Hello Yea Forums philosophy grad student here.
I am looking to try to settle for myself what is the ethical stance to take on abortion, and I have heard arguments from both sides. So I figured I would start a thread to gather information: give me your best arguments pro and contra!
if your mother had only aborted you I would not have to suffer your posts
sometimes I wish.
Couple of 10 years says they will have one child at age 35. They have been planning it for ages. Time comes and they decide against it, and end up never giving birth. No different than abortion.
you're playing monopoly. you're on a winning streak. you're in the position to buy a lot more properties and possibly win the game. but you pull a chance card and get sent to jail. in jail, you can't achieve what you know you can. jail is holding you back. you play a get out of jail free card that you picked up earlier, a last resort option you'd saved for a rainy day, as nobody expects to go to jail. now you're free to continue conquering the board.
based
human life isn't sacred or something that should be protected
I don't know why would you ask here
What are the worthwhile prolife arguments that aren’t christfags jerkin the bible off onto you?
Abortion harvests lucrative fetal biology
I have to admire this bait. No organization of education worthy of the name "system" could genuinely be degraded enough to allow even a single person so obviously lacking in ability or even interest to waste his life with a graduate degree. Good try though, haha.
For me it's pretty obvious: as long as we are not certain when consciousness actually begins, if it's when the brain is formed or determined at the moment of conception, we can't be sure abortion isn't actually murder. We could very well just be condemning someone to a premature death.
So unless you see no problem with murder you shouldn't advocate for abortion.
>what is the ethical stance to take on abortion
That is the thing about ethics. There is no right or wrong answer. It is up to you to decide which path you want to go down.
Ethics is two people walk down the same path. Then they come to a fork in the path and both go down a different section. Are either of them wrong for choosing to go down one path over the other?
You can't stop people from fucking. Set up an actual service for the kids of dumbass parents if you don't want to create more idiots.
>body positive nozzles and tools
At least she's got a good sense of humor. But really with recent advancements in stem cell science we don't have to use fetal tissue.
>stemcells.nih.gov
Did the mods start filtering middle schooler to philosophy grad? Based mods.
Ethics are a meme. Morals are just the disgust response, biologically hardwired. Nothing about normative ethics is holy or special or objective, it is just a consequence of how the nervous system works. Philosophers disagree with this often, especially the analytics, but it's the truth. You would feel physically ill if you saw an innocent person shot in the face in front of you.
Regardless of the morality of abortion itself, it is patently obvious that any doctor adhering to the Hippocratic Oath cannot do so without violating that oath.
But abortion is immoral anyway; there's nothing categorically different about a baby once born and a baby at 38 weeks, or 37 weeks, or 24 weeks, etc. If dismembering and vacuuming the brain of one is wrong it is wrong for the other as well.
Then you die and your property is seized by the state
>muh ethics
>muh morals
>muh progression
both sides of this issue are bullshitting.
Go back to reading kafka and dfw and getting crushed in chess you obvious pseud
The taking of an innocent human person's life for trivial reasons is always wrong.
In most cases, abortion is the taking of an innocent human person's life for trivial reasons.
Therefore abortion is always wrong.
simple.
It's the ending of a human life, it's entirely about whether or not you're okay with that. Anyone pretending otherwise is deluding themselves.
Yes there is a right road and and wrong one that brings you to an abyss
Theres biological concensus that the first stage of life for all mammals is at egg fertilization. No moral arguemant for or against can truthfully begin without acknowledging that fact.
I think the leftwing push for abortion would be a lot more rational if they would just admit they are ending a human life to the benifit of another human life. People arent against the death penalty, and instances of police shootings, when its justified, as with other forms of government funded killings. start there.
even if you do count abortion as murder, it's still morally right to kill an unconscious, unfeeling fetus than to let it live its life as an unwanted, or crippled, or teen mother's, or rape baby.
I just think it's telling how abortion, taking life prematurely, is such a controversial issue but people don't argue nearly as much about artificially prolonging life
They're both a product of advances in medicine
Abortion it seems to me like you could easily argue for it being a selfish act or a merciful one but the desire to prolong ones life seems purely selfish yet for most people this is exactly one of the main reasons they espouse advances in medicine to begin with
if we start with the premise that killing people is generally wrong, we can say that killing a one day old infant is wrong. killing that infant two days before is then obviously wrong, its consciousness and physical nature being more or less the same. so, as we go further back -- three days, five days, a week, two weeks, a month, &c -- where do we draw the line? it's impossible to know, really, since there's no way to tell when consciousness emerges. why risk murder? there is not really an ethically sound argument in favor of abortion as long as it is accepted that murder is wrong. it's possible that no murder is being committed, and the thing that is being killed is no more than an arrangement of cells, but there's a decent chance that such is not the case.
A human life will suffer less having never been born than the painful process of life, indoctrination, and decay
ANTINATALISTS BEGONE
(1) The fertilisation of an egg by a spermatozoon results in a zygote, a living organism of the human species - a human being.
(2) It is wrong to kill a human being.
Therefore, it is wrong to abort (i.e. kill) an unborn child.
I'm ultimately indifferent to the debate, but I would rather live in a society that values life and good decision making. I also really detest Leftists and modern feminists so I generally am pro-life.
And you're getting a degree in philosophy? What a waste.
>Hello Yea Forums philosophy grad student here.
>Can't spell dilemma
>the ethical stance [devoid of region or governing body]
I really hope you're an American grad student because you should be considered an inveterate debtor for being this dumb and attention seeking.
>it is wrong to kill a human being
>implying
This is a really bad take. You need to think more.
A Defense of Abortion by Thompson is a pretry seminal text that defends the right to life of the unborn, but argues that abortion is still morally premissible.
>a zygote, embryo, and fetus are all biological organisms with a complete set of human DNA
>killing any of those three things is no different than killing an infant, child, or adult
On the other hand the emphasis here is on *actual* choice, and the decision here is what may be termed the decision to be responsible. In other words the argument could be used by the other side as well by obviating its counter's notion of 'choice.' Choice then becomes a temporal issue (which of course it is): a murderer cannot choose to unkill a man, but a citizen can choose not to become a murderer.
There's some sloppy language which argue too much create necessary problems. You should say that it's wrong to murder and then define murder as the killing of an innocent person. When you argue that its wrong to kill all people, that includes people who are trying to murder you. That what I mean I say you're arguing too much with the sloppy language, you're arguing that you have no right to self defense.
This desu, imagine the effort that would be involved to incorporate the delayed personhood thesis to regular biology. It would be lysenkoism all over again
Pro-choice people should do this but I can understand why they don't. They would have to justify the human/personhood distinction and I haven't seen anyone come close to doing it. It's as if they just want people to assume that human rights are separate from human nature without any argument as to why that should be so. It's a very uphill battle for them because they would also have to answer why humans should have any rights at all.
>ending a life to benefit another life or to benefit society
But this would lead down the road of ending the lives of certain protected classes to benefit society if ending a life for the sake of society is morally acceptable in general.
That's one of the big problems they have. It's also why so many pro-choice arguments can be used to justify slavery.
A right to life doesn't entail the right to violate someone else's bodily autonomy for the purposes of keeping yourself alive and the mother has the right to stop said violation by a pre-viable fetus (see violinist argument).
A necessary condition for being a person is that there has been something it is like to be said person. It is not like anything to be a fetus before 24ish weeks, therefore they are not persons and there are no moral objections to aborting before said week.
don't drag lysenko into this discussion. he is unironically right about his view of biology.
This is from a pro-choice philosopher
>The appeal to the right to control one's body, which is generally construed as a property right, is at best a rather feeble argument for the permissibly of abortion. Mere ownership does not give me the right to kill innocent people whom I find on my property, and indeed I am apt to be held responsible if such people injure themselves while on my property. It is equally unclear that I have any moral right to expel an innocent person from my property when I know that doing so will result in his death.
You can stop them from having kids of they are sterilized.
I think all bastards should be aborted and any mother who made that mistake, irreversibly sterilized.
Like I said, pre-24 week fetuses are not people and later abortions are always done for medical reasons.
pre-24 week fetuses are people. the instant the embryogenesis happens, the embryo is a person.
This is the best argument itt.
By insisting that the unborn aren't human before 24 weeks you're just arguing in a circle, you need to justify that belief. There has never been a case where abortion was necessary to save the life of a mother. If it's that late in the pregnancy doctors would induce a premature birth.
>pre-24 week fetuses are not people
Weak, scientifically false, and losing argument. Proper thing to do is say "so what", instead of trying to defend they their legal categorization of non-persons which is simply an edict that does not coincide with scientific reality, which makes you look as dogmatic, retarded, and lots as a religious person. In fact, the morality of the masses, is a religion of its own of sorts, which leads to these untenable beliefs. Humanism was a mistake.
>lots
lost*
>I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but never with a view to injury and wrong-doing. Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. Similarly I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion. But I will keep pure and holy both my life and my art.
As far as the ethics of abortion go, which are strictly within the realm of the medical practitioner, it would seem a violation. In the patient's case the debate would be a moral one. It is likely that these modern conflicts coincide with debate regarding nationalized health care, with proponents on both sides of the abortion issue harboring reservations. If health care falls under the control of federal government abortions could be carried out with taxpayer money. Likewise, some are opposed to the notion of taxes being collected from abortions, it provides an incentive for doctors to earn money from them. A central government policy opposed to abortion would effectively eliminate it from state sponsored hospitals, pushing it into the private sector, forcing those who seek one to rely on potentially inexperienced physicians, possibly without degrees or license. Debating the ethics is inadequate, for many people abortion is akin to taking drugs, it's the decision of the individual. These are just some perspectives.
How is it the sam?. Surrounded by warm fluid, attached to mother via umbilical vs unattached and breathing air. Seems radically different to me. If the baby can only survive by the autonomic functions of the mother, it is not human yet.
Autonomy and Rights were a mistake.
This implies killing a dependent on the State is morally acceptable because dependents are not fully human and interfere with autonomy.
Good thing they don't require integrity or intellectual rigor from themselves
But it doesn’t. Dependents on the state are not surrounded by warm fluid and do not only survive because of the automatic, rather than intentional, functions of another organism.
>I want to fuck. Simple as. Anything that gets in my way must be destroyed.
t. Stacy
This is all there is to it.
based and redpilled.
It's funny to watch progressives argue for a hierarchy of humanity where some humans have more rights than others. Lord forgive them for they know not what they do.
Personhood is not s scientific category you mongoloid.
Imagine a sick person needs a spine donor. The people that are a good fit don't want to be donors. So congrats, you killed the guy.
If a law came that obliged people to be donors, everyone would be mad as fuck. Being a donor is a personal decision, even if you saying no means someone dies.
So why is that killing okay?
This would imply that abortion up until birth is acceptable. Also, the child does survive by the intentional act of not terminating the pregnancy.
Right, so I can say that embryos are persons.
You can but you have no indendently motivated reason for doing so.
>these rocks are people because my mouth-breathing pastor said so
If we want equality, women shouldn't be given a choice if a man does not have same.
The women chose to be pregnant in vast majority of cases. They knew the consequences of having sex and did it. It's literally self inflicted.
Your spine example: the whatever disease that caused symptoms that require a transplant killed the person. Not the lack of donors.
Yes, the situation could be avoided if donor just stepped up. They do not have a moral obligation nor are murders for not stepping in no matter what you think.
>So congrats, you killed the guy.
That doesn't follow, chief. A applicable analogy to pregnancy would be the donor did something to the injured person which required them to need a spine and that would entail some sort of obligation. The unborn doesn't just magically appear from nowhere and demands to be taken care of, it was brought into existence and that comes with the same sort of obligations every parent has towards their children.
I do? Embryos have homo sapiens DNA. The fact that embryo is temporarily neurological incapable doesn't mean that they aren't people.
They did not. Birth control can fail.
I didn't know the HOW it happened was an argument now. You guys said killing is wrong and human life must be protected. By not being a donor you are letting someone die. You are showing that you don't care if someone dies as long as you are comfy.
This thread is saying that the obligation is towards human life. That nothing else comes first. We do all kinds of shit every day that kills people, you just don't like to think about it.
>in most cases is trivial
>therefore it's always wrong
Wow. Just wow. Are you that illiterate in logic to make an argument like that, you absolute pseud?
Abortion shouldn't just be allowed but encouraged. Humanity was a mistake.
If we want equality, men should not have a choice about vasectomy unless women get to also choose if and when a man gets a vasectomy
Being a spine donor would kill you though? There is a massive difference between protecting human life when it is possible and when it is not possible. We can stop abortions, so why wouldn't we do that? The insufficient spinal due to incomplete spine supply-chain industry is not anyone's fault.
Yes, so let's solve these problems instead of making it worse by enabling abortion industry to proliferate retard.
2/10 for effort I guess? Very weak bait.
>Being a spine donor would kill you though
...no? Being a spine donor isn't literally taking your whole spine off your body, user, there are different types. Sometimes they just need a piece or the spinal fluid.
But even if you were right then sure, let's say I chose a bad example. Replace it with any other organ that wouldn't kill you to donate to keep the point.
Also: pregnancy can kill you too.
>Embryos have homo sapiens DNA
And? Spontaneous abortions of more than half of all pregnancies have human DNA, no one cares. My dead skin cells have human DNA, no one cares.
You're acting like yours was any better
...
Pregnancy can have complications early on too.
People like to pretend that having sex is not optional. If you don't want kids and have no faith in a 99% effective birth control method, simply don't have sex, otherwise take responsability for it.
Massive difference between a successfully recombined DNA containing a novel set of information for an unique person and more of the same.
I should've said unique living organism with human dna. A skin cell is technically not alive, as that it cannot reproduce on its own.
Shifted the goal post from death to complications. I'm not going to humor you with this game.
...complications that can make you die, genius, that is obvious by context.
And why is any of this morally relevant?
And it have never happened as said other poster. Genius.
It's not your cells?
If we discovered an amoeba on Mars the next day every single newspaper on the face of the Earth would title on it's first page: "life found on Mars". But apparently a ten week foetus doesn't count.
Oh yeah? So you always make sure to buy products fom industries that have their morals in check? Or you are a hypocritical fucker whose house probably has a bunch of "made in China" products that were made by ten year olds surrounded by rats?
Well with that logic then stop eating plants and animals, user, because that's life too.
That's not his point lol. The point is that prolife's position that fetus is not life is biologically false.
All persons are alive but nothing everything alive is a person.
That's not consistent with what I said. The bar is that the industry has to not kill people.
China is actually working hard to combat this problem. We should purchase made in China products to support their efforts.
reuters.com
What are your thoughts on the raped women argument?
>The bar is that the industry has to not kill people.
Tons of industries have people. And yeah obviously not every single Chinese people is an asshole, it was just a random example, it happens everywhere. The point is that you preach "protect life" while you don't.
The woman hates the man who impregnated her so she kills his child? Revenge? Is it ethical? Is it moral?
Very different than abortion. Choosing to kill an unborn baby is not the same as choosing not to get pregnant in the first place.
Reading your post gave me an extra fucking chromosome.
fpbp
>philosophy grad student
>doesn't know that murder is wrong
>inb4 "it's not murder, it's health care"
lie to yourself if you like, but don't pretend its the truth.
But I do?? I argue against abortion. I buy made-in-china products. I am actively reducing the amount of deaths of people by doing what I do.
You're right, I'm not doing enough by arguing retarded prolifers on internet. I should be out there and destroying the abortion clinics.
I know. I am just pointing out that your counter argument was bad. The discussion has as a base that human life is different from animals and plants. If you bring those into the argument, claiming all life is life, then you are proving pro-choice right, because you eating a hamburger is not protecting a life.
Who is and isn't a person has always come down to the whims and prejudices of the powerful. Who tf cares, if it has the potential to develop into a fully fledged human it's a categorically distinct entity from simple cells.
Yes I have similar thoughts. If you were to buy the rape argument, you'd have to think about the people who are living lives as products of rape, and believe that they are of lesser value, simply because of how their mothers are affected by them. Ones value shouldn't be constituted by mommy.
Killing people isn't necessarily wrong
It isn't an argument, it's emotional manipulation. The people who share it would never agree to a complete ban on abortion with the exception of rape and they wouldn't be too fond in extending the logic that it's okay to kill children for the crimes of their parents.
false, and you are dumb.
killing among humans, even pre-humans, even a male competitor, is always a loss.
no it doesn't prove pro-choice right. the logical conclusion is that everyone have a right to kill anyone for any reason.
The fact of the matter doesn't change, sorry sweetie. If you've never had first-person experiences, you're not a person.
So if a person destroys a lab that has test tube babies, they should be charged with murder and not destruction of property?
Tribes and communities with radically different social values may feel no (Or dismal) negative emotion when seeing someone die, and this is often the case. Their view of death is influenced by exposure at a young age (to death) and religious beliefs which completely change they're responses. But they may be disgusted beyond words by a woman sleeping around. Humans mean towards morals but they are not necessary
yes? we already do this. killing a pregnant woman leads to double murder charge.
frozen *fertilized* eggs? does that even exist? my understanding of IVF is sperm can be frozen and eggs can be frozen but not after they are combined.
People are using sloppy language when they talk about killing humans so it's easy to pick them apart. When they say it's wrong to kill humans they're talking about murder and murder is defined as the killing of an innocent human being. They're probably not against killing other people in self defense or in some other situation where guilty humans are involved.
Which would make abortion ok, and pro-choice wins. That is what I meant, sorry I wasn't clear. Tldr: don't bring amoeba into this, man, or you will summon the vegans.
except that the fetus observably struggles to stay in the womb when the jewish dr comes to rip him out of it.
vegans are hypocrites who still kill plants. prolife just don't want to kill people.
According to pro-lifers, yeah. Spontaneous abortions are also apparently the greatest humanitarian tragedy our species has ever faced despite no one acknowledging or caring about it.
Not in first world countries.
>Spontaneous abortions are also apparently the greatest humanitarian tragedy our species has ever faced despite no one acknowledging or caring about it.
I don't think people dying of natural causes is a tragedy. Especially people I haven't gotten to meet.
Abortion until birth is acceptable as long as the woman’s health is not jeopardized. And if she intends to end the pregnancy, I do not see a problem.
...I know. Jesus fuck, read the whole thing. You were discussing what is "life" and brought up amoeba in Mars. So what I'm telling you is do not bring plants and animals (or any other not human organism) into this. It derails and it will end up badly for you.
A loss of what?
I lost my goggles the other day. I wanted to go swimming, and I needed them. I searched for them for about an hour, and then I went to the store to buy new ones when I couldn't find them. I figured I would make more money by actually spending my time working than I would save by looking for my goggles. By losing my original pair, and buying a new one, I wasted, or lost, my time as well as the resources needed to make goggles.
Did I do something morally wrong?
>Spontaneous abortions are also apparently the greatest humanitarian tragedy our species has ever faced despite no one acknowledging or caring about it.
Nobody says this you stupid retard, lol
this is a stupid fucking way to take the argument. learn to think better. we're talking about abortion, not other injustices. although i am glad you are making the comparison. retard.
your goggles are not human life, dope. not a valid comparison. if you were smarter you would have noticed this.
The sanctity of life is a spook.
Act upon your Own will
Actually, we can’t stop abortions. We can stop safe abortions.
Right but I don't think it's inherently wrong to take a human life, and I don't understand why you do.
your will is contingent upon having been allowed to be born, dummy
A zygote is not a human. Prove me wrong fags.
I know, if religitards were consistent in their ethics (fetuses are people and ceteris paribus death of a person is a negative) they would.
wrong.
>The Unborn Victims of Violence Act, passed in 2004, defines a fetus as a "child in uterus" and a person as being a legal crime victim "if a fetal injury or death occurs during the commission of a federal violent crime."[13] In the U.S., 38 states have laws with more harsh penalties if the victim is murdered while pregnant.[14][15] Some of these laws defining the fetus as being a person, "for the purpose of criminal prosecution of the offender" (National Conference of State Legislatures, 2008). Laci Peterson, murdered in 2002, is one of the more high-profile homicides.
US is a third world country held together by first world economic centres, try again.
A reticulated python ate a farmer. The python now has human DNA inside of it. Don’t kill the python!
Human DNA is not sacred, user.
we can criminalize abortion, create a climate of fear, and reduce abortion substantially.
And???
because even if you don't believe in an absolute morality, it is irrefutable that the species has certain universal opinions about murder baked into it, and has since before civilization or language.
a loss of life is a loss of to the tribe. it is the loss of a brother or father or son. the tribe is lesser and less capable for it. this is a purely caveman view. even they understood.
there are other reasons i could get into, but they depend on having enough brains to believe good exists
data on how criminalizing abortion significantly reduces its occurence rate ?
Like i said in a later post, it was a bad defintion on my part. I concede to your point. It should've been about viewing an embryo as an unique distinct living human.
They did during the middle ages when women were held responsible for that but we've since moved past blaming someone for something outside their control. Try to keep up, sweetie.
>it is irrefutable that the species has certain universal opinions about murder baked into it
Yeah, and also one of the few species to wage wars, the other ones being our close cousins.
Abortion is simply an avoidance of responsibility. People will always stress the rape cases but those are rare. People want to have it all now. Money, family, friends. Top it all off with people not being able to use condoms or birth control to suppress the birth. They think they deserve risk free unprotected sex now. Getting pregnant is a result of an action. One usually both parties accepted when they decided to have sex. Abortion is also immoral. How would you feel if I took one of those fertilized chicken eggs that children watch to see hatch and smash it in front of them? If it isn't a life, then no one should care but all those children will start crying. You do not own the life rights to your child. Murder is murder but we want to classify is as not because it hasn't fully developed into something resembling human. Any person trying to redefine how we perceive life has loose morals and only cares about bending rules to their convenience. You don't see pro-abortion people arguing against circumcision for young boys. They have no interest in people having their body rights. They only want to avoid responsibility for their actions.
It doesn't matter if no one's in charge, it's still a humanitarian tragedy if you're stupid enough to entertain personhood from the moment of conception.
>People will always stress the rape cases but those are rare.
stpotted the incel
a question to the pro lifers. Does the abortion you are referring to include Plan B and morning after pills
Me
>tall
>handsome
>ripped
>have qt gf(we lost our virginity to each other)
You
>cuckold with no argument
rarity is not necessarily the problem. the problem is that an individual's value should not be contituted by how one's mother is affected by the him or her.
And make life shittier for everyone involved by bringing an unwanted child into the world.
That's interesting that you bring up universal opinions. Certainly abortion is far from universal, while an unjustified killing within a group, or tribe, is almost universally reviled.
I believe that there is a significant difference in impact between these two types of killings. For instance, killing a random person in your neighborhood has tons of consequences. It causes pain to their loved ones, a loss of the productive activity of that individual, and it represents a threat to the safety and stability of every other individual in the community.
However, killing a fetus does not carry the exact same consequences. Although I do acknowledge that the act is not without potential consequences, the fact is that the fetus is not enmeshed in the world in the same way that a child is. The broad emotional attachments are not necessarily there. That fetus does not by necessity play a significant role in people's lives. It does not produce anything, and could potentially become a burden. It has no internal world of its own, and its circumstances are so limited that killing it does not present a threat to other conscious humans, and does not suggest that anyone could be the next victim.
It is neither unique nor distinct though. It is especially not distinct.
unwanted=doesn't deserve to live
laughable
Even if abortion weren't murder, it would still be necessary to outlaw it because women have no sense of responsibility and essentially need to be mandated to cultivate one.
>women get to fuck niggers and not deal with the niglet consequences
I think not.
Additionally, I think cavemen probably left babies out in the woods if they didn't want them at the time. I know that the ancient Greeks would place unwanted or crippled babies in jars to let them die.
they are genetically distinct organisms. you can't argue against the scientific consensus.
>christfags
>>>reddit
Hm. Have (you) read the Hippocratic Oath? Why is a fundamental dispensing of responsibility espoused?
Yes it does? It's a "humanitarian tragedy" in the same way dying of any other disease is but we make a distinction between deaths inflicted by other humans and deaths from random diseases. You can't argue with the common cold but you can argue with pro-abortionists, often to the same effect.
that's a pretty brutal view, guy. you devalue the fetus' life by its contribution to the tribe. in short, you dehumanize it.
>"it's not that big a deal, his footprint was so minimal as to be nonexistent."
capitalism has absolutely warped your mind. life is sacred. we are made in the image of God. the Logos. to cut short that experience for someone is one of the evilest things I can imagine. i suggest you pray and think about it again.
What if libtards were consistent and didn't get bent out of shape when retarded people are executed? What's the difference between an insentient fetus being aborted and a mentally handicapped murderer being electrocuted? Both are state-sponsored, the retard doesn't know what he did, why he did it and why they're gonna fry him, yet he posed a health risk so they retroactively abort. Libs don't care about fetuses and bend over backwards to save murderers?
sometimes, yes. is it a shock to you that mankind has always sinned? that is: failed to live up to its potential, ethically or morally?
Violinist argument is a dis-analogy. I would argue that by engaging in consensual sex she has implicitly granted the right for an unborn fetus to use her body
jesus christ, end your fucking life
couldn't find numbers for rate of abortion pre-1973.
regardless, this thread is about morality. prolifers think that it's immoral to abort whether if it is legal or not.
i concede to your point that we can't stop abortions. and, imo, we should shame these women who abort their babies as murderers.
This. The consequences and responsibilities of consent (for both parties) are not limited to sexual congress. They go on. What the fuck do you people think sexual reproduction is for.
Thomson addresses this as well, read the paper.
Mentally handicapped murderers are persons unlike insentient fetuses.
By your logic state-mandated abortions of blacks are morally licit because no one really wants them around. Are you sure you want to go there as a Progressive.
One of the definitions of distinct is “physically separate” user.
Teleology is cramping my sex life, we must do away with it.
>The answer to anyone who talks about the surplus population is to ask him whether he is the surplus population, or if he is not, how he knows he is not.
>-GK "fuck you" Chesterton
The fetus' experience isn't being cut short, because it is incapable of experience.
It is not allowing that experience to begin, I agree.
It's not by a contribution. My way of viewing it isn't economic in nature, at least that's not the most important part.
A child with a debilitating disease may never really contribute to society, but I would say it's wrong to do away with it. Why? Because it has its own life now, its own consciousness. That would be cutting it short.
Additionally, I think that some of what makes it wrong is that we are humans. When a normal human sees a child, they form at least some kind of attachment. In fact, when we see any other person and recognize them as such we have some kind of attachment, which comes from our ability to imagine their internal world. If we were lizards, killing our children wouldn't matter, because lizards don't have any sort of emotional reality, but humans always do.
The fetus can be humanized or dehumanized, but for me it does not yet have the fundamental qualities of being human.
>reducing human worth to the productivity loss incurred by the community
Peak neoliberal technocracy tbqph, utilitarians were a mistake.
thougths on Thomson's "A Defense of Abortion?'
>The fetus' experience isn't being cut short, because it is incapable of experience.
>It is not allowing that experience to begin, I agree.
These two statements contradict each other.
>It's not by a contribution. My way of viewing it isn't economic in nature, at least that's not the most important part.
This also contradicts itself.
You are so fucking confused. Put down the leftist ideology, you owe it no loyalty. Start trying to understand ethics from a rational point of view instead of trying to fit in with girls who might show you their clam.
>The fetus can be humanized or dehumanized, but for me it does not yet have the fundamental qualities of being human.
Then we have confirmed, and you have demonstrated, you are very imperceptive.
It's a solid argument, user. All pro-lifers should read it.
sentience is hardly a qualifier for humanity. should we be able to kill people in coma freely?
Economic contribution is only a small part of the puzzle. I brought it up because it was given to me as an argument for why killing is always wrong.
>a loss of life is a loss of to the tribe. it is the loss of a brother or father or son. the tribe is lesser and less capable for it. this is a purely caveman view. even they understood.
Why?
The violinist didn't materialize from the void, he and his plight is a direct consequence of your actions. If someone forcefully tied a violinist to you then an argument can be had.
Abortion is simply a fundamentally degenerate act. It's a rejection of the telos of sexuality in the most callous manner possible.
the man in a coma has the potential to return to consciousness. And yes, what makes humans exceptional is their unique ability to collect and communicate information.
based and limitless pilled
>These two statements contradict each other.
They do not. Just because there is the potential for consciousness to be created does not imply that it already exists or that it must exist. Else every unfertilized egg that passes out of a woman's body is tantamount to murder.
I am not confused. I am not exactly sure what you're position is, however. Help me to understand ethics from a rational point of view.
The man in a coma has friends and loved ones, and the potential to return to his life. I would say that his consciousness still exists, in there somewhere.
With no friends or family, and no chance to return, I would say yes, it is okay to let him go.
not in all the cases. sufficient injures to cerebellum would ensure that it's impossible for a person in coma to ever wake up again.
sign me up, i've always wanted to kill someone legally.
>regardless, this thread is about morality.
You brought up a consequentialist point, consequentialism is a moral philosophy. Don't bring up a point you don't intend to back up
>i concede to your point
For clarification, I (the one you're responding to right now) am not the user you were originally discussing with.
Oh shit, we're getting somewhere. You're telling me the potential to (re)gain consciousness is important?
This is unrelated to the thread but I'm reading Chesterton for the first time now and I'm amazed at his ability to turn things on their head. He's very good at the rhetorical reversal.
>how he knows he is not.
I'm white.
I don't know this chesterton fellow but he sounds like a nigger.
we're discussing fetuses, which are long fertilized you big dummy. we're not discussing the sham comparison of unfertilized eggs or sperm.
>The fetus' experience isn't being cut short, because it is incapable of experience.
You are so fucking stupid. A fetus, if allowed to develop naturally, will develop sentience and be capable of experience. It is NOT "incapable".
And that's not even what my argument is based on, it's your dumb strawman. It's human life, and that is sacred. Read the Chesterton quote. Sperm is just DNA. Unfertilized eggs are just DNA. When they are combined at conception they create a new human. To call a fetus a clump of cells or whatever is to dehumanize this new unique being.
You don't think clearly.
Progressive liberals and literal nazis have yet another thing in common.
>I don’t want them around
>no one wants them around
THere’s always suicide Mong....
a sea squirt is "incapable." a fetus is not.
This 'Violinist Argument' is an interesting one, the only fallacious part of which being that the violinist does not share the hosts DNA. This may be a good argument for abortion in the case of rape, especially if the rapist is somehow coercing the victim into carrying the child to term since the seed was in effect forced upon the recipient. Yet the nutritional deprivation of a developing fetus, which upon conception immediately alters the physiological, biochemical and hormonal functions of the host's body, would be more similar to self-mutilation. People with anorexia and bulimia, people who cut themselves with razors, drug abusers, these people are regarded as troubled, ill, sick, disturbed, in extreme cases insane. To regard a fetus as a malignant growth, a parasite, is regarding a function of anatomy as odious and loathsome. Some people have a pound or two more belly fat than they'd like, so they starve themselves, vomit into trash bags, abuse laxatives and even bleed themselves of their excess weight. That's more in keeping with remedies for this 'parasitic' notion of fetuses.
Really tho chesterton's comment, while being a good witticism, is not an actual counterargument.
I believe the world is overpopulated. I don't believe i'm part of the overpopulation is the sense that I don't want to die. But I also understand this is the same for everyone. So a potential outcome would be a sort of world war an interdecimation, with the end result of diminishing the world's population, with no other factor deciding "who's the overpopulation" than the cold, implacable and amoral logic of ratios of power.
Am perfectly fine with eutanizing niggers though.
What are you gonna do now, uh, prolifer ?
thanks for debating tips. i will keep them in my mind for future debates.
actually, tunicates have unusually developed brain stem.
don't mind me, just a biology geek here.
>too lazy to have a child is the same
>as murdering a child
I bet you're one of those people who think that blowing a load is genocide, but that's alright.
I am willing to learn from different points of view, but I'm not sure you are able to be a good representative for your side. If you could lay out your arguments thoroughly and without ad hominem, I would pick up on them quicker. I am not interested in misrepresenting anybody.
I don't exactly understand what makes a human life sacred to you. You state it as a bare fact, and maybe it is a fact, but surely there must be something that causes it to be so. What is that?
As for the rest of your argument, what you are saying, if I understand you correctly, is that a fetus, if left alone, will develop into a human being. At the point of conception, the process will continue under its own steam, like a rock tumbling down a hill. By this point, you mean to say that there is no separation between a human at any other stage in life and a fetus, and so anything that is right or wrong, morally, for a human is right or wrong for the fetus as well?
The key difference between an unfertilized egg and a fetus, then, is the lack of human intervention necessary to begin or continue the process.
Would you say that this is a fair characterization of your position?
that's why i made the comparison. they have a "brain" but are incapable of experiencing life as a human can and more importantly never will. the same is not true for a fetus.
sure, and tunicates are more likely sentient than not.
if you want insentient organism for sake of arguments, use plants.
You better, bucko. I'll be checking in on your progress.
You do realize the feminine equivalent of a vasectomy is not an abortion
i'm in this thread in defense of humanity, not to do your fucking homework for you. and not being able to handle the bantz doesn't make you more sophisticated.
the question is not "what is the difference between an unfertilized egg and a fetus." the question is whether the human life one has consented to (by giving consent to participate in sexual reproduction with a fertile partner) has rights and whether those rights should be respected.
the answer is yes to both, fucking retard.
I'm way beyond you dude. I know I'm in a shit-flinging thread though, so I guess it's my own fault
I think murder is the right choice sometimes.
>I'm way beyond you dude.
prove it. so far you've only demonstrated you're a guy who can't think straight or follow an argument.
>unable to argue why human life should be seen as sacred
>reeeeeeee fucking retard
i'm trying to keep religion out of this, because this brainlet will reject it and pronounce himself the winner while simultaneously defending the privilege to tread on the rights of others.
not considering human life as sacred opens the floodgates of legalized murdering anyone for any reasons.
do you want to go there?
This is also addressed in the paper, read it.
You can modify the thought experiment such that the violinist is your long lost biological son from your donated sperm, I think most would consider this to be morally irrelevant as you've never assumed social relationships (being their legal guardian) over the violinist.
There's not much of an argument, because you won't do the work to create one.
y'all need to learn to fucking read. i've already mentioned natural rights, rights which (in America) are guaranteed by a founding document. if you need more than that, i don't know what to tell you.
like i said: NYPA and I'm not doing your homework faggot. a fetus is a human being, and so protected by law. except when there's an unjust unconstitutional law like roe v wade.
I've been totally reasonable and have not once tried to score a cheap victory. You are lazy and are only interested in provoking people.
I'm more than willing. Especially if it gets us to condemn people who throw their cigarette butts anywhere on the ground to death.
The belief in overpopulation is a neo-malthusian fever dream revived especially by progressives in recent years due to climate concerns. The issue is not overpopulation but capitalism, the misallocation of space, food and energy.
>wants me to spoonfeed him an argument because he's too lazy to put it together from the posts i've provided
you have not been reasonable. your last 2-3 posts have been you asking me to work for you for free, with no argument offered. you ought to be ashamed.
What's wrong with you? Am I even fun to someone like you?
no, you are not fun.
Then why are you wasting your time like this?
Oh come on that's retarded.
Not all space is created equal. You can't take the human population and divide it by habitable square meters.
Just take into account the sprawl it would require to house 8billion people. Then take into account the materials just for constructing the houses. Then realize that the sand used in concrete is a rarefying resource.
And that's without even accounting for things like providing work, ferrying people and merchandises (once again, with rarefying resources), water and pretty much everything.
Actually you don't even need all that :
To sustain current world population on a decent basis in terms of food (not even burger level) you need phosphate for fertilizers. And you'll never guess what: it's a very rapidly rarefying resource.
Sure, capitalism is a huge issue. But so is overpopulation regardless of system.
you haven't addressed any of my last 4-5 posts. in addition to this you are a complete bore and i'll take your lack of argument as your yielding to me. life is sacred, protected by law, and abortion represents the violation of those rights. good game, brainless. think harder next time.
Amazing. Give up man
Read Lyman Stone's articles about overpopulation.
When in the middle ages were women held responsible for early spontaneous abortion?
As a pro-lifer, I'd hold them as something immoral that should be legal, like most contraceptives. I haven't thought seriously about those particular cases, though. They're intended as contraceptive, despite the chances of causing non-implantation of a fetus.
Catholics hold IVF to be illicit specifically because it results in unimplanted fetuses that are left frozen, just because there's not as much public fuss doesn't mean that no one objects to it. Similarly, spontaneous abortions of unimplanted fetuses are more analogous to infant mortality than some kind of genocide.
The violinist argument is interesting, but really fails to be a proper analogy. Even aside from the point that the woman is (rape aside) at least in part responsible for the pregnancy, they are the mother of the child. You aren't obligated to take care of a random child you see on the street, you are obligated to take care of your own. A random person doesn't have to pay child support for the child of a single mother, the father does. A random woman doesn't have to bear the child, the mother does.
Not >reeeeeeee fucking tard
What is wrong with you?
immoral, but far less immoral than killing someone.
the reason it is immoral is because it encourages abuse sexual activity. the proper end for sex is sharing yourself with your partner completely (completely) and making a child. seeking pleasure from the activity falls short of sexual congress' proper end.
>You aren't obligated to take care of a random child you see on the street, you are obligated to take care of your own.
Why?
Why not?
>but far less immoral than killing someone
Under the pro life world view, a morning after pill literally kills a person if it prevents the implantation of a fertilized egg.
That's not how argumentation works.
Just did.
>we could feed much more people with current means and technology
>completely fails to mention that current means and technology rely on rapidly thinning resources.
Yeah no.
I'm asking you to elaborate on why you are challenging what user said, when what he said represents how society works.
The answer to "why are you obligated to ϕ" is not "that's how society works", retard. We're talking about ethics, not politics.
okay lazy.
>My opinions are largely uninformed and reactionary
Thanks for the contribution, bud
Moving the goalposts.
Abortion is still probably wrong, however the argument that life begins at conception is ridiculous.
-A zygote is clearly not a human because just look at it. Has none of the qualities of humans.
-It has the potential to become a human, but still that does not make it a human (a potential X is not an X e.g. a prince is not a king)
-we cannot defend a zygote based simply on the potential for human life. If we did, it would be logically consistent to defend all things which have the potential for human life, which leads to the conclusion that abstinence is immoral, as sperm and eggs definitely have the potential for human life.
Agreed. Our society has an ignorant and harmful relationship with death.
i volunteer you both
The state must facilitate its own self-preservation or it will perish. Introducing measures that allow women without resources to prevent the birth of their offspring is far healthier than creating what will ultimately be a drain on collective resources, and further push the state towards ultimate dissolution. Each birth is another body whose impulses the state fails to capture will be directed towards its destruction. Outlawing abortion only makes sense for births the state intends to make useful.
"Embryo: The developing individual between the union of the germ cells and the completion of the organs which characterize its body when it becomes a separate organism.... At the moment the sperm cell of the human male meets the ovum of the female and the union results in a fertilized ovum (zygote), a new life has begun.... The term embryo covers the several stages of early development from conception to the ninth or tenth week of life."
[Considine, Douglas (ed.). Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia. 5th edition. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976, p. 943]
"Almost all higher animals start their lives from a single cell, the fertilized ovum (zygote)... The time of fertilization represents the starting point in the life history, or ontogeny, of the individual."
[Carlson, Bruce M. Patten's Foundations of Embryology. 6th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996, p. 3]
"Although life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed.... The combination of 23 chromosomes present in each pronucleus results in 46 chromosomes in the zygote. Thus the diploid number is restored and the embryonic genome is formed. The embryo now exists as a genetic unity."
[O'Rahilly, Ronan and Müller, Fabiola. Human Embryology & Teratology. 2nd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 1996, pp. 8, 29.
>murder a homeless man with a brick
>"It's okay, officer, he was a week away from overdosing."
The true ethical argument is not about the fetus, but the mother, who then goes back into society broken, even if people don't like to admit this.
if the mother is the victim for acquiescing to the procedure, what does that make an abortion doctor who performs hundreds of them a year?
most cases?
Questionable, but I'm not so keen on the idea of punishing doctors for performing things people have requested which are widely accepted. I'm more concerned about the cultural push. Planned Parenthood, for instance, wants women to think of abortion as completely normal, something they don't have to worry about. Pregnant and think you might not want to keep the baby? Don't waste another moment on this; just come in and pop a pill, only $350.
Alternatives like adoption are ridiculed with comments about there already being children up for adoption who have not been adopted, but instead of working to normalize that and pursuing increased support for that, they go all in pushing abortion as "common health care" so they can bring the woman in, charge her, and then send her on her way. She will surely be psychologically healthy after spending 12 hours bleeding out the mashed-up corpse of an infant.
wew what an awful idea for a billboard
>life is sacred
spook
>oh yea well we should legalize murder then starting with you
that would ruin the harmony of the society
when did Yea Forums get filled with reactionary ideology? this thread is cancer. not sure why people here want kids getting raised by people that didn't want them in the first place or kids getting raised by parents that can't get by and offer their child a nice life. you guys are too emotional over unconcious and unfeeling fetuses but then don't think about kids that will be left on their own.
Who cares the places that could use abortions or more contraception shit out children left and right and west has to import them anyway because they are to busy worrying about shit like this and not producing actual decent offspring.
What's your point? The only one of those quotes which made an argument for why a zygote is a human was the last one with the point about a unique set of human DNA being formed. The problem is unique DNA does not a human make. I can generate unique DNA code on a computer so would that make my computer a human?
I guess there's a lot of ethical systems, but obligation to care for one's offspring is pretty firmly entrenched in law and has no real alternatives for a human culture. Sure, you could go with the libertarian idea that no one is owed anything, but that fails the categorical imperative, basically any coherent virtue ethics system, most utilitarian patterns that follow consistent rules... Can you name an ethical system that actually works that denies this?
>You just look at it, and obviously I'm right
Is it worse to kill a child or to leave a mother in a situation where it's difficult to raise their child? I'd agree with more support for them, but jumping straight to killing is not a good solution to an unwanted child.
None of my arguments about abortion (here or ) have anything to do with Christianity, other than the extremely general legal notion of obligation to offspring. Debatable, sure, but it's not a uniquely Christian thing.
>don't think about kids that will be left on their own
This is such a smug, idiotic, reddit-tier pretense of an argument. "You don't want kids killed, but don't accept THIS PARTICULAR PROPOSITION to help them when born? You're not really pro-life/You don't actually care." I usually hate the reddit mudslinging, but this is all through any thread touching on abortion there.
>does not a human make
Stop doing that, Yoda.
I never got the 24 weeks muh personhood thing.
Why should a super premature like 6 month baby really live just cause they're a super fucked "human" now? nah
>This is such a smug, idiotic, reddit-tier pretense of an argument
you say while sitting in your chair shitposting on your computer living a cozy privileged life. not an argument btw.
>You just look at it, and obviously I'm right
What I mean by this is the zygote doesn't have any human qualities that make it a human in any meaningful way. It has human DNA, but I could generate a unique DNA sequence on a computer, but this obviously isn't sufficient to be considered a human. Aside from that, it's just indistinct cells which are also not distinctly human.