"Perhaps, but take religious views out of the argument and it becomes very fragile."
*All* the philosophical arguments are fragile.
Abortions should be legal until the third trimester? Why? Because miscarriages are most common during that time? What does that have to do with the millions of foetuses that doesn't miscarry? Life begins at c…
"Perhaps, but take religious views out of the argument and it becomes very fragile."
*All* the philosophical arguments are fragile.
Abortions should be legal until the third trimester? Why? Because miscarriages are most common during that time? What does that have to do with the millions of foetuses that doesn't miscarry? Life begins at conception? How do you make that claim without invoking God or faith? Where is your evidence that this is life in a more meaningful sense than the life of an amoeba, say? Abortion should be legal until the baby is born? How is that any different from murdering a newborn baby? What changes between the moment the baby is inside the body and the next moment when it's outside?
The only argument that has any real weight, at least as far as I can see, is that banning abortion outright will undoubtedly lead to the anguish and death of some number of women. Women who have already been born, women who are definitely conscious and able to survive outside their mother's wombs, women whose rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are already fully enshrined in law.
I don't really see any other argument that can't be "whatabouted" into oblivion.
I would add as well that sex isn't always rationally chosen. People have sex when inebriated. when excited or turned on, and even with contraception freely available people will forget. I'm lucky to have never gotten HIV.
Until we are willing to make infertility the rule and every pregnancy the outcome of a consciously chosen plan there are going to be unplanned ones, so abortion needs to remain legal.
"Abortion should be legal until the baby is born? How is that any different from murdering a newborn baby? What changes between the moment the baby is inside the body and the next moment when it's outside?"
The same difference between having sex with a teenager eighteen years old minus a day and the same teenager eighteen plus one day.
That, and cutting the umbilical. And the baby using its own lungs.
So to be clear - are you arguing that abortion on demand should be legal up to one day before childbirth? You do appear to be so arguing.
However that would be out of step with the law in all developed countries (and of course nearly all underdeveloped ones), and out of step with the overwhelming majority of Americans (a clear majority approve of abortion with limitations on timing, but a substantially larger majority oppose abortion without limitations).
I think that the argument for a cutoff date for abortion mostly pertains to the fact that at some point in the pregnancy the fetus is undeniably human. It looks like a little human and reacts to external stimulus in ways that indicate it can feel pain. That happens disturbingly early in the pregnancy which supplies pressure for early cutoff dates. Certainly, only the disingenuous could deny that at the 3rd trimester. https://www.onhealth.com/content/1/fetal_development_stages
Invertebrates react to stimuli and feel pain too. Nobody is arguing to protect nematodes for that reason.
An orangutan fetus probably looks every bit as human until shortly before birth. Yet we are sending them to extinction for palm oil.
How far back do you want to push these cutoff dates because fetuses start to resemble babies? The fact that these protections apply to mindless fetuses but not to self-aware beasts with minds and emotional lives is invalidating. For me, anyway.
My comment pointed to the idea that much of the anti-abortion policy position is an appeal to emotion. We humans are emotional creatures and often less logical than we wish to believe. I wasn't arguing a position, I was describing one that was high on the list of the path to revoking Roe v. Wade.
But the point about "less logical than we wish to believe" is ripe for expansion, it's one topic I'm in the middle of a longer than usual writing project about; We The Educated tend to forget that logic and even rationality are not built into our wetware, they are retrofits and even when people try to live by them they still compartmentalize and self-deceive.
Like the expectation that people will vote in their self-interest, which, astonishingly, many still believe.
When predators are overpopulated the females ovulate less, sometimes not at all. Even when prey is abundant. The same is not true of omnivores.
In a candidly mystical moment I predicted long ago that irrational attacks on children would increase with human population, and that the attacks would not be correlated with population density.
Our confidence in our rationality leads us to not see things right before our eyes.
"Perhaps, but take religious views out of the argument and it becomes very fragile."
*All* the philosophical arguments are fragile.
Abortions should be legal until the third trimester? Why? Because miscarriages are most common during that time? What does that have to do with the millions of foetuses that doesn't miscarry? Life begins at conception? How do you make that claim without invoking God or faith? Where is your evidence that this is life in a more meaningful sense than the life of an amoeba, say? Abortion should be legal until the baby is born? How is that any different from murdering a newborn baby? What changes between the moment the baby is inside the body and the next moment when it's outside?
The only argument that has any real weight, at least as far as I can see, is that banning abortion outright will undoubtedly lead to the anguish and death of some number of women. Women who have already been born, women who are definitely conscious and able to survive outside their mother's wombs, women whose rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are already fully enshrined in law.
I don't really see any other argument that can't be "whatabouted" into oblivion.
That's clearer.
I would add as well that sex isn't always rationally chosen. People have sex when inebriated. when excited or turned on, and even with contraception freely available people will forget. I'm lucky to have never gotten HIV.
Until we are willing to make infertility the rule and every pregnancy the outcome of a consciously chosen plan there are going to be unplanned ones, so abortion needs to remain legal.
"Abortion should be legal until the baby is born? How is that any different from murdering a newborn baby? What changes between the moment the baby is inside the body and the next moment when it's outside?"
The same difference between having sex with a teenager eighteen years old minus a day and the same teenager eighteen plus one day.
That, and cutting the umbilical. And the baby using its own lungs.
So to be clear - are you arguing that abortion on demand should be legal up to one day before childbirth? You do appear to be so arguing.
However that would be out of step with the law in all developed countries (and of course nearly all underdeveloped ones), and out of step with the overwhelming majority of Americans (a clear majority approve of abortion with limitations on timing, but a substantially larger majority oppose abortion without limitations).
I think that the argument for a cutoff date for abortion mostly pertains to the fact that at some point in the pregnancy the fetus is undeniably human. It looks like a little human and reacts to external stimulus in ways that indicate it can feel pain. That happens disturbingly early in the pregnancy which supplies pressure for early cutoff dates. Certainly, only the disingenuous could deny that at the 3rd trimester. https://www.onhealth.com/content/1/fetal_development_stages
Invertebrates react to stimuli and feel pain too. Nobody is arguing to protect nematodes for that reason.
An orangutan fetus probably looks every bit as human until shortly before birth. Yet we are sending them to extinction for palm oil.
How far back do you want to push these cutoff dates because fetuses start to resemble babies? The fact that these protections apply to mindless fetuses but not to self-aware beasts with minds and emotional lives is invalidating. For me, anyway.
My comment pointed to the idea that much of the anti-abortion policy position is an appeal to emotion. We humans are emotional creatures and often less logical than we wish to believe. I wasn't arguing a position, I was describing one that was high on the list of the path to revoking Roe v. Wade.
That's what I was hoping you were saying.
But the point about "less logical than we wish to believe" is ripe for expansion, it's one topic I'm in the middle of a longer than usual writing project about; We The Educated tend to forget that logic and even rationality are not built into our wetware, they are retrofits and even when people try to live by them they still compartmentalize and self-deceive.
Like the expectation that people will vote in their self-interest, which, astonishingly, many still believe.
When predators are overpopulated the females ovulate less, sometimes not at all. Even when prey is abundant. The same is not true of omnivores.
In a candidly mystical moment I predicted long ago that irrational attacks on children would increase with human population, and that the attacks would not be correlated with population density.
Our confidence in our rationality leads us to not see things right before our eyes.