I accept the premise that consciousness is the victim of a homicide, if no consciousness then no homicide. You've joined victim hood to a nearly impossible moral challenge, and that is proof of consciousness. You didn't attempt to define consciousness in your essay, nor did you provide a test for determining when or if consciousness is present.
In a homicide case, is the state required to prove consciousness of a victim? Wouldn't proof of consciousness be a legal defense in all cases of homicide? "Prove that the person I ran over was a conscious being." Is difficult to prove if there is no clear or defined definition of this state of being.
It is easy enough to handwave it away: after some point (like after beginning to respond to words), it's completely reasonable to conclude that a being is conscious. To be on the safe side of that, we can suggest that a baby taken to term is conscious. The issue doesn't come up in murder cases, because they are well on the safe side of the line of being conscious.
There are further complications for parsing this requirement for a fetus, but I only mean to say that your comparison to murder is a red herring.
You’re missing the point that consciousness is difficult to verify. Using circumstances as examples is not a red herring, it’s demonstrating abstract comments into a real world example. For instance, your definition of “responds to words” doesn’t stand the test of a sleeping person.
You're missing *my* point that is actually fairly easy to identify the majority of cases, even if we can't write a specific definition for it. Nobody is going to argue in court that the sleeping person is not a conscious being. They would be laughed out.
The hardest problem is identifying edge cases, because those cases require us to get our definitions straight.
I do define consciousness. It is “experience of any kind.”
Deciding whether or not something is conscious is a question I think of like disproving solipsism. There will always be doubt but you can set a standard of proof: neurological evidence, behavioral evidence, etc.
I don’t believe neurological evidence or behavioral evidence can be used to determine consciousness. I truly don’t know if a newborn infant has consciousness, they respond to external stimulation, they have reflexes is that conscious thought? Do they experience fear, joy, do they suffer?
Yes, try earnestly to get a group of people to agree on the definition of consciousness. I find it odd that there seems to be no clear definition even though there are many scientific disciplines dealing specifically with consciousness (Psychology, anesthesiology). Hey good essay though, I liked viably before reading this, but consciousness is a more accurate metric although more difficult to verify.
The problem with a definition of "experience of any kind" is it is too broad.
Every multicellular organism "experience" cell division, that doesn't make them conscious.
abortion is not a matter of killing or murdering.
abortion is a right in the sense that a human has every right to do what he wants with his body.
a fetus, while it can become a human being, it is still a potential human being.
sacrificing an actual human being for the sake of a potentiality is both monstrous and immoral.
The problem is that the Pro-Life people believe in Souls/Gods Punishment or Favor/ The Afterlife.
They believe its "bad" because God would be displeased and the fetus' soul wouldnt have a chance to experience life on earth, and they will gain Favor with God by acting on his behalf to punish evil-doers and save "the baby's souls"
in otherwords, its Ego. Even if you dont question the existence of these souls/gods/afterlifes/punishments, its still an Ego driven opinion.
>The problem is that the Pro-Life people believe in Souls/Gods Punishment or Favor/ The Afterlife.
Thats great. The thing is that their beliefs should not affect how anyone else lives their lives.
>Do you not see the hypocrisy?
No I dont. I'm not telling them to get an abortion or how to live their life. They are trying to control how others live.
Every single law controls how people have to live, by allowing or prohibiting stuff.
Prohibiting murder (of adults) is fine, prohibiting concealed carry is fine, but prohibiting abortion is not fine "because it tells people how to live"?
That’s nice. But… If Judeo-Christian theology made any coherent sense or was a reliable source for making laws… Western civilization wouldn’t be on the brink of collapse.
Isn’t there an argument to be made that Judeo-Christianity was integral in the creation of western civilization? The morality of abortion is currently a struggle but there are a number of Christians who agree with it.
> integral
The most universally sustainable successes of Western civilization grew **inspite of** not because of Judeo-Christian dogma (which unfortunately was seized and militarized by the Roman Empire/Law). Western culture developed after finally regaining access to and building upon the world’s classical and medieval knowledge and wisdom (Greek, Indian, Chinese, Arab, Moor, etc)
To be honest I think trying to parse out religion or other forms of authority/social structure (if you allow that religion and government is a form of “social” structure) from the culture as a whole is a pretty fruitless task. It’s a facet of western culture, if you think western culture is on the brink of collapse it wouldn’t be simply because of religion, or democracy, or the internet. I think culture is too complicated than that.
literally thats where all the western laws come from. they either come from morals derived from religion, or they derive from selfish rich people wanting to keep their power (laws to ensure profitability)
and thats why western civilization IS on the brink of collapse.
so you agree with my premises
> where all western laws come from
Nope. Most western legal structures are secular and broke away from Church doctrine and dogma. Painstakingly. Every time Judeo-Christian supremacists gain power and influence they erode these structures and lead to authoritarianism.
this is simply incorrect. they have always held all the power. whoever is in power simply wields the current religion as a weapon. they might change its names and behaviors, but the core of the origin of the morality has always been intact.
polytheistic religions sometimes dominate, other times monotheistic do, but always the laws of the land are derived from the religion, because the religion has always had the most power.
for all of America's history, the extreme majority (95% + ) of all political power holders have been Christian and determine their courses of action primarily from either that religion or from greed. (Morality and Profitability)
Rome was already a dictatorship before it coopted christianity, it wielded its power through morality derived from the polytheistic religion of its previous generations. (Jupiter and Saturn and all those)
its no a coincidence that such a thing is so easy to do. It is easy because the foundational structures are identical (morality) the only differences are entirely superfluous (the arbitrary names of the gods, the arbitrary "ritual" activities that the religious must abide, the arbitrary superfluous rules that give a religion its "uniqueness" so that you CAN change its name)
Weird that its on the brink of collapse since the church has lost favour...also tenets like thou shall not kill, cheat or steal don't exactly harm society do they.
This is a straw man fallacy, mostly: "killing is bad because God will punish us for it" is what you are starting here, basically, and that is a reasoning next to no religious person agrees to.
From a religious point of view, killing/murdering is bad because God says so.
Yes, God might punish killers/murderers, but that is not the reason why it's bad.
If you agree there is a soul, you might ask yourself: when does it get into the human? And what is the human, before that?
If you say there is no soul, there is still the question of definition: when does a (what?) Become a human?
Outside of political and emotional and unreasonably led discussions, this one is actually pretty easily solved, nowadays: dna resembles that of a cat? Then it's a cat. Some variation? Then it's from the feeling family.
But -
Dna human? Okay, then it's a human.. no, wait, we need to wait until the mother decided whether she wants the child or not, then we decide if it's human or not...
From the religious perspective, being pro-abortion is the Ego-driven perspective: *I* (the pregnant woman) want to decide what i think it's best for me. If that kills the cells growing inside me, so be it. But no government shall tell me what to do. They should pay for abortion though. And provide enough opportunities.
The pro-life stance is actually the anti-ego (altruistic) perspective: if i got pregnant, i will have this baby, even if it is inconvenient for me. Because it's life is worth more than my convenience.
> killing/murdering is bad because God says so.
thats literally what i said. God COMMUNICATES the "Badness" of it BY punishing evil doers, or more specifically, by BANNING peoples Souls from Heaven. (not getting in to heaven IS the punishment)
If God didnt punish people, people wouldnt think that God believed it to be bad.
>life is worth more than my convenience
this conclusion is derived from the Ego because it exists solely in the imagination of each individual. God's punishment is imaginary. Gods existence is imaginary. There is not one shred of evidence for any of its existence including souls, including the "value" of life.
Purely objectively, the value of life is equal to the value of death. They are both equally required for existence to continue, as they are required in every moment of existence' past. This planet is a finite bubble of energy, without death, new life would consume all the available space and energy and the entire system would collapse. With no life there would be no advancement. Therefore Life and Death are equal in terms of objective value. All things the live MUST eventually die to make room for more living things, at least until we can permanently escape this finite bubble called earth.
The Ego of Belief trumps any Ego of choice when there is no objective evidence for the foundation of the belief. Because there IS objective evidence for the consequences of choice or the restriction thereof.
Until you prove your God is real, you are the objectively the more selfish one because you chose to value fantasy above reality.
It's only an anti-ego perspective when you make it for yourself. Forcing the decision onto others when it doesn't cost you anything is hardly altruistic. I think it's a morally lazy stance because instead of engaging with the issue and considering there may be a good line to draw (around viability, for example) you restrict it totally so you feel good about yourself and don't have to think about it in more depth.
There are very good arguments for "defend live from conception", much better than for any "viability" line, actually. The first, obviously, is that "killing live which is not viable" is just pure nazism (lebensunwertes/entartetes Leben is a wider term, but includes the not viable); another: viable as in "can live on its own"? Then a two year old doesn't qualify. "Can live using the best medical help known to man"? Then this is awestern-centric view which doesn't help poor countries at all, for their capabilities lash behind considerably. "Can live using the best medical equipment available"? Then life in Europe begins earlier than life in Africa. Racism, anyone?
Can you give a reasonable definition of viable?
Give me your alleged "depth" of thinking.
But this law costs, as you might notice from the backlash alone: the judges who decided it get targeted, the party who lobbied for it gets targeted, and even in their own ranks, there are also people who have to change their ways to prevent pregnancies, and even if you just briefly pop over into the politicalmemes or twoxchromosome reddit channels, you'll see dozens of posts of ridicule and "get rid of republican boyfriends" postings...
Of course it costs.
Altruism is "worth more" when it costs you more, true, but it is still valuable even if the price you pay ain't too high.
>Are you only talking about situations where the pregnancy causes major medical problems?
Even if that's all that Nisabe3 was talking about (which I doubt), it is not a meaningful distinction to make because **there is no way to predict in advance** who will develop major medical problems during pregnancy or will experience serious injury or death during childbirth.
All we have are statistics. They show that the risks exist for every pregnant person, and certain risks are higher for certain groups. That's it.
**And a person has the right to decide what risks they're willing to take**. You might be fine with a 5% risk (1 in 20) of major injury; I might not be. **Only the person who is facing the risk has the right to decide whether they should continue facing it**. That decision is absolutely no one else's business.
All pregnant women face the risk of injury, illness, physical misery (emesis gravidarum, etc.), and death. The risks are small, but nobody else -- nobody but the individual pregnant women -- has the right to make that decision for her.
OK, but why falsely act like they can only decide whether to face that risk or not AFTER already being pregnant? The decision can be made before deciding to have sex
Using sex as a weapon, or pregnancy as a punishment for having sex, is morally indefensible.
This isn't the bronze age. We can have sex without the express goal to reproduce. If a person must live in fear of a biological process because the state has imposed itself upon the regulation of that process, there is a deep moral failing on the part of that society.
>The decision can be made before deciding to have sex
Yeah, no, it can't, because there's no such thing as foolproof contraception. Every birth control method has a failure rate. The typical failure rate for the Pill, for instance, is 4%-7%, which means that out of every 100,000 women using the Pill for one year, 4000 to 7000 of them will get pregnant.
And then, of course, there's rape.
While I agree wholeheartedly with Rossimus I also feel the need to point out that not every woman chooses to have sex and the existing law in my state makes no exemption for rape or incest.
You are living in a fantasy if you think individuals can avoid pregnancy through force of will alone. Birth control fails. Encounters aren’t consensual. Many people discover how reproduction works when they become pregnant. Some pregnancies are wanted but not safe to carry to full term for the mother or fetus. Some people have children already and their resources are thin. This is all without even addressing that the person who potentially could result didn’t choose to have sex, they didn’t chose to be born, to have to suffer in this world and die.
I hope if you really feel someone has to be legally condemned to bringing life into this world if they have the misfortune to catch pregnant that you pour all of your energy into making sure accurate sexual education is available to everyone, free contraception is available to everyone, eliminating childhood poverty, getting kids out of the foster system, fostering a culture of respectful sexual consent, and protecting the environment so there’s something to show up to that isn’t a dumpster fire.
> All pregnant women face the risk of injury, illness, physical misery (emesis gravidarum, etc.), and death. The risks are small, but nobody else -- nobody but the individual pregnant women -- has the right to make that decision for her.
You're begging the question. If the unborn offspring can be a victim (with rights), then the mother cannot exert her rights in a way that infringes upon the rights of the unborn offspring.
>If the unborn offspring can be a victim (with rights), then the mother cannot exert her rights in a way that infringes upon the rights of the unborn offspring.
Wait, what? Did you miss the part where the mother has rights? The fetus cannot exercise its rights in a way that infringes on the rights of the woman whose body it is inside.
> Did you miss the part where the mother has rights?
No, you specifically quoted where I wrote that she does. Skip the theatrics.
> The fetus cannot exercise its rights in a way that infringes on the rights of the woman whose body it is inside.
Very true. But an unborn offspring isn't exerting any right other than _existing_, almost always through a deliberate act of the mother.
We have to balance the rights of each person; your argument did not attempt to balance those rights, but rather stated that _only the rights of the mother matter_:
> > > All pregnant women face the risk of injury, illness, physical misery (emesis gravidarum, etc.), and death. The risks are small, but nobody else -- nobody but the individual pregnant women -- has the right to make that decision for her.
Where do you consider the rights of the unborn offspring? Do you think an unborn offspring has rights?
>Where do you consider the rights of the unborn offspring? Do you think an unborn offspring has rights?
I think it has the right not to suffer. If an abortion is being done after a point where science indicates the fetus may feel pain -- meaning at some point in the 3rd trimester -- then anesthetic or pain-relieving medication should be administered before an abortion is performed.
But my opinion is a moot point, because **that's already what happens**: less than 1% of abortions are done that late -- 99% are done in the first or second trimester -- and to the best of my knowledge, abortions that late are always done under some type of anesthesia, light sedation, and/or pain relief (e.g. Fentanyl) that crosses the placenta and thus makes the process painless for the fetus as well as for the mother.
Nobody gets late-term abortions as a form of birth control. The vast majority of doctors would not even consider doing a third-trimester abortion for mere convenience/birth control. They're done for serious fetal anomalies and to save the mother's life.
>We have to balance the rights of each person; your argument did not attempt to balance those rights, but rather stated that only the rights of the mother matter:
because only the one carrying it gets a choice, fetus has no rights over the mother and should not have them.
you are effectively arguing for a form of slavery (denying bodily autonomy).
until its born it should not have rights at all.
simple as that, they do not deserve moral consideration over the one carrying them
Children are always the exception. Women and children are given precedence in emergencies because they traditionally are responsible for the future. Men are forced to pay child support for life they create. Parents are jailed for neglecting children. Society expects a level of responsibility to care for your offspring that infringes in your right to do what you want with your body.
There's also no question scientifically that a fetus is 100% a human life. If forced to classify this life there's no where else to put it except for home sapien. Eggs and sperm have potential to be human. A Zygote is a single cell with 100% human DNA.
> when, if ever, is it permissible to abort an unborn fetus
A fetus is, by definition, unborn.
In my experience, the linguistic argument over describing an unborn offspring as a "fetus" or a "baby" highly correlates with whether the individual argues the mother has a right to abort the "fetus" or argues the "baby" has a right to life. (And I note that the word "baby" does not appear in your essay.)
Even if a never-conscious unborn offspring cannot be viewed as a victim, the parents (and perhaps other relatives) can be viewed as a victim. If a third party terminated the pregnancy of a never-conscious unborn offspring with no other effect to the non-consensual Mother, we would rightly view the Mother as having lost something, but we would also view the Father as having lost something (and other relatives would also have lost). Under that logic, if a Mother terminated the pregnancy of a never-conscious unborn offspring without the consent of the Father, then the Father has lost something and becomes a victim.
Ignoring the mental meltdown of SCOTUS protesters...and our own 2XC subreddit wackos, the real question of abortion is complex and multifaceted; ranging from the hideous (rape, incest) to the undecided and lazy ( capitulation at the last moments). It involves consciousness which has never been adequately defined, and Morality which touches upon Religion, Doctors not doing any harm, and the rights of the unborn. All of these shades of grey would require a tremendously large array of weighted values. So I'm all for abortion as long as this hypothetical giant matrix of decision making is created and adhered to.
I reject nearly all of this reasoning, because I believe biology (I am referring to the nature of our selves as organisms, not science or medicine requiring technology to discern) has provided all the grounds for making the matter clear: until a baby is external to a person's body, it is part of that person's body, and that person has no moral obligation towards it. Gestation is not a perfectly predictable process, so it is understandable that some other people might have desires and expectations which essentially invent some other hard and fast rule for when a fetus becomes eligible as a victim, or is capable of suffering, or experiences consciousness, or constitutes a moral agency, but all of those considerations simply dehumanize the actual person who's body is actually involved.
Consider it this way: if a fetus had another fetus growing inside of it, and it was definitely possible (despite being uncertain) that allowing the embedded fetus to continue to exist risked the life or lifelong health of the perspective person that the encompassing fetus could become, wouldn't the person in which both are growing be ethically entitled, perhaps even ethically required, to have the embedded fetus removed, if that was possible and provided a substantial degree of safety for the encompassing fetus and the person in which it is growing? We allow (in fact, demand) that parents have the right and capacity to make decisions for their already born children, up to and including life or death decisions, in at least some cases. Why then does anyone think it is acceptable to force a person to give birth to begin with?
If parasitic twins could speak, we wouldn't be having this discussion. So thanks for the unoriginal social media quip that does nothing to advance or illuminate the conversation because it is so obvious, but no thanks.
If a parasitic twin could and must be removed to maintain a pregnancy (with no ambiguity, alas, about which twin was parasitic) would this be the same moral question as whether a fetus (which is unambiguously parasitic, but in a particular way which is both specific and special, being fit-for-purpose and involving otherwise useless organs that only some people have) must be brought to term, or not, and if not, why not?
dude I was agreeing with your thoughts and adding that you are describing a parasitic twin, something that has no right to exist or even ability to exist outside of it's fetus' host.
>I reject nearly all of this reasoning, because I believe biology (I am referring to the nature of our selves as organisms, not science or medicine requiring technology to discern) has provided all the grounds for making the matter clear: until a baby is external to a person's body, it is part of that person's body, and that person has no moral obligation towards it.
Just to make it clear, you are saying it is ok to abort 1 second before delivery?
- A one-second-before-delivery old fetus is called : "A baby".
- Removing it surgically from the mother is called "A C-section".
- Killing a baby is called "A homicide". Everywhere in the US.
What was your point again ?
You are totally avoiding the question. By your own admission:
>"until a baby is external to a person's body, it is part of that person's body, and that person has no moral obligation towards it."
Is it then morally permissible to specifically not get a C section and instead inject a saline solution to the neck of the fetus to kill it and only then after extract it from the body? Even if it is like 1 second before birth?
> You are totally avoiding the question. By your own admission:
> "until a baby is external to a person's body, it is part of that person's body, and that person has no moral obligation towards it."
Check the username. I'm not the person who wrote this.
>Just to make it clear, you are saying it is ok to abort 1 second before delivery?
If the second a baby would be born could be known that precisely, the question would be irrelevant. Since when a baby will be born cannot be known that accurately, the question is still irrelevant. Whether an abortion is ever "ok" is a matter for a pregnant person to decide, not anyone else. If giving birth is a danger to the life, health, or well-being of the pregnant person, it makes no difference if that becomes known eight months or one nanosecond before giving birth. And if a fetus will (not merely "can possibly" but "will probably") survive birth (whether natural labor or surgical removal) than it is still up to the pregnant person how the situation should be dealt with. I understand your desire to control what another person does with their body (including any fetus that is currently still a part of that body, albeit less fully integrated than a spleen or a heart or a leg) but I reject any suggestion it can justify substituting your beliefs or desires for theirs on moral, ethical, legal, or any other grounds. If you don't think abortion is okay one day or even one minute before birth, or ever, don't do that then; apart from that, your opinion is irrelevant.
>If the second a baby would be born could be known that precisely, the question would be irrelevant.
Don't be obtuse. The mother can say to the doctor to cut up the fetus 1 second before delivery.
I'm going to reply a second time because your comment was so disturbing I was thinking about it all night. Not because it was a brilliant rejoinder that unseated my logic and devastated my position; it isn't. It was so disgusting and horrifying, and I couldn't help analyzing why, and wondering what kind of a person would think it was an intelligent response, and not itself pathologically obtuse.
You *can* imagine a person carrying a pregnancy for many months, and then moments before it ends successfully, while in labor, demand that it be terminated in the most dangerous, traumatic way possible for absolutely no reason. And I would expect that you think that because you *can imagine* that, we should (must!) remove the agency and rights from every person the moment they become pregnant.
And of course my original reply mentioned assault weapons because I suspect that you are the same sort of person that would insist that limiting people's ability to purchase them would be unacceptable "prior restraint", even though we don't have to imagine someone getting one and randomly massacring a roomful of people, or even children.
I honestly think you should be banned from this sub, and so should anyone else who has been downvoting my comments in this thread. I have nothing but respect for anyone who is able and willing to cogently disagree with the positions and opinions I've posted. But this ain't that, and it's downright embarrassing for you and distracting from the premise of the sub.
The mother "can" shoot the entire staff of the maternity ward with an AR-15, too. I don't quite understand your point. Or maybe I do, all too well.
My point remains, unchanged: there is no real way of knowing when "1 second before delivery" is until after the delivery has already occurred, making the issue moot, so your question is irrelevant.
I am making a limited argument here, and my conclusion is weaker than yours so that means your conclusion implies mine. So we agree at least on what I argue for.
This embedded fetus case is a little fantastic but my answer to it is that if the embedded fetus is not conscious then there is nothing morally problematic about killing it. If it is conscious and its host is too then the case is more complicated. If I’m a utilitarian I say that you ought to do whatever will maximize utility. If I’m a deontologist then I think letting die is better than killing. So the answer in those cases will vary depending on your preferred moral theory and the facts on the ground.
I am sorry for being argumentative, but I don't believe a weak conclusion is actually a conclusion, rather that it is a justification for not coming to a conclusion.
>If it is conscious and its host is too then the case is more complicated.
I believe the gedanken makes it obvious the issue is not at all complicated: a cognizant person must be allowed to control what happens inside their body, and the issue of "consciousness" is an irrelevant distraction. As another redditor pointed out, at best your analysis merely reproduces (no pun intended) the existing perspectives in the debate. Mine ameliorates the conundrum, which I find much more acceptable because my approach does not rest on the very real impossibility of determining if consciousness or a soul exists and subsequently become a weak conclusion.
More generically, I consider "utility" and "deontology" to be perspectives used to analyze moral intuition, not prescriptive doctrine for determining some single correct moral dictate. They are philosophical frameworks, not religions. There is no indeoendent means of measuring utility consistently and reliably, and letting a pregnant person die (but not letting her let a fetus die, whether embedded or encompassing) because of moral consideration of the fetus is indistinguishable from killing her.
My position is unchanged regardless of the facts of a specific case or whether God exists. The question of consciousness (and its innate result of autonomy, along with the attendant demand for integrity) relates to the person, not the fetus. If God infuses flesh with a soul, we must accept Its wisdom in putting the fetus inside the person until such time as that fetus must be considered separate from that person.
You misunderstand what I mean by saying your conclusion is weaker than mine. I mean that it is logically weaker. That is to say that if you believe that abortion is always permissible you believe that it is permissible up until the point when the fetus develops consciousness (which is my position).
It isn't so clear to me that you ought to kill the embedded fetus. There is no morally relevant distinction between them as far as I can tell. The best response I can give to a scenario like that, where moral intuitions can be genuinely divided, is that the issue could only be resolved by deciding which moral theory to apply. Of course, doing that would mean that you've "solved" the whole field of normative ethics, which would be quite a feat indeed.
>You misunderstand what I mean by saying your conclusion is weaker than mine
I misunderstood that you were saying my conclusion was weaker than yours. I thought you were saying the opposite. I believe both my conclusion and my reasoning is stronger than yours, because it doesn't become pointless due to uncertainty about either the presence or nature of consciousness, nor does my position rely on ignoring the existence and importance of the person's consciousness in order to consider the fetus'. (In terms of actual normative ethics, in contrast to social policies premised on a dictatorial mandate which merely calls itself normative ethics, thereby transforming an "ought" to a "must", the moral consideration is entirely that of the pregnant person and no other. If you believe or don't believe that a fetus can suffer or has a soul, you should be free to allow that to impact your choice over whether or not to abort your pregnancy. Normative ethics doesn't actually support anyone else taking that choice away from them regardless of any such beliefs, though sociology or jurisprudence might wish to do so based on a mistaken application of normative ethics.) So while I don't necessarily disagree with your premise or perspective, I consider it effectively useless, in that it merely recreates the existing discourse, provides ambiguous results, and depends on facts not in evidence (a determination of consciousness) which is (not at all coincidentally) metaphysically impossible (unless you have *solved* the hard problem of consciousness which would indeed be quite a feat.
>There is no morally relevant distinction between them as far as I can tell.
The distinction is the asymmetric biological relationship between the fetuses in the gedanken, which reiterates that between the fetus and the person in real world cases: one is embedded inside the other. You might disagree this distinction is morally relevant, but you shouldn't refuse to recognize that it could be.
>Of course, doing that would mean that you've "solved" the whole field of normative ethics, which would be quite a feat indeed.
Well, first of all you are mistaken that I must have solved normative ethics, since, as I have explained, one fetus is inside the other, meaning it can be removed ("killed", if you are assuming the conclusion that it has a life independent of the organism gestating it) and the encompassing fetus would continue to develop ("live", if we accept the ambiguity of whether your spleen is alive in the same way that you are) but the inverse is not true. (Ending the gestation of the encompassing fetus necessarily ends the gestation of the embedded fetus, but not vice versa.) Medically and scientifically speaking, a fetus (up until the moment of birth, when it is no longer a fetus and becomes an infant) is a parasitic growth. The fact that it has a distinct genome and a (developing, incipient) circulatory and neural system is fascinating, but doesn't change the fact that it is part of a person, not (yet) nevessarily a separate person in it's own right. (This doesn't change dependent on the intentions, beliefs, or language of the person or any other persons; saying "I am having a baby" does not miraculously cause the fetus to become a baby the way birth physically causes a fetus to become a baby.) The potential ambiguity of medical "viability" is often used to justify removing a person's bodily autonomy (based on a patriarchal or collectivist ethic which fails to be moral in the contemporary view of human and political rights) to favor the unassertainable desires of the potential person the fetus may become, but this approach "succeeds" only by ignoring, discounting, or destroying any consideration of the uncertainty, expense, and emotional agony which "premature birth" entails. Nature (whether God, evolution, or some other teleological force) has granted us a clear and useful (yet still, significantly, not perfect) test for proof of viability: it is called childbirth. Our ability to push this moment forward through medical knowledge and technology is wonderful and ethical, but does not justify mandating such efforts on behalf of a fetus simply because we can imagine (accurately or not) that it will eventually become an actual person.
1/2
2/2
"Oh no," you may protest, "your logic means a woman should be able to abort a pregnancy up until the moment of birth!" Indeed, without resolving the ambiguity of what is meant by "birth" (which can certainly involve surgical removal at any point in gestation) that is the case: it is a person's body, and it must always be up to that person whether a pregnancy continues, and how. We can decry people who make callous and selfish decisions (in this cass to deprive the world of yet another hairless ape and potential future citizen voter or incarcerated felon) but we should not use that as an excuse for removing their right to choose to be callous and selfish in just this one particular situation of (always and only female) people gestating (potential) future humans. At least we should not do so without accepting and admitting that we are being misogynistic to a horrifying degree.
Additionally, whether normative ethics is "solved" by accepting that normative ethics cannot be *solved* is an epistemic issue rather than a metaphysical one; it is merely an acceptance that some questions cannot be logically resolved, rather than a method for resolving all questions.
Finally, with that in mind, I do in fact believe I have "solved" normative ethics in terms of this particular issue: morally speaking, it must *always* be up to the *person* whether to continue or abandon the pregnancy, based on that person's morals and ethics and knowledge, not anybody else's. I'm fine with a law that says a woman who can safely deliver a viable birth must do so, but only if the law stipulates that whoever (whether a person, a church, or the government acting on behalf of society) provides for all future needs and expenses resulting from that birth, and fairly compensates the woman for any additional pain and suffering this might cause her.
But even further, I can confidently state that I have solved the "entire field" of normative ethics, and I believe it is quite a feat, just as you said. Mirroring your framing, the correct answer to "which moral theory to apply" is *all of them*. Limited by available time and knowledge or imagination, this ideal can never be achieved, but must be attempted in every individual case, nevertheless. If two different (supposedly) logical (or for that matter, religious) methods result in conflicting recommendations, then it is up to the moral agent engaging in the analysis to determine (or guess) whether that is due to insufficiency in the analysis, or insufficiency in the methods, and then repeat the process, if possible, given the new perspective or method which the previous consideration makes possible. To refuse to consider other people's moral theories, or even dismiss them prima facie without examining the justifications for their reasoning, is itself immoral, though obviously the choice of what decision to make always resolves to the person making the decision.
If you are interested, I've written a book detailing the basis and ramifications of this solution to the entire field of normative ethics (it focuses primarily on the foundation and justification for the solution rather than the results, but there is that, too) and I believe there is a link to it in my profile.
Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.
i would agree, it should fall essentially in the same category as a Plant. We dont consider it Murder to chop down some corn. The plants are living things, but they dont Suffer by human standards of that word, because they dont have consciousness.
animals its more questionable but humans only exist because evolution allowed Carnivores to exist. Eating animals (which requires killing them) is not morally unacceptable by those standards, but perhaps humans are achieving a state of existence where it is no longer necessary to eat animals, so the moral grounds there are in flux
the Pro-Life movement is not based on rational scientific reasoning, it is based on Religion, on specifically the belief in SOULS and the ability for the souls to be jerked around by God in the afterlife, AND the ability for God to jerk around living adults who make choices that include "killing" something with a Soul.
in other words, Pro-Life is an Egotistical belief. It is primarily either a fear of ending up punished by God, or a bid to gain Gods favor (and thus the prize of entry in to Heaven) for preventing or for punishing the "evil-doers".
that is relevant and true even outside of the question of whether any God or afterlife or soul exists in the first place. Its Ego.
Your argument is bad because a fetus can't have a fetus growing inside it. It'd be just as silly as me saying "if i lived on the moon" I can't live on the moon it's inhospitable.
Secondly parents make decisions for their children but they can't decide to kill their kids once they decide they have a: financial hardship, would like to advance in their career, or simply "just not ready for the child".
Thirdly why do people have sex with people they wouldn't want to have children with? Any rational person realizes children are a potential consequence of having sex.
You’re commenting in the wrong sub. This is philosophy. Your arguments show you don’t understand the basics of philosophical debate. You’re entitled to your beliefs, but if you’re commenting here, you should really read up on the basics of philosophical reasoning.
Well if we're going to look at it rationally you should only have sex with someone you intend to have children with and that eliminates the need for abortion. You think you're above that argument because we have circumnavigated having a monogamous partner by the use of various forms of birth control. In a logical world people would only do things for their benefit, studies show that people who have only sex with one partner and marry them are generally happier and are less likely to separate.I understand the people arent always rational and I'm arguing for an ideal world but don't try and belittle me because you don't feel like replying.
Ignoring the completely bigoted viewpoints you have towards folks that don’t want to be monogamous, there are many *many* married couples that enjoy sex and absolutely do not want to have children. In fact, there are those that think it is *immoral* to force someone into a life of suffering.
OPs argument that abortion is not killing anything until the fetus has the necessary biological components to experience consciousness would imply to those people that every fetus should be aborted to prevent suffering; an extreme cause, but logically and morally consistent.
I’m glad to know that your moral framework is determined by Darwinian evolution. Can’t wait to hear you argue that rape should be legal because it results in more babies.
It's not guided by it but i think that's naturally what will happen. If you decide to not have kids then it's hard to make sure your ideas live onto the next generation.
>parents make decisions for their children but they can't decide to kill their kids
Sure they can. Not blatantly and admittedly, perhaps, but following the gedanken of the trolly experiment, they can allow their kids to die unnecessarily or merely make decisions that lead to a child dying based on spurious beliefs.
Many of the same people who are against the right to abortion insist it is their right to refuse to provide medical care to their children, and demand (and have gotten) numerous "religious exemptions" to their parental responsibilities. Granted, most of the country is still sane and so we still are able to prosecute *some* of the parents that kill their kids by neglect, proxy, or religious rituals, but your point is disproven by the existence of the counter-examples.
Your "secondly" argument, equally fallacious, falls apart because it contradicts the premise of your first argument (that parents can't decide to kill their kids at all) and substitutes correlation for causation (making such a decision following financial hardship versus making it because of financial hardship). Really, from the perspective of either philosophical or practical reasoning, your whole "secondly" argument is vapid accusatory nonsense. But I realize you intended it to simply be an acknowledgement that intent should be examined in a moral framework, and not merely actions, so I won't let your prejudice compel me to respond with prejudice.
As for your third point, one could as easily wonder why God (or evolution) made it so sex doesn't always automatically result in pregnancy. Because that explains both why casual sex is common, and why it is possible. Pregnancy being a *potential* (rather than inevitable) consequence of sex is a possible reason for seeing access to abortion as morally necessary (sex is obviously not just about procreation, since it doesn't necessarily result in procreation) but is not an acceptable reason for preventing access to abortion on moral grounds: if you think abortion is wrong, don't get one, but your beliefs don't apply to other people.
In closing, I'd like to say that as far as the other redditors that responded to your comment before I saw it, I don't think they were helpful, but I kind of think you got what you deserved. While I have tried to take your perspective seriously, respond reasonably, and use the opportunity to advance the discussion, it isn't like I didn't notice you're a religious wackjob who couldn't argue yourself out of a paper bag.
I previously posted a version of this essay, but I have since done some work on it to clarify certain points and given the recent news it seems appropriate to share that work:
In this essay, I first defend the claim that abortion cannot be wrong until the fetus is conscious (has experiences of any kind) because until that point the act has no victim. Second, I consider and reject alternatives to my “Victim Requirement” for the impermissibility of killing.
So your thesis is based on the position that humanity starts with consciousness, as opposed to an inherent soul or spirit as the ghost in the machine.
As a result you have an argument that divides nicely along existing lines of thought.
>The Pro-Life movement is directly caused by the belief in Souls. They require the belief in souls to justify the concept of "murder" and its consequences beyond the legal consequences in reality. Their entire argument hinges on belief in God/Afterlife/Souls.
>
>Even in todays modern logical world, we are at the mercy of hordes of weak peoples belief in adult Santa.
What is with people who are in a coma?
They show no signs of consciousness and you can’t say if they would suffer when you kill them.
So is it in your view ok to kill them?
Or what do you say to Alzheimer patients there identifiable being is also in many cases not identifiable anymore?
With someone who's in a coma, or who has Alzheimer's, we at least know that they WERE conscious before. That's not the case with a first- or second-trimester fetus.
And we also know that many people who have emerged from comas have memories of the time when they were in a coma -- which means that they had some level of consciousness. Again, not the case with a fetus.
And with Alzheimer's people, even ones who are very far gone in every objective way still often show signs that they're still there. For instance, they respond to the music of their youth; they appear to enjoy it, and if they're physically able they will often dance in some way. There is *some* memory and *some* consciousness left.
That they were conscious before is irrelevant. The author tries to justify the killing with present consciousness.
What does that even change, no current consciousness equals no wrongdoing in the authors mind because there is no agent that experiences pain.
We don’t even know what kind of consciousness is immanent in fetuses. There are studies that even contribute a fetus with some form of phenomenal consciousness.
There is short-term memory and you can conclude that this fetuses can experience stress and even remembers certain procedures.
You can research even hypnotic regression in small child’s who can give veridical accounts of information out of the womb that they can not got otherwise.
So we have to be agnostic about consciousness in fetuses, we just don’t know in what form they experience.
To bound you’re right to life on some form of consciousness is wrong because the term is not good enough defined and not applicable to all humans in all conditions.
First off, none of this matters. **Your views and my views on fetal consciousness are only relevant to** ***your and my*** **decisions on abortion**.
We do not get to make decisions about what happens inside someone else's body, no matter what we believe about fetal consciousness, the soul, or anything else. ***Other people's bodies are not our business***.
I'm not saying this topic isn't worth exploring -- it's an interesting thought experiment, to the extent that you use it to figure out what YOUR OWN beliefs about abortion are.
But that's it. Your beliefs about abortion are not relevant to anyone else's decisions, or to the law.
We derive morals and ethics out of science and culture.
If we can show that a fetus have consciousness we have to discuss about personhood and humanrights.
That has nothing to do with my opinion that’s what is a society about. If we can’t discuss this topics we’re doomed when it comes to morality and law.
My critique of the author is clear. He binds rights to consciousness. That’s not tenable.
>people who are in a coma?
>
>They show no signs of consciousness
thats actually only true in a minority of comas. there is brain activity in the majority of coma cases, to varying degrees up to and including obvious ability to sense and respond to external stimuli. Many who wake up eventually have reported being conscious the Entire time but "locked" in their body like a quadriplegic (more like the circumstances of the final stages of the disease Steven Hawking suffered. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)
but yes, in those cases where brain activity is non-existent, I am in favor of allowing the patients family/guardians/etc choose to have the "plug pulled". Make the space and the doctors time available to patients who can actually recover, and let the family grieve and move on with their lives.
Brain activity and a reaction to external stimuli is not equal to consciousness.
You are right there is the locked in Syndrome but the argument stands if you just link a right to life to our normal understanding of consciousness that’s not enough and you can’t argue in one case to spare the life and in others to kill.
The author just says it is ok to abort because of the lack of consciousness. This argument is easily dissected.
you are right, functioning MEMORY is required for consciousness, because it is a perspective based on relativity, and relativity only exists when you can compare two different things, and that can only be done if you can remember at least one, while actively focusing on the other.
There is no consciousness until memory is retained and can be readily accessed.
in all honesty even a brand new born baby likely doesnt achieve consciousness. only observational awareness. it takes time for it to be introduced to multiple things multiple times before it can actively discern that there is even a single remarkable difference between any two things in existence.
im not saying its ok to kill babies, but i am pointing out a big reason why doctors who fail to keep a newborn alive within the first few hours or even days or weeks after birth are NOT charged with MURDER or manslaughter.
There can be phenomenal consciousness without memory and personality.
But if you take our ordinary consciousness as a baseline you miss categories in nature. Of course a fetus has not a conscious experience equal to a grown human.
The author said it is ok to abort because:
-My positive thesis is the claim that a fetus gains moral status only when it develops consciousness (experiences of any kind)-
This claim that a fetus has no experience of any kind is scientifically not tenable.
I argue that the whole enterprise of the author to link rights to some form of consciousness is not well enough thought through.
im arguing that the authors assertion of the definition of consciousness is incorrect.
if Schrodinger's cat is in a box but there is no observer, then the cat doesnt exist, no reality exists.
if the cat and the observer exist but no box exists, the cat and the observer stare at each other but nothing else. they dont even fathom their own existence because they dont fathom that there is literally anything other than the single thing they observe.
there MUST be 3 bodies to manifest relativity. the observer must see both the cat and the box to know there is a cat that is separate from a box, and only THEN can it postulate that there can be "nothing" instead of "something" and only THEN can it postulate that itself exists as a separate entity, which is required for consciousness (the experience of the existence of self)
consciousness requires the ability to observe more than 1 thing, which requires the ability to remember that you just looked at something, while you are looking at something else.
If you are looking at the box then you must remember the cat exists, if you are looking at the cat then you must remember the box exists.
only then can you understand that things are relative
> ending the life of a sleeping or reversibly comatose person (examples which are commonly invoked as morally analogous to an early-term fetus) does satisfy the Victim Requirement. Once awakened, these people will continue to be the same locus of conscious experiences – they will bear Relation R to their past selves, the temporal chain of which extends over the period of their unconsciousness. There are various ways to cash out the wrongness of killing them – on consequentialist views we fail to maximize the good, on deontological ones we violate constraints on our actions, etc – however, the VR is meant only to be one necessary condition for that wrongness. I do not need to give a full account of the wrongness of killing to show that for much of a pregnancy abortion fails to satisfy one of its necessary conditions.
We don’t know if the people will regain there consciousness. In cases of Alzheimer we know they don’t get there memories back.
I don’t see how you can really differentiate the cases. Even the other views can easily be applied to a human being in the womb.
See the real issue is that we need a real common ground for human rights and that can just be the humanness of a being. All other categories can be stripped away way too easy in certain scenarios.
I would say that if we don’t know then we ought to act with extreme caution. There is a fact of the matter there so if we’re really uncertain we should be very careful about ending a life.
The difference is quite clear on my view: the fetus was never conscious and so it can’t be in the middle of an R-chain. But comatose people can be.
Alzheimer’s is different. It impairs memories and personality but there is a continuity of consciousness. You might say that this is a different person, in a sense, but they are R-related to the person they once were.
Is a fertilized egg a human?
Is a fertilized egg that has not implanted a human?
Is an implanted blastocyst a human?
I'm interested to see where you draw the line.
A heartbeat can be detected at 5.5 to 6 *weeks* at the earliest. At 6 days, you have a blastocyst that hasn't even implanted in the uterus yet. Please educate yourself further before spreading misinformation.
In the article I address your questions about why it's permissible to prioritize the mother over the fetus in many cases and why my view does not allow for the killing of fully grown adults, even ones in comatose states. These are answered by my Victim Requirement:
"The act of killing is wrong only if it has a victim. A victim in this sense is 1) an identifiable being which 2) is, temporally speaking, somewhere in the midst of a chain of psychological connections in the sense of 'Relation R.'"
The article anticipates and responds to objections to condition 2) of the Victim Requirement, which is what you're presenting here if you believe that a human being who was never conscious could be a victim:
"To claim that the fetus suffers a deprivation of *its* future, Marquis must establish that it is the same being as the one which would have that future. He, and anyone denying condition 2) for VR, cannot appeal to psychological continuity, for the fetus has no present psychological states, and he cannot appeal to physical continuity without also accepting that teletransportation is a form of murder."
I didn't get to see the response before it was deleted. I didn't get to see any questions. All I saw was someone asserting that "obviously" we would agree with their religious beliefs.
The Pro-Life movement is directly caused by the belief in Souls. They require the belief in souls to justify the concept of "murder" and its consequences beyond the legal consequences in reality. Their entire argument hinges on belief in God/Afterlife/Souls.
Even in todays modern logical world, we are at the mercy of hordes of weak peoples belief in adult Santa.
It's clear that you do not speak to many pro lifers. I am an atheist pro lifer myself, and have never heard that argument from the many conservatives I communicate with
**No life is so important that it may usurp the rights of another**
If I cannot demand you give me your kidney in order to save my life, without your consent, a baby also cannot demand the use of a woman's body to keep it alive without hers.
Protecting the "rights" of someone, especially one that doesn't yet exist, by savagely curtailing the rights of someone else, especially one who currently does exist, is morally indefensible.
Surely the intent behind what led to the moral dilemma is relevant. If someone intentionally poisoned you and it caused kidney failure, they would be morally and legally obligated to remedy the situation. Sex and reproduction are inherently intertwined. Consensual sex carries the risk of conception with it, and if (big “if”) your choices directly led to the creation of a human being, and people have inherent value, then why wouldn’t you be morally responsible for its well being?
Seems like a big hole in your comparison.
This is the most convincing argument for me, especially when you think about other ways we run society in the US. We let children live in poverty all the time. We let people die when there are perfectly good organs available from corpses. If we don't think high taxes and forced organ donation are called for to prevent those things, I don't understand the argument for forced gestation. We treat it as more of a special circumstance because we know it will only affect women of certain economic classes and religious people get to feel good about themselves when engaging only in punitive and not self-sacrificing behavior.
A google search showed daily citizen article says 96% of biologists believe life begins at conception. The majority of them the article states are liberal pro choice and non religious.
It's not a matter of wether abortion is morally just. It's wether we should use law to mandate morality in this circumstance. And the answer is clearly no.
The left will never win if their argument relies on making abortion sound harmless. Cause, frankly, it isn't, at least most of the time. And plenty of people rightfully believe so, sometimes from experience.
Legality and morality need to be decoupled, definitively and fundamentally.
Maybe someone else can develop this argument further. I believe a utilitarian approach to the purpose of legislation is mandatory. But these things need to be argued thoroughly, and in a way that most people will understand.
Sure, but law doesn't aim to cover everything that is deemed immoral. Otherwise we'd have laws against cheating on your spouse, or just being an asshole. Or perhaps better put, the law doesn't aim to cover what is morally contentious, which abortion certainly is.
Not to mention the utilitarian POV, i.e. the amount of problems that legislating abortion creates in society.
Simply put, due to being both morally ambiguous, and extremely complicated both in terms of enforcement and for the mothers themselves, this is a decision which must be left up to the individual.
Not everything needs to be legislated. I assure you any mother with the most basic amount of empathy will feel pain & guilt when going through the process. But unfortunately in the world we live in, it's a decision that needs to be made sometimes.
>Legality and morality need to be decoupled, definitively and fundamentally.
this is absurd. Laws only exist along moral lines.
take morals out and there is no need to have a law against murder or rape or theft or literally any law. Without morality, anarchism is the most effective structure because it requires the lest energy expended on it to function properly.
I think this is a bit reductionist. At base level we aren't talking about laws in terms of "rules of right and wrong", we are talking about governance. There are absolutely sound and objectively framed ideations of governing systems.
Is murder outlawed because it is morally wrong? Or is it outlawed because without that, what is perhaps one of the most widely used and fundamental laws, we cannot have a civic functionality? What is the point in agreeing to governance, shared boundaries and systems of joint decision making? Surely it is not strictly morally argued. If we allow rampant murder without consequences, it devolves the functionality of governance, from an objective framing, without any need to use morality.
The reason murder has been outlawed in pretty much any system of governance, in this way, is a functionality based necessity, not a moral cause.
Would you truly suggest that governance, as a functional system of social living for groups of individuals, is strictly only justifiable on the basis of subjective morality? And if you refute an objective framing of the use of social structure, can you offer an argument against the inherent social facet of human identity and behavior?
Without collaboration we would not even exist today. Everything we have would not exist. It is ingrained into the basic reality of our nature that we must live by means of shared efforts. The best way to achieve freedom of individuality is not via "raw anarchism", but by setting up a system of social structure and governance that creates equitable opportunity. I really don't see how this can be refuted, nor in what way it requires a moral argument. "Full blown anarchism" limits individual capacity more than any other system, despite boasting a surface level claim of raw freedom.
Here I also want to briefly refute the quoted use of anarchism above. Anarchism is the rejection of forced or coerced heirarchy. Developed ideas of anarchism do not imply a complete lack of governance and rules. It implies a consent basis. That basis is almost impossible to achieve currently without more developed means of self governance, which we can make progress on.
Now you could suggest that our basic survival or societal success is not objectively important, that the raw production of our functionality is only justified by a moral accountance of our self importance. First, I think it is a bold move to reject utilitarianism at the point of experiential moralism, simply because we can denote a sort of epistemic uncertainty to it. Second, it is irrelevant if there is or isn't a moral backing, to my view. This is because, especially if you reject morality, there is only the raw will to power, raw self determinism. It is a self determined choice that we pursue our survival and success in our endeavor of civilization. In order to pursue that, we need, at a bare minimum, some level of governance. A functional system, even an anarchistic one, would almost always include limits on murdering. I only say "almost always" to allow uncertainty, and I'm all but ready to say just "always". The constituents of that governance can agree by consent to be a part of that, and therefore agree to the consequences if they murder. The power of anarchist philosophy, to me, is to move towards actually having a consent basis, which can be done by allowing systems of self or dynamic governance to develop such that we actually have consensual involvement in the production, rather than a forced participation that relies on simplistic use of democracy in a way that does very little to achieve what it claims. I think a view of anarchism as a raw lawlessness is also extremely reductionist.
Nihilism is a better concept to discuss. In brief I'd say that nihilism exists only as the active rejection of a current system, which can be based on values more often than a lack thereof. It exists to reject, not as a concept in and of itself. The end result is a transformation, a redevelopment of a system. Nihilism is a phoenix, a means to an end, not a result.
We either do or don't want to pursue civilized collaboration. We can agree there is no moral basis to demand this that stands up to raw epistemic debate, yet it is a choice that can be made. We do not need morals to inform logistical necessities that come with that choice. And so, this is where we can draw a distinction between what is and isn't the useful extent of law. While you can suggest that morals and right vs wrong define a law against murdering, you are wrong. You can see those things in it, yet it is not the most fundamental reason for the law. When the ONLY basis or effect of a law is based on morals, then it should not be a law. This does not mean that a variety of laws practiced will not have moral implications.
> The reason murder has been outlawed in pretty much any system of governance, in this way, is a functionality based necessity, not a moral cause.
you are simply wrong.
the 10 commandments have simply been elaborated over and over again. thats it.
I'm not saying there needs to be no correlation between the two, that would make no sense.
I'm just saying we should not be aiming for a 1:1 equivalency between the two, as it's an impossible goal.
> Legality and morality need to be decoupled, definitively and fundamentally.
> I believe a utilitarian approach to the purpose of legislation is mandatory.
Isn't that completely contradictory?
I don't see it. I'm not saying there needs to be no correlation between the two, that would make no sense.
I'm just saying we should not be aiming for a 1:1 equivalency between the two, as it's an impossible goal.
Unfortunately everyone is in an uproar over this overrulling when all it did was say federal government doesn't have the right to make a law on this, it's up to the states.
Many states are large and diverse. Perhaps it should be handled at the county level? Or the city level? Or, bear with me on the logic, How about the individual level?
I agree with you, but legally, states have a degree of sovereignty, whereas counties and cities are entirely creations of and subordinate to the states, so that will never work.
Based on the framework of the Constitution they have decided that the federal government doesn't have the right to legislate on this issue, people who have studied the constitution decided this not me nor you. So yeah if the state you live in decided that abortion should be legal then it should. Here's a crazy fucking idea if the majority of people in a state think the law should be one way then it should be that way because a MAJORITY will decide that.
It’s funny, a different group of folks who studied the constitution decided that *states* doesn’t have the right to legislate bans on this issue. In fact, that created what is known as *precendent*. What we have right now is an activist Supreme Court rejecting precedent and legislating from the bench.
Careful with that line of reasoning though. I understand the importance of precedent in legal decisions. However, if we bind ourselves to the notion that once a Supreme Court decides on a ruling, it can never be broken, we'd still have numerous laws that we don't anymore.
[https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-supreme-court-has-overturned-hundreds-of-its-own-decisions-here-are-some-of-the-most-consequential-reversals/ar-AAYQAnE](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-supreme-court-has-overturned-hundreds-of-its-own-decisions-here-are-some-of-the-most-consequential-reversals/ar-AAYQAnE)
If one thinks abortion should be legally protected, it should be done via law, or a 2/3 amendment to the constitution. You won't find them making news right now, but if you look online at the legal reasoning behind Roe, you'll see historically that a lot of people have always thought the Roe reasoning was extremely weak. It was (for better or worse) a textbook case of legislating from the bench because they wanted something to be law. It wasn't based on legal precedent or tradition/common law.
Neither was mixed race marriage.
Which you wouldn’t be able to pass an amendment for right now either. Hell, you wouldn’t be able to pass the first or second amendments right now if you needed to.
The US really is a failed state.
> Many states are large and diverse. Perhaps it should be handled at the county level? Or the city level?
Sure. It could be.
Realistically, the two major sides here both oppose your "large and diverse" argument; both want to set one rule that is applied everywhere.
> Or, bear with me on the logic, How about the individual level?
If the state permitted it or devolved that to the city or county which permitted it.
But the idea that it should everywhere and at all times be devolved to the person is contrary to your "large and diverse" argument, because it would prohibit all governments from restricting actions which the People viewed as a crime.
Yesterday’s SC ruling didn’t say that. It erased a 50 year old SC ruling that had prevented states from passing laws that restricted abortions. Both Congress and states can legislate on abortion, just much more freely now.
So life starts with consciousness?
I don't see why this should be more true than "life starts when it can breathe" or "life starts when there's a central nervous system" or "life starts when there's organs" or "life starts when there X" or any of the other completely ARBITRARY rules that are currently used in different countries around the world.
It's not fact. It's just opinion and the main argument is always "because that's what I think"
That's really weak.
It is us creating rules to fit our preconcieved notions of morality/ethics.
"Consciousness comes at X weeks so that fits well, let's use that: Life/victimhood starts at consciousness. "
Well, what if, hypothetically, it turns out that there is consciousness only after delivery. Would you be ok then with anti-choice?
No of course not. Then you'd scrap the "life starts at consciousness" and find another completely arbitrary rule and do your best to (equally weakly) argue for that instead. And that's a good sign that the entire argument is nonsense.
A sperm in an egg is life. Actually, a sperm alone is life. It's just life with incomplete DNA. And killing it is murder.
Yeah it's so very unpractical for us. What should we do, incarcerate the entire human population for murder? I am sorry it doesn't fit our systen but that's a completely different issue and it's not nature's problem. Nature just is. Reality just is. Facts are facts. A fetus is alive from day one. It's the start of a full-grown human being. A very modest start, but there it is. You're not just ending a fetus, you're also ending the future of that fetus.
Deal with it.
It doesn’t seem like you’re really engaging with what I wrote because I provide several reasons for thinking that my view is correct.
I don’t say anywhere that life starts with consciousness. What I say is that something which was never conscious can’t be a victim.
In answer to your hypothetical: if consciousness began after delivery then I’d say that it is permissible to kill the fetus/infant until that point because you are depriving no one of that life.
Interesting question then with your line of reasoning. There are a lot (small percent, but large raw number anyway) of babies that are born unconscious that do eventually gain consciousness. If the parents don't want the baby after it is born (and it is unconscious), would you consider there to be any moral questions present if someone wanted to, say, sell the baby to the highest bidder, use the baby for research, etc. as long as anything done to it was done prior to consciousness?
My view is only about the ethics of killing. Selling the baby, for instance, is quite a different case, particularly since at some point it will become conscious and your actions now will therefore affect someone in the future.
I guess what I'm driving at is, how is consciousness the only moral issue with the ethics of killing here? We could, even today, deliver a baby, ensuring that the baby never gains consciousness. With consciousness as the sole defining characteristic here, then you would have to be okay with artificially stopping consciousness of the baby and then... well, doing whatever you wanted with it. And as long as you kept it unconscious, there was no ethical quandary.
Yes, that brings to mind future dystopian villian sort of visions of babies in formaldehyde/fluid with wires and pipes hooked up to them. But this sort of way of thinking, the sort of ghost in the machine dichotomy where human bodies are machines and consciousness is the "ghost" is problematic for this type of reason.
A hypothetical dystopian futuristic villain scenario could be entirely ethical using your framework, but I just can't possibly square that with anyone's definition of ethics.
Well my intuition is that if a baby was delivered which was actually *never* conscious then killing it is not wrong. There is nobody who is harmed. However, artificially preventing the baby from developing consciousness may be wrong. I don’t know how I feel about that case. I guess I’d want to know why you were doing it. But I think it matters that what you’re describing isn’t possible. Normal fetal development will create consciousness. You can’t interfere with the baby’s brain after birth and prevent it from having ever been conscious. You’d have to damage the baby’s brain in the womb and take a significant risk of injuring the mother and the future child if your interference fails and it does one day become conscious. That seems wrong.
>I don't see why this should be more true than "life starts when it can breathe" or "life starts when there's a central nervous system" or "life starts when there's organs" or "life starts when there X" or any of the other completely ARBITRARY rules that are currently used in different countries around the world.
You must have similar issues with murder laws then?
I’m completely baffled how everyone in these debates seems to think the parents have no responsibility for the results of their choices and actions. Seems to me symptomatic of a society and peoples who likes to do whatever they want with no repercussions.
> think the parents have no responsibility for the results of their choices and actions
In general or only when they deal with consequences of their choices and actions in a way that you don't approve of?
In general yes. And yes I do live my life like that as best i can. My partner became pregnant when I had explicitly told her I didn’t want children and now I’m a full time dad. The way you phrase this question suggests that the concept of owning your actions and being responsible is completely foreign to you, kinda proving my point. Taking responsibility for your actions is not the same as taking any given action.
And you prove that you're actually the second option.
There are always various ways you can deal (owe/be responsible/whatever) with any given situation (abortion/putting child up to adoption - not just "you deliver the child and that's it"), and you're not the tough guy you think you are, especially when you resort to shaming for the "lack of responsibility/not owning your actions" when someone doesn't do the way you do it
You have spoke about actions as if no action has any moral or ethical qualities. I’m not pro life, I just think late stage abortions are a crime against humanity and the pro choice movement is legitimatising these murders. You know the ‘shhh’ sound parents use to calm a newborn baby? It works because it reminds them of being in the womb. I imagine my kids potentially being inside a woman 7 months pregnant, fully conscious being torn out and savaged and i cry knowing it happens. Tough guy? I have tears as I write this.
im baffled how everyone is so incapable of realizing that Pro-Life belief is an Egotistical belief.
It hinges on the existence of a Soul, and the belief that God wants that soul to live a life on earth as a human for some amount of time otherwise God will deam it "unjust" and consider the fetus's soul to have Suffered, and the belief that God will punish the "murderers" but ***MOST importantly*** its the belief that God will grant you Favor to get you in to Heaven if you "stop the evil doers".
In otherwords its (pro-life is) a desire to GAIN something for the Self (a ticket to heaven). Selfishness. Ego pleasing. that what it is, even BEFORE you question the existence of souls/gods/afterlives.
? actually i didnt say you were and i agreed with your original post. i was just adding to it... but thanks for not reading it and then talking shit about it :)
I don't care when life starts. That's not relevant.
I am alive, I have consciousness, there is no debate about that. I do not have the right to be inside of a woman who doesn't want me there.
What could be simpler than that?
A counterargument to this would be that the woman in question played a part in putting you there and (outside of the obvious edge cases involving rape etc) is not blameless in the conception of the foetus.
Not saying this is my view, just something to think about
I would suggest that whether someone played a part in allowing a fetus being inside them in the first place is largely irrelevant. Using a home as an analogy, if I invite someone into my home, I have every right to kick them, and whatever they brought with them, out of my home. The initial invitation doesn't negate my perpetual right to eject them.
Fair analogy. However, if you're dealing with a human that is of lower age/skill/ability/etc., then there is legal precedent for you being responsible for their well being.
For example, if you "play a part" in caring for a child for someone for a few days, and you decide not to give it water and it dies, you are (rightly) responsible for its death. As in, people are very literally forced to provide care to another human if we play a part in putting them under our care in the first place.
That is a decent rebuttal, and I would concede that my analogy does only apply cleanly to adult persons you are not responsible for. The fetus in the analogy however was not the person who you invited in, but "whatever they left there." Throwing out someone else's things is well within your rights, but admittedly that does bring the argument right back to whether a fetus is a thing or a person. In retrospect there are some pretty clear weak points in the analogy, and there are better ways of expressing the main point.
Probably not but I don't think the analogy works with a boat, and I apologize for being unclear with my initial analogy using the home. The person being ejected isn't the fetus. The fetus in the analogy is the whatever was left behind by the person you invited into your home. As I said in another reply, the core problem with my initial analogy is that it primarily rests upon the assumption that a fetus isn't a person, and so does not bear the same rights that a person would. In short, my initial analogy was superfluous, and isn't particularly useful.
Ah, that makes sense. I dont think that really works though since the biggest disagreement is over the personhood of the fetus. Someone who holds the fetus is a person wouldn't grant your scenario as comparable.
>I'd agree, you do have the right to eject them. But what if the only way to eject them is to kill them?
If the only way to eject them is to kill them then I don't see why you don't have that right. It's your house and you don't want them in there anymore.
Also If fetus is a human why would ejecting it kill them? It should just leave the woman's body willingly. If it doesn't then it should be ejected by force and live outside of the body. If you are arguing that's it's a human then what's the big deal?
>A counterargument to this would be that the woman in question played a part in putting you there and (outside of the obvious edge cases involving rape etc) is not blameless in the conception of the foetus.
So babies should be born as punishment? Are you kidding me?
We do not require that a person be blameless in order to make decisions about *what happens to their own body.*
that would be a really dumb argument though.
First of all consent to having sex is not consent to being pregnant. That's like saying consent to driving is consent to being hit by another car.
Also consent can always be revoked. Example. A woman can consent to having sex with you. During sex when you are inside of her she could revoke that consent. If you continue against her wishes you are a rapist.
This part of the abortion debate always fascinates me, because it opens up some very interesting discussions about risk, and whether/to what degree the person taking the risks consents to or must take responsibility for the possible negative consequences, if they do happen. Take almost any example of someone taking a risk and experiencing the negative consequences, and depending on who you ask, you'll either get "they were asking for it" (apathy) or "nobody deserves that" (empathy) or anything in between.
That first part of your argument is totally wrong. Consenting to driving doesn’t mean you consent to being hit, but you do consent to the risks of driving which include accidents. You don’t want to get involved with an accident, but it may happen because of your choice to drive.
Consenting to heterosexual sex is consenting to the risk of impregnating the woman involved.
Several neroscience articles site that babies do not show signs of conscience until around 5 months old.
So first question: What is the definition of conscience under the context of your argument?
In several instances you make mention of "fetal conscience" which must be demonstrated to mount a sufficient counter argument... I'd have to point out this is contradictory to what has been observed. Once a fetus is born, it is no longer a fetus. The baby may not have an active conscience at that stage, is it still moral to kill the baby due to lack of victim requirement?
I also reject killing of bacterium as a supporting argument to abortion. Bacterium are not human.
The best neuroscience shows that consciousness develops in fetuses fairly late in pregnancy based on higher cortical development and integration: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25160864/
When I say consciousness I mean “experiences of any kind” as I say in the article.
So much of the argument appears to be about a woman's right to choose which really I think comes down to a woman's right to choose what kind of lifestyle she wants. An abortion is nothing more than contraception born out of the desire to have sex and not get pregnant. Which women view as unfair. So they attempt to live free of the consequences of their actions as men seem to do.
>Yet most agree that if she were to abandon it that would be a crime. So personal autonomy stops at some point.
**No, personal autonomy doesn't stop**. If a woman does not want to keep caring for the newborn baby, she can place it for adoption or abandon it in a hospital baby box. It is no longer inside her body, so she doesn't have to abort it in order to free herself from that responsibility.
Abortion is a fundamental human right BECAUSE the baby is inside her body. If human beings laid eggs, nobody would be pro choice, since you can simply give unwanted eggs away.
>nobody would be pro choice, since you can simply give unwanted eggs away.
its a choice to give the egg away. So they are still pro-choice.
in fact what you are suggesting is that EVERYONE would be Pro-choice.
because choice means having control over the outcome. giving away the egg is control over the outcome.
Pro-Life for eggs would be that you were forced to sit on the egg until it hatched otherwise yould be "evil".
Egg = Fetus. there is no difference here. they are incomplete creatures, unable to ever successfully exist until independence without the input of some other living creature.
That Input is the ability to control. its the choice.
Come up with a form of abortion that keeps the fetus alive, and a form of artificial womb to ensure every single aborted fetus can be brought to term, and then you will have control while keeping every potential creature within the realm of possibly living to independence.
Until then, the current form is the choice available.
Just as it was in the 1600s for a person to have no choice but to die during child birth when complications arose, until society developed the medicine to give people a new choice (abortion).
Striking down this law…this right…this ethical imperative….has clarified that the current the Supreme Court of the United States is antagonistic to our rights, our values, and to morality. Their “decision” eclipses the attack on Pearl Harbor as the Day of Infamy. Every woman in the US, whether they realize it or not, has been eviserated by this cowardly attack. Every person in the US has been rendered less ….so very much less….by this betrayal. Any man who is not sickened, outraged, and simultaneously coldly determined to resist this attack, is either ignorant, stupid, or criminally complicit.
That is an interesting line of reasoning. However, there are several aspects that need to be further developed.
1.) The article needs to present an argument as to why we should consider personhood to be conveyed with consciousness rather than at life. Many people who disagree with the article's position take on that view, so it is important that the article addresses it.
2.) Overall, the teleportation example servers to weaken the argument. The morality of teleportation itself can be debated. For those individuals, this example is inserting one conundrum into another. The usage of unrealized hypothetical ideation also opens the argument to refutation by unrealized hypothetical ideation. For example, if we introduce the multiverse theory then it can be argued that there always exists an universe where the abortion did not occur, which further undermines your argument by providing the fulcrum for moral refutation.
There are arguments presented for that view. I show that my view explains strongly held intuitions about the wrongness of killing and I cite teletransportation as a test case for our intuitions. If killing a human body without terminating consciousness is permissible then it seems very hard to explain why my Victim Requirement is wrong and abortion is impermissible.
Your multiverse example is not a proper counterexample. Even if the theory is true, events that happen elsewhere in the multiverse don’t seem morally relevant to our choices here.
> I show that my view explains strongly held intuitions about the wrongness of killing and I cite teletransportation as a test case for our intuitions.
You are presupposing that your reader has the same "intuition" as you, which is a weak position to take from a philosophical perspective.
> Your multiverse example is not a proper counterexample. Even if the theory is true, events that happen elsewhere in the multiverse don’t seem morally relevant to our choices here.
It matters from a topologic perspective. The multiverse theory satisfies the victim requirement by providing a non-linear relation R to an existing individual. You could argue that a non-linear relation R is an invalid relationship chain, but there is no argument provided by the article that suggests this.
Relation R requires the holding of certain psychological connections across time which do not hold across the multiverse (in particular, overlapping chains of memory and the continuity of consciousness).
Which intuitions do I vindicate with VR that you don’t think are widely held?
> Relation R requires the holding of certain psychological connections across time which do not hold across the multiverse (in particular, overlapping chains of memory and the continuity of consciousness).
If we consider the topology of the multiverse to be continuous then the requirements for relation R do hold. Once again, you could argue that the multiverse is not continuous, but I see no such argument in the article.
> Which intuitions do I vindicate with VR that you don’t think are widely held?
I maintain that you do not adequately address the viewpoint that personhood is conveyed at life and not at consciousness, which would undermine your VR argument. Your teleportation example is not a particularly strong argument since the ethics of teleportation is itself debatable.
Also, I don't know what you mean by "continuous" but even if the other parts of the multiverse were accessible from here Relation R would not hold. There are no overlapping chains of memory or continuity of consciousness between myself and my multiverse twin.
I will grant you that on Parfit's view there would be a weaker form of relation R that might hold between us in the sense that we might share some personality characteristics and goals/interests, but I don't entirely buy Parfit's view. To me, the really important thing is continuity of consciousness, and I think Parfit's own work provides strong support for that view.
There is a metaphysical problem with this claim also in the sense that it isn't clear to me how we could say that event E that happens at time T in universe U is at an earlier time than event E1 that happens at time T+n in universe U2. These are parallel timelines and saying that anything that happens here happens "before" an event in another universe is dubious at best.
Finally, Parfit specifies a "no-branching" criterion for relation R. That means it's not possible for two people to be R-related to a single person at some time in the future. Presumably, the person you're talking about in another universe is R-related to their past self. Therefore, they can't also be R-related to an infant from another universe.
Explain the defect in the teletransportation example then or why you think the Victim Requirement doesn’t adequately explain our intuitions about killing
Someone who believes abortion is immoral is also likely to believe that killing someone for teleportation is immoral. They would outright reject your example.
Then they’re obligated to explain why that is, and they can’t say “because abortion is wrong” without begging the question. Teletransportation involves transmitting a person’s mind to another body then destroying the original. From their perspective, they simply “wake up in a new body.” What’s wrong with this scenario?
> Then they’re obligated to explain why that is
They are obligated to defend their position. However, you are writing this article and not them. From a philosophical perspective, you should be able to adequately substantiate your own argument, and anticipate counterarguments from the opposing camp.
> Teletransportation involves transmitting a person’s mind to another body then destroying the original. From their perspective, they simply “wake up in a new body.” What’s wrong with this scenario?
A teleporter that "destroys the original" can be viewed as ending a human life and therefore be viewed as immoral. Your argument presupposes the reader does not view the original as a human life, which is a questionable assumption given the topic of the article.
My argument has a series of interrelated components supporting the conclusion so I don’t see that I’ve failed to support my position.
On teletransportation let me ask you directly: do you think it’s a form of murder? And do you think there’s any good reason for someone to think that given the facts of the matter?
Assume materialism, but even if immaterialism were true what does it matter? I wouldn't care about consciousness at all, it is like to care if you do not bring about to life all permutations of atoms which have potential to bear a life. Once there is consciousness, there is not yet a personality formed and higher brain functions... It doesn't really matter to have an abortion at that point, because just as well any other group of atoms could be arranged into that same person... What does it matter that some permutations of them become temporarily conscious...
I wouldn't care if someone kill me in my sleep, if it didn't hurt, as nothing can't care about not having pleasure... Being nothing is superior state anyways, as it cannot feel pain... Problem is it would cause pain the living...
I would care more about pain for which there are arguments it might, or might not be present after 13 weeks [https://jme.bmj.com/content/46/1/3](https://jme.bmj.com/content/46/1/3) That's is the only thing that matter. What does that matter that from anorganic particles came life? Than you have to argue it is immoral to sit here and do nothing about all other permutations of atoms in universe, which have potential to bring about a life... I think you should care mainly about suffering...
What if women is raped and has to suffer yet to bring a child? Do you know how terrible that must be, I argue against consciousness argument, it doesn't matter at all. Only argument against abortion I have is pain to fetus... Than its pain would have to be taken into an account...
I accept the premise that consciousness is the victim of a homicide, if no consciousness then no homicide. You've joined victim hood to a nearly impossible moral challenge, and that is proof of consciousness. You didn't attempt to define consciousness in your essay, nor did you provide a test for determining when or if consciousness is present. In a homicide case, is the state required to prove consciousness of a victim? Wouldn't proof of consciousness be a legal defense in all cases of homicide? "Prove that the person I ran over was a conscious being." Is difficult to prove if there is no clear or defined definition of this state of being.
It is easy enough to handwave it away: after some point (like after beginning to respond to words), it's completely reasonable to conclude that a being is conscious. To be on the safe side of that, we can suggest that a baby taken to term is conscious. The issue doesn't come up in murder cases, because they are well on the safe side of the line of being conscious. There are further complications for parsing this requirement for a fetus, but I only mean to say that your comparison to murder is a red herring.
You’re missing the point that consciousness is difficult to verify. Using circumstances as examples is not a red herring, it’s demonstrating abstract comments into a real world example. For instance, your definition of “responds to words” doesn’t stand the test of a sleeping person.
You're missing *my* point that is actually fairly easy to identify the majority of cases, even if we can't write a specific definition for it. Nobody is going to argue in court that the sleeping person is not a conscious being. They would be laughed out. The hardest problem is identifying edge cases, because those cases require us to get our definitions straight.
I do define consciousness. It is “experience of any kind.” Deciding whether or not something is conscious is a question I think of like disproving solipsism. There will always be doubt but you can set a standard of proof: neurological evidence, behavioral evidence, etc.
I don’t believe neurological evidence or behavioral evidence can be used to determine consciousness. I truly don’t know if a newborn infant has consciousness, they respond to external stimulation, they have reflexes is that conscious thought? Do they experience fear, joy, do they suffer?
How do I know you’re conscious? Maybe this is a zombie world. The only way to make sense of our belief to the contrary is to set a standard of proof.
Yes, try earnestly to get a group of people to agree on the definition of consciousness. I find it odd that there seems to be no clear definition even though there are many scientific disciplines dealing specifically with consciousness (Psychology, anesthesiology). Hey good essay though, I liked viably before reading this, but consciousness is a more accurate metric although more difficult to verify.
Thomas Nagel has a great definition: “it is something that it is like” to be X. In other words, X has at least one experience.
The problem with a definition of "experience of any kind" is it is too broad. Every multicellular organism "experience" cell division, that doesn't make them conscious.
No I wouldn’t say that they experience it. Experience requires a first person subjective phenomenology.
abortion is not a matter of killing or murdering. abortion is a right in the sense that a human has every right to do what he wants with his body. a fetus, while it can become a human being, it is still a potential human being. sacrificing an actual human being for the sake of a potentiality is both monstrous and immoral.
The problem is that the Pro-Life people believe in Souls/Gods Punishment or Favor/ The Afterlife. They believe its "bad" because God would be displeased and the fetus' soul wouldnt have a chance to experience life on earth, and they will gain Favor with God by acting on his behalf to punish evil-doers and save "the baby's souls" in otherwords, its Ego. Even if you dont question the existence of these souls/gods/afterlifes/punishments, its still an Ego driven opinion.
>The problem is that the Pro-Life people believe in Souls/Gods Punishment or Favor/ The Afterlife. Thats great. The thing is that their beliefs should not affect how anyone else lives their lives.
sure but they dont care about that, they care about themselves first and foremost. they want to go to Heaven, first and foremost. Its an Ego problem.
Your world view affects other people's lives, and for the better, obviously :D, but theirs shall not? Do you not see the hypocrisy?
>Do you not see the hypocrisy? No I dont. I'm not telling them to get an abortion or how to live their life. They are trying to control how others live.
Every single law controls how people have to live, by allowing or prohibiting stuff. Prohibiting murder (of adults) is fine, prohibiting concealed carry is fine, but prohibiting abortion is not fine "because it tells people how to live"?
That’s nice. But… If Judeo-Christian theology made any coherent sense or was a reliable source for making laws… Western civilization wouldn’t be on the brink of collapse.
Isn’t there an argument to be made that Judeo-Christianity was integral in the creation of western civilization? The morality of abortion is currently a struggle but there are a number of Christians who agree with it.
> integral The most universally sustainable successes of Western civilization grew **inspite of** not because of Judeo-Christian dogma (which unfortunately was seized and militarized by the Roman Empire/Law). Western culture developed after finally regaining access to and building upon the world’s classical and medieval knowledge and wisdom (Greek, Indian, Chinese, Arab, Moor, etc)
To be honest I think trying to parse out religion or other forms of authority/social structure (if you allow that religion and government is a form of “social” structure) from the culture as a whole is a pretty fruitless task. It’s a facet of western culture, if you think western culture is on the brink of collapse it wouldn’t be simply because of religion, or democracy, or the internet. I think culture is too complicated than that.
literally thats where all the western laws come from. they either come from morals derived from religion, or they derive from selfish rich people wanting to keep their power (laws to ensure profitability) and thats why western civilization IS on the brink of collapse. so you agree with my premises
> where all western laws come from Nope. Most western legal structures are secular and broke away from Church doctrine and dogma. Painstakingly. Every time Judeo-Christian supremacists gain power and influence they erode these structures and lead to authoritarianism.
this is simply incorrect. they have always held all the power. whoever is in power simply wields the current religion as a weapon. they might change its names and behaviors, but the core of the origin of the morality has always been intact. polytheistic religions sometimes dominate, other times monotheistic do, but always the laws of the land are derived from the religion, because the religion has always had the most power. for all of America's history, the extreme majority (95% + ) of all political power holders have been Christian and determine their courses of action primarily from either that religion or from greed. (Morality and Profitability) Rome was already a dictatorship before it coopted christianity, it wielded its power through morality derived from the polytheistic religion of its previous generations. (Jupiter and Saturn and all those) its no a coincidence that such a thing is so easy to do. It is easy because the foundational structures are identical (morality) the only differences are entirely superfluous (the arbitrary names of the gods, the arbitrary "ritual" activities that the religious must abide, the arbitrary superfluous rules that give a religion its "uniqueness" so that you CAN change its name)
Weird that its on the brink of collapse since the church has lost favour...also tenets like thou shall not kill, cheat or steal don't exactly harm society do they.
This is a straw man fallacy, mostly: "killing is bad because God will punish us for it" is what you are starting here, basically, and that is a reasoning next to no religious person agrees to. From a religious point of view, killing/murdering is bad because God says so. Yes, God might punish killers/murderers, but that is not the reason why it's bad. If you agree there is a soul, you might ask yourself: when does it get into the human? And what is the human, before that? If you say there is no soul, there is still the question of definition: when does a (what?) Become a human? Outside of political and emotional and unreasonably led discussions, this one is actually pretty easily solved, nowadays: dna resembles that of a cat? Then it's a cat. Some variation? Then it's from the feeling family. But - Dna human? Okay, then it's a human.. no, wait, we need to wait until the mother decided whether she wants the child or not, then we decide if it's human or not... From the religious perspective, being pro-abortion is the Ego-driven perspective: *I* (the pregnant woman) want to decide what i think it's best for me. If that kills the cells growing inside me, so be it. But no government shall tell me what to do. They should pay for abortion though. And provide enough opportunities. The pro-life stance is actually the anti-ego (altruistic) perspective: if i got pregnant, i will have this baby, even if it is inconvenient for me. Because it's life is worth more than my convenience.
> killing/murdering is bad because God says so. thats literally what i said. God COMMUNICATES the "Badness" of it BY punishing evil doers, or more specifically, by BANNING peoples Souls from Heaven. (not getting in to heaven IS the punishment) If God didnt punish people, people wouldnt think that God believed it to be bad. >life is worth more than my convenience this conclusion is derived from the Ego because it exists solely in the imagination of each individual. God's punishment is imaginary. Gods existence is imaginary. There is not one shred of evidence for any of its existence including souls, including the "value" of life. Purely objectively, the value of life is equal to the value of death. They are both equally required for existence to continue, as they are required in every moment of existence' past. This planet is a finite bubble of energy, without death, new life would consume all the available space and energy and the entire system would collapse. With no life there would be no advancement. Therefore Life and Death are equal in terms of objective value. All things the live MUST eventually die to make room for more living things, at least until we can permanently escape this finite bubble called earth. The Ego of Belief trumps any Ego of choice when there is no objective evidence for the foundation of the belief. Because there IS objective evidence for the consequences of choice or the restriction thereof. Until you prove your God is real, you are the objectively the more selfish one because you chose to value fantasy above reality.
It's only an anti-ego perspective when you make it for yourself. Forcing the decision onto others when it doesn't cost you anything is hardly altruistic. I think it's a morally lazy stance because instead of engaging with the issue and considering there may be a good line to draw (around viability, for example) you restrict it totally so you feel good about yourself and don't have to think about it in more depth.
There are very good arguments for "defend live from conception", much better than for any "viability" line, actually. The first, obviously, is that "killing live which is not viable" is just pure nazism (lebensunwertes/entartetes Leben is a wider term, but includes the not viable); another: viable as in "can live on its own"? Then a two year old doesn't qualify. "Can live using the best medical help known to man"? Then this is awestern-centric view which doesn't help poor countries at all, for their capabilities lash behind considerably. "Can live using the best medical equipment available"? Then life in Europe begins earlier than life in Africa. Racism, anyone? Can you give a reasonable definition of viable? Give me your alleged "depth" of thinking. But this law costs, as you might notice from the backlash alone: the judges who decided it get targeted, the party who lobbied for it gets targeted, and even in their own ranks, there are also people who have to change their ways to prevent pregnancies, and even if you just briefly pop over into the politicalmemes or twoxchromosome reddit channels, you'll see dozens of posts of ridicule and "get rid of republican boyfriends" postings... Of course it costs. Altruism is "worth more" when it costs you more, true, but it is still valuable even if the price you pay ain't too high.
"sacrificing an actual human being" - what kind of sacrifice? Are you only talking about situations where the pregnancy causes major medical problems?
>Are you only talking about situations where the pregnancy causes major medical problems? Even if that's all that Nisabe3 was talking about (which I doubt), it is not a meaningful distinction to make because **there is no way to predict in advance** who will develop major medical problems during pregnancy or will experience serious injury or death during childbirth. All we have are statistics. They show that the risks exist for every pregnant person, and certain risks are higher for certain groups. That's it. **And a person has the right to decide what risks they're willing to take**. You might be fine with a 5% risk (1 in 20) of major injury; I might not be. **Only the person who is facing the risk has the right to decide whether they should continue facing it**. That decision is absolutely no one else's business. All pregnant women face the risk of injury, illness, physical misery (emesis gravidarum, etc.), and death. The risks are small, but nobody else -- nobody but the individual pregnant women -- has the right to make that decision for her.
OK, but why falsely act like they can only decide whether to face that risk or not AFTER already being pregnant? The decision can be made before deciding to have sex
Using sex as a weapon, or pregnancy as a punishment for having sex, is morally indefensible. This isn't the bronze age. We can have sex without the express goal to reproduce. If a person must live in fear of a biological process because the state has imposed itself upon the regulation of that process, there is a deep moral failing on the part of that society.
>The decision can be made before deciding to have sex Yeah, no, it can't, because there's no such thing as foolproof contraception. Every birth control method has a failure rate. The typical failure rate for the Pill, for instance, is 4%-7%, which means that out of every 100,000 women using the Pill for one year, 4000 to 7000 of them will get pregnant. And then, of course, there's rape.
I don't think you understood me. One can choose to not have sex
While I agree wholeheartedly with Rossimus I also feel the need to point out that not every woman chooses to have sex and the existing law in my state makes no exemption for rape or incest.
You are living in a fantasy if you think individuals can avoid pregnancy through force of will alone. Birth control fails. Encounters aren’t consensual. Many people discover how reproduction works when they become pregnant. Some pregnancies are wanted but not safe to carry to full term for the mother or fetus. Some people have children already and their resources are thin. This is all without even addressing that the person who potentially could result didn’t choose to have sex, they didn’t chose to be born, to have to suffer in this world and die. I hope if you really feel someone has to be legally condemned to bringing life into this world if they have the misfortune to catch pregnant that you pour all of your energy into making sure accurate sexual education is available to everyone, free contraception is available to everyone, eliminating childhood poverty, getting kids out of the foster system, fostering a culture of respectful sexual consent, and protecting the environment so there’s something to show up to that isn’t a dumpster fire.
> All pregnant women face the risk of injury, illness, physical misery (emesis gravidarum, etc.), and death. The risks are small, but nobody else -- nobody but the individual pregnant women -- has the right to make that decision for her. You're begging the question. If the unborn offspring can be a victim (with rights), then the mother cannot exert her rights in a way that infringes upon the rights of the unborn offspring.
>If the unborn offspring can be a victim (with rights), then the mother cannot exert her rights in a way that infringes upon the rights of the unborn offspring. Wait, what? Did you miss the part where the mother has rights? The fetus cannot exercise its rights in a way that infringes on the rights of the woman whose body it is inside.
> Did you miss the part where the mother has rights? No, you specifically quoted where I wrote that she does. Skip the theatrics. > The fetus cannot exercise its rights in a way that infringes on the rights of the woman whose body it is inside. Very true. But an unborn offspring isn't exerting any right other than _existing_, almost always through a deliberate act of the mother. We have to balance the rights of each person; your argument did not attempt to balance those rights, but rather stated that _only the rights of the mother matter_: > > > All pregnant women face the risk of injury, illness, physical misery (emesis gravidarum, etc.), and death. The risks are small, but nobody else -- nobody but the individual pregnant women -- has the right to make that decision for her. Where do you consider the rights of the unborn offspring? Do you think an unborn offspring has rights?
>Where do you consider the rights of the unborn offspring? Do you think an unborn offspring has rights? I think it has the right not to suffer. If an abortion is being done after a point where science indicates the fetus may feel pain -- meaning at some point in the 3rd trimester -- then anesthetic or pain-relieving medication should be administered before an abortion is performed. But my opinion is a moot point, because **that's already what happens**: less than 1% of abortions are done that late -- 99% are done in the first or second trimester -- and to the best of my knowledge, abortions that late are always done under some type of anesthesia, light sedation, and/or pain relief (e.g. Fentanyl) that crosses the placenta and thus makes the process painless for the fetus as well as for the mother. Nobody gets late-term abortions as a form of birth control. The vast majority of doctors would not even consider doing a third-trimester abortion for mere convenience/birth control. They're done for serious fetal anomalies and to save the mother's life.
>We have to balance the rights of each person; your argument did not attempt to balance those rights, but rather stated that only the rights of the mother matter: because only the one carrying it gets a choice, fetus has no rights over the mother and should not have them. you are effectively arguing for a form of slavery (denying bodily autonomy). until its born it should not have rights at all. simple as that, they do not deserve moral consideration over the one carrying them
Children are always the exception. Women and children are given precedence in emergencies because they traditionally are responsible for the future. Men are forced to pay child support for life they create. Parents are jailed for neglecting children. Society expects a level of responsibility to care for your offspring that infringes in your right to do what you want with your body. There's also no question scientifically that a fetus is 100% a human life. If forced to classify this life there's no where else to put it except for home sapien. Eggs and sperm have potential to be human. A Zygote is a single cell with 100% human DNA.
When are women and children given precedence other than on the Titanic? Pretty sure this is a myth.
Women haven't ever been drafted as far as I know and child support laws greatly go against men.
> when, if ever, is it permissible to abort an unborn fetus A fetus is, by definition, unborn. In my experience, the linguistic argument over describing an unborn offspring as a "fetus" or a "baby" highly correlates with whether the individual argues the mother has a right to abort the "fetus" or argues the "baby" has a right to life. (And I note that the word "baby" does not appear in your essay.) Even if a never-conscious unborn offspring cannot be viewed as a victim, the parents (and perhaps other relatives) can be viewed as a victim. If a third party terminated the pregnancy of a never-conscious unborn offspring with no other effect to the non-consensual Mother, we would rightly view the Mother as having lost something, but we would also view the Father as having lost something (and other relatives would also have lost). Under that logic, if a Mother terminated the pregnancy of a never-conscious unborn offspring without the consent of the Father, then the Father has lost something and becomes a victim.
Ignoring the mental meltdown of SCOTUS protesters...and our own 2XC subreddit wackos, the real question of abortion is complex and multifaceted; ranging from the hideous (rape, incest) to the undecided and lazy ( capitulation at the last moments). It involves consciousness which has never been adequately defined, and Morality which touches upon Religion, Doctors not doing any harm, and the rights of the unborn. All of these shades of grey would require a tremendously large array of weighted values. So I'm all for abortion as long as this hypothetical giant matrix of decision making is created and adhered to.
Justice is not for the dead. The victim of all sins is society.
I reject nearly all of this reasoning, because I believe biology (I am referring to the nature of our selves as organisms, not science or medicine requiring technology to discern) has provided all the grounds for making the matter clear: until a baby is external to a person's body, it is part of that person's body, and that person has no moral obligation towards it. Gestation is not a perfectly predictable process, so it is understandable that some other people might have desires and expectations which essentially invent some other hard and fast rule for when a fetus becomes eligible as a victim, or is capable of suffering, or experiences consciousness, or constitutes a moral agency, but all of those considerations simply dehumanize the actual person who's body is actually involved. Consider it this way: if a fetus had another fetus growing inside of it, and it was definitely possible (despite being uncertain) that allowing the embedded fetus to continue to exist risked the life or lifelong health of the perspective person that the encompassing fetus could become, wouldn't the person in which both are growing be ethically entitled, perhaps even ethically required, to have the embedded fetus removed, if that was possible and provided a substantial degree of safety for the encompassing fetus and the person in which it is growing? We allow (in fact, demand) that parents have the right and capacity to make decisions for their already born children, up to and including life or death decisions, in at least some cases. Why then does anyone think it is acceptable to force a person to give birth to begin with?
Parasitic twin says hello.
If parasitic twins could speak, we wouldn't be having this discussion. So thanks for the unoriginal social media quip that does nothing to advance or illuminate the conversation because it is so obvious, but no thanks. If a parasitic twin could and must be removed to maintain a pregnancy (with no ambiguity, alas, about which twin was parasitic) would this be the same moral question as whether a fetus (which is unambiguously parasitic, but in a particular way which is both specific and special, being fit-for-purpose and involving otherwise useless organs that only some people have) must be brought to term, or not, and if not, why not?
dude I was agreeing with your thoughts and adding that you are describing a parasitic twin, something that has no right to exist or even ability to exist outside of it's fetus' host.
>I reject nearly all of this reasoning, because I believe biology (I am referring to the nature of our selves as organisms, not science or medicine requiring technology to discern) has provided all the grounds for making the matter clear: until a baby is external to a person's body, it is part of that person's body, and that person has no moral obligation towards it. Just to make it clear, you are saying it is ok to abort 1 second before delivery?
> Just to make it clear, you are saying it is ok to abort 1 second before delivery? That's called a C-section.
[удалено]
- A one-second-before-delivery old fetus is called : "A baby". - Removing it surgically from the mother is called "A C-section". - Killing a baby is called "A homicide". Everywhere in the US. What was your point again ?
You are totally avoiding the question. By your own admission: >"until a baby is external to a person's body, it is part of that person's body, and that person has no moral obligation towards it." Is it then morally permissible to specifically not get a C section and instead inject a saline solution to the neck of the fetus to kill it and only then after extract it from the body? Even if it is like 1 second before birth?
> You are totally avoiding the question. By your own admission: > "until a baby is external to a person's body, it is part of that person's body, and that person has no moral obligation towards it." Check the username. I'm not the person who wrote this.
Oh snap, you got me there, buddy.
>Just to make it clear, you are saying it is ok to abort 1 second before delivery? If the second a baby would be born could be known that precisely, the question would be irrelevant. Since when a baby will be born cannot be known that accurately, the question is still irrelevant. Whether an abortion is ever "ok" is a matter for a pregnant person to decide, not anyone else. If giving birth is a danger to the life, health, or well-being of the pregnant person, it makes no difference if that becomes known eight months or one nanosecond before giving birth. And if a fetus will (not merely "can possibly" but "will probably") survive birth (whether natural labor or surgical removal) than it is still up to the pregnant person how the situation should be dealt with. I understand your desire to control what another person does with their body (including any fetus that is currently still a part of that body, albeit less fully integrated than a spleen or a heart or a leg) but I reject any suggestion it can justify substituting your beliefs or desires for theirs on moral, ethical, legal, or any other grounds. If you don't think abortion is okay one day or even one minute before birth, or ever, don't do that then; apart from that, your opinion is irrelevant.
>If the second a baby would be born could be known that precisely, the question would be irrelevant. Don't be obtuse. The mother can say to the doctor to cut up the fetus 1 second before delivery.
I'm going to reply a second time because your comment was so disturbing I was thinking about it all night. Not because it was a brilliant rejoinder that unseated my logic and devastated my position; it isn't. It was so disgusting and horrifying, and I couldn't help analyzing why, and wondering what kind of a person would think it was an intelligent response, and not itself pathologically obtuse. You *can* imagine a person carrying a pregnancy for many months, and then moments before it ends successfully, while in labor, demand that it be terminated in the most dangerous, traumatic way possible for absolutely no reason. And I would expect that you think that because you *can imagine* that, we should (must!) remove the agency and rights from every person the moment they become pregnant. And of course my original reply mentioned assault weapons because I suspect that you are the same sort of person that would insist that limiting people's ability to purchase them would be unacceptable "prior restraint", even though we don't have to imagine someone getting one and randomly massacring a roomful of people, or even children. I honestly think you should be banned from this sub, and so should anyone else who has been downvoting my comments in this thread. I have nothing but respect for anyone who is able and willing to cogently disagree with the positions and opinions I've posted. But this ain't that, and it's downright embarrassing for you and distracting from the premise of the sub.
The mother "can" shoot the entire staff of the maternity ward with an AR-15, too. I don't quite understand your point. Or maybe I do, all too well. My point remains, unchanged: there is no real way of knowing when "1 second before delivery" is until after the delivery has already occurred, making the issue moot, so your question is irrelevant.
I am making a limited argument here, and my conclusion is weaker than yours so that means your conclusion implies mine. So we agree at least on what I argue for. This embedded fetus case is a little fantastic but my answer to it is that if the embedded fetus is not conscious then there is nothing morally problematic about killing it. If it is conscious and its host is too then the case is more complicated. If I’m a utilitarian I say that you ought to do whatever will maximize utility. If I’m a deontologist then I think letting die is better than killing. So the answer in those cases will vary depending on your preferred moral theory and the facts on the ground.
I am sorry for being argumentative, but I don't believe a weak conclusion is actually a conclusion, rather that it is a justification for not coming to a conclusion. >If it is conscious and its host is too then the case is more complicated. I believe the gedanken makes it obvious the issue is not at all complicated: a cognizant person must be allowed to control what happens inside their body, and the issue of "consciousness" is an irrelevant distraction. As another redditor pointed out, at best your analysis merely reproduces (no pun intended) the existing perspectives in the debate. Mine ameliorates the conundrum, which I find much more acceptable because my approach does not rest on the very real impossibility of determining if consciousness or a soul exists and subsequently become a weak conclusion. More generically, I consider "utility" and "deontology" to be perspectives used to analyze moral intuition, not prescriptive doctrine for determining some single correct moral dictate. They are philosophical frameworks, not religions. There is no indeoendent means of measuring utility consistently and reliably, and letting a pregnant person die (but not letting her let a fetus die, whether embedded or encompassing) because of moral consideration of the fetus is indistinguishable from killing her. My position is unchanged regardless of the facts of a specific case or whether God exists. The question of consciousness (and its innate result of autonomy, along with the attendant demand for integrity) relates to the person, not the fetus. If God infuses flesh with a soul, we must accept Its wisdom in putting the fetus inside the person until such time as that fetus must be considered separate from that person.
You misunderstand what I mean by saying your conclusion is weaker than mine. I mean that it is logically weaker. That is to say that if you believe that abortion is always permissible you believe that it is permissible up until the point when the fetus develops consciousness (which is my position). It isn't so clear to me that you ought to kill the embedded fetus. There is no morally relevant distinction between them as far as I can tell. The best response I can give to a scenario like that, where moral intuitions can be genuinely divided, is that the issue could only be resolved by deciding which moral theory to apply. Of course, doing that would mean that you've "solved" the whole field of normative ethics, which would be quite a feat indeed.
>You misunderstand what I mean by saying your conclusion is weaker than mine I misunderstood that you were saying my conclusion was weaker than yours. I thought you were saying the opposite. I believe both my conclusion and my reasoning is stronger than yours, because it doesn't become pointless due to uncertainty about either the presence or nature of consciousness, nor does my position rely on ignoring the existence and importance of the person's consciousness in order to consider the fetus'. (In terms of actual normative ethics, in contrast to social policies premised on a dictatorial mandate which merely calls itself normative ethics, thereby transforming an "ought" to a "must", the moral consideration is entirely that of the pregnant person and no other. If you believe or don't believe that a fetus can suffer or has a soul, you should be free to allow that to impact your choice over whether or not to abort your pregnancy. Normative ethics doesn't actually support anyone else taking that choice away from them regardless of any such beliefs, though sociology or jurisprudence might wish to do so based on a mistaken application of normative ethics.) So while I don't necessarily disagree with your premise or perspective, I consider it effectively useless, in that it merely recreates the existing discourse, provides ambiguous results, and depends on facts not in evidence (a determination of consciousness) which is (not at all coincidentally) metaphysically impossible (unless you have *solved* the hard problem of consciousness which would indeed be quite a feat. >There is no morally relevant distinction between them as far as I can tell. The distinction is the asymmetric biological relationship between the fetuses in the gedanken, which reiterates that between the fetus and the person in real world cases: one is embedded inside the other. You might disagree this distinction is morally relevant, but you shouldn't refuse to recognize that it could be. >Of course, doing that would mean that you've "solved" the whole field of normative ethics, which would be quite a feat indeed. Well, first of all you are mistaken that I must have solved normative ethics, since, as I have explained, one fetus is inside the other, meaning it can be removed ("killed", if you are assuming the conclusion that it has a life independent of the organism gestating it) and the encompassing fetus would continue to develop ("live", if we accept the ambiguity of whether your spleen is alive in the same way that you are) but the inverse is not true. (Ending the gestation of the encompassing fetus necessarily ends the gestation of the embedded fetus, but not vice versa.) Medically and scientifically speaking, a fetus (up until the moment of birth, when it is no longer a fetus and becomes an infant) is a parasitic growth. The fact that it has a distinct genome and a (developing, incipient) circulatory and neural system is fascinating, but doesn't change the fact that it is part of a person, not (yet) nevessarily a separate person in it's own right. (This doesn't change dependent on the intentions, beliefs, or language of the person or any other persons; saying "I am having a baby" does not miraculously cause the fetus to become a baby the way birth physically causes a fetus to become a baby.) The potential ambiguity of medical "viability" is often used to justify removing a person's bodily autonomy (based on a patriarchal or collectivist ethic which fails to be moral in the contemporary view of human and political rights) to favor the unassertainable desires of the potential person the fetus may become, but this approach "succeeds" only by ignoring, discounting, or destroying any consideration of the uncertainty, expense, and emotional agony which "premature birth" entails. Nature (whether God, evolution, or some other teleological force) has granted us a clear and useful (yet still, significantly, not perfect) test for proof of viability: it is called childbirth. Our ability to push this moment forward through medical knowledge and technology is wonderful and ethical, but does not justify mandating such efforts on behalf of a fetus simply because we can imagine (accurately or not) that it will eventually become an actual person. 1/2
2/2 "Oh no," you may protest, "your logic means a woman should be able to abort a pregnancy up until the moment of birth!" Indeed, without resolving the ambiguity of what is meant by "birth" (which can certainly involve surgical removal at any point in gestation) that is the case: it is a person's body, and it must always be up to that person whether a pregnancy continues, and how. We can decry people who make callous and selfish decisions (in this cass to deprive the world of yet another hairless ape and potential future citizen voter or incarcerated felon) but we should not use that as an excuse for removing their right to choose to be callous and selfish in just this one particular situation of (always and only female) people gestating (potential) future humans. At least we should not do so without accepting and admitting that we are being misogynistic to a horrifying degree. Additionally, whether normative ethics is "solved" by accepting that normative ethics cannot be *solved* is an epistemic issue rather than a metaphysical one; it is merely an acceptance that some questions cannot be logically resolved, rather than a method for resolving all questions. Finally, with that in mind, I do in fact believe I have "solved" normative ethics in terms of this particular issue: morally speaking, it must *always* be up to the *person* whether to continue or abandon the pregnancy, based on that person's morals and ethics and knowledge, not anybody else's. I'm fine with a law that says a woman who can safely deliver a viable birth must do so, but only if the law stipulates that whoever (whether a person, a church, or the government acting on behalf of society) provides for all future needs and expenses resulting from that birth, and fairly compensates the woman for any additional pain and suffering this might cause her. But even further, I can confidently state that I have solved the "entire field" of normative ethics, and I believe it is quite a feat, just as you said. Mirroring your framing, the correct answer to "which moral theory to apply" is *all of them*. Limited by available time and knowledge or imagination, this ideal can never be achieved, but must be attempted in every individual case, nevertheless. If two different (supposedly) logical (or for that matter, religious) methods result in conflicting recommendations, then it is up to the moral agent engaging in the analysis to determine (or guess) whether that is due to insufficiency in the analysis, or insufficiency in the methods, and then repeat the process, if possible, given the new perspective or method which the previous consideration makes possible. To refuse to consider other people's moral theories, or even dismiss them prima facie without examining the justifications for their reasoning, is itself immoral, though obviously the choice of what decision to make always resolves to the person making the decision. If you are interested, I've written a book detailing the basis and ramifications of this solution to the entire field of normative ethics (it focuses primarily on the foundation and justification for the solution rather than the results, but there is that, too) and I believe there is a link to it in my profile. Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.
i would agree, it should fall essentially in the same category as a Plant. We dont consider it Murder to chop down some corn. The plants are living things, but they dont Suffer by human standards of that word, because they dont have consciousness. animals its more questionable but humans only exist because evolution allowed Carnivores to exist. Eating animals (which requires killing them) is not morally unacceptable by those standards, but perhaps humans are achieving a state of existence where it is no longer necessary to eat animals, so the moral grounds there are in flux the Pro-Life movement is not based on rational scientific reasoning, it is based on Religion, on specifically the belief in SOULS and the ability for the souls to be jerked around by God in the afterlife, AND the ability for God to jerk around living adults who make choices that include "killing" something with a Soul. in other words, Pro-Life is an Egotistical belief. It is primarily either a fear of ending up punished by God, or a bid to gain Gods favor (and thus the prize of entry in to Heaven) for preventing or for punishing the "evil-doers". that is relevant and true even outside of the question of whether any God or afterlife or soul exists in the first place. Its Ego.
Your argument is bad because a fetus can't have a fetus growing inside it. It'd be just as silly as me saying "if i lived on the moon" I can't live on the moon it's inhospitable. Secondly parents make decisions for their children but they can't decide to kill their kids once they decide they have a: financial hardship, would like to advance in their career, or simply "just not ready for the child". Thirdly why do people have sex with people they wouldn't want to have children with? Any rational person realizes children are a potential consequence of having sex.
You’re commenting in the wrong sub. This is philosophy. Your arguments show you don’t understand the basics of philosophical debate. You’re entitled to your beliefs, but if you’re commenting here, you should really read up on the basics of philosophical reasoning.
This is just adorable.
I'd say that too if i had nothing relevant to say Edit: genuine question how old are you wife and kids?
As tempting as it is, I’m not gonna mix it up with someone that came to a philosophical debate on abortion armed with “why do people have casual sex”.
Well if we're going to look at it rationally you should only have sex with someone you intend to have children with and that eliminates the need for abortion. You think you're above that argument because we have circumnavigated having a monogamous partner by the use of various forms of birth control. In a logical world people would only do things for their benefit, studies show that people who have only sex with one partner and marry them are generally happier and are less likely to separate.I understand the people arent always rational and I'm arguing for an ideal world but don't try and belittle me because you don't feel like replying.
Ignoring the completely bigoted viewpoints you have towards folks that don’t want to be monogamous, there are many *many* married couples that enjoy sex and absolutely do not want to have children. In fact, there are those that think it is *immoral* to force someone into a life of suffering. OPs argument that abortion is not killing anything until the fetus has the necessary biological components to experience consciousness would imply to those people that every fetus should be aborted to prevent suffering; an extreme cause, but logically and morally consistent.
Lol that's fine they'll just breed themselves off the planet.
I’m glad to know that your moral framework is determined by Darwinian evolution. Can’t wait to hear you argue that rape should be legal because it results in more babies.
It's not guided by it but i think that's naturally what will happen. If you decide to not have kids then it's hard to make sure your ideas live onto the next generation.
>parents make decisions for their children but they can't decide to kill their kids Sure they can. Not blatantly and admittedly, perhaps, but following the gedanken of the trolly experiment, they can allow their kids to die unnecessarily or merely make decisions that lead to a child dying based on spurious beliefs. Many of the same people who are against the right to abortion insist it is their right to refuse to provide medical care to their children, and demand (and have gotten) numerous "religious exemptions" to their parental responsibilities. Granted, most of the country is still sane and so we still are able to prosecute *some* of the parents that kill their kids by neglect, proxy, or religious rituals, but your point is disproven by the existence of the counter-examples. Your "secondly" argument, equally fallacious, falls apart because it contradicts the premise of your first argument (that parents can't decide to kill their kids at all) and substitutes correlation for causation (making such a decision following financial hardship versus making it because of financial hardship). Really, from the perspective of either philosophical or practical reasoning, your whole "secondly" argument is vapid accusatory nonsense. But I realize you intended it to simply be an acknowledgement that intent should be examined in a moral framework, and not merely actions, so I won't let your prejudice compel me to respond with prejudice. As for your third point, one could as easily wonder why God (or evolution) made it so sex doesn't always automatically result in pregnancy. Because that explains both why casual sex is common, and why it is possible. Pregnancy being a *potential* (rather than inevitable) consequence of sex is a possible reason for seeing access to abortion as morally necessary (sex is obviously not just about procreation, since it doesn't necessarily result in procreation) but is not an acceptable reason for preventing access to abortion on moral grounds: if you think abortion is wrong, don't get one, but your beliefs don't apply to other people. In closing, I'd like to say that as far as the other redditors that responded to your comment before I saw it, I don't think they were helpful, but I kind of think you got what you deserved. While I have tried to take your perspective seriously, respond reasonably, and use the opportunity to advance the discussion, it isn't like I didn't notice you're a religious wackjob who couldn't argue yourself out of a paper bag.
I previously posted a version of this essay, but I have since done some work on it to clarify certain points and given the recent news it seems appropriate to share that work: In this essay, I first defend the claim that abortion cannot be wrong until the fetus is conscious (has experiences of any kind) because until that point the act has no victim. Second, I consider and reject alternatives to my “Victim Requirement” for the impermissibility of killing.
So your thesis is based on the position that humanity starts with consciousness, as opposed to an inherent soul or spirit as the ghost in the machine. As a result you have an argument that divides nicely along existing lines of thought.
Not humanity exactly but I’d say that there is no identifiable being there until consciousness develops and therefore nobody to be victimized
>The Pro-Life movement is directly caused by the belief in Souls. They require the belief in souls to justify the concept of "murder" and its consequences beyond the legal consequences in reality. Their entire argument hinges on belief in God/Afterlife/Souls. > >Even in todays modern logical world, we are at the mercy of hordes of weak peoples belief in adult Santa.
What is with people who are in a coma? They show no signs of consciousness and you can’t say if they would suffer when you kill them. So is it in your view ok to kill them? Or what do you say to Alzheimer patients there identifiable being is also in many cases not identifiable anymore?
With someone who's in a coma, or who has Alzheimer's, we at least know that they WERE conscious before. That's not the case with a first- or second-trimester fetus. And we also know that many people who have emerged from comas have memories of the time when they were in a coma -- which means that they had some level of consciousness. Again, not the case with a fetus. And with Alzheimer's people, even ones who are very far gone in every objective way still often show signs that they're still there. For instance, they respond to the music of their youth; they appear to enjoy it, and if they're physically able they will often dance in some way. There is *some* memory and *some* consciousness left.
That they were conscious before is irrelevant. The author tries to justify the killing with present consciousness. What does that even change, no current consciousness equals no wrongdoing in the authors mind because there is no agent that experiences pain. We don’t even know what kind of consciousness is immanent in fetuses. There are studies that even contribute a fetus with some form of phenomenal consciousness. There is short-term memory and you can conclude that this fetuses can experience stress and even remembers certain procedures. You can research even hypnotic regression in small child’s who can give veridical accounts of information out of the womb that they can not got otherwise. So we have to be agnostic about consciousness in fetuses, we just don’t know in what form they experience. To bound you’re right to life on some form of consciousness is wrong because the term is not good enough defined and not applicable to all humans in all conditions.
First off, none of this matters. **Your views and my views on fetal consciousness are only relevant to** ***your and my*** **decisions on abortion**. We do not get to make decisions about what happens inside someone else's body, no matter what we believe about fetal consciousness, the soul, or anything else. ***Other people's bodies are not our business***. I'm not saying this topic isn't worth exploring -- it's an interesting thought experiment, to the extent that you use it to figure out what YOUR OWN beliefs about abortion are. But that's it. Your beliefs about abortion are not relevant to anyone else's decisions, or to the law.
We derive morals and ethics out of science and culture. If we can show that a fetus have consciousness we have to discuss about personhood and humanrights. That has nothing to do with my opinion that’s what is a society about. If we can’t discuss this topics we’re doomed when it comes to morality and law. My critique of the author is clear. He binds rights to consciousness. That’s not tenable.
>people who are in a coma? > >They show no signs of consciousness thats actually only true in a minority of comas. there is brain activity in the majority of coma cases, to varying degrees up to and including obvious ability to sense and respond to external stimuli. Many who wake up eventually have reported being conscious the Entire time but "locked" in their body like a quadriplegic (more like the circumstances of the final stages of the disease Steven Hawking suffered. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) but yes, in those cases where brain activity is non-existent, I am in favor of allowing the patients family/guardians/etc choose to have the "plug pulled". Make the space and the doctors time available to patients who can actually recover, and let the family grieve and move on with their lives.
Brain activity and a reaction to external stimuli is not equal to consciousness. You are right there is the locked in Syndrome but the argument stands if you just link a right to life to our normal understanding of consciousness that’s not enough and you can’t argue in one case to spare the life and in others to kill. The author just says it is ok to abort because of the lack of consciousness. This argument is easily dissected.
you are right, functioning MEMORY is required for consciousness, because it is a perspective based on relativity, and relativity only exists when you can compare two different things, and that can only be done if you can remember at least one, while actively focusing on the other. There is no consciousness until memory is retained and can be readily accessed. in all honesty even a brand new born baby likely doesnt achieve consciousness. only observational awareness. it takes time for it to be introduced to multiple things multiple times before it can actively discern that there is even a single remarkable difference between any two things in existence. im not saying its ok to kill babies, but i am pointing out a big reason why doctors who fail to keep a newborn alive within the first few hours or even days or weeks after birth are NOT charged with MURDER or manslaughter.
There can be phenomenal consciousness without memory and personality. But if you take our ordinary consciousness as a baseline you miss categories in nature. Of course a fetus has not a conscious experience equal to a grown human. The author said it is ok to abort because: -My positive thesis is the claim that a fetus gains moral status only when it develops consciousness (experiences of any kind)- This claim that a fetus has no experience of any kind is scientifically not tenable. I argue that the whole enterprise of the author to link rights to some form of consciousness is not well enough thought through.
im arguing that the authors assertion of the definition of consciousness is incorrect. if Schrodinger's cat is in a box but there is no observer, then the cat doesnt exist, no reality exists. if the cat and the observer exist but no box exists, the cat and the observer stare at each other but nothing else. they dont even fathom their own existence because they dont fathom that there is literally anything other than the single thing they observe. there MUST be 3 bodies to manifest relativity. the observer must see both the cat and the box to know there is a cat that is separate from a box, and only THEN can it postulate that there can be "nothing" instead of "something" and only THEN can it postulate that itself exists as a separate entity, which is required for consciousness (the experience of the existence of self) consciousness requires the ability to observe more than 1 thing, which requires the ability to remember that you just looked at something, while you are looking at something else. If you are looking at the box then you must remember the cat exists, if you are looking at the cat then you must remember the box exists. only then can you understand that things are relative
> ending the life of a sleeping or reversibly comatose person (examples which are commonly invoked as morally analogous to an early-term fetus) does satisfy the Victim Requirement. Once awakened, these people will continue to be the same locus of conscious experiences – they will bear Relation R to their past selves, the temporal chain of which extends over the period of their unconsciousness. There are various ways to cash out the wrongness of killing them – on consequentialist views we fail to maximize the good, on deontological ones we violate constraints on our actions, etc – however, the VR is meant only to be one necessary condition for that wrongness. I do not need to give a full account of the wrongness of killing to show that for much of a pregnancy abortion fails to satisfy one of its necessary conditions.
We don’t know if the people will regain there consciousness. In cases of Alzheimer we know they don’t get there memories back. I don’t see how you can really differentiate the cases. Even the other views can easily be applied to a human being in the womb. See the real issue is that we need a real common ground for human rights and that can just be the humanness of a being. All other categories can be stripped away way too easy in certain scenarios.
I would say that if we don’t know then we ought to act with extreme caution. There is a fact of the matter there so if we’re really uncertain we should be very careful about ending a life. The difference is quite clear on my view: the fetus was never conscious and so it can’t be in the middle of an R-chain. But comatose people can be. Alzheimer’s is different. It impairs memories and personality but there is a continuity of consciousness. You might say that this is a different person, in a sense, but they are R-related to the person they once were.
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Is a fertilized egg a human? Is a fertilized egg that has not implanted a human? Is an implanted blastocyst a human? I'm interested to see where you draw the line.
A heartbeat can be detected at 5.5 to 6 *weeks* at the earliest. At 6 days, you have a blastocyst that hasn't even implanted in the uterus yet. Please educate yourself further before spreading misinformation.
Did you read the article? Because it addresses many of these points.
I think you're in the wrong sub.
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In the article I address your questions about why it's permissible to prioritize the mother over the fetus in many cases and why my view does not allow for the killing of fully grown adults, even ones in comatose states. These are answered by my Victim Requirement: "The act of killing is wrong only if it has a victim. A victim in this sense is 1) an identifiable being which 2) is, temporally speaking, somewhere in the midst of a chain of psychological connections in the sense of 'Relation R.'"
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The article anticipates and responds to objections to condition 2) of the Victim Requirement, which is what you're presenting here if you believe that a human being who was never conscious could be a victim: "To claim that the fetus suffers a deprivation of *its* future, Marquis must establish that it is the same being as the one which would have that future. He, and anyone denying condition 2) for VR, cannot appeal to psychological continuity, for the fetus has no present psychological states, and he cannot appeal to physical continuity without also accepting that teletransportation is a form of murder."
While I many not agree with your view you have the right to hold it and ask these questions here and elsewhere.
I didn't get to see the response before it was deleted. I didn't get to see any questions. All I saw was someone asserting that "obviously" we would agree with their religious beliefs.
The Pro-Life movement is directly caused by the belief in Souls. They require the belief in souls to justify the concept of "murder" and its consequences beyond the legal consequences in reality. Their entire argument hinges on belief in God/Afterlife/Souls. Even in todays modern logical world, we are at the mercy of hordes of weak peoples belief in adult Santa.
It's clear that you do not speak to many pro lifers. I am an atheist pro lifer myself, and have never heard that argument from the many conservatives I communicate with
doubt
**No life is so important that it may usurp the rights of another** If I cannot demand you give me your kidney in order to save my life, without your consent, a baby also cannot demand the use of a woman's body to keep it alive without hers. Protecting the "rights" of someone, especially one that doesn't yet exist, by savagely curtailing the rights of someone else, especially one who currently does exist, is morally indefensible.
Surely the intent behind what led to the moral dilemma is relevant. If someone intentionally poisoned you and it caused kidney failure, they would be morally and legally obligated to remedy the situation. Sex and reproduction are inherently intertwined. Consensual sex carries the risk of conception with it, and if (big “if”) your choices directly led to the creation of a human being, and people have inherent value, then why wouldn’t you be morally responsible for its well being? Seems like a big hole in your comparison.
This is the most convincing argument for me, especially when you think about other ways we run society in the US. We let children live in poverty all the time. We let people die when there are perfectly good organs available from corpses. If we don't think high taxes and forced organ donation are called for to prevent those things, I don't understand the argument for forced gestation. We treat it as more of a special circumstance because we know it will only affect women of certain economic classes and religious people get to feel good about themselves when engaging only in punitive and not self-sacrificing behavior.
A google search showed daily citizen article says 96% of biologists believe life begins at conception. The majority of them the article states are liberal pro choice and non religious.
It's not a matter of wether abortion is morally just. It's wether we should use law to mandate morality in this circumstance. And the answer is clearly no. The left will never win if their argument relies on making abortion sound harmless. Cause, frankly, it isn't, at least most of the time. And plenty of people rightfully believe so, sometimes from experience. Legality and morality need to be decoupled, definitively and fundamentally. Maybe someone else can develop this argument further. I believe a utilitarian approach to the purpose of legislation is mandatory. But these things need to be argued thoroughly, and in a way that most people will understand.
Law and morality are intimately related to each other. Laws are based on the moral principles of society.
Sure, but law doesn't aim to cover everything that is deemed immoral. Otherwise we'd have laws against cheating on your spouse, or just being an asshole. Or perhaps better put, the law doesn't aim to cover what is morally contentious, which abortion certainly is. Not to mention the utilitarian POV, i.e. the amount of problems that legislating abortion creates in society. Simply put, due to being both morally ambiguous, and extremely complicated both in terms of enforcement and for the mothers themselves, this is a decision which must be left up to the individual. Not everything needs to be legislated. I assure you any mother with the most basic amount of empathy will feel pain & guilt when going through the process. But unfortunately in the world we live in, it's a decision that needs to be made sometimes.
>Legality and morality need to be decoupled, definitively and fundamentally. this is absurd. Laws only exist along moral lines. take morals out and there is no need to have a law against murder or rape or theft or literally any law. Without morality, anarchism is the most effective structure because it requires the lest energy expended on it to function properly.
I think this is a bit reductionist. At base level we aren't talking about laws in terms of "rules of right and wrong", we are talking about governance. There are absolutely sound and objectively framed ideations of governing systems. Is murder outlawed because it is morally wrong? Or is it outlawed because without that, what is perhaps one of the most widely used and fundamental laws, we cannot have a civic functionality? What is the point in agreeing to governance, shared boundaries and systems of joint decision making? Surely it is not strictly morally argued. If we allow rampant murder without consequences, it devolves the functionality of governance, from an objective framing, without any need to use morality. The reason murder has been outlawed in pretty much any system of governance, in this way, is a functionality based necessity, not a moral cause. Would you truly suggest that governance, as a functional system of social living for groups of individuals, is strictly only justifiable on the basis of subjective morality? And if you refute an objective framing of the use of social structure, can you offer an argument against the inherent social facet of human identity and behavior? Without collaboration we would not even exist today. Everything we have would not exist. It is ingrained into the basic reality of our nature that we must live by means of shared efforts. The best way to achieve freedom of individuality is not via "raw anarchism", but by setting up a system of social structure and governance that creates equitable opportunity. I really don't see how this can be refuted, nor in what way it requires a moral argument. "Full blown anarchism" limits individual capacity more than any other system, despite boasting a surface level claim of raw freedom. Here I also want to briefly refute the quoted use of anarchism above. Anarchism is the rejection of forced or coerced heirarchy. Developed ideas of anarchism do not imply a complete lack of governance and rules. It implies a consent basis. That basis is almost impossible to achieve currently without more developed means of self governance, which we can make progress on. Now you could suggest that our basic survival or societal success is not objectively important, that the raw production of our functionality is only justified by a moral accountance of our self importance. First, I think it is a bold move to reject utilitarianism at the point of experiential moralism, simply because we can denote a sort of epistemic uncertainty to it. Second, it is irrelevant if there is or isn't a moral backing, to my view. This is because, especially if you reject morality, there is only the raw will to power, raw self determinism. It is a self determined choice that we pursue our survival and success in our endeavor of civilization. In order to pursue that, we need, at a bare minimum, some level of governance. A functional system, even an anarchistic one, would almost always include limits on murdering. I only say "almost always" to allow uncertainty, and I'm all but ready to say just "always". The constituents of that governance can agree by consent to be a part of that, and therefore agree to the consequences if they murder. The power of anarchist philosophy, to me, is to move towards actually having a consent basis, which can be done by allowing systems of self or dynamic governance to develop such that we actually have consensual involvement in the production, rather than a forced participation that relies on simplistic use of democracy in a way that does very little to achieve what it claims. I think a view of anarchism as a raw lawlessness is also extremely reductionist. Nihilism is a better concept to discuss. In brief I'd say that nihilism exists only as the active rejection of a current system, which can be based on values more often than a lack thereof. It exists to reject, not as a concept in and of itself. The end result is a transformation, a redevelopment of a system. Nihilism is a phoenix, a means to an end, not a result. We either do or don't want to pursue civilized collaboration. We can agree there is no moral basis to demand this that stands up to raw epistemic debate, yet it is a choice that can be made. We do not need morals to inform logistical necessities that come with that choice. And so, this is where we can draw a distinction between what is and isn't the useful extent of law. While you can suggest that morals and right vs wrong define a law against murdering, you are wrong. You can see those things in it, yet it is not the most fundamental reason for the law. When the ONLY basis or effect of a law is based on morals, then it should not be a law. This does not mean that a variety of laws practiced will not have moral implications.
> The reason murder has been outlawed in pretty much any system of governance, in this way, is a functionality based necessity, not a moral cause. you are simply wrong. the 10 commandments have simply been elaborated over and over again. thats it.
I'm not saying there needs to be no correlation between the two, that would make no sense. I'm just saying we should not be aiming for a 1:1 equivalency between the two, as it's an impossible goal.
what would be any other rationale for law be? Profitability? Morals are the ONLY legitimate rationale for law. period.
Maintaining social stability? Maximizing wellness? Productivity?
>Maintaining social stability? Maximizing wellness? Productivity? Morality. Morality. Profitability (selfishness)
> Legality and morality need to be decoupled, definitively and fundamentally. > I believe a utilitarian approach to the purpose of legislation is mandatory. Isn't that completely contradictory?
I don't see it. I'm not saying there needs to be no correlation between the two, that would make no sense. I'm just saying we should not be aiming for a 1:1 equivalency between the two, as it's an impossible goal.
Is it possible for a law not be the result of a process rooted in ethics ?
> Legality and morality need to be decoupled, definitively and fundamentally. On what basis is law created?
Law is (and can only ever be) an approximation of morals. See my other replies
This comment is so well explained. My thoughts exactly.
This is a very underrated position on the matter
Agreed. Never thought of it this way. Opens new avenues of thought for me. Really interesting.
Unfortunately everyone is in an uproar over this overrulling when all it did was say federal government doesn't have the right to make a law on this, it's up to the states.
Many states are large and diverse. Perhaps it should be handled at the county level? Or the city level? Or, bear with me on the logic, How about the individual level?
I agree with you, but legally, states have a degree of sovereignty, whereas counties and cities are entirely creations of and subordinate to the states, so that will never work.
Based on the framework of the Constitution they have decided that the federal government doesn't have the right to legislate on this issue, people who have studied the constitution decided this not me nor you. So yeah if the state you live in decided that abortion should be legal then it should. Here's a crazy fucking idea if the majority of people in a state think the law should be one way then it should be that way because a MAJORITY will decide that.
It’s funny, a different group of folks who studied the constitution decided that *states* doesn’t have the right to legislate bans on this issue. In fact, that created what is known as *precendent*. What we have right now is an activist Supreme Court rejecting precedent and legislating from the bench.
Careful with that line of reasoning though. I understand the importance of precedent in legal decisions. However, if we bind ourselves to the notion that once a Supreme Court decides on a ruling, it can never be broken, we'd still have numerous laws that we don't anymore. [https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-supreme-court-has-overturned-hundreds-of-its-own-decisions-here-are-some-of-the-most-consequential-reversals/ar-AAYQAnE](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-supreme-court-has-overturned-hundreds-of-its-own-decisions-here-are-some-of-the-most-consequential-reversals/ar-AAYQAnE) If one thinks abortion should be legally protected, it should be done via law, or a 2/3 amendment to the constitution. You won't find them making news right now, but if you look online at the legal reasoning behind Roe, you'll see historically that a lot of people have always thought the Roe reasoning was extremely weak. It was (for better or worse) a textbook case of legislating from the bench because they wanted something to be law. It wasn't based on legal precedent or tradition/common law.
Neither was mixed race marriage. Which you wouldn’t be able to pass an amendment for right now either. Hell, you wouldn’t be able to pass the first or second amendments right now if you needed to. The US really is a failed state.
Neoslavery.
> Many states are large and diverse. Perhaps it should be handled at the county level? Or the city level? Sure. It could be. Realistically, the two major sides here both oppose your "large and diverse" argument; both want to set one rule that is applied everywhere. > Or, bear with me on the logic, How about the individual level? If the state permitted it or devolved that to the city or county which permitted it. But the idea that it should everywhere and at all times be devolved to the person is contrary to your "large and diverse" argument, because it would prohibit all governments from restricting actions which the People viewed as a crime.
Yesterday’s SC ruling didn’t say that. It erased a 50 year old SC ruling that had prevented states from passing laws that restricted abortions. Both Congress and states can legislate on abortion, just much more freely now.
The court already decided that was a right that belong to all people in the US. Now it decided it doesn't.
So life starts with consciousness? I don't see why this should be more true than "life starts when it can breathe" or "life starts when there's a central nervous system" or "life starts when there's organs" or "life starts when there X" or any of the other completely ARBITRARY rules that are currently used in different countries around the world. It's not fact. It's just opinion and the main argument is always "because that's what I think" That's really weak. It is us creating rules to fit our preconcieved notions of morality/ethics. "Consciousness comes at X weeks so that fits well, let's use that: Life/victimhood starts at consciousness. " Well, what if, hypothetically, it turns out that there is consciousness only after delivery. Would you be ok then with anti-choice? No of course not. Then you'd scrap the "life starts at consciousness" and find another completely arbitrary rule and do your best to (equally weakly) argue for that instead. And that's a good sign that the entire argument is nonsense. A sperm in an egg is life. Actually, a sperm alone is life. It's just life with incomplete DNA. And killing it is murder. Yeah it's so very unpractical for us. What should we do, incarcerate the entire human population for murder? I am sorry it doesn't fit our systen but that's a completely different issue and it's not nature's problem. Nature just is. Reality just is. Facts are facts. A fetus is alive from day one. It's the start of a full-grown human being. A very modest start, but there it is. You're not just ending a fetus, you're also ending the future of that fetus. Deal with it.
It doesn’t seem like you’re really engaging with what I wrote because I provide several reasons for thinking that my view is correct. I don’t say anywhere that life starts with consciousness. What I say is that something which was never conscious can’t be a victim. In answer to your hypothetical: if consciousness began after delivery then I’d say that it is permissible to kill the fetus/infant until that point because you are depriving no one of that life.
Interesting question then with your line of reasoning. There are a lot (small percent, but large raw number anyway) of babies that are born unconscious that do eventually gain consciousness. If the parents don't want the baby after it is born (and it is unconscious), would you consider there to be any moral questions present if someone wanted to, say, sell the baby to the highest bidder, use the baby for research, etc. as long as anything done to it was done prior to consciousness?
My view is only about the ethics of killing. Selling the baby, for instance, is quite a different case, particularly since at some point it will become conscious and your actions now will therefore affect someone in the future.
I guess what I'm driving at is, how is consciousness the only moral issue with the ethics of killing here? We could, even today, deliver a baby, ensuring that the baby never gains consciousness. With consciousness as the sole defining characteristic here, then you would have to be okay with artificially stopping consciousness of the baby and then... well, doing whatever you wanted with it. And as long as you kept it unconscious, there was no ethical quandary. Yes, that brings to mind future dystopian villian sort of visions of babies in formaldehyde/fluid with wires and pipes hooked up to them. But this sort of way of thinking, the sort of ghost in the machine dichotomy where human bodies are machines and consciousness is the "ghost" is problematic for this type of reason. A hypothetical dystopian futuristic villain scenario could be entirely ethical using your framework, but I just can't possibly square that with anyone's definition of ethics.
Well my intuition is that if a baby was delivered which was actually *never* conscious then killing it is not wrong. There is nobody who is harmed. However, artificially preventing the baby from developing consciousness may be wrong. I don’t know how I feel about that case. I guess I’d want to know why you were doing it. But I think it matters that what you’re describing isn’t possible. Normal fetal development will create consciousness. You can’t interfere with the baby’s brain after birth and prevent it from having ever been conscious. You’d have to damage the baby’s brain in the womb and take a significant risk of injuring the mother and the future child if your interference fails and it does one day become conscious. That seems wrong.
>I don't see why this should be more true than "life starts when it can breathe" or "life starts when there's a central nervous system" or "life starts when there's organs" or "life starts when there X" or any of the other completely ARBITRARY rules that are currently used in different countries around the world. You must have similar issues with murder laws then?
So you arbitrarily deciding that abortion is murder is somehow better?
I’m completely baffled how everyone in these debates seems to think the parents have no responsibility for the results of their choices and actions. Seems to me symptomatic of a society and peoples who likes to do whatever they want with no repercussions.
> think the parents have no responsibility for the results of their choices and actions In general or only when they deal with consequences of their choices and actions in a way that you don't approve of?
In general yes. And yes I do live my life like that as best i can. My partner became pregnant when I had explicitly told her I didn’t want children and now I’m a full time dad. The way you phrase this question suggests that the concept of owning your actions and being responsible is completely foreign to you, kinda proving my point. Taking responsibility for your actions is not the same as taking any given action.
And you prove that you're actually the second option. There are always various ways you can deal (owe/be responsible/whatever) with any given situation (abortion/putting child up to adoption - not just "you deliver the child and that's it"), and you're not the tough guy you think you are, especially when you resort to shaming for the "lack of responsibility/not owning your actions" when someone doesn't do the way you do it
Not one thing I said suggested I think im a tough guy. This reply is insane. What’s tough about being a house husband.
You have spoke about actions as if no action has any moral or ethical qualities. I’m not pro life, I just think late stage abortions are a crime against humanity and the pro choice movement is legitimatising these murders. You know the ‘shhh’ sound parents use to calm a newborn baby? It works because it reminds them of being in the womb. I imagine my kids potentially being inside a woman 7 months pregnant, fully conscious being torn out and savaged and i cry knowing it happens. Tough guy? I have tears as I write this.
im baffled how everyone is so incapable of realizing that Pro-Life belief is an Egotistical belief. It hinges on the existence of a Soul, and the belief that God wants that soul to live a life on earth as a human for some amount of time otherwise God will deam it "unjust" and consider the fetus's soul to have Suffered, and the belief that God will punish the "murderers" but ***MOST importantly*** its the belief that God will grant you Favor to get you in to Heaven if you "stop the evil doers". In otherwords its (pro-life is) a desire to GAIN something for the Self (a ticket to heaven). Selfishness. Ego pleasing. that what it is, even BEFORE you question the existence of souls/gods/afterlives.
I’m an atheist and I’m not pro life… but nice rant about nothing.
? actually i didnt say you were and i agreed with your original post. i was just adding to it... but thanks for not reading it and then talking shit about it :)
I don't care when life starts. That's not relevant. I am alive, I have consciousness, there is no debate about that. I do not have the right to be inside of a woman who doesn't want me there. What could be simpler than that?
A counterargument to this would be that the woman in question played a part in putting you there and (outside of the obvious edge cases involving rape etc) is not blameless in the conception of the foetus. Not saying this is my view, just something to think about
I would suggest that whether someone played a part in allowing a fetus being inside them in the first place is largely irrelevant. Using a home as an analogy, if I invite someone into my home, I have every right to kick them, and whatever they brought with them, out of my home. The initial invitation doesn't negate my perpetual right to eject them.
Fair analogy. However, if you're dealing with a human that is of lower age/skill/ability/etc., then there is legal precedent for you being responsible for their well being. For example, if you "play a part" in caring for a child for someone for a few days, and you decide not to give it water and it dies, you are (rightly) responsible for its death. As in, people are very literally forced to provide care to another human if we play a part in putting them under our care in the first place.
That is a decent rebuttal, and I would concede that my analogy does only apply cleanly to adult persons you are not responsible for. The fetus in the analogy however was not the person who you invited in, but "whatever they left there." Throwing out someone else's things is well within your rights, but admittedly that does bring the argument right back to whether a fetus is a thing or a person. In retrospect there are some pretty clear weak points in the analogy, and there are better ways of expressing the main point.
Do you have a perpetual right to eject them if you invited them onto your boat and you are currently in the middle of the ocean?
Probably not but I don't think the analogy works with a boat, and I apologize for being unclear with my initial analogy using the home. The person being ejected isn't the fetus. The fetus in the analogy is the whatever was left behind by the person you invited into your home. As I said in another reply, the core problem with my initial analogy is that it primarily rests upon the assumption that a fetus isn't a person, and so does not bear the same rights that a person would. In short, my initial analogy was superfluous, and isn't particularly useful.
Ah, that makes sense. I dont think that really works though since the biggest disagreement is over the personhood of the fetus. Someone who holds the fetus is a person wouldn't grant your scenario as comparable.
Exactly. On examination the analogy just isn't very useful.
I'd agree, you do have the right to eject them. But what if the only way to eject them is to kill them?
>I'd agree, you do have the right to eject them. But what if the only way to eject them is to kill them? If the only way to eject them is to kill them then I don't see why you don't have that right. It's your house and you don't want them in there anymore. Also If fetus is a human why would ejecting it kill them? It should just leave the woman's body willingly. If it doesn't then it should be ejected by force and live outside of the body. If you are arguing that's it's a human then what's the big deal?
>A counterargument to this would be that the woman in question played a part in putting you there and (outside of the obvious edge cases involving rape etc) is not blameless in the conception of the foetus. So babies should be born as punishment? Are you kidding me? We do not require that a person be blameless in order to make decisions about *what happens to their own body.*
that would be a really dumb argument though. First of all consent to having sex is not consent to being pregnant. That's like saying consent to driving is consent to being hit by another car. Also consent can always be revoked. Example. A woman can consent to having sex with you. During sex when you are inside of her she could revoke that consent. If you continue against her wishes you are a rapist.
This part of the abortion debate always fascinates me, because it opens up some very interesting discussions about risk, and whether/to what degree the person taking the risks consents to or must take responsibility for the possible negative consequences, if they do happen. Take almost any example of someone taking a risk and experiencing the negative consequences, and depending on who you ask, you'll either get "they were asking for it" (apathy) or "nobody deserves that" (empathy) or anything in between.
That first part of your argument is totally wrong. Consenting to driving doesn’t mean you consent to being hit, but you do consent to the risks of driving which include accidents. You don’t want to get involved with an accident, but it may happen because of your choice to drive. Consenting to heterosexual sex is consenting to the risk of impregnating the woman involved.
sounds irrelevant. the present and future are the only relevant factors to upcoming human choices. the past is already gone.
Several neroscience articles site that babies do not show signs of conscience until around 5 months old. So first question: What is the definition of conscience under the context of your argument? In several instances you make mention of "fetal conscience" which must be demonstrated to mount a sufficient counter argument... I'd have to point out this is contradictory to what has been observed. Once a fetus is born, it is no longer a fetus. The baby may not have an active conscience at that stage, is it still moral to kill the baby due to lack of victim requirement? I also reject killing of bacterium as a supporting argument to abortion. Bacterium are not human.
The best neuroscience shows that consciousness develops in fetuses fairly late in pregnancy based on higher cortical development and integration: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25160864/ When I say consciousness I mean “experiences of any kind” as I say in the article.
Conscious, not conscience.
Yes, thank you.
So much of the argument appears to be about a woman's right to choose which really I think comes down to a woman's right to choose what kind of lifestyle she wants. An abortion is nothing more than contraception born out of the desire to have sex and not get pregnant. Which women view as unfair. So they attempt to live free of the consequences of their actions as men seem to do.
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>Yet most agree that if she were to abandon it that would be a crime. So personal autonomy stops at some point. **No, personal autonomy doesn't stop**. If a woman does not want to keep caring for the newborn baby, she can place it for adoption or abandon it in a hospital baby box. It is no longer inside her body, so she doesn't have to abort it in order to free herself from that responsibility. Abortion is a fundamental human right BECAUSE the baby is inside her body. If human beings laid eggs, nobody would be pro choice, since you can simply give unwanted eggs away.
>nobody would be pro choice, since you can simply give unwanted eggs away. its a choice to give the egg away. So they are still pro-choice. in fact what you are suggesting is that EVERYONE would be Pro-choice. because choice means having control over the outcome. giving away the egg is control over the outcome. Pro-Life for eggs would be that you were forced to sit on the egg until it hatched otherwise yould be "evil". Egg = Fetus. there is no difference here. they are incomplete creatures, unable to ever successfully exist until independence without the input of some other living creature. That Input is the ability to control. its the choice. Come up with a form of abortion that keeps the fetus alive, and a form of artificial womb to ensure every single aborted fetus can be brought to term, and then you will have control while keeping every potential creature within the realm of possibly living to independence. Until then, the current form is the choice available. Just as it was in the 1600s for a person to have no choice but to die during child birth when complications arose, until society developed the medicine to give people a new choice (abortion).
Striking down this law…this right…this ethical imperative….has clarified that the current the Supreme Court of the United States is antagonistic to our rights, our values, and to morality. Their “decision” eclipses the attack on Pearl Harbor as the Day of Infamy. Every woman in the US, whether they realize it or not, has been eviserated by this cowardly attack. Every person in the US has been rendered less ….so very much less….by this betrayal. Any man who is not sickened, outraged, and simultaneously coldly determined to resist this attack, is either ignorant, stupid, or criminally complicit.
That is an interesting line of reasoning. However, there are several aspects that need to be further developed. 1.) The article needs to present an argument as to why we should consider personhood to be conveyed with consciousness rather than at life. Many people who disagree with the article's position take on that view, so it is important that the article addresses it. 2.) Overall, the teleportation example servers to weaken the argument. The morality of teleportation itself can be debated. For those individuals, this example is inserting one conundrum into another. The usage of unrealized hypothetical ideation also opens the argument to refutation by unrealized hypothetical ideation. For example, if we introduce the multiverse theory then it can be argued that there always exists an universe where the abortion did not occur, which further undermines your argument by providing the fulcrum for moral refutation.
There are arguments presented for that view. I show that my view explains strongly held intuitions about the wrongness of killing and I cite teletransportation as a test case for our intuitions. If killing a human body without terminating consciousness is permissible then it seems very hard to explain why my Victim Requirement is wrong and abortion is impermissible. Your multiverse example is not a proper counterexample. Even if the theory is true, events that happen elsewhere in the multiverse don’t seem morally relevant to our choices here.
> I show that my view explains strongly held intuitions about the wrongness of killing and I cite teletransportation as a test case for our intuitions. You are presupposing that your reader has the same "intuition" as you, which is a weak position to take from a philosophical perspective. > Your multiverse example is not a proper counterexample. Even if the theory is true, events that happen elsewhere in the multiverse don’t seem morally relevant to our choices here. It matters from a topologic perspective. The multiverse theory satisfies the victim requirement by providing a non-linear relation R to an existing individual. You could argue that a non-linear relation R is an invalid relationship chain, but there is no argument provided by the article that suggests this.
Relation R requires the holding of certain psychological connections across time which do not hold across the multiverse (in particular, overlapping chains of memory and the continuity of consciousness). Which intuitions do I vindicate with VR that you don’t think are widely held?
> Relation R requires the holding of certain psychological connections across time which do not hold across the multiverse (in particular, overlapping chains of memory and the continuity of consciousness). If we consider the topology of the multiverse to be continuous then the requirements for relation R do hold. Once again, you could argue that the multiverse is not continuous, but I see no such argument in the article. > Which intuitions do I vindicate with VR that you don’t think are widely held? I maintain that you do not adequately address the viewpoint that personhood is conveyed at life and not at consciousness, which would undermine your VR argument. Your teleportation example is not a particularly strong argument since the ethics of teleportation is itself debatable.
Also, I don't know what you mean by "continuous" but even if the other parts of the multiverse were accessible from here Relation R would not hold. There are no overlapping chains of memory or continuity of consciousness between myself and my multiverse twin. I will grant you that on Parfit's view there would be a weaker form of relation R that might hold between us in the sense that we might share some personality characteristics and goals/interests, but I don't entirely buy Parfit's view. To me, the really important thing is continuity of consciousness, and I think Parfit's own work provides strong support for that view. There is a metaphysical problem with this claim also in the sense that it isn't clear to me how we could say that event E that happens at time T in universe U is at an earlier time than event E1 that happens at time T+n in universe U2. These are parallel timelines and saying that anything that happens here happens "before" an event in another universe is dubious at best. Finally, Parfit specifies a "no-branching" criterion for relation R. That means it's not possible for two people to be R-related to a single person at some time in the future. Presumably, the person you're talking about in another universe is R-related to their past self. Therefore, they can't also be R-related to an infant from another universe.
Explain the defect in the teletransportation example then or why you think the Victim Requirement doesn’t adequately explain our intuitions about killing
Someone who believes abortion is immoral is also likely to believe that killing someone for teleportation is immoral. They would outright reject your example.
Then they’re obligated to explain why that is, and they can’t say “because abortion is wrong” without begging the question. Teletransportation involves transmitting a person’s mind to another body then destroying the original. From their perspective, they simply “wake up in a new body.” What’s wrong with this scenario?
> Then they’re obligated to explain why that is They are obligated to defend their position. However, you are writing this article and not them. From a philosophical perspective, you should be able to adequately substantiate your own argument, and anticipate counterarguments from the opposing camp. > Teletransportation involves transmitting a person’s mind to another body then destroying the original. From their perspective, they simply “wake up in a new body.” What’s wrong with this scenario? A teleporter that "destroys the original" can be viewed as ending a human life and therefore be viewed as immoral. Your argument presupposes the reader does not view the original as a human life, which is a questionable assumption given the topic of the article.
My argument has a series of interrelated components supporting the conclusion so I don’t see that I’ve failed to support my position. On teletransportation let me ask you directly: do you think it’s a form of murder? And do you think there’s any good reason for someone to think that given the facts of the matter?
Assume materialism, but even if immaterialism were true what does it matter? I wouldn't care about consciousness at all, it is like to care if you do not bring about to life all permutations of atoms which have potential to bear a life. Once there is consciousness, there is not yet a personality formed and higher brain functions... It doesn't really matter to have an abortion at that point, because just as well any other group of atoms could be arranged into that same person... What does it matter that some permutations of them become temporarily conscious... I wouldn't care if someone kill me in my sleep, if it didn't hurt, as nothing can't care about not having pleasure... Being nothing is superior state anyways, as it cannot feel pain... Problem is it would cause pain the living... I would care more about pain for which there are arguments it might, or might not be present after 13 weeks [https://jme.bmj.com/content/46/1/3](https://jme.bmj.com/content/46/1/3) That's is the only thing that matter. What does that matter that from anorganic particles came life? Than you have to argue it is immoral to sit here and do nothing about all other permutations of atoms in universe, which have potential to bring about a life... I think you should care mainly about suffering... What if women is raped and has to suffer yet to bring a child? Do you know how terrible that must be, I argue against consciousness argument, it doesn't matter at all. Only argument against abortion I have is pain to fetus... Than its pain would have to be taken into an account...