quote:It's a perrenial problem with activism. You need passionate people to help you champion your cause, but people in the grips of passion usually make very bad decisions.
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1. All pro-lifers believe all life is equally sanctified. I am assuming this. Let me caveat it with all innocent life. Frankly I would find it astonishing if someone could advocate that the life of a foetus in America is more sacred then the life of a 2 month year old baby in Ghana.
2. Murder is morally equivalent to negligence This point rests in turn on the assumption that abortion is in fact murder. However it does raise another interesting point -I assumed that the role of anti-abortion legislation was to prevent abortions, not to punish mothers who have them. Although some enforcement may be necessary to make the law effective, I assumed that the overriding objective of the law was not punitive.
If this is the case then why is protecting one life so different from protecting another? Would your view change if it was shown that people in the third world were dying as a direct consequence of the actions of some corporation in that country?
3. Abortion deaths are so rare that they are of vanishingly small concern compared to the number of other preventable deaths out there I'm not assuming abortion deaths are vanishingly small. I am however assuming more people die world-wide from poverty and malnutrition then die as a result of abortions.
4. Protesting abortion prevents someone from endorsing other life-affirming causes Nope. Not saying this. What I am arguing is that where people protest abortion and do not concern themselves with other (probably easier)ways to save lives, they are demonstrating an internal hypocrisy. But in NO way does protesting abortion mean people can't support other life-affirming causes.
5. It would be no harder or unlikely to eliminate worldwide poverty than to make most forms of abortion illegal in America . No. But it would be no harder or unlikely to save lives overseas then it would be to save lives in America.
quote: But the pro-life position isn't simply based on "all life is sacred."
It's based on the notion that a child's right to legal protection should not be based on how many cells it has.
That is a very interesting way of characterising the argument.
Would it be accurate to say that the pro-life position is based on the sanctity of all innocent life, including that of all children no matter how many cells they have?
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I think the pro-life position, at least that part of it that distinguishes it from other positions that also care about life, is that an unborn child is due the same protections as one who has been born.
Certainly, pro-lifers (as used in the abortion debate) aren't the only ones who believe in the "sanctity of all innocent life." What distinguishes them is the inclusion of a particular stage of human development into the definition of "innocent life."
So think of the position as definitional. Once the unborn child is included in the category of "innocent life," whatever moral implications that already exist concerning innocent life attach to the unborn child.
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Doesn't the characterisation of a foetus as a life from the moment of conception rest on ideas associated with sanctity of life?
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1) I threw out #1 mainly to eliminate anyone who would argue, for example, that pro-lifers should be opposed to the death penalty, wars in general, etc. That doesn't mean that individual pro-lifers are not opposed to those things, but only that they aren't part of the definition.
2) The distinction between murder and negligence is not merely a punitive one; it is also a moral one. While economics and civil war might lead to the death of a baby in Botswana, the direct cause of that baby's death is rarely something as clear-cut as, in the case of abortion, the decision of a specific individual to kill someone else. People here have rightly mocked the concept of the "war on terror" because terror is a fairly nebulous and unformed concept against which to send tanks. By the same token, there are rarely any individuals or specific decisions clearly at fault when two thousand people die of famine -- whereas abortion is in fact a clearly purposeful act.
If it could be shown that people were dying as a direct consequence of one company's actions, I would indeed expect that protestors would immediately begin actions against that company once it became known.
3) You've heard the phrase "think globally, act locally," right? It's a classic activist cliche -- and here you're looking to reverse it. Because more people may die of a series of nebulous and not necessarily related policies and world events, you're arguing that people should not be excessively concerned with abortion. The same logic, of course, suggests that we should never spend any money on researching Alzheimer's treatments until all the more important diseases are cured.
4) "Not saying this. What I am arguing is that where people protest abortion and do not concern themselves with other (probably easier)ways to save lives, they are demonstrating an internal hypocrisy." I quoted you here because you're making an assumption -- probably easier -- which I specifically reject. I'll deal with that in #5.
5) Leaving aside matters of personal responsibility, the simple fact is that poverty -- particularly worldwide poverty -- is pretty much going to be with us always, if only for the practical reason that most activists are pretty spoiled and don't think to concentrate their efforts on it. How many feminists are completely wasting their time on the Equal Rights Amendment, for example, when people are starving in Congo? Let's face it: eliminating worldwide poverty and saving the lives of those millions of children is a dauntingly impossible task. Even if every protest group in the world threw away their own pet cause in favor of it, it would still be a daunting task. But abortion is one of those issues where a few opinions, a few voices, can make a solid difference to literally millions of lives -- so why not work to save those lives instead of wasting a lifetime on a project that's unlikely to go anywhere?
As other people on this thread have attempted to suggest, shouldn't practicality also be a concern?
quote:Doesn't the characterisation of a foetus as a life from the moment of conception rest on ideas associated with sanctity of life?
No, I think you've got the cause and effect backwards. The application of sanctity-of-life principles rests on the characterization of a fetus as a human life.
We have principle A, which says innocent human life is sacred.
We have principles B-Z, which state "because innocent human life is sacred, action b is/isn't moral behavior."
Then we have definition 1, which states "an unborn child is an innocent human life."
If definition 1 is accepted as true, principle A applies to unborn children. Because principle A applies to unborn children, principles B-Z apply as well.
I'm going to work now. Otherwise I'll never tear myself away.
*** Tom - thanks, I'll look over in more detail later. A quick response though about your last point. I think you are confusing "saving lives from death from malnutrition/poverty" and "eradicating all poverty". The first is acheivable, the secondly is certainly less so. But because my money going to world vision will only save a few children's lives, not end world poverty, should I stop donating it?
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"But because my money going to world vision will only save a few children's lives, not end world poverty, should I stop donating it?"
I await your answer. Because if money and time spent to end abortion in America will only save a few children's lives, not end world poverty, I wonder whether you think people should stop donating it. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:So to me, and many who think like me, the inconsistency identified in imogen's post is not as large as it is to Sara.
Dagonee, I have less trouble with people holding different values than I might have expected. (This is in general, mind you -- I don't mean this post to address you or anyone in particular, but rather just an observation on myself.)
What does trouble me -- in contrast -- is when people give a primarily outcomes-based objection to a situation but then hold the type of inconsistency brought up by imogen. That is, when the discussion turns to something like "But there are a million innocent lives dying every year!" I have trouble getting my head around why this is more important than a million other lives.
If the primary concern isn't so much the loss of the innocent lives as it is the punitive aspect of addressing an immoral action (and if this priority is made consistently clear), then I can make better sense of it in my head.
I'm still curious as to whether Tom would support legislation that requires a parent to donate organs to a child who needs them from that parent, but I won't push for a response. It may not be an interesting quesion to any but me.
(Of course I would not think highly of a parent who wouldn't do this for a child, but I also would hesitate to make it a matter of legal enforcement.)
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quote:Here's the thing: From Sara's posts here, I know she's extremely outcome-oriented in her moral reasoning. An argument such as the one you presented makes a whole lot of sense from that perspective. And, from that perspective, it would present "an inconsistency in my own beliefs. "
You are civil and charitable to a fault in your characterization of me. Thanks for the care and patience. Posts: 2919 | Registered: Aug 2004
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"I'm still curious as to whether Tom would support legislation that requires a parent to donate organs to a child who needs them from that parent, but I won't push for a response."
No, I would not. Again, it's a matter of negligence versus murder. Compelling someone to help someone else is not the same issue as preventing someone from hurting someone else.
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So I take it you would make a distinction in the situation below? (I don't think this makes you a worse person, by the way -- as if there were some doubt -- just someone with a different perspective.)
quote:That is, if someone were to [calmly] watch Sophie slide down and drown instead of simply lifting her out of the bathtub, I'd think that person just as horrible as if they had been the one to tip her under. The distinction would be irrelevant to me.
In trying to understand your perspective, I was interpreting this is a strong sense:
quote:However, the people who would be paying the $270 in this case are not directly responsible for the indigent conditions of the people they are helping, whereas most people who are having abortions are directly responsible for their pregnancy. I submit that there is a huge distinction between requiring someone to sacrifice to help a stranger and preventing someone from killing a stranger; it is for this reason that murder is punished more harshly than negligence. The situations are not parallel, in other words. [italicization added by me to clarify my reference in the block quote]
That is, I took you to mean that were one responsible for the existence and condition of another life, then one would be obligated to support it -- the situations would, in that case, be parallel. Assuming that location (in the womb vs outside the womb) of the needy individual in question is morally irrelevent, that is. I take this to be a standard assumption of the prolife movement in general, although I understand that some might well differ on this.
[ October 27, 2004, 09:14 AM: Message edited by: Sara Sasse ]
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quote:No, I would not. Again, it's a matter of negligence versus murder. Compelling someone to help someone else is not the same issue as preventing someone from hurting someone else.
I think you and I would both likely be much relieved by the existence of safe and reliable artificial wombs, a'la Bujold.
I don't mean the science fiction reference to be flippant, either. I've been following the Kuwabara research quite avidly.
[ October 27, 2004, 09:19 AM: Message edited by: Sara Sasse ]
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quote:What does trouble me -- in contrast -- is when people give a primarily outcomes-based objection to a situation but then hold the type of inconsistency brought up by imogen. That is, when the discussion turns to something like "But there are a million innocent lives dying every year!" I have trouble getting my head around why this is more important than a million other lives.
But if "dying" is replaced with "murdered" or even just "killed," the reason for the dying is at least acknowledged as part of the moral harm.
quote:If the primary concern isn't so much the loss of the innocent lives as it is the punitive aspect of addressing an immoral action (and if this priority is made consistently clear), then I can make better sense of it in my head.
If punitive is used in the formal sense of studies of system of punishments (retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation), then yes, this is a fair statement. In that sense, addressing means more than reacting to it if it occurs; it also means attempting to prevent it.
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"I think you and I would both likely be much relieved by the existence of safe and reliable artificial wombs, a'la Bujold."
Amen to that. I would of course require that the biological parents be billed for the procedure -- something that I think any number of charities would be happy to help them cover -- but that would eliminate almost all my moral objections.
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On the "standing next to Sophie while she drowns in the bathtub," I'd submit that there is a further distinction. In fact, I'll list a number of possibilities here, all of which I believe to not be morally equivalent:
1) Murdering one's toddler with a hatchet. 2) Aborting a fertilized egg. 3) Aborting an eight-month fetus. 4) Not sending food or money to a majority of the countries in the world to assist the starving children of those countries. 5) Not leaping into a raging inferno to save a child. 6) Not donating an organ to save a child. 7) Not grabbing a mother's arm to prevent her from beating her child. 8) Not interfering in a witnessed abduction. 9) Not reporting the witnessed abduction. 10) Not permitting a blood transfusion to save the life of your child if you believe it would endanger his or her soul.
quote:But if "dying" is replaced with "murdered" or even just "killed," the reason for the dying is at least acknowledged as part of the moral harm.
Sure enough. That makes it more clear for me, too.
quote:In that sense, addressing means more than reacting to it if it occurs; it also means attempting to prevent it.
Not to be divisive, but if there is a more effective way of preventing the action than by formalized punishment, would serve to trump the punitive approach, for you? (Just curious -- promise not to force you on the defensive. )
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quote:On the "standing next to Sophie while she drowns in the bathtub," I'd submit that there is a further distinction.
I see the further list, but I just want to be clear on this point. (I'm not going to push you to defend the distinction, just trying to make sure I understand your position.)
If a strong, healthy, fully alert babycare provider for Sophie sits at the side of the bathtub, watches Sophie slide under the water, struggling and unable to breathe, choking to death -- and this provider sits there eating a muffin and watches Sophie die, then ...
... of course you would be furious, enraged, and judge this provider a horrible person. But this would not be as morally outraged a position as if the provider had given Sophie a push, and then watched her die when she could have been easily saved?
(Again, I just want to get this particular point clear, because it was a sticking point for me in trying to think through moral issues. I do not have any intent of pressuring you to defend the position, just trying to make sure I get that you do make the distinction, even if I do not.)
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quote:Not to be divisive, but if there is a more effective way of preventing the action than by formalized punishment, would serve to trump the punitive approach, for you?
The more effective approach wouldn't make me not want the law against it, but I'd be much happier if abortions stopped because no one wanted them (for whatever reason). If one course of action was more effective than criminalization, I'd want that action taken as well (assuming the morality of the action).
Child abuse is ideally stopped using child services, counselling, therapy, etc., but we wouldn't want to decriminalize it.
quote:If a strong, healthy, fully alert babycare provider for Sophie sits at the side of the bathtub, watches Sophie slide under the water, struggling and unable to breathe, choking to death -- and this provider sits there eating a muffin and watches Sophie die, then ...
... of course you would be furious, enraged, and judge this provider a horrible person. But this would not be as morally outraged a position as if the provider had given Sophie a push, and then watched her die when she could have been easily saved?
In criminal law, this distinction is made via "duty." A parent or other guardian, including the babysitter, would be guilty of some form of homicide in this situation. This isn't dispositive on the moral front, but it acknowledges the shades of culpability.
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If you are pro-Bush, that doesn't mean you necessarily have to support Bush in all things he does in any context. What it means is that you are pro-Bush in a certain context - presumably the elections.
In the same way, being labeled prolife doesn't mean you favor protecting the right to life in all possible contexts. When used within the abortion debate, it's only referring to the life of the fetus. Thus, in that context, the pro-life position is the view that the life of the fetus is sacred, or in other words, that the fetus has a right to life.
But again, it is incorrect to equate the anti-abortion position with the pro-life position, just because the anti-abortion side of the argument would have you do so. This is because many people are pro-life but not anti-abortion - they think abortion should be legal, even though the life of the fetus is sacred.
The true opposite of pro-choice is anti-abortion, because the question upon which that axis is based is whether or not we should have a choice to have an abortion. In contrast, the opposite of pro-life is whatever you call the belief that the life of the fetus is not sacred (any moreso than any other cell or growth in the female body.)
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I asked Tom for clarification in this one particular (artificial) case because although I too would make distinctions among the cases in his list, I'm pretty sure that this wouldn't be because of a distinction between "acting" and "passively permitting."
That is, I think there are a whole host of other factors which tend to occur coincidentally in these cases, some of which are relevant to drawing the distinctions and some not. But when I isolate a comparison down as closely as I can just to the distinction between active and passive involvement, then I can't (for me) make sense of distinguishing between the two in a moral sense.
[Such other relevant characteristics would be things like having the effect be a consequence of one's actions, merely human nature concerns of how we are wired to act when a concern is abstract as vs concrete, other competing claims on our resources, etc.]
I do, however, understand that for reasons of practicality and evidence, a legal distinction may well be required at some level. (e.g., varying levels of homicide) However, I think of this more as a constraint placed on us by having to work under nonideal conditions, under the crudity of slippery language and indeterminacy of intent.
By the way, Dag, I came back to clarify that I do understand how one could hold that the allegedly more effective approach might be relevant and important but not necessarily a trump. That is, I wouldn't characterize someone who did not see it as a trump as someone who disn't give a rat's patootie about it -- just as someone who believed other things were also still relevant.
For me, though, I think it would be a trump, both for abortion and for child abuse. If I really believed that making child abuse no longer a legal issue really would quite significantly decrease the incidence of it, then that is what I'd lobby for. (I would still speak out against it as a member of the community, but I would remove it from the legal sphere in order to be significantly more effective in preventing it. However, I don't think I'd be willing to go so far as refrain from speaking out against it, even in the case where I could be pretty sure that not speaking out against it would decrease the incidence. My reasoning for that is a thorny part that I'm still thinking through.)
[ October 27, 2004, 10:29 AM: Message edited by: Sara Sasse ]
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"But this would not be as morally outraged a position as if the provider had given Sophie a push, and then watched her die when she could have been easily saved?"
There are two components to this sin: the duty of the provider to see to her safety, and the culpability of the provider in her drowning. By allowing Sophie to drown, she abrogates her duty but is not directly culpable; by pushing her in, she is both culpable and derelict. So, yeah, the situations are different even as the results are identical.
If you don't understand this, consider another possibility: Sophie is playing happily in the tub, and the provider hears a scream from another room. She rushes out of the room, only to discover that it's a soap opera on TV. When she returns to the tub, Sophie has drowned.
Sophie has still drowned on her watch. Is she as guilty of something as when she watched her drown, or when she pushed her in?
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quote:For me, though, I think it would be a trump, both for abortion and for child abuse. If I really believed that making child abuse no longer a legal issue really would quite significantly decrease the incidence of it, then that is what I'd lobby for.
OK, I didn't interpret your original post on alternatives as the two being incompatible, or criminalizing reducing the effectiveness of the other.
In that case I'd have to think about - I'm not sure where I'd come down.
I have thought about whether I think criminalization would make other efforts less effective, and arrives at a "No" answer.
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I think I posted while you were writing, Tom, and that may answer your question. I'll add a little more clarification here, though.
quote:If you don't understand this, consider another possibility: Sophie is playing happily in the tub, and the provider hears a scream from another room. She rushes out of the room, only to discover that it's a soap opera on TV. When she returns to the tub, Sophie has drowned.
Sophie has still drowned on her watch. Is she as guilty of something as when she watched her drown, or when she pushed her in?
In this case, the intent also is different -- and I think that is where the distinction would lie, for me. In contrast, I tried in my example to narrow it down to just the distinction between active and passive action.
When other things like differing intents get mixed in, I think that the active/passive distinction -- although more obvious -- may be merely coincidental with the other (determining) factors.
A more clear example was given by James Rachels, whose example was that of an uncle who was caring for a nephew. The uncle would inherit if the child died, and the uncle was fully aware of this as he watching the child slip under -- it was the intent to have the child die and he himself to inherit which was in his mind, both in the situation where he watched and refrained from action, and in the situation when he pushed the child under.
Same intent, same effect. One time reaching out to give a push, the other time just waiting for the inevitable.
All other things being equal (a rare case, but I think helpful in clarifying what things are trumps -- or deal-breakers, or however one might put it), I can't make sense for myself of distinguishing between action and passively permitting.
However, as Dag noted, I am rabidly outcomes-oriented, at least on the surface, so this is not a surprising conclusion for me.
[ October 27, 2004, 10:44 AM: Message edited by: Sara Sasse ]
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quote:If you're going to redefine "pro-life" then you HAVE to redefine "pro-choice" to be remotely fair.
I'm not redefining anything. That's just what the two words mean. Pro-life is favoring the life of the fetus. Pro-choice is favoring the choice to be able to end that life if you want. It's counterproductive to redefine words in order to make them artificially fair.
I would call the pro-choice position pro-abortion, but that would be misleading, because it seems to imply abortion is a good thing, which most pro-choice individuals do not believe. It'd be like calling anti-abortion people anti-choice, which is equally misleading.
quote:I'm not redefining anything. That's just what the two words mean. Pro-life is favoring the life of the fetus. Pro-choice is favoring the choice to be able to end that life if you want. It's counterproductive to redefine words in order to make them artificially fair.
I would call the pro-choice position pro-abortion, but that would be misleading, because it seems to imply abortion is a good thing, which most pro-choice individuals do not believe. It'd be like calling anti-abortion people anti-choice, which is equally misleading.
But if you're excluding "pro-life" as a valid term for people who oppose abortion's legalization because there are other considerations beyond support for life, then you must logically exclude "pro-choice" as a valid term for people who favor abortion's legalization because there are other considerations beyond support for choice.
Further, there are many other choices than the choice to have an abortion, as well as another entity who's capacity for choice is restricted by abortion.
If you're going to make a textualist argument, apply your principles consistently.
You're principle objection to the term "pro-life" as defined by Tom is that it excludes people who consider themselves in favor of life but who support abortion rights. The way you've applied it, "pro-choice" can't be used to describe me, even though I'm in favor of the power of choice.
If that's what pro-choice is, however, there's not really anyone who isn't pro-choice. I mean, there is contraversy over whether a fetus has a right to life. There isn't contraversy over whether people have a right to choose to do things.
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The simple fact, Xap, is that defining "pro-life" as "people who believe that fetuses have a right to life which may be abrogated for any reason by the decision of the mother" would render the term meaningless for the purposes of defining the conversation. You would need to come up with a new term for "people who believe that fetuses have a right to life which cannot -- or can only in exceptional circumstances -- be abrogated by the decision of the mother."
As it stands, there is no real need to expand the term "pro-life" to the first group, as they are already reasonably well described by the term "pro-choice" -- since, after all, they believe that the choice in this case is more important than the life. Why would you change that?
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Supportive of individual control over the basic functioning of one's own body vs Ambivalent regarding individual control over the basic functioning of one's own body
Namely, either way you end up defining one group in terms of a factor which that group does not accept as the most fundamental issue.
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Tom, a quick question? (You don't have to explain why -- again, I'm just curious as to whether I understand you.)
Would you, too, agree that in the situation of the babycare provider who went to investigate the scream, there are additional relevant considerations over and above the active/passive distinction?
(That is, do you get why I would draw a distinction in that case but not in mine, even though you may not agree?)
[A "yes, I do" or "no, I don't" would satisfy my curiosity sufficiently, but of course you needn't limit yourself to that.]
[ October 27, 2004, 11:12 AM: Message edited by: Sara Sasse ]
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What, to me, is one of the most maddening points of the American abortion debate is that the nature of the US legal system prevents some compromises which would limit abortions that I believe otherwise would be easily agreed upon. Over here, the main-stream liberal pro-choice position -- which is reflected in law* -- is actually pretty close to Tom's position, which he characterizes as pro-life.
While I share the position of being "pro-choice" rather than "pro-abortion", I believe that the choice should be exercised as soon as possible. Ideally, all recreational sex ought to be conducted with adequate contraceptive protection, but in cases where the contraception fails or the participants are too inexperienced or ignorant to protect themselves, abortion is a second chance.
But really, why is there a need to extend this chance to the point of killing a foetus that would be able to survive outside of the womb (as has been know to happen as early as the 22nd week, IIRC) or even to the disgusting practice of partial birth abortions? To my mind, there is no reason for why the pro-choice crowd should not allow themselves to be satisfied with a reasonable period of time from which the pregnancy is discovered for the woman to exercise her choice. This choice, provided a minimum of mandatory sex-education, could easily be satisfactorily accomplished within the first trimester.
As I see it, the only reason for why such a compromise has not been worked out in the US is the fact that what would normally be a slippery slope fallacy argument actually has some basis in reality, given how the US legal system is set up. The pro-choice advocates feel that granting an unborn baby any rights at all, even at a late stage of the pregnancy, opens the way for a constitutional argument for a total ban on abortions. The only way to alleviate this fear may be to institute a constitutional ammendment detailing the elements of abortion rights, something the pro-lifers (among whom Tom's position is a distinct minority) would never agree to; since, although limiting abortions to the first trimester might be an acceptable compromise as an intermediate step towards an eventual goal, an ammendment would solidify the state of affairs in a long-term unacceptable position.
So, in my view, the rigidity of the US constitutional rights based legal system is to a large part a contributing factor to the polarization of the American abortion debate, making it harder to reach acceptable temporary compromises. It may be that the only way forward is more of the, to many so hateful, "judicial activism". The Supreme Court could revisit the abortion issue and "interpret" the constitution in a way that limits the excessive use of abortions without curtailing the right to choose altogether.
Or would that be to much to ask?
* Up until the 18th week since conception abortion is available on request of the pregnant woman. Later abortion would only be an alternative after permission from a board of review -- permission only granted under extreme circumstances and not at all if the foetus is suspected to be capable of surviving -- or in a medical emergency.
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The only accurate descriptions are things like pro-/anti- abortion legalization, pro-/anti- abortion criminalization, pro-/anti- abortion rights, or pro-/anti- legal fetal protection from abortion. The terms must include some association with the legal system since that's the desired goal.
We don't hold language to this standard on a consistent basis. And even these accurate terms have obvious propoganda potential for one side or the other.
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"Would you, too, agree that in the situation of the babycare provider who went to investigate the scream, there are additional relevant considerations over and above the active/passive distinction?"
Certainly. The problem is, however, that I'm not sure how this actually helps your larger argument, as the intent behind abortion is the death of the fetus.
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"It may be that the only way forward is more of the, to many so hateful, 'judicial activism.' The Supreme Court could revisit the abortion issue and 'interpret' the constitution in a way that limits the excessive use of abortions without curtailing the right to choose altogether."
Ironically, that's exactly what happened. The problem is that the Court, in so doing, hung their entire argument on the concept of a "right to privacy" that, IMO, has never been properly defined or enumerated.
It's my personal opinion that the judicial system is so burdened now by bad precedent and poorly formed logic that we should just throw our hands into the air and declare that all previous legal precedent is null and void, letting each case be decided on its merits. But I suspect that might cause problems.
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Tom, I'm aware of a case where the SC decided to allow restrictions on later term abortions. What I would like is a decision -- or a federal law -- actually forbidding late term abortions (excepting medical emergencies).
quote:Certainly. The problem is, however, that I'm not sure how this actually helps your larger argument, as the intent behind abortion is the death of the fetus.
My intent isn't to build an argument here so much as it is to figure out which among the various factors are relevant, and if any are trump cards, for the people I am trying to understand.
I don't find the active/passive distinction on its own to be tenable as a moral distinction, and so I don't find that portion of the distinction between voluntary abortion and declining to donate bone marrow to be a relevant one, either.
Of course, there are other potentially relevant distinctions to be made, as I noted above. But again, I'm not trying to make that argument, just to understand better the claims that are being made here.
When discussing this complicated an issue, it is not uncommon to see people arguing, "I believe q because of x, y, and z. Oh, and s too, and t is also true, did you think of that?" When reasons are conflated with coincidental characteristics, I get muddled and can't trace the thread of the argument.
That's all. Just trying to figure out whether -- for you -- the active/passive distinction is a relevant one, or if it just happens to occur in contexts with other factors (but not be a deciding factor itself).
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I was trying to investigate this in Running from Bears and Moral Ponderings. I don't think we reached any conclusions, but it helped clarify some of my thinking.
posted
Going back to the original topic for a moment, I wonder if OSC thinks that if everyone in the US were as outwardly religious as people supposedly were back in the 50's, the terrorists would hate us less. Suppose we were all pro-life, heterosexual, male-friendly Christians who only had sex with our spouses and never consumed pornography of any sort. Would the terrorists hate us less?
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quote:The simple fact, Xap, is that defining "pro-life" as "people who believe that fetuses have a right to life which may be abrogated for any reason by the decision of the mother" would render the term meaningless for the purposes of defining the conversation.
Of course! But nobody has argued defining it that way. The actual definition would be "people who believe that fetuses have a right to life which may be abrogated only for a very good reason." And there is a very real debate over that. Some people think fetuses are not people, and thus have no such right at all. Some people think they are people, and thus have a right to life. But I don't think anybody is suggesting they have a right to life, but that right can be ignored for any reason whatsoever.
quote:You would need to come up with a new term for "people who believe that fetuses have a right to life which cannot -- or can only in exceptional circumstances -- be abrogated by the decision of the mother."
This is what is meant by pro-life, although what qualifies as exceptional circumstances is up to debate.
I don't think being pro-choice has ever meant that a mother has a right to kill her fetus for whatever reason she wants. That would be essentially saying the fetus has no right to life, and is held only by the extreme pro-choicers. The standard that normally defines the pro-choice group is the belief that it is the mother's judgement that determines when it is okay to abort and when it isn't. This might mean it's ethical for the mother to abort for any reason (as the more extreme believe) or it might mean simply that the law should let the mother decide what reasons are good reasons (as the less extreme might believe.) The pro-choice question is one about whether the mother gets to choose her actions, or if the law dictates them... and that's why I think the name is accurate. I think it would be a misrepresentation to call pro-choice the view that mothers can choose to kill fetuses whenever they want to for any reason - some might believe that, but not all.
The pro-life question is something entirely different, though. It's not about who gets to decide what mothers can do. It's about the nature of fetus rights.
An interesting example of the difference is the view in which pro-lifers AND pro-choicers are wrong. This is a view in which fetuses have no right to life AND in which the government decides for women whether or not they will abort. If you held that position, you might favor government-mandated abortions to keep the population down. In such a society the shoe would be on the other foot - it would be the pro-lifers who would support choice, because they would want the right to not have an abortion. If a majority of Americans ever accepted the view that fetuses have no right to life then we might find ourselves in that situation - where the pro-life extremists are also the most pro-choice.
quote:As it stands, there is no real need to expand the term "pro-life" to the first group, as they are already reasonably well described by the term "pro-choice" -- since, after all, they believe that the choice in this case is more important than the life. Why would you change that?
It's not a matter of expanding or changing anything. It's just a matter of accurately stating what we've meant all along by the terms.
quote:Going back to the original topic for a moment, I wonder if OSC thinks that if everyone in the US were as outwardly religious as people supposedly were back in the 50's, the terrorists would hate us less. Suppose we were all pro-life, heterosexual, male-friendly Christians who only had sex with our spouses and never consumed pornography of any sort. Would the terrorists hate us less?
Are we also assuming we're all still non-intervening-in-the-middle-east type folks (going back to the very early 50s)?
posted
Dag, I rememebr reading along with that thread. it was a good one -- I should revisit it. Thanks.
quote:Certainly. The problem is, however, that I'm not sure how this actually helps your larger argument, as the intent behind abortion is the death of the fetus.
I think sometimes this is the case, perhaps more willing than people are likely to admit, given that one of the most common reasons given in studies of decision-making among women who choose to abort rather than adopt out is something like "I couldn't bear having a child of mine out there in the world and not know what was happening to it."
(This is both more and less problematic than it seems, and I'd dearly love not to take the thread into a tangent on that statment. However, as y'all see fit. )
On the other hand, sometimes I think the intent really is to end the pregnancy, not to kill the fetus. Classic Catholic doctrine of double effect. For example, when the pregnancy is ectopic, or when severe and unremitting pre-eclampsia becomes a life-threatening issue for the mother before the age of fetal viability outside the womb, etc. In these cases, I think the intent is clearly to end the pregnancy, not to ensure the death of the fetus.
Once again, I think artificial wombs would simplify things tremendously from my perspective.
However, for someone who "couldn't bear having a child of mine out there in the world and not know what was happening to it" but relies on the currently (coincidentally) necessary death of the fetus in order for the pregnancy to be terminated in order to avoid dealing with that issue, I think artificial wombs are going to be a real thorny problem.
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posted
"It's just a matter of accurately stating what we've meant all along by the terms."
You use the word "we" here, Xap, where I think it is inappropriate.
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Sara, I believe the active/passive distinction IS relevant, but is certainly not the only relevant factor in determining wrongdoing.
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posted
[From prior to Tom's above post] Thus my caveat from several posts back:
quote:As a follow-up to the my above post on abortion, I'd also like to clarify that I don't think the "right to have an abortion" (i.e., to have a fetus removed from one's body) is equivalent to "right to ensure the death of a fetus."
[ October 27, 2004, 11:56 AM: Message edited by: Sara Sasse ]
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posted
*nod* The question, then, is whether you are content to abide by the current status quo until dependable artificial wombs are developed and the social care issues related to massive adoption are ironed out.
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