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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: The dependency argument in abortion
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Anglican_Brat
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# 12349
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Posted
Argument in favor of choice is that the fetus's value is dependent on the will of its mother, as in if it's mother wants it, then the fetus has value.
To criminalize abortion is to usurp the rights of the mother, in favor of the abstract rights of an unborn fetus.
To me this is the strongest argument from the prochoice perspective
But the response given is that if we made the argument based on the fact that a fetus's value is only dependent on its mother, then you can make the same argument that people with disabilities or mental or physical challenges that are dependent on another person namely its caregiver, thus could conceivably lose its right to life, if said caregiver decides so.
My response is that the fetus' dependency on its mother is qualitatively different than a disabled person's dependency on its caregiver.
Any thoughts?
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Posts: 4332 | From: Vancouver | Registered: Feb 2007
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
Well it's fairly obvious a fetus is more dependent on the woman than a disabled person is on a caregiver, for the very simple reason that another caregiver could take over for the disabled person, whereas with current technology no one else can take over from the woman for a fetus.
Now if we ever get artificial uteruses, like they have in some science fiction, it's a different story.
[ 15. December 2017, 20:32: Message edited by: Nicolemr ]
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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sharkshooter
Not your average shark
# 1589
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
Argument in favor of choice is that the fetus's value is dependent on the will of its mother, as in if it's mother wants it, then the fetus has value.
...
What if the father wants the child? If the mother's will gives value to the fetus, does not the father's will also?
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Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer. [Psalm 19:14]
Posts: 7772 | From: Canada; Washington DC; Phoenix; it's complicated | Registered: Oct 2001
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Asking about the father rather assumes that the foetus has been conceived within a relationship where both partners have discussed willingness to rear children before embarking on a sexual relationship. This does not always happen in this world's hook up culture.
If the couple were trying not to conceive, so the pregnancy is a result of contraceptive failure, does the woman have to incubate the foetus to viability?
If the pregnancy is the result of a one night stand, does the father have a right to insist the woman carries the foetus for 9 months?
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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sharkshooter
Not your average shark
# 1589
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
...
If the pregnancy is the result of a one night stand, does the father have a right to insist the woman carries the foetus for 9 months?
If she does give birth, she has the right to demand child care payments, so I'd say he should have rights in the decision.
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Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer. [Psalm 19:14]
Posts: 7772 | From: Canada; Washington DC; Phoenix; it's complicated | Registered: Oct 2001
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Personally I think people should not embark on sexual relationships without discussing the possibility of becoming pregnant, but that is not the society we live in.
(And no, I am not convinced women should be able to claim child support for a child conceived on a one night stand)
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Anglican_Brat
Shipmate
# 12349
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by sharkshooter:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
Argument in favor of choice is that the fetus's value is dependent on the will of its mother, as in if it's mother wants it, then the fetus has value.
...
What if the father wants the child? If the mother's will gives value to the fetus, does not the father's will also?
No, because the fetus exacts much more of a stress on the mother, than does the father, so the mother's choice is valued much more than the father.
I may want a child, but I as a cisgender male will never ever, experience the direct impact of a pregnancy.
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It's Reformation Day! Do your part to promote Christian unity and brotherly love and hug a schismatic.
Posts: 4332 | From: Vancouver | Registered: Feb 2007
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sharkshooter
Not your average shark
# 1589
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
To criminalize abortion is to usurp the rights of the mother, in favor of the abstract rights of an unborn fetus.
Why does the mother have rights, but the unborn only have "abstract" rights? And what exactly does that mean anyway?
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Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer. [Psalm 19:14]
Posts: 7772 | From: Canada; Washington DC; Phoenix; it's complicated | Registered: Oct 2001
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
Because the mother is there, a living human being. The fetus may someday be a living human being, but it's by definition not there yet.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Because the mother is there, a living human being. The fetus may someday be a living human being, but it's by definition not there yet.
Biologically speaking the human foetus is a living human being. It is alive; it is human; it is a being. It may not be a human being in some evaluative sense; if so that has to be defined or established.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
I am not sure how the OP relates to the question of the moral status of the foetus (in the sense of: does it have human rights in the same way that I have human rights).
Is the argument that the foetus has human rights only insofar as the mother chooses to endow it with human rights? If so, although I am on balance pro-choice, I find that rather disturbing.
Or is it arguing that the mother's choice whether or not to value it trumps any human rights it might possess naturally? If so, I find that rather disturbing as well.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
To elaborate on the above. IME pro-choice arguments fall into two kinds: 1) That the foetus doesn't have the same human rights as the mother, and/or 2) that no-one has a human right to impose on another the sort of imposition that pregnancy imposes on the mother.
I thought the OP was of type (2) but people seem to be responding in terms of type (1)*.
For type (2) arguments, I don't the idea is that the mother's choice adds 'value' to the foetus that it didn't have before - rather that the mother's consent keeps the pregnancy from being an imposition.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
There's also the argument that it's private matter. Medical. Nothing more.
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
There's also the argument that it's private matter. Medical. Nothing more.
But that is a consequence of the argument about the status of the foetus.
If the foetus has little or no status / rights relative to the mother, then any decisions that are to be made about her pregnancy are quite rightly the province of the mother, and whilst she can and should take advice from her spouse, doctor, and so on, the responsibility must ultimately be hers.
If, on the other hand, the foetus has some status and/or rights that place it if not equal to the mother then somewhere on the same page, then decisions about the mother's pregnancy become a balancing act between the interests of the mother and those of the foetus. And whilst we generally (and rightly) give parents wide latitude to make decisions in the best interests of their children, we don't give them unlimited latitude: there are boundaries.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
I also feel that if you, say, do not support pre-natal care, or if you are not willing to pay for child care, child medical health benefits, universal education, and so on, then you are a hypocrite who is interested only in the pre-born. If you advocate for life before birth you had better support benefits for the baby after it's born. Sadly, America is full of people who utterly lose interest in a person the instant it leaves the womb.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Ricardus, doesn't the way foetus develops mean that the decision cannot be neatly divided into your two arguments? In the first and second trimesters the foetus is totally dependent on the mother to survive. In the third trimester the foetus is viable, so less dependent.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
I also feel that if you, say, do not support pre-natal care, or if you are not willing to pay for child care, child medical health benefits, universal education, and so on, then you are a hypocrite who is interested only in the pre-born.
Although I instinctively agree with this argument, I'm not sure it's right. Someone can support clamping down on welfare and generally making life hard for poor people, and also support prosecuting someone who murders a poor person without being a hypocrite.
There's probably a difference between positive and negative rights in there somewhere: you have the right not to be killed is different from you have the right to be looked after.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
Yesterday the execrable Paul Ryan (Speaker of the House) suggested that most of the US's economic problems could be solved if only women had more babies. Since he has gutted health care, refused to renew health insurance for children, and in general has no use for the poor than a headache, he's a primary example of this hypocrisy. You can't urge people to bear children while simultaneously making it impossible for them to stay alive while doing it.
You cannot be pro-life if the life you care about is only before birth.
[ 17. December 2017, 02:08: Message edited by: Brenda Clough ]
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
I also feel that if you, say, do not support pre-natal care, or if you are not willing to pay for child care, child medical health benefits, universal education, and so on, then you are a hypocrite who is interested only in the pre-born. If you advocate for life before birth you had better support benefits for the baby after it's born. Sadly, America is full of people who utterly lose interest in a person the instant it leaves the womb.
Why did you jump straight to that with no evidence that any previous poster held such opinions?
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Barnabas62
Host
# 9110
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Posted
Harry Blackmun's arguments in the Supreme Court decision on Roe v Wade were a sometimes confused combination of privacy and viability. The viability arguments have been much criticised, since it was thought at the time that advancing medical science would lower the viability threshold - or provide means of supporting development to viability outside the womb. There is still truth in that assertion.
The privacy argument does seem to depend on the argument that the foetus is not yet a person, otherwise there is indeed a constitutional right to life, and therefore a state interest in protecting both its rights and the rights of the expectant mother. That would seem to make the argument in favour of a private choice conditional on what rights, if any, the foetus has to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Or at least that is my reading of the legal conundrum.
Personally, I think the privacy argument wins, just, but it has always seemed to me to be a close call. Personally, my wife and I are both pro-life and pro-choice, since neither of us believes our pro-life views should be imposed by law on those who see things differently. We chose to limit ourselves to two children, but never faced the choices produced by an unexpected and unwanted pregnancy, e.g if it had occurred when my wife was in her mid to late forties by which time our two children were already young adults. Frankly, it would have been a very difficult one. But whatever we would have decided, it does seem right to both of us that it should have been our choice. And I would have accepted whatever choice my wife felt was right for her.
Pro-choice arguments often seem to me to be belittled or condemned by those who have never faced the personal challenges of an unwanted or unexpected pregnancy.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Ricardus, doesn't the way foetus develops mean that the decision cannot be neatly divided into your two arguments? In the first and second trimesters the foetus is totally dependent on the mother to survive. In the third trimester the foetus is viable, so less dependent.
Not sure. ISTM most jurisdictions make abortion harder as the pregnancy progresses, which certainly suggests that both arguments become less convincing at a later stage of pregnancy.
(FWIW the asterisk in my previous post was supposed to link to a self-deprecating footnote asserting that there couldn't possibly be a third type of pro-choice argument because that would imply the existence of something I didn't know about, but apparently my mood of self-deprecation didn't last long enough for me actually to write it.)
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Anglican_Brat
Shipmate
# 12349
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
I am not sure how the OP relates to the question of the moral status of the foetus (in the sense of: does it have human rights in the same way that I have human rights).
Is the argument that the foetus has human rights only insofar as the mother chooses to endow it with human rights? If so, although I am on balance pro-choice, I find that rather disturbing.
Or is it arguing that the mother's choice whether or not to value it trumps any human rights it might possess naturally? If so, I find that rather disturbing as well.
My argument is that in criminalizing abortion (assuming, first to second trimester pregnancy), is that it is prioritizing the rights of a fetus which if you accept that it is contestable whether or not we should treat the fetus as equal to a living born human being, over the rights of an actual living born human being, namely its mother.
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It's Reformation Day! Do your part to promote Christian unity and brotherly love and hug a schismatic.
Posts: 4332 | From: Vancouver | Registered: Feb 2007
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Anglican_Brat
Shipmate
# 12349
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Yesterday the execrable Paul Ryan (Speaker of the House) suggested that most of the US's economic problems could be solved if only women had more babies. Since he has gutted health care, refused to renew health insurance for children, and in general has no use for the poor than a headache, he's a primary example of this hypocrisy. You can't urge people to bear children while simultaneously making it impossible for them to stay alive while doing it.
You cannot be pro-life if the life you care about is only before birth.
To be fair, this criticism can only be applied to right wing evangelicals in which a pro-life stance is coupled with support for libertarian economics which rejects the welfare state.
Roman Catholic pro-life teaching is coupled with a steady support for the welfare state, and the use of government measures aimed to alleviate poverty and injustice.
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It's Reformation Day! Do your part to promote Christian unity and brotherly love and hug a schismatic.
Posts: 4332 | From: Vancouver | Registered: Feb 2007
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
[QUOTE]
Roman Catholic pro-life teaching is coupled with a steady support for the welfare state, and the use of government measures aimed to alleviate poverty and injustice.
Teaching, yes. In practice, the RCC members vary quite a bit in their voting and the older, conservative members are more likely to vote against the welfare state. At least where it benefits the young.
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
My argument is that in criminalizing abortion (assuming, first to second trimester pregnancy), is that it is prioritizing the rights of a fetus which if you accept that it is contestable whether or not we should treat the fetus as equal to a living born human being, over the rights of an actual living born human being, namely its mother.
The vagina is not a magic chute nor the labia transformation curtains. The significant difference between a child imdeiately on one side or the other is that it can be seen. Viability is the most logical point of rights. Criminalising abortion before viability is prioritising possibility over actual. After viability it is actual against actual. Though not a completely equal comparison.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
Paul Ryan is, at least in theory, a Roman Catholic. How he squares that with his politics is left as an exercise for the reader [significant quantities of alcohol may be required].
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
Roman Catholic pro-life teaching is coupled with a steady support for the welfare state, and the use of government measures aimed to alleviate poverty and injustice.
You need to tell this to Paul Ryan and other Roman Catholics in the U.S. legislative branch.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
The significant difference between a child imdeiately on one side or the other is that it can be seen. Viability is the most logical point of rights. Criminalising abortion before viability is prioritising possibility over actual. After viability it is actual against actual. Though not a completely equal comparison.
I really don't think viability is a logical point. Viability depends on the available technology and medical care; rights oughtn't to depend upon available care. Also, there is something counterintuitive about arguing that as soon as the viable foetus is able to survive outside the woman's body the woman is then obliged to retain it in her body.
I also think that the criteria of viability is mutually supportive with an ideal of the self-sufficient individual (historically gendered male and economically property-owning) as the normative human being. That ideal feeds into a lot of right-wing neo-liberal ideology. No infant is capable of independent viability. Most adult humans in the modern Western world are only precariously independently viable separate from the rest of human society.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Also, there is something counterintuitive about arguing that as soon as the viable foetus is able to survive outside the woman's body the woman is then obliged to retain it in her body.
Only if one wishes to take the arguments into the absurd. Nothing will perfectly satisfy everyone.
quote:
No infant is capable of independent viability. .
That is my point. Children do not become reasonable independent for several years and yet we, rightly, consider them full humans.
The logical extension of your objections is no abortion. This eliminates the rights of women far too much and, as history shows, actually increases abortions.
I don't agree with Canada's abortion until birth, but they have a lower abortion rate, so there isn't a lot to complain about with their policies.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
Late-term abortions are only done for medical reasons e.g. health risks or severe malformations in Canada. This is our physicians' standard of practice. Doctors and women decide. What's to disagree with?
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
Late-term abortions are only done for medical reasons e.g. health risks or severe malformations in Canada. This is our physicians' standard of practice. Doctors and women decide. What's to disagree with?
Ah, I thought it was no questions asked until birth. Whatever is happening, a model that produces fewer abortions is one to look to.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
Late-term abortions are only done for medical reasons e.g. health risks or severe malformations in Canada. This is our physicians' standard of practice. Doctors and women decide. What's to disagree with?
Well, just to be clear, though, that's because there are no doctors in Canada willing to perform late-term abortions for non-medical reasons past a certain date. Legally, there is nothing to stop a doctor from performing a late-term procedure for any reason, Canada having no abortion laws.
I believe some women have had to go to the USA to find doctors willing to provide abortions late term. So obviously, there are doctors willing to do them, and there's no logical reason a doctor in Canada couldn't decide to do so at some point in the future.
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
Late-term abortions are only done for medical reasons e.g. health risks or severe malformations in Canada. This is our physicians' standard of practice. Doctors and women decide. What's to disagree with?
Ah, I thought it was no questions asked until birth. Whatever is happening, a model that produces fewer abortions is one to look to.
Legally speaking, yes, it is no questions until birth. See my post above.
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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
And just a bit of history, it's interesting how Canada got to its current extreme laissiez-faire situation on abortion.
It's not quite as simple as the self-congratulatory nationalist narative about how Canadians are just so naturally accepting of a woman's right to choose. What happened was, the previous law(requiring women to appear before a committee before being allowed to have an abortion) was overturned by the Supreme Court as too restrictive, some time in the 1980s. But the court majority explicitly stated that the government could craft another law, also subject to court review.
The Conservative government of the day DID craft another law, requiring a woman to get the OK from two doctors before having an abortion(in effect, a two-person committee). This law was passed by the House Of Commons, but then defeated in the Senate by an oddball coalition of pro-lifers and pro-choicers, both hoping to get a new legal regime more suited to their respective preferences. But no government since than has tried to pass another law, and thus we've been left with a default pro-choice situation.
I suppose it says something about the generally pro-choice nature of Canadians that the pro-lifers have never been powerful enough to get a new law through, but it is NOT the case that an unrestricted right to abortion was ever upheld by the Supreme Court. This has not stopped people, including Justin Trudeau(who should really know better, given that it was his father's own law that was the subject of the court rulig), from repeating that as a solemn fact.
And for the record, I think it was a disgrace that the unelected senate was able to overturn a law passed by the Commons, though they obviously gambled that public opinion would let them get away with it, and they've mostly been proven right.
[ 18. December 2017, 04:40: Message edited by: Stetson ]
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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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John3000
Apprentice
# 18786
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Also, there is something counterintuitive about arguing that as soon as the viable foetus is able to survive outside the woman's body the woman is then obliged to retain it in her body.
Only if one wishes to take the arguments into the absurd. Nothing will perfectly satisfy everyone.
quote:
No infant is capable of independent viability. .
That is my point. Children do not become reasonable independent for several years and yet we, rightly, consider them full humans.
The logical extension of your objections is no abortion. This eliminates the rights of women far too much and, as history shows, actually increases abortions.
It was common in the Roman Empire until the fourth century, and in many other cultures, to let unwanted babies die of exposure (on a rubbish tip for example). The logic was that they were not killed but placed in the hands of the gods, to perhaps be discovered and cared for by a passer-by. In the context of the time this presumably seemed a perfectly reasonable way to deal with babies born with deformities or other gross abnormalities, but it was also used for simple gender selection.
This reminds me of Philip K Dick's short story, The Pre-persons, in which the US legalises abortion up to the point the soul is thought to enter the body around age 12. The abortion truck drives around neighbourhoods picking up children who can't present a D-card indicating their parents' desire to keep them.
Posts: 29 | From: England | Registered: May 2017
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Also, there is something counterintuitive about arguing that as soon as the viable foetus is able to survive outside the woman's body the woman is then obliged to retain it in her body.
Only if one wishes to take the arguments into the absurd. Nothing will perfectly satisfy everyone.
If an argument can be taken into the absurd the fault is with the argument, not with the person who takes it there.
quote:
quote:
No infant is capable of independent viability. .
That is my point. Children do not become reasonable independent for several years and yet we, rightly, consider them full humans.
The logical extension of your objections is no abortion. This eliminates the rights of women far too much and, as history shows, actually increases abortions.
I think that if your concern is that forbidding abortion eliminates the rights of the woman then argue for that. One shouldn't decide the moral status of the foetus by looking at the answer to a different question. If you're basing your opinion about abortion on the rights of the woman then argue that the woman ought to have the right to abort regardless of the moral status of the foetus.
My suspicion is that legalised abortion tends to go along with better health care for children, better state support for childcare, and better sex education; and that any lower rate of abortion where abortion is legal is due to those factors. Whether or not that's true I think we can agree that anyone who genuinely cares about the welfare of babies (as opposed to women's sex lives that are none of their business) should support those goals.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
Well, just to be clear, though, that's because there are no doctors in Canada willing to perform late-term abortions for non-medical reasons past a certain date. Legally, there is nothing to stop a doctor from performing a late-term procedure for any reason, Canada having no abortion laws.
That's an interesting fact to add to the discussion about whether doctors with religious objections should be able to refuse to perform abortions.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
Argument in favor of choice is that the fetus's value is dependent on the will of its mother, as in if it's mother wants it, then the fetus has value.
I think that there's a lot to be said for that. The important insight there is that being pro-choice doesn't mean that one has to treat the unborn-potential-human as valueless. It is possible, for example, to sympathise with a woman who has had a miscarriage and experiences that as a bereavement, without at the same time thinking that a woman who has had an abortion is a murderer. The fact that value was given to the pregnancy by one woman and not the other justifies the rest of us in taking a different view of what exactly has been 'lost' in either case.
But I think it's also true that this only works if the starting point is that an unborn-whatever doesn't have the same objective value as those human beings that we recognise to be persons (morally speaking). It is not generally an excuse for harming someone that you don't ascribe any value to them - with most people we start from the default assumption that they are worth something, and if we want to justify harming them we often do it by considering what they have done to forfeit that worth. If we start from the assumption that an unborn-whatever has no value except that which a particular person chooses to bestow, then we aren't treating them as we do 'people'.
I therefore think that the argument is only ever going to be attractive to those who are already pro-choice, not as persuading anyone to that position. It's important, though, because if you are pro-choice (which I am) you need this, or something like it, to be able to reconcile thinking that someone should be permitted to terminate an unwanted healthy pregnancy without legal censure, and at the same time honouring the ordinary human moral intuition that the involuntary termination of a wanted pregnancy can rightly be felt as a grievous loss.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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lilBuddha
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# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
If an argument can be taken into the absurd the fault is with the argument, not with the person who takes it there.
Then Russ' responses in Purg are your fault. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Really, that is an ridiculous position that might work in a structured debate in school, but doesn't reflect the real world. Any argument can be taken to the absurd and reality is rarely simple and clean.
quote:
I think that if your concern is that forbidding abortion eliminates the rights of the woman then argue for that.
I have, repeatedly. The OP is about the dependency argument.
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One shouldn't decide the moral status of the foetus by looking at the answer to a different question. If you're basing your opinion about abortion on the rights of the woman then argue that the woman ought to have the right to abort regardless of the moral status of the foetus.
Dafyd, meet the Real World. She is messy, unfair, unbalanced ans someone is getting screwed almost no matter what.
Abortion does affect women's rights.
A child has rights.
So it is rational to decide where rights for the later are allowed to trump rights for the former.
quote:
My suspicion is that legalised abortion tends to go along with better health care for children, better state support for childcare, and better sex education; and that any lower rate of abortion where abortion is legal is due to those factors.
Sweden is an anomaly though.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Crœsos
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# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
Or is it arguing that the mother's choice whether or not to value it trumps any human rights it might possess naturally? If so, I find that rather disturbing as well.
The specific "right" being asserted by the anti-abortion faction is that the fœtus possesses rights not available to any other person, making it a sort of superior being. Specifically, that an embryo or fœtus has a positive and legally enforceable right to use another person's organs for its own benefit. This is not a "right" granted to anyone else. An adult who filed suit to get access to someone else's kidney or lung wouldn't have a leg to stand on, but for some reason a lot of folks seem to regard the uterus as a form of common property.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
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# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
Or is it arguing that the mother's choice whether or not to value it trumps any human rights it might possess naturally? If so, I find that rather disturbing as well.
The specific "right" being asserted by the anti-abortion faction is that the fœtus possesses rights not available to any other person, making it a sort of superior being. Specifically, that an embryo or fœtus has a positive and legally enforceable right to use another person's organs for its own benefit. This is not a "right" granted to anyone else. An adult who filed suit to get access to someone else's kidney or lung wouldn't have a leg to stand on, but for some reason a lot of folks seem to regard the uterus as a form of common property.
Yeah, this is not a viable argument. Humans reproduce by internal development of the fœtus. There is no other option for the developing child.
One of the problems with this debate is when people frame it as what is "fair". And it is never going to be completely fair. So what is reasonable should be what frames the argument.
Reasonable is legal abortion with comprehensive sex education and adequate health care for children and mothers.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Crœsos
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# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
Or is it arguing that the mother's choice whether or not to value it trumps any human rights it might possess naturally? If so, I find that rather disturbing as well.
The specific "right" being asserted by the anti-abortion faction is that the fœtus possesses rights not available to any other person, making it a sort of superior being. Specifically, that an embryo or fœtus has a positive and legally enforceable right to use another person's organs for its own benefit. This is not a "right" granted to anyone else. An adult who filed suit to get access to someone else's kidney or lung wouldn't have a leg to stand on, but for some reason a lot of folks seem to regard the uterus as a form of common property.
Yeah, this is not a viable argument. Humans reproduce by internal development of the fœtus. There is no other option for the developing child.
I have to go with "so what?" here. There's a big logical leap from "humans reproduce by internal development" (which is true) to " . . . and therefore every human embryo/fœtus has an enforceable political right to develop inside another human being" (which is what the various fœtal personhood arguments of the anti-abortion movement boil down to). That standard is problematic on a lot of fronts. For example, do excess embryos produced as part of IVF treatment also have a right to "internal development"? If so, does that mean the genetic mother is required to gestate six or eight pregnancies herself, or can surrogates be hired? If the genetic mother is unavailable to do so because of health or death, is it the state's duty to protect the right to internal development by hiring surrogates? If there aren't enough voluntary surrogates available can the state conscript them?
And does this argument from medical necessity apply to situations that don't involve the uterus specifically. If someone has "no other option" than a blood transfusion to live does that give them a state-enforceable "right" to take someone else's blood involuntarily? What about a lobe of their liver? Their heart? You can see where the "no other option" standard for the use of someone else's body gets pretty ugly pretty fast, though for some reason a lot of folks regard it as less ugly when they're sure it will only apply to women.
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
One of the problems with this debate is when people frame it as what is "fair". And it is never going to be completely fair.
I'm not framing the question as one of fairness, I'm exploring the ramifications of the assertion that a fœtus has a politically enforceable "right" (a term and context introduced by others into this discussion) to gestate in someone else's body.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
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# 14333
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Posted
transfusions and transplants involve consenting adults.
Children are not capable of any consent for sometime after birth, not reasonable consent for a year or more and not informed consent for many years after. Which of those points should abortion be legal to?
To get away from absurdity, what is the rational end point for abortion? The most logical point is viability. With the caveats that health of the mother taking priority at any point, and embracing the holistic approach of reducing the need/desire for abortions. Otherwise known as education, rights and healthcare.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Nicolemr
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# 28
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Posted
I don't see what consent on the part of the recipient has to do with anything. You surely don't mean to imply that a child below the age of consent can not be the recipient of a blood transfusion or organ donation?
If you mean consent on the part of the donor, that's the whole point. If the woman does not consent to have her uterus used by a fetus, it's the same as if an organ donor or blood donor did not consent to have their blood or organ donated.
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
transfusions and transplants involve consenting adults.
Which is, apparently, something you object to with your proposed standard of medical necessity. Needless to say this is a position full of a lot of potential pitfalls, some of which I outlined earlier.
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Children are not capable of any consent for sometime after birth, not reasonable consent for a year or more and not informed consent for many years after. Which of those points should abortion be legal to?
Yes, a minor wanting an abortion is difficult case, but I'm not seeing the case for taking the decision entirely out of her hands. It seems a bit of a red herring and leads to the interesting situation where a minor could be compelled to have an unwanted abortion by an adult decision maker.
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
To get away from absurdity, what is the rational end point for abortion? The most logical point is viability. With the caveats that health of the mother taking priority at any point, . . .
Well that's an interesting caveat if we proceed from the suggested position that an embryo/fœtus has a "right" to gestation. Why is that right no longer considered in the face of a threat to the health of the mother? Given that pregnancy and childbirth are, in and of themselves, a detriment to a woman's health wouldn't that imply abortion should be available at any stage? Or are you suggesting that termination should only be an option for health risks significantly above those associated with a standard pregnancy? If so, what constitutes the threshold of acceptable risk, and who gets to decide?
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
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# 14333
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Posted
If you are going to play silly buggers, then I'm not going to bother replying beyond this.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
The specific "right" being asserted by the anti-abortion faction is that the fœtus possesses rights not available to any other person, making it a sort of superior being. Specifically, that an embryo or fœtus has a positive and legally enforceable right to use another person's organs for its own benefit. This is not a "right" granted to anyone else. An adult who filed suit to get access to someone else's kidney or lung wouldn't have a leg to stand on, but for some reason a lot of folks seem to regard the uterus as a form of common property.
I don't think anyone is claiming that woman's wombs are common property such that any foetus has a claim on any womb.
If through some accident I end up with someone reliant on one of my organs for nine months through no fault of theirs I think there would be a strong moral case that I should remain attached.
Do you think children have no more rights than adults?
I think any argument about abortion that treats pregnancy as something aberrant is flawed. Humans are placental mammals. Every single human being has been reliant upon somebody else's womb (without asking first)(*).
The fundamental problem for the abortion debate is the long-standing paradigm of the moral agent as a landed gentleman. (As described by Russ, it's a view of morality as adjudicating the boundaries between two landholders.) On the anti-abortion side this is an assumption that pregnancy is something weird that doesn't happen to normal people. On the pro-abortion side, this means that women are welcomed into the class of normal people for whom pregnancy is something weird that doesn't happen to them. Either way the debaters are using moral concepts that are designed to apply to landed gentlement do not help deal with ordinary human life. (See Russ' posts passim.)
(*) Assuming you don't count pre-implantation.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
I don’t think the comparison with organ donation works, for this reason: if one person does not wish to donate an organ, another person can be found who may be willing. OTOH, if a woman doesn’t want to carry a pregnancy to term, no one else can do it in her place. It’s not like the foetus can be removed from the womb and implanted in someone else’s.
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Rent my holiday home in the South of France
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Barnabas62
Host
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
It’s not like the foetus can be removed from the womb and implanted in someone else’s.
Well, at least not yet. There may be therapeutic reasons for developing an 'artificial womb' capability to help those not able to carry to full term. At present, the remedy for some is to have the child delivered very prematurely, with massive developmental problems for the critical first few weeks.
I'm not sure anyone has given too much thought to the possibility of such future technology being used to preserve the life of foetuses at 2nd and 3rd trimester stage if the mother doesn't want the pregnancy to continue. There is a different moral choice involved if there is a third option, of providing the means for the foetus to survive outside the body of the woman who conceived it. There's a difference between saying 'I don't want this baby' and also saying 'And I don't want anyone else to have this baby'.
Of course, this is very speculative, I'm not sure what to make of such a future dilemma. The ones facing us now are complicated enough.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Leorning Cniht
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# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I'm not sure anyone has given too much thought to the possibility of such future technology being used to preserve the life of foetuses at 2nd and 3rd trimester stage if the mother doesn't want the pregnancy to continue.
Lois McMaster Bujold has 18 uterine replicators containing the children of raped prisoners of war delivered to the rapists as part of a peace deal at the end of a short, stupid war.
But in general, I think there's a widespread (but possibly misplaced) assumption that a society with viable in-vitro gestation would also have figured out not getting pregnant unless you wanted to.
[ 21. December 2017, 18:22: Message edited by: Leorning Cniht ]
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