Originally posted by Adam_PoE
Everyone is a deontological ethicist, they just do not all know it.
I think you're right about that, especially when you consider divine command theory also counts as a type of deontology.
Originally posted by dadudemon
I'm a virtue ethicist.
What are your thoughts on the matter, DDM? How did virtue ethics help form your opinion?
Originally posted by Eternal Idol
I think you're right about that, especially when you consider divine command theory also counts as a type of deontology.
I don’t really see the relevance of why you 2 even bring up what the ethics of other ppl are (w/o even providing your reasoning) but whatever. Guess you ran out of arguments since you never replied to my post?
Originally posted by Nibedicus
I don’t really see the relevance of why you 2 even bring up what the ethics of other ppl are (w/o even providing your reasoning) but whatever. Guess you ran out of arguments since you never replied to my post?
It's been a few days, so let's recap:
Most, if not all of us, are OK with third trimester abortions if the mother's life is in danger.
Where we seem to split on the issue is the new law's provision that post-24th week abortions are legal and justified if they present a risk to the mother's health, which is defined by Doe v. Bolton as "all factors — physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age — relevant to the well-being of the patient"...which is too broad for those against it, who claim women will utilize dishonesty in order to abuse the law due to irresponsibility and other selfish reasons.
I won't speak for others. My take on abortion is that while the unborn child is a live yet undeveloped human being, it is still a part of the mother's body; therefore, she should be able to exercise autonomy over her own body and choose whether to accept the pregnancy and give birth to the child, or reject her pregnancy and abort the child. Specifically regarding the legalization of post-24th week abortions, my beliefs remain largely, if not wholly, the same. I have incredibly strong doubts the great majority of women, if not all, who choose to abort beyond the 24th week and into the third trimester would do so without legitimate concerns for their own lives and health, and without careful consideration of the well-being and quality of life for their unborn children who are at high-risk of health-impairing abnormalities or becoming stillborn (i.e. dead on arrival).
My question again to those who feel the definition of health is too broad to be used as a justification for post-24th week abortions:
How specific can you make the law to prevent it from being abused by the irresponsible/selfish mothers in your hypotheticals, without endangering mothers aborting post-24th week for legitimate health risks and concerns backed by their own doctors?
What specifically do you propose? Would you limit it to physical health risks for the mother? Which medical professionals would be qualified to asses those physical health risks? Would emotional/mental health risks have to be evaluated and qualified by psychologists/psychiatrists? If so, must those psychologists and psychiatrist have to be board-certified to make those calls?
I hate to repeat myself, but I feel the responses I've gotten to this question earlier in the thread have not been very specific and/or regurgitated the argument that the law's definition of health is too broad and should be specified to prevent abuse.
Originally posted by Putinbot1
To be honest religious people are pro life and pragmatic people are pro choice. It's one of the few times the religious hardliners are still able to try and impose opinions on the non religious. I don't ever have a problem with religious beliefs except when this occurs.
Some would argue that genocide and slavery are simply a practice of pragmatism (terrible ppl, yes). Trying to Poison the well by calling one side “religious” and the other side “logical/pragmatic” without really presenting any kind of argument really isn’t what I would call an intellectual point.
Originally posted by Eternal Idol
It's been a few days, so let's recap:Most, if not all of us, are OK with third trimester abortions if the mother's life is in danger.
Where we seem to split on the issue is the new law's provision that post-24th week abortions are legal and justified if they present a risk to the mother's health, which is defined by Doe v. Bolton as "all factors — physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age — relevant to the well-being of the patient"...which is too broad for those against it, who claim women will utilize dishonesty in order to abuse the law due to irresponsibility and other selfish reasons.
I won't speak for others. My take on abortion is that while the unborn child is a live yet undeveloped human being, it is still a part of the mother's body; therefore, she should be able to exercise autonomy over her own body and choose whether to accept the pregnancy and give birth to the child, or reject her pregnancy and abort the child. Specifically regarding the legalization of post-24th week abortions, my beliefs remain largely, if not wholly, the same. I have incredibly strong doubts the great majority of women, if not all, who choose to abort beyond the 24th week and into the third trimester would do so without legitimate concerns for their own lives and health, and without careful consideration of the well-being and quality of life for their unborn children who are at high-risk of health-impairing abnormalities or becoming stillborn (i.e. dead on arrival).
My question again to those who feel the definition of health is too broad to be used as a justification for post-24th week abortions:
[b]How specific can you make the law to prevent it from being abused by the irresponsible/selfish mothers in your hypotheticals, without endangering mothers aborting post-24th week for legitimate health risks and concerns backed by their own doctors?
What specifically do you propose? Would you limit it to physical health risks for the mother? Which medical professionals would be qualified to asses those physical health risks? Would emotional/mental health risks have to be evaluated and qualified by psychologists/psychiatrists? If so, must those psychologists and psychiatrist have to be board-certified to make those calls?
I hate to repeat myself, but I feel the responses I've gotten to this question earlier in the thread have not been very specific and/or regurgitated the argument that the law's definition of health is too broad and should be specified to prevent abuse. [/B]
Firstly, I find it concerning how you would ignore/skip entire paragraphs of my reply, ignore the question that I posted and the points that I made then bring up points already covered.
Second, you can only own your body, a child is not part of your body it is located inside it, but is not part of it. Proof is that the DNA is different and that a 22 week to birth child can exist outside the woman’s body once removed. They are simply temporarily connected at this point and the child has as much ownership to her body as she does to the child’s. If history taught us one thing: the idea that one person can “own” another or have value above another within the law under arbitrary and subjective criteria shouldn’t exist in a sane and ethical society.
Third, I already covered your “numbers justify law” argument. A law exists to protect ppl from abuse. It doesn’t matter how many/few in, your mind or mine, would abuse a law. The fact is, a law, in principle, has to be as unabusable as possible, especially when human life is at stake. Mental health issues and bad ppl in general exist and the law HAS to protect innocent life from that.
Fourth, we already listed the things we wanted included in the law (among others). You have not even provided a critique on why the things we added are unreasonable/unfeasible. And now you want us to include all possible scenarios according to the law and to write it exactly the way a bill should? Why should we do so when you haven’t even covered the ideas we already proposed? Seems like a pointless task to me. It ALMOST seems to me that you are just fishing for points you CAN debunk (by giving us too much rope) and then using that as a justification to generally paint the rest of our suggestions as faulty.
Fifth, So you’re saying our points about the law being too vague were too vague? Don’t you see the irony here? But to answer your question: 1) See above. 2) No. As we already provided some reasonable exceptions. 3) Someone who at least took a doctorate and it has to be an objectively provable metric. 4) The mental/emotional justification would have to be well defined and easily diagnosed thru objective and measurable methodologies to make the implementation not overly complicated and time consuming. Not an expert here, of course and I am willing to listen to the expertise of actual doctors for as long as the opinions of doctors from both side would be discussed. 5) Depends on the type of risks we’re talking about and depends on what point of the pregnancy. While rape and incest are indeed understandable reasons (I still feel it’s wrong but I can sympathize) to abort to protect the sanity of the mother, I fail to see how a pregnancy like that would last up to point of birth. Maybe if the mother was comatose after said act perhaps? Or if she became mentally unstable and didn’t get better until that point? Again, the nuances of what justifies abortion at this point are too complicated for forum folks like us to discuss, at least as an individual point in a long argument. I believe we could iron out something balanced given time, focus and a little more research, however. But that was my point, the conversation needed to happen for something with this gravity and the rushed passing of this law made that impossible.
To prevent the reply from going overly long, I will resist the urge to ask questions myself. But seeing as I answered questions you posted w/o the need to do so, I hope you are able to extend the same courtesy when I ask my questions at a later time (when we have covered enough of the debate to condense the above points sufficiently).
Originally posted by Putinbot1
To be honest religious people are pro life and pragmatic people are pro choice. It's one of the few times the religious hardliners are still able to try and impose opinions on the non religious. I don't ever have a problem with religious beliefs except when this occurs.
Whenever people argue pro-life legislation constitutes religious law in violation of separation of Church and state, that honestly seems like marginalizing pro-life atheists.
And here's the thing, legislation based on what one thinks is sinful, be it the religious right or the sanctimonious regressive left who arrest people in the UK for misgendering, has no place in the law.
Legislation based on what finds to be a violation of human rights? Well that's literally what the government exists to deal with.
Originally posted by Silent Master
I find it concerning that his argument is basically, a woman owns her unborn child and can thus destroy it if she wants.
So now Unborn Babies are now not even Human but now they are Slaves and Property as well?
Truly. Leftists like Bashy are Horrible HORRIBLE People.
I don't agree with it because an unborn baby, at any stage, is still a living baby. But we may be jumping the gun here with the outrage of 'murder just before birth' wording. The mother's life will have to be in danger for this to be considered although the vague wording of 'health' reasons is cause for concern.
Originally posted by cdtm
He could also be trolling.A common enough tactic to squash naunced debate. Fly is a master of it, so he would know. 😛
It's fine if you disagree with me, but don't compare me to Fly, for ****'s sake.
Originally posted by Nibedicus
Firstly, I find it concerning how you would ignore/skip entire paragraphs of my reply, ignore the question that I posted and the points that I made then bring up points already covered.
Nibedicus, I've responded to just about every post of yours, except for the last. You've contributed quite a lot to the thread, and though we disagree on quite a lot, I think your posts are well-thought out and your opinions on the matter are well-meaning. Frankly, I'd find it rude not to respond, and I will, but as I've said, my time is limited and I do most of my in-depth posting when I should be sleeping.
Originally posted by Nibedicus
Second, you can only own your body, a child is not part of your body it is located inside it, but is not part of it. Proof is that the DNA is different and that a 22 week to birth child can exist outside the woman’s body once removed. They are simply temporarily connected at this point and the child has as much ownership to her body as she does to the child’s. If history taught us one thing: the idea that one person can “own” another or have value above another within the law under arbitrary and subjective criteria shouldn’t exist in a sane and ethical society.
I see where you're coming from, but I will have to disagree once again.
Everything the fetus needs for development and growth comes from her body. The fetus developed from the mother's fertilized egg, and as it continues to grow inside of her, it draws nutrients from her body while attached at the placenta created from her uterine wall (which is why it's important for pregnant women to eat more in order to supply the fetus with the nutrients it needs to grow healthy while getting enough for herself to function).
While it is to become a completely separate being, it is very much a part of her body throughout the pregnancy, and its very presence inside her forces her body to change physically and chemically (changes in hormones). Mothers often talk about their connection to their kids, and often describe them as being a part of them, their own flesh and blood so to speak, and they're not wrong, because at one point at least, they were...and god help you if you try telling them otherwise.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placenta
The placenta is a temporary organ that connects the developing fetus via the umbilical cord to the uterine wall to allow nutrient uptake, thermo-regulation, waste elimination, and gas exchange via the mother's blood supply; to fight against internal infection; and to produce hormones which support pregnancy. Placentas are a defining characteristic of placental mammals, but are also found in marsupials and some non-mammals with varying levels of development.[1]
The placenta functions as a fetomaternal organ with two components:[2] the fetal placenta (Chorion frondosum), which develops from the same blastocyst that forms the fetus, and the maternal placenta (Decidua basalis), which develops from the maternal uterine tissue.[3] It metabolizes a number of substances and can release metabolic products into maternal or fetal circulations. The placenta is expelled from the body upon birth of the fetus.
As far as unborn children being able to survive outside the womb from 22 weeks and beyond, what would you say is just?
Is it just to force a woman to carry an unwanted and/or nonviable unborn child for up to 18 more weeks to give birth to it, in spite of risks to her own life and health?
Would it be just to induce labor early or physically remove the unborn child from the mother's body via Cesarean section against the mother's will, just so she can't abort it?
I can't begin to imagine the physical, emotional, and mental trauma either situation would cause. Seems to me the more humane thing to do would be to abort the fetus, whose consciousness is minimal, has limited sensory awareness, and wouldn't even become self-aware until about 1-3 years after being born.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19092726
A simple definition of consciousness is sensory awareness of the body, the self, and the world. The fetus may be aware of the body, for example by perceiving pain. It reacts to touch, smell, and sound, and shows facial expressions responding to external stimuli. However, these reactions are probably preprogrammed and have a subcortical nonconscious origin. Furthermore, the fetus is almost continuously asleep and unconscious partially due to endogenous sedation.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/great-kids-great-parents/201211/self-awareness
The neurobiological and psychological triggers for self-awareness have not yet been clarified. What we do know is that this occurs around 1 – 3 years. The child begins to know her own name and refer to herself by name. The child will begin to look in the mirror and realize she is looking at herself. She will also make clearer her own likes and dislikes, needs and wishes.
Originally posted by Nibedicus
Third, I already covered your “numbers justify law” argument. A law exists to protect ppl from abuse. It doesn’t matter how many/few in, your mind or mine, would abuse a law. The fact is, a law, in principle, has to be as unabusable as possible, especially when human life is at stake. Mental health issues and bad ppl in general exist and the law HAS to protect innocent life from that.
I partly agree with you here: the law should be as difficult to abuse as possible, but it should be as difficult to abuse as possible within reason.
You want something much more concrete and absolute in the law to prevent abuse of post-24th week abortions, but I'm not convinced it would stop nearly as many abusers as it would harm those expectant mothers whose well-being depends on last resort post-24th week abortions. The good of preventing some truly awful and/or mentally disturbed people from abusing this law would very likely be outweighed by the harm caused to the mothers who truly need it, and if such was the case, then that ultra-specific and restricting law fails to be an objective law.
Originally posted by Nibedicus
Fourth, we already listed the things we wanted included in the law (among others). You have not even provided a critique on why the things we added are unreasonable/unfeasible. And now you want us to include all possible scenarios according to the law and to write it exactly the way a bill should? Why should we do so when you haven’t even covered the ideas we already proposed? Seems like a pointless task to me. It ALMOST seems to me that you are just fishing for points you CAN debunk (by giving us too much rope) and then using that as a justification to generally paint the rest of our suggestions as faulty.
I can't critique something you haven't actually tried to define yet.
You said this:
Specifying what is acceptable and not acceptable reasons for late term abortion should be one. And listing the nuances of the wording and much much more than what the law offers us in this current iteration. It should be easy to list what constitutes life or death. Hell, just specifying “life” and then strongly specifying what constitutes “health” (not the “health” as currently defined as it includes familial/emotional/etc that can become subjective). Requiring that doctors need to be the ones to determine “threat to life” and not “medical practitioners” (or at least make a more acceptable list of medical practitioners who are actually qualified to determine life or death threats). And many others.
You want a more specific law, but the only truly specific thing you've said you want the law to include is that doctors, or other qualified medical practitioners (earlier, you said you didn't think nurse practitioners were qualified enough, so that pretty much just leaves general physicians, specialists, and surgeons), should be the only ones to determine the pregnancy's threat to the mother's life, in spite of the increasing doctor shortages in the U.S.
https://news.aamc.org/press-releases/article/workforce_report_shortage_04112018/
You say you want the law to define what is acceptable and what is not acceptable to qualify for abortions past the 24th week, and to further specify the definition of health, but provided no examples of your own to better define these things.
"And many others." Unless I've missed it in a later post but before the one I'm quoting now, you never elaborated upon what else needs to be change and how it should be changed.
You've assumed a lot about me in this thread. You've suggested I place little, or at least not enough, value on human life. You assumed I was ignoring your posts because I either had no rebuttal or simply did not care to. Now, you're assuming I'm trying to set you up to win an argument on the internet. Let me assure you, I don't care about debunking your arguments or winning an online debate over issues of morality. I'm here to discuss and examine other points of view while sharing my own. My goal is to reach an understanding, if not an agreement. Failing that, the mental exercise is reward enough for me.
Originally posted by Nibedicus
Fifth, So you’re saying our points about the law being too vague were too vague? Don’t you see the irony here? But to answer your question: 1) See above. 2) No. As we already provided some reasonable exceptions. 3) Someone who at least took a doctorate and it has to be an objectively provable metric. 4) The mental/emotional justification would have to be well defined and easily diagnosed thru objective and measurable methodologies to make the implementation not overly complicated and time consuming. Not an expert here, of course and I am willing to listen to the expertise of actual doctors for as long as the opinions of doctors from both side would be discussed. 5) Depends on the type of risks we’re talking about and depends on what point of the pregnancy. While rape and incest are indeed understandable reasons (I still feel it’s wrong but I can sympathize) to abort to protect the sanity of the mother, I fail to see how a pregnancy like that would last up to point of birth. Maybe if the mother was comatose after said act perhaps? Or if she became mentally unstable and didn’t get better until that point? Again, the nuances of what justifies abortion at this point are too complicated for forum folks like us to discuss, at least as an individual point in a long argument. I believe we could iron out something balanced given time, focus and a little more research, however. But that was my point, the conversation needed to happen for something with this gravity and the rushed passing of this law made that impossible.
I suppose it does seem ironic at a glance, but it is perfectly reasonable to ask you and others to elaborate in detail how you would change an abortion law you feel is too vague and easy to abuse, to turn it into a much better outlined abortion law with clear-cut parameters that is difficult to abuse while still being fair to those who need post-24th week abortions.
This is a good response, though. This is what I wanted, which is exactly why I had asked the questions I asked. Not to set traps, but to at least understand what you think would make the law better, even if we don't agree.
Originally posted by Nibedicus
To prevent the reply from going overly long, I will resist the urge to ask questions myself. But seeing as I answered questions you posted w/o the need to do so, I hope you are able to extend the same courtesy when I ask my questions at a later time (when we have covered enough of the debate to condense the above points sufficiently).
I think I've always been very candid in my posts. No reason to stop now. Feel free to ask whenever you're ready, just know that I cannot guarantee a prompt response.
And on that note, I'm off to bed for a few hours before work.
Originally posted by Eternal Idol😕
As pointless as it is to debate heated topics with anonymous strangers online, it would be an even bigger and far less rewarding waste of time to troll them for the **** of it.
Originally posted by Eternal Idol😆
It's fine if you disagree with me, but don't compare me to Fly, for ****'s sake.
Reply 1 of 2.
Ok, replies are getting loooong. Like I said, we should try and condense points else we’ll end up writing entire term papers worth of replies to each post. 😛 To get each reply out in a timely manner, I’ll have to split my replies into 2 separate posts. Also, can no longer quote your replies without going right through tht word count. So try and to sequence my paragraphs as ordered primarily to address each of yours individually. Feel free to ask if some paragraphs seem out of sequence. Also, please try and not reply til both are posted. Thanks.
Anyway, you must pardon my frustration, as there were actual multiple points that you just skipped through. Imagine the work and thought it takes to type up a reply and then having entire paragraphs just skipped? Even worse, several already addressed points are still cropping up in your arguments and that means I’d have to restate my rebuttals yet again. I wholly prefer it if you go point for point because neither one of us like wasting our time. Points like the fact that no one is arguing against risk to life (yet it crops up below) and me having to previously repeat life’s subjectivity to the individual but not to law and society are just some examples. But I’ll keep the aggression down. But you understand how annoying it is to try and have a decent discussion (I do acknowledge and applaud the respectful demeanor you have approached the discussion on this rather sensitive subject however, I hope we can keep this up 👆).
No offense, but I find the entire foundation of your argument here seem deeply flawed and it seems it is due to the fact that a lot of it, to me, seem to be due to you having difficulty in humanizing the unborn child. It might be a deep sense of cognitive dissonance that many pro-choicers face. I’m hoping, throughout this debate, that you can at least keep an open mind.
Anyway, before we proceed, you REALLY need to stop grasping the “life risk” argument. No one is arguing against risk to life. I feel that you keep adding this onto your argument because in the absence of it, your argument becomes entirely unpalatable. We are talking about “health” w/c has a much larger, vaguer and potentially more subjective (if not properly defined) coverage in conditions.
Next, we need to really iron out our differences in our perceptions of the child. I see the child as a full and equal human being. You seem to... not. I feel that this really should be our primary focus. Would like to remind you, however, that your definitions with regards to the fetus has seem rather fluid in our debates. It went from “parasite” (w/c is a distinct organism from its host) to a “part” (not distinct). Is it because I am changing your mind at certain points or is it because you are grasping at straws to be able to come up with an argument? I’m hoping (for both our time’s sake) that this is the former not the latter. These are not accusations however. In fact, you might not even know at this time how you feel as you typed your rebuttal, introspection of how we truly feel is seldom a top priority in debates such as this.
Ok, to address your arguments: Connection =/= part. They are connected. There is a dependency of the child to the mother, but that is a basic condition of the unborn and even up to newborns. Heck, the fact that the child is And past 22 weeks it’s not even a necessary dependency. This argument has no merit tbh. What makes one distinct from the other are 1) the fact each has a separate sense of “self” (once the child’s brain has reached a certain level of development). An unborn child senses the world and the environment (via basic emotions such as pain, fear, etc) completely independent of the mother, they do not “share” experiences even if the child cannot yet comprehend the experiences it is going thru. A mom, for example, cannot directly feel the same pain experienced by the unborn child (tho I heard that some could “sense” it if their child is in distress). 2) A child develops separate from the mother. A mother can die but the child can still be delivered (within an amount of time) and the child can live independently once delivered (after the 22 weeks period of course). And a child can die within the womb and the mother will live. They share similar but distinct DNA (another identifier for one’s individuality to a point where it is used in forensics).
To be a “part” of something that means that something needs to be incomplete portion of a whole. Once removed, you are still a part, a separate part, not a distinct individual. Yet, it is clear that they are distinct in both mind (see 1) and body (see 2).
What a parent “feels” is an emotional connection, not a literal objective condition. Else we’d have to take terms like “broken heart” seriously. Don’t know why you even brought this up. It just clutters the debate tbh.
As far as what to do if a mother does not want to give birth to a child pas the 22 week period. Tbh, I have no easy answers. You won’t like the answer. And I know many of the more virtue-signaling posters would scoff at the answer. But let me give it to you anyway. Past the reasonable point of termination, a mother should have a choice of induced premature labor, an emergency c-section or taking the child to term.
The problem here is you (and the others who would scoff at this) sympathize and humanize the mother but have practically zero regard for the child (or at least see the child as less than human). We cannot have an honest debate until you can see my logic from my eyes (as I will try and see your logic from yours) or at least discuss this side of the debate and come to a consensus. The child is a person just as much as the mother. Imagine the options here. Death or labor/c-section? What do you think the mother would pick? Imagine someone saying that the mental/emotional/physical anguish of one is enough reason to pop a cap into another? Because you are basically suggesting torture (what do you think a near birth child would feel being torn to shreds during an abortion) and euthanasia if one life inflicts mental/emotional/physical anguish on another.
I believe the 2 latter choices are far more preferable to the vast majority of us than death (but yet this seems more acceptable to some ppl for insane reasons). There will be exceptions (rape/incest/etc) but that is the beauty of a more specific law, we can specify what would be reasonable for both sides. The problem here is that the repubs would never budge on it and the dems, the second they came to power, decided to rip the discussion away from all of us and decided to muscle in a vague and highly abusable law.
Your consciousness argument is moot. It is irrelevant. We, as a society, do not judge a person’s value of life based on the level of consciousness he has. A newborn has as much value of life to society as a full grown 70 year old man. Diminished faculties of “consciousness” does not reduce this. Your life do not lose around 10% life value just because an accident and you lost some of your sight (or some other faculties for sensing the world around you). You need to get outta here with that.