you to drag him around and absorb your nutrients, cause all kinds of potential health problems, and generally harm your quality of life.
Is it still murder? This one is more debatable, I think.
If a fetus is a person, then these analogies hold. If a fetus isn't a person, they're totally irrelevant. That's why this question is so important.
They'll correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is why Destineer, Raymond, and I generally agree on this: The "pro-choice" side is using the wrong argument, approaching the issue from the wrong perspective. The "pro-life" side is asking the right question, but comes to the wrong conclusion.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:No they aren't . What other humans have a legally enforced right to use your organs, even if they need it to live?
There aren't really any comparisons that can be made, except possibly conjoined twins who share organ use? Insofar as that comparison is useful, suppose one twin wishes to committ suicide, which would necessarily destroy some of the organs the other needs to live in some cases. Because the suicidal twin can truthfully say it is HIS body, and he should have absolute control over all aspects of it, shall he also have the right to seriously endanger or even certainly cause the other's death?
But let's set that aside, because conjoined twins are never going to be anything other than rare, making it an extreme example. Suppose one human invites another to sustain their live from their body for a period of about nine months. This other human (if the fetus is a human) doesn't actually have a say in it, but he WAS invited.
Do you really imagine many people would endorse the right of the first human to just change their minds at a whim, causing the death of the human they invited? Now I know you've got a lot of reasons, some of them frankly really convoluted, why body sovereignty must be the absolute only factor in this decision, but why should one human be able to cause the death of another for no other reason than they decide to revoke their invitation? Seriously. We don't actually believe any right is utterly, absolutely inalienable, so why is this one to be held inviolate in all cases, even in cases of a whim decision based on unprotected sex by an educated pair of adults?
I'm not asking for the many, many, many practical reasons why this is problematic. There are lots of good such reasons. I'm asking why your asserted right to body sovereignty should be held so totally, unassailably sacrosanct.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
You invite a friend to go on a trip. You get into a car accident. You didn't do anything illegal but sometimes accidents happen. Should you be required to donate blood to save your friend? How about donating a kidney?
I think that there is a moral obligation, but should this be legally enforced?
Body sovereignty is sacrosanct because otherwise we are property - again.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:The "pro-choice" side is using the wrong argument, approaching the issue from the wrong perspective. The "pro-life" side is asking the right question, but comes to the wrong conclusion.
This may be true, but it depends on what the pro choice side's argument is, if it can be cut down to a single position or set of positions.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
Sam: Sure. In context, I'm talking about a common group (and the dominant one, I think) within the pro-choice movement that shies away from taking a stand in the person/not person debate and tries to make it solely an issue of body sovereignty.
Obviously any group of people can have wildly varied reasons for their opinions, so my generalization is just that.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
quote:You invite a friend to go on a trip. You get into a car accident. You didn't do anything illegal but sometimes accidents happen. Should you be required to donate blood to save your friend? How about donating a kidney?
I think that there is a moral obligation, but should this be legally enforced?
Body sovereignty is sacrosanct because otherwise we are property - again.
And life is sacrosanct because otherwise we are dead.
The issue, Kate, is you're missing the key to the whole argument: one person has no choice, the other has both choice and knowledge. Your story would only work if you knew ahead of time that you would get in an accident and they would need your blood to survive and you still invited them.
Hobbes Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:You invite a friend to go on a trip. You get into a car accident. You didn't do anything illegal but sometimes accidents happen. Should you be required to donate blood to save your friend? How about donating a kidney?
I think that there is a moral obligation, but should this be legally enforced?
Body sovereignty is sacrosanct because otherwise we are property - again.
This is a very poor comparison, kmbboots. I have a hard time imagining you don't see why. In this scenario, the first person did something nobody would imagine, except in the unlikeliest of contrived circumstances such as the ones you put forward, would result in the second person, the invited person, would need to use the first's bodily resources to survive.
And would you really say that the first person, especially if the accident was in no way his fault and both people were buckled up and he has his car regularly serviced to make it as safe as he could, actually has as moral obligation to donate a kidney? That's far from a given.
No. These are bad arguments. The situations aren't comparable. Instead, it would be as if I decided to invite my friend to come stay with me in my remote mountain woodlands cabin. He's got an unpleasant medical condition, though, that requires, I don't know, regular blood transfusions from someone with his blood type to survive (yes, I know, not actually possible I expect). I am a suitable donor. Not being suicidal, my friend checks carefully with me first, "Hey Jeff, listen, if I'm gonna leave the city with its clinics and doctors, I really need to be sure I can get my regular transfusions or I'll die," and I toss off, negligently, that of course he'll get what he needs, I've got plenty of blood.
He gets there, though, and we have a fight, perhaps. Or I discover I have a dreadful fear of needles. Or perhaps even giving blood regularly is quite a lot more draining on me-no pun intended-than I expected. It's not going to kill me or even harm me in the long term, but it really, really, really stinks. So I decide, "Listen, buddy, it's my blood and I'm not giving you anymore. It's too much of a burden."
He doesn't make it back to civilization, and he dies, and I go on my way, perhaps upset that my friend is dead, but perhaps not-he had absolutely zero rights to utilize anything of my body that I wasn't willing to give him, without revoking that access on a moment's notice.
This is the kind of situation I'm asking you about-the scenario in which two people have sex (really, there needs to be a third person in that scenario). They're adults, they know the risks, but man sex without condums feels better and birth control pills are so easy to forget sometimes. They've both got stable careers, but man being parents would be a serious speed bump in their lives. So either together or on their own, one of them decides that it's time to just fix the situation.
Obviously, this happens a lot. I'm not suggesting it's a majority or even a sizable minority of abortions-I really have no way of knowing. And I'm not suggesting it's a good idea to legislate for all abortions based on this case-there are all sorts of pitfalls about enforcement and finding out what led to a pregnancy that make that impossible without some pretty dangerous power in the hands of government, one such power being the ability to deny sovereignty to women who, for example, carefully and correctly took birth control and even used a redundant form of contraception, but through no fault of their own got pregnant.
What I am asking, though, is why in this kind of scenario-which you cannot avoid admitting does happen-the idea of body sovereignty must, in moral terms, be utterly impervious to any challenge. If your argument is founded entirely on the practicalities of abortion, well then, that's a whole different kettle of fish. But unless I'm mistaken, it's not. Unless I'm mistaken, you would also say that I ought to be held to have a moral right to just tell my buddy I invited that I didn't feel like giving blood anymore, so I wouldn't.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by Hobbes:
quote:You invite a friend to go on a trip. You get into a car accident. You didn't do anything illegal but sometimes accidents happen. Should you be required to donate blood to save your friend? How about donating a kidney?
I think that there is a moral obligation, but should this be legally enforced?
Body sovereignty is sacrosanct because otherwise we are property - again.
And life is sacrosanct because otherwise we are dead.
The issue, Kate, is you're missing the key to the whole argument: one person has no choice, the other has both choice and knowledge. Your story would only work if you knew ahead of time that you would get in an accident and they would need your blood to survive and you still invited them.
Hobbes
Every time you get into a car you know that you could get into an accident.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Yes, which is why we have laws concerning insurance, seat belts, air bags, car inspections, methods of driving, substance abuse while driving, so on and so forth.
Are you seriously putting forward the suggestion that everyone ought to know that everytime they drive a car, they might be in an accident in which their friend was injured in such a way as to require organ donation, but not in such a way that either killed themselves or injured them preventing organ donation, and that the only possible donor in all the world was the driver themself?
C'mon. I 'know' when I walk out of my door in a thunderstorm, I might be struck and killed by an errant bolt of lightning. That knowledge shouldn't, and doesn't to any rational person, stop me from doing so. What it does stop me from doing, though, is say flying a kite in a thunderstorm or going out and playing golf in a thunderstorm or practicing my trombone playing in a thunderstorm.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Rakeesh, of course it is contrived. As you pointed out, there are no analogous situations. Every other scenario is going to be imperfect. My point is that the idea of forcing people - whatever the moral obligation might be - to give up sovereignty over their own internal organs, forcing them to do this, is abhorrent to most of us. Except for women. Because we are somehow less full human beings than embryos are.
Artificial wombs, guys. It isn't impossible. Get on it.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
quote:Artificial wombs, guys. It isn't impossible. Get on it.
Wait what? Where did that come from?
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
It would solve the issue as far as I am concerned. Let the little bugger be a parasite on something that isn't a human being.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:But yeah, outside of that, I think you're right. If you believe that fetuses are humans and should have the rights of humans, and are also pro-choice, those are pretty fundamentally contradictory.
I disagree. Even if you believe that the fetus is human and killing it is a bad thing, there are logical reasons to be pro-choice as long as you consider both sides of the equation. The mother is also, unquestionably, a human being deserving of human rights.
We do not generally consider every instance of "killing a person" morally equivalent to murder. An overwhelming majority of people in our society (including the Catholic church) consider it morally acceptable, or even morally requisite, to kill in self defense or in the defense of others. The majority of Americans consider it morally acceptable to drop bombs on Afghan villagers and execute criminals. If you kill a pedestrian or a bicyclist with your car, we call it a negligence, not murder.
Certainly, "killing a person" is always a bad thing, but it's not always "tantamount to murder" and sometimes it is even the best option available.
With the exception of a few extremists, most everyone would agree that a woman should be able to have an abortion if it will save her life. I find myself morally outraged by those who think its preferable for both the mother and baby to die than to do what is necessary to save the mother. That can not be reasonably considered a "pro-life" position.
The problem is that once you admit that abortion is ever a morally permissible option, you've opened a whole hornets nest of moral complexity that most people don't want think about. It's never 100% certain that a mother will die without an abortion. Do you draw the line at 90% chance of death, 80%, 50%? And if you put that in a law, then you have to legislate how you will determine what the percent chance of death is and you need to be confident that women aren't going to die waiting for those legal tests. Is it only the woman's life that matters or should we also consider her health. What if there is 99 % that the mother will live, but in a permanent vegetative state?
No pregnancy is risk free. How much risk should we legally require a woman take to preserve the life of her fetus? Should it matter how close the fetus is to being viable outside the womb? Should a mother be required to take the same amount of risk for a fetus that is healthy as for one that has a serious life threatening defects?
Once you admit that abortion is ever an acceptable option, you have to ask yourself how we will decide when it is and isn't acceptable and who should have the right/responsibility to make that decision? There is no bright line or simple rule that can be applied. Who should have the right to decide the needs of the mother outweigh the needs of the unborn child?
After years of consideration, I've decide I believe that right and responsibility to decide belongs to the mother. Hence I am pro-choice. It is her body and every adult human being deserves the right to make critical decisions about their own body. I believe that women are capable of being responsible moral agents and should be empowered to do so. I believe that stewardship for the child in her womb, belongs to the mother. Because it is the mother's stewardship, I believe she is the person most able to discern the proper moral choice.
I know that given that choice, at least some women will not choose well. I think most women who seek abortions do so for reasons I would consider unacceptable, but I can't see any practical way to make it illegal for women to have an abortion for bad reasons without also making it illegal and dangerous for women who seek an abortion for acceptable reasons.
I'm consider myself to be both pro-life and pro-choice. If women are seeking abortions because they are poor or overwhelmed by the burden of motherhood, we will accomplish more by working to fight poverty and provide more support to parents than by punishing people who have or provide abortions. If women are seeking abortions to avoid the shame of being an unwed mother, then we are at fault for being judgmental and unforgiving.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:Rakeesh, of course it is contrived. As you pointed out, there are no analogous situations. Every other scenario is going to be imperfect. My point is that the idea of forcing people - whatever the moral obligation might be - to give up sovereignty over their own internal organs, forcing them to do this, is abhorrent to most of us. Except for women. Because we are somehow less full human beings than embryos are.
Artificial wombs, guys. It isn't impossible. Get on it.
*snort* Alright, so your answer is to deny any questions the comparison might raise ought to be asked, much less answered. I suppose that's probably necessary.
Anyway, a couple of things. In at least some pregancies, the 'force' you're describing is a very hazy thing, and something quite a few people would object to calling 'force'. In another, it's not just about women, or even women capable of pregancy-unless you imagine that the real reason men question the absolute sanctity in all circumstances of body sovereignty is because they know they won't ever have to face it?
I'm sure you're right, though. The real reason many have questions about the morality of abortion and its intersections with body sovereignty is because, hey, screw women, they just don't get to have as much body sovereignty as us dudes! Raaaa! Now get back in the kitchen!
Please. Though I suppose I ought to be grateful that at least you've sort of answered my question, with an accusation of poorly masked, oblivious sexism.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
Don't parents give up certain rights when they become parents? If a mother or a father left an infant in a crib and declared "I am no longer interested in sacrificing my body or my labor for this, I'm going to go to Maine and do my own thing" wouldn't you decry it as both evil and illegal? If you're saying life starts inside the womb where does the difference lay?
Hobbes Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Rabbit, that was very well put.
Rakeesh, must you drip with contempt all the time? Is that sneering and snorting really more important to you than understanding what I am saying? It gets tiresome. Of course it is complex, but, yes, I do think that the fact that men aren't subject to this intrusion plays a part in how we deal with it.
Hobbes, of course parents give up rights when they become parents. Of course, before the child is born, they could legally run off to Maine if they wanted to give the child up for adoption. One right that we, as a society, never demand of fully human competent adults, except in the case of pregnancy is to give up making decisions about their own bodies and health. We cannot force people to diet, donate blood, take medications. We need their consent for surgery. Even if they are horrible criminals all we can do is demand the right to kill them (and I don't think we should be able to do that).
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Originally posted by Hobbes: Don't parents give up certain rights when they become parents? If a mother or a father left an infant in a crib and declared "I am no longer interested in sacrificing my body or my labor for this, I'm going to go to Maine and do my own thing" wouldn't you decry it as both evil and illegal? If you're saying life starts inside the womb where does the difference lay?
Hobbes
The difference lies in the fact that after the child is born, it possible both technologically and legally for someone else to take over. Parents can and frequently do absolve themselves of responsibility for caring for a child via adoption or foster placement. Parents have the legal right to walk away from a child.
If you can't find someone willing to adopt your child, the government can legally force you to provide financial support for the child but they can't force you to spend time with them or nurture them.
There is a fundamental difference between a person's property and their body. Unlike your physical body, which is yours by nature, property ownership is a social convention which is defined and regulated by law. Society should not have the same right to dictate what we do with our bodies that it has to dictate what we do with our property.
I assume you pay money in taxes. Would you consider it equally acceptable for the government to tax you 6 units of blood a year. If you didn't pay on time, should they have the right to take the blood by force, with an interest penalty?
There is not an equivalence between requiring someone to use their money to support a child and using their body as a life support system for a child.
Consider the flip side of the coin, the government can legal take a child away from an abusive or negligent parent. Would you consider it be equally acceptable for the government to force an abusive mother (say a drug abuser) to have an abortion?
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
quote:Of course, before the child is born, they could legally run off to Maine if they wanted to give the child up for adoption.
I'm really struggling to follow your argument here, how is that relevant? I feel like I'm missing a big piece of what you're trying to say.
quote:One right that we, as a society, never demand of fully human competent adults, except in the case of pregnancy is to give up making decisions about their own bodies and health.
I don't think this is true at all. Perhaps if you use the superlative ("all desicions about...") but that wouldn't apply to this case anyway. What is the issue you see that makes my case defenitvely wrong and your case entirely about personal sovergienty?
Hobbes Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Hobbes,
Rabbit put it very well here:
quote: There is a fundamental difference between a person's property and their body. Unlike your physical body, which is yours by nature, property ownership is a social convention which is defined and regulated by law. Society should not have the same right to dictate what we do with our bodies that it has to dictate what we do with our property.
The "all" may be superlative but what exceptions to this are you finding? We even find force-feeding of prisoners rather horrible and controversial.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
quote:The difference lies in the fact that after the child is born, it possible both technologically and legally for someone else to take over. Parents can and frequently do absolve themselves of responsibility for caring for a child via adoption or foster placement. Parents have the legal right to walk away from a child.
And I'm sure few would have an issue if instead of aborting the child, the hypothetical mother found a way to transfer them safely to a different mother or substitue. Within the story there's no provision made for the child, they can give them up for adoption, or create some other care for them, but they don't. In the case of abortion, there is no other option currently, but that doesn't change the fact that it results in the death of the child. You explained to me why personal control of your own body is improtant, but that's not the issue. The issue is why it trumps full-fledged human life. The scenario isn't: we all need to pay taxes or society will eventually shut down. The scenario is: you've choosen, without consent, to have another life linked to yours. You specifically and that life specifically. Now you've changed your mind and the consequences for that life are termination.
Hobbes Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Originally posted by Hobbes:
quote:One right that we, as a society, never demand of fully human competent adults, except in the case of pregnancy is to give up making decisions about their own bodies and health.
I don't think this is true at all. Perhaps if you use the superlative ("all desicions about...") but that wouldn't apply to this case anyway. What is the issue you see that makes my case defenitvely wrong and your case entirely about personal sovergienty?
Hobbes
Hobbes, I think the superlative here is justified. If you know of counter examples, please share. I can't think of any example of a cases where a mentally competent adults are not allow to decide what is put into or taken out of their bodies? Mentally competent adults are allowed to choose wether they will accept or reject any medical procedure. You can't even legally force feed some one. Even touching someone without their consent is illegal in almost all situations.
The only exceptions I can think involve arrest situations where you a cavity search could be permitted against your will -- but even then there are rather strict limitations that serve a specific purpose.
There are cases where people commonly submit to certain potentially invasive tests in order to obtain some privilege (like obtaining a drivers license, holding a particular job or flying on an airplane), but they always have the option of foregoing the privilege. You can be legally required to take a paternity test under some circumstances, but I think you could likely avoid that by agreeing that you are the father.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:Rakeesh, must you drip with contempt all the time? Is that sneering and snorting really more important to you than understanding what I am saying? It gets tiresome. Of course it is complex, but, yes, I do think that the fact that men aren't subject to this intrusion plays a part in how we deal with it.
What's even more tiresome is what really looks like a deliberate poor comparison (I mean dreadfully poor, car accident, really?), and then the concluding assertion that concerns about abortion are rooted in the inferior humanity of women, in some people's eyes.
So yeah, when I'm treated with that sort of contempt, I have a tendancy to react contemptfully. Failing of mine.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
Rabbit, I'm pretty sure you and I are not talking about the same thing. You seem to be arguing that there exists a case in which abortion is morally viable even when you take as given that the child is alive. I'm trying to understand the question Rakeesh (I think) put forward: why does personal control of your own body always trump human life? If you're trying to wedge in the idea that sometimes it's appliciable (as in, when both the Mother and child would die as a garuntee if no abortion is performed) then I'm already in agreement. But that's not what I've been talking about.
Hobbes Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: One right that we, as a society, never demand of fully human competent adults, except in the case of pregnancy is to give up making decisions about their own bodies and health. We cannot force people to diet, donate blood, take medications. We need their consent for surgery. Even if they are horrible criminals all we can do is demand the right to kill them (and I don't think we should be able to do that).
This is simply false. You may wish it were true... which would make you sound like a libertarian(!)... but it's not.
We demand fully human, competent adults not ingest certain toxins deemed illegal drugs. And certain medications for that matter, deemed restricted prescription drugs.
For a long time we demanded that they not commit suicide (though mercifully had little way of enforcing this)... and only in the last couple decades have changed position as a society on that issue.
We demand that they give up some body sovereignty in order to board an airplane, in the form of invasive searches.
And in order to work in government or financial sectors, or (in CA, anyway) to drive a car, by submitting their fingerprints.
These are all varying levels of trivial compared to housing a human being inside your body for 9 months, to be sure. But they unequivocally obliterate any claim that abortion is the only area we infringe on your sovereignty to do what you will with your own body. It is one of many. One of the biggest, but even so.
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit:
quote:But yeah, outside of that, I think you're right. If you believe that fetuses are humans and should have the rights of humans, and are also pro-choice, those are pretty fundamentally contradictory.
I disagree. Even if you believe that the fetus is human and killing it is a bad thing, there are logical reasons to be pro-choice as long as you consider both sides of the equation. The mother is also, unquestionably, a human being deserving of human rights.
We do not generally consider every instance of "killing a person" morally equivalent to murder. An overwhelming majority of people in our society (including the Catholic church) consider it morally acceptable, or even morally requisite, to kill in self defense or in the defense of others. The majority of Americans consider it morally acceptable to drop bombs on Afghan villagers and execute criminals. If you kill a pedestrian or a bicyclist with your car, we call it a negligence, not murder.
Certainly, "killing a person" is always a bad thing, but it's not always "tantamount to murder" and sometimes it is even the best option available.
No.
"Killing a person" isn't always a bad thing.
"Murdering a person" is always a bad thing.
If a fetus is a person, then what action has it taken to justify it being killed? It's invaded someone's body... by invitation. It had no choice in the matter. In point of fact it can't have taken some action to justify it's death, as it has taken no actions at all. Thus, killing such a person would be murder.
And bad.
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: With the exception of a few extremists, most everyone would agree that a woman should be able to have an abortion if it will save her life. I find myself morally outraged by those who think its preferable for both the mother and baby to die than to do what is necessary to save the mother. That can not be reasonably considered a "pro-life" position.
Certainly, the majority of abortion debate centers around abortions of children that are not the product of rape and are not endangering their mother's life. Because in both of those cases the pro-life side frequently concedes the viability of abortion.
Why?
Because there is a clearer case to be made that body sovereignty in these cases would justify killing a person. That person, whether by intent or not, is going to kill you unless you kill them. Or, that person, against your consent, was forced to be reliant upon you. Pro-Lifers will often say that trying to keep such babies is the moral thing to do, much the same way they might say donating your kidney to someone is the right thing to do, but they don't want to legislate it as a requirement.
But all of this is wholly based on the premise that the fetus is a person. That's where their argument stems from. An argument to their premise would be "No, the fetus is not a person."
An assertion that fetus personhood is irrelevant because body sovereignty trumps everything is basically a non sequitur. It ignores their argument. Moreover, it in itself is not a good argument. Body sovereignty doesn't trump everything in our society. Not by a long shot.
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: The problem is that once you admit that abortion is ever a morally permissible option, you've opened a whole hornets nest of moral complexity that most people don't want think about. It's never 100% certain that a mother will die without an abortion. Do you draw the line at 90% chance of death, 80%, 50%? And if you put that in a law, then you have to legislate how you will determine what the percent chance of death is and you need to be confident that women aren't going to die waiting for those legal tests. Is it only the woman's life that matters or should we also consider her health. What if there is 99 % that the mother will live, but in a permanent vegetative state?
No pregnancy is risk free. How much risk should we legally require a woman take to preserve the life of her fetus? Should it matter how close the fetus is to being viable outside the womb? Should a mother be required to take the same amount of risk for a fetus that is healthy as for one that has a serious life threatening defects?
Once you admit that abortion is ever an acceptable option, you have to ask yourself how we will decide when it is and isn't acceptable and who should have the right/responsibility to make that decision? There is no bright line or simple rule that can be applied. Who should have the right to decide the needs of the mother outweigh the needs of the unborn child?
Yeah, that's quite the moral quandary you end up in, if you take the position that a fetus is a person and abortion is immoral, except in X cases where it's moral.
That's why some people reject that postion, by the way.
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: After years of consideration, I've decide I believe that right and responsibility to decide belongs to the mother. Hence I am pro-choice. It is her body and every adult human being deserves the right to make critical decisions about their own body. I believe that women are capable of being responsible moral agents and should be empowered to do so. I believe that stewardship for the child in her womb, belongs to the mother. Because it is the mother's stewardship, I believe she is the person most able to discern the proper moral choice.
This moral argument also applies to children outside the womb. If a parent chooses to beat their child to discipline him, well, they're the steward of that child, right? So it's their decision. And if a parent chooses to sexually abuse their child, well, they're the steward, right? Can't gainsay them. They're the person most able to discern the proper moral choice.
Obviously, I don't find this persuasive. The simple act of becoming pregnant doesn't grant one any special lens into the morality of the issue.
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: I know that given that choice, at least some women will not choose well. I think most women who seek abortions do so for reasons I would consider unacceptable, but I can't see any practical way to make it illegal for women to have an abortion for bad reasons without also making it illegal and dangerous for women who seek an abortion for acceptable reasons.
Of course you could try to do this, if you chose to. We differentiate all kinds of killing people as it is, with reasonable consistency.
It's true that if we made some kinds of abortion illegal, then there would be more back-alley illegal abortions. The same holds true for every single instance of making something illegal ever, in the history of everything. Making something illegal doesn't reduce it's incident rate to 0, and it does ensure that all incidents will, necessarily, be illegal, back-alley affairs.
I don't think we should do this in any event. I'm perfectly fine with abortion.
Because a fetus isn't a person.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: So yeah, when I'm treated with that sort of contempt, I have a tendancy to react contemptfully. Failing of mine.
I think that was sarcasm.
But, it really is, man. You don't need to react with contempt. You can react positively even to someone else's contempt. And doing so provides two distinct goods:
1: If they intended the contempt, and meant to rattle you, your dismissal of it will serve to infuriate them as effectively as a contemptuous response would.
2: If they didn't intend the contempt, by ignoring what you perceived as contempt you completely bypass a potential misunderstanding and ensuing fight. You can focus on the discussion at hand, and both of you win.
I don't really expect you to change your behavior based on a single post of mine, but perhaps it will give you food for thought.
Or maybe you already knew all that, and you just dig the response you get when you react to contempt with contempt. If so, that's your prerogative.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: There are cases where people commonly submit to certain potentially invasive tests in order to obtain some privilege (like obtaining a drivers license, holding a particular job or flying on an airplane), but they always have the option of foregoing the privilege. You can be legally required to take a paternity test under some circumstances, but I think you could likely avoid that by agreeing that you are the father.
By this logic, pregnancy is the invasive process required to obtain the privilege of having sex.
Except, unlike getting a driver's license, flying an airplane, etc. in the case of sex, we've developed fairly reliable workarounds for the invasive process.
Contraception would be the equivalent of the TSA deciding that only 1 in 100 (or whatever the fail rate of the contraceptive being used is) people will be subjected to body scanners, patdowns, etc.
The fact that it can be avoided most of the time doesn't change the fact that it's still a potential consequence of the activity. Every time someone with a working reproductive system has sex, they may accidentally engage in reproduction.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
Hobbes, I have not been arguing that personal control of ones own body should always trump human life. From a moral point of view, it can't. But we aren't arguing about what is moral, we are arguing about what should be legal. We are arguing about whether the choice of having an abortion should be made by society as a whole (i.e legislatures and voters) or whether that choice should be left to the woman.
My point is that unless you are arguing that abortion should be illegal under all circumstances, even to save the life of the mother, then you have to start thinking about whether its possible to make abortion illegal whenever the rights of the fetus should morally outweigh the rights of the mother and legal whenever the opposite is true. And those laws would have to be simple enough to be fairly and justly enforced.
I don't think that can be done. Laws must clearly define what is and is not allowed in measurable terms. There simply is not a clear division between what constitutes acceptable risk to the mother and what constitutes unacceptable risk and there is no objective way to measure the risk. Unless you go with the stance that abortion is never ever acceptable, it's just not a black and white decision. There is a full spectrum of grays.
There is never a guarantee that both mother and child would die if no abortion is performed. That situation does not exist in the real world. In the real world we only that there is a risk of dying, that is sometimes higher than others. In real life there are only probabilities that can't even be accurately known. In the real world, the question is complex.
Imagine at some point in your future you have a wife who is pregnant and she has a medical emergency and doctors tell you she has x% of dying unless she has an abortion. The question we are discussing is not whether or not it would be right for her to choose the abortion - - It is whether or not she should have the legal option. Should the decision be made by a legislature or a judge, or should the woman be allowed to choose? I believe the right and responsibility for the choice belongs to the woman.
I don't think we can know what the right decisions would be for any value of x, without knowing all the individual personal details. I don't think any law could possibly be detailed enough to deal with the real moral complexity of the choice. Even if I knew every personal detail, I think I would need revelation from God to judge correctly.
As a Latter Say Saint, it is my understanding that we are entitled to personal revelation for those things under our stewardship, but not for things outside our stewardship. The woman has stewardship for the child in her womb. She is the only person who has all that is required to make the morally correct choice so she is the one who should make the choice.
I know many women will not make that choice righteously, but it is still their stewardship to make -- not mine.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:By this logic, pregnancy is the invasive process required to obtain the privilege of having sex.
Except, unlike getting a driver's license, flying an airplane, etc. in the case of sex, we've developed fairly reliable workarounds for the invasive process.
I find it rather odd to hear a libertarian like yourself suggest that having sex is a privilege the government should be allowed to regulate in any way. I find the very idea that women should have to surrender the right of personal sovereignty to engage in a natural biological function to be abhorrent.
Public roads are built and maintained by the community. Operating a car on those roads creates a risk to all other users of the road. There is a compelling social need to test peoples vision before they are allowed to drive on the road that outweighs peoples right to keep their visual acuity secret.
Caring a weapon onto an airplane creates a risk to all other occupants of the plane. A hijacked plane can be used weapon against the anyone in the community. That creates a compelling social need to search airplane passengers for weapons.
I can think of no compelling social need that would justify the government in requiring women to choose between their right to bodily sovereignty and having sex.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
Rabbit, that's a fine argument to be having, but it wasn't the one that was happening here.
quote:I can think of no compelling social need that would justify the government in requiring women to choose between their right to bodily sovereignty and having sex.
Whatever my position on it in actual reality, within the reality of Dan's comments (we're assuming a human life at conception or there 'bouts) how about the social need of not killing someone?
Hobbes Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Hobbes, this is going to sound awful but it might help the shift in perspective required for understanding if you thought of "removing" rather than killing. Certainly, this removal can't currently be done without killing the embryo or fetus but killing is not the purpose. In balancing the possible rights of an embryo or fetus against the rights of a woman we run into the practical fact that her right not to have something using her body as a host* necessitates killing that entity.
Hence my not entirely tongue-in-cheek encouragement of artificial wombs.
*I realize that most people don't regard the embryo/fetus as a parasite but as a blessed guest. I would have gratefully welcomed such a parasite. Again, I am trying to jar a shift in understanding.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit:
quote:By this logic, pregnancy is the invasive process required to obtain the privilege of having sex.
Except, unlike getting a driver's license, flying an airplane, etc. in the case of sex, we've developed fairly reliable workarounds for the invasive process.
I find it rather odd to hear a libertarian like yourself suggest that having sex is a privilege the government should be allowed to regulate in any way. I find the very idea that women should have to surrender the right of personal sovereignty to engage in a natural biological function to be abhorrent.
Oh, yeah, I do too! No question.
I'm not talking about regulating sex, I'm talking about regulating the result of sex. That is, pregnancy.
As it happens, I'm also against regulating pregnancy. But that's because I don't think a fetus is a human being with preferences, rights, etc.
If it was human, then we would probably need some regulations to protect it from being murdered, the same way we have regulations to protect you and I from being murdered.
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Public roads are built and maintained by the community. Operating a car on those roads creates a risk to all other users of the road. There is a compelling social need to test peoples vision before they are allowed to drive on the road that outweighs peoples right to keep their visual acuity secret.
Caring a weapon onto an airplane creates a risk to all other occupants of the plane. A hijacked plane can be used weapon against the anyone in the community. That creates a compelling social need to search airplane passengers for weapons.
I can think of no compelling social need that would justify the government in requiring women to choose between their right to bodily sovereignty and having sex.
Prematurely removing a fetus from a womb creates a risk to that fetus (the "risk" being a 100% chance of death). That's an external risk, that is, a risk not just to the person having the abortion, so there would be a social need.
So, if the fetus is a person, this is really important. If it's not a person, then this is irrelevant.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Originally posted by Hobbes: Rabbit, that's a fine argument to be having, but it wasn't the one that was happening here.
]What part of what I said wan't relevant to the argument we are having here? I'm pretty sure we were discussing whether or not abortion should be legal. What did you think we were discussing?
quote:
quote:I can think of no compelling social need that would justify the government in requiring women to choose between their right to bodily sovereignty and having sex.
Whatever my position on it in actual reality, within the reality of Dan's comments (we're assuming a human life at conception or there 'bouts) how about the social need of not killing someone?
Hobbes [/qb]
I think that's begging the question. Does killing people cause social harm? Is the social harm caused by killing people the reason we have laws against killing people?
It's a lot easier to come up with clear examples where killing people benefits society than examples where killing people causes a clear direct social harm. Most people believe that some kinds of killing people can actually benefit society. Most people believe that killing people in defense of oneself, others or ones country's interests benefits society. An awful lot of people think killing people convicted of certain crimes benefits society.
The best argument I can come up with for a social benefit to laws against killing is very indirect. People's willingness to cooperate and follow rules increases when they believe they live in a just society. Punishing people for committing serious moral offenses like murder increases peoples confidence in the justice system and their willingness to voluntarily obey laws. Removing offenders from society improves safety and security, which benefits society at large.
But I can't really see that those social benefits are relevant to the abortion question at all. Abortion has been legal in this country for decades and has not lead to any evident social harm. People aren't unsafe walking the streets because of the high abortion rate. There hasn't been a increase in crime and anti-social behavior because abortion is legal.
[ May 10, 2012, 08:58 AM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Hobbes, this is going to sound awful but it might help the shift in perspective required for understanding if you thought of "removing" rather than killing. Certainly, this removal can't currently be done without killing the embryo or fetus but killing is not the purpose. In balancing the possible rights of an embryo or fetus against the rights of a woman we run into the practical fact that her right not to have something using her body as a host* necessitates killing that entity.
Hence my not entirely tongue-in-cheek encouragement of artificial wombs.
*I realize that most people don't regard the embryo/fetus as a parasite but as a blessed guest. I would have gratefully welcomed such a parasite. Again, I am trying to jar a shift in understanding.
Yeah Kate I agree with all of this, really. And I don't think your encouragement of artificial wombs should be tongue-in-cheek at all!
But, parasite or not, if that parasite is actually a person, then the fact that the host literally invited that person in becomes really, really relevant to the morality of the situation. That can't simply be waved away. It's crucial. Well, it would be crucial. If the fetus were a person.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Dan, I think it is morally relevant, too. I even think that it is morally relevant if the parasite is only a cluster of cells with the potential to become a human being.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: *I realize that most people don't regard the embryo/fetus as a parasite but as a blessed guest.
No matter how wanted the pregnancy, many women start to think of it as a parasite at some point during the pregnancy. Round about the "I'm going to be pregnant FOREVER!!!" stage of the third trimester, most often. Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Dan, I think it is morally relevant, too. I even think that it is morally relevant if the parasite is only a cluster of cells with the potential to become a human being.
But you think that body sovereignty trumps it, right?
I guess I'm just confused at how that can be a consistent position.
How do you justify any violation of body sovereignty, then?
To pick a nice extreme example: How do you justify prisons? They violate the right of the imprisoned to do with their body what they will. Isn't that more important than other moral considerations like murder?
What am I missing?
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by rivka:
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: *I realize that most people don't regard the embryo/fetus as a parasite but as a blessed guest.
No matter how wanted the pregnancy, many women start to think of it as a parasite at some point during the pregnancy. Round about the "I'm going to be pregnant FOREVER!!!" stage of the third trimester, most often.
Heh!
I've also known women who wanted the baby a lot, but still likened pregnancy to a parasite pretty much throughout the entire nine months.
I suspect I sure would.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Dan, I think it is morally relevant, too. I even think that it is morally relevant if the parasite is only a cluster of cells with the potential to become a human being.
But you think that body sovereignty trumps it, right?
Right.
quote: I guess I'm just confused at how that can be a consistent position.
How do you justify any violation of body sovereignty, then?
To pick a nice extreme example: How do you justify prisons? They violate the right of the imprisoned to do with their body what they will. Isn't that more important than other moral considerations like murder?
What am I missing?
Do you see the difference between confining someone and, for example, using prisoners to test experimental drugs or forcing them to become blood or organ donors?
And in the case of pregnancy, we are talking about women who have committed no crime.
For the record, I think that mentally competent people should be legally allowed to commit suicide though I would propose that the desire to commit suicide may be an argument against competence in most cases. As well as being, in most cases, immoral.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: I've also known women who wanted the baby a lot, but still likened pregnancy to a parasite pretty much throughout the entire nine months.
Sure, but we are a smaller percentage.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots:
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Dan, I think it is morally relevant, too. I even think that it is morally relevant if the parasite is only a cluster of cells with the potential to become a human being.
But you think that body sovereignty trumps it, right?
Right.
quote: I guess I'm just confused at how that can be a consistent position.
How do you justify any violation of body sovereignty, then?
To pick a nice extreme example: How do you justify prisons? They violate the right of the imprisoned to do with their body what they will. Isn't that more important than other moral considerations like murder?
What am I missing?
Do you see the difference between confining someone and, for example, using prisoners to test experimental drugs or forcing them to become blood or organ donors?
And in the case of pregnancy, we are talking about women who have committed no crime.
Right, sorry, I wasn't actually trying to liken pregnant women to criminals! I was just clarifying that you do agree there are limits to the "body sovereignty over all other considerations" position. And you seem to have agreed that there are. Right?
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Not really.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
Wait, so there are no limits to "body sovereignty over all other considerations" in your opinion?
But then we're back to prisoners. Forget forcing prisoners to test experimental drugs. Simply forcing them to stay in a cell and eat the food you give them and go where you tell them to go and sleep when you tell them to sleep completely violates the sovereignty of their body. Doesn't it?
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
No. Confining a body is very different from invading a body. It is the difference between locking someone up and what we won't do.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
I'm with Kate. There is a very fundamental bright line difference between restricting what a person can do WITH their body and legislating what can be done TO their body.
And by the way, AFAIK prisoners can not be forced to eat the food the are given. Force feeding is consider a bodily violation and is no longer allowed.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
Okay, but we don't let prisoners do heroin, right? Or is there equally a bright line difference between letting someone add something to their body vs. letting them remove something from their body?
What if a prisoner has a bag of heroin in his colon? They'll forcibly remove it, right? Is that okay, or is that a violation of body sovereignty?
Posted by CT (Member # 8342) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: What if a prisoner has a bag of heroin in his colon? They'll forcibly remove it, right?
I doubt it. Allowing it to pass through on its own in due time (with monitoring) is likely safest and least likely to spill contents internally, anyway. All official policy I've seen on this is to watch and wait with careful monitoring.
Or are you using the term "colon" to include "rectum"? Medically they are distinct areas, with the anal canal and distal portion of the rectal cavity being the parts accessed during a body cavity search.
[ May 10, 2012, 08:13 AM: Message edited by: CT ]
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Okay, but we don't let prisoners do heroin, right?
Technically, I believe the laws prohibit a person (prisoner or not) from possessing heroin. Not taking it.
And for the record, I do consider a cavity search to be a breach of a persons body sovereignty. I find it very disturbing that the threshold for doing these searches is being lowered.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by CT:
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: What if a prisoner has a bag of heroin in his colon? They'll forcibly remove it, right?
I doubt it. Allowing it to pass through on its own in due time (with monitoring) is likely safest and least likely to spill contents internally, anyway. All official policy I've seen on this is to watch and wait with careful monitoring.
Or are you using the term "colon" to include "rectum"? Medically they are distinct areas, with the anal canal and distal portion of the rectal cavity being the parts accessed during a body cavity search.
Yeah, I meant rectum. I think I'll avoid that link, though. Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit:
quote:Okay, but we don't let prisoners do heroin, right?
Technically, I believe the laws prohibit a person (prisoner or not) from possessing heroin. Not taking it.
So do you support criminalizing owning abortion equipment, but not the actual act of having an abortion?
Otherwise, I'm not sure how the distinction is important.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit:
quote:Okay, but we don't let prisoners do heroin, right?
Technically, I believe the laws prohibit a person (prisoner or not) from possessing heroin. Not taking it.
So do you support criminalizing owning abortion equipment, but not the actual act of having an abortion?
Otherwise, I'm not sure how the distinction is important.
If you criminalized the owning of abortion equipment then abortions could not be given even when it was necessary to save the mother's life.
My arguments are all based on the premise that abortions are sometimes morally justified.
Once you accept that, then you must ask who should be allowed to decide when an abortion is morally justified. I believe the mother should be the person allowed to make that decision.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
Yeah, that would be a consequence of criminalizing abortion equipment, that's true.
So, you're saying abortions are sometimes morally justified despite the fact that you think they are killing a person, right?
Posted by CT (Member # 8342) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
quote:Originally posted by CT: Originally posted by Dan_Frank: Heh, thanks for the correction, CT!
Yeah, I meant rectum. I think I'll avoid that link, though.
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