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beachdoc

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For the fourth time in my life I feel compelled to investigate and reconsider my stance on abortion.

A little background. For the last 6 or so years I've settled the argument in my head this way. After seeing the difficulty associated with trying to figure out when "personhood" starts, I managed to justify that even if abortion is wrong in every circumstance, a proper respect for the right to human autonomy, especially over body, which should be one of the most essential and inalienable rights, requires that even if we grant personhood to a fetus we could not tell a woman she could not evict, in the same way that if homeless man came to your house and needed food and shelter for the next 9 months to survive you would not be required to do so and could evict him even if it meant he would die. This meant I wasn't okay with abortions after viability. Anyhow, this has been helpful for me over the last 6 years. As a libertarian it played to my strong sense of personal rights. As a medical professional (OB/Gyn) who has personally seen many miscarriages, it allowed me to recognize the moral and ethical significance of that loss as well.

Unfortunately for me, a thought entered my brain. Essentially that thought is this. My analogy I had used assumed a stranger. Obviously, a mother's obligation to her child is much different than a stranger's obligation to another stranger.

It has caused me to doubt my previous moral construct for answering the questions.

If you guys could answer, do you think I should throw out this construct? If so, I'd love to her the arguments you make to yourself to answer the two salient questions. 1) Is abortion wrong? 2) Should abortion be illegal? These are truly two separate questions.

Look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for your help.
 
beachdoc said:
do you think I should throw out this construct?
Click to expand...
It does not matter what anyone else thinks. The decision is yours and yours alone. Sure you can see and consider what others believe, think, etc. but the decision should be yours alone.

1) Is abortion wrong?
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It is strictly a personal decision that everyone should make on their own.

2) Should abortion be illegal?
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No, that would be forcing one's view on others.
 
prometeus said:
It does not matter what anyone else thinks. The decision is yours and yours alone. Sure you can see and consider what others believe, think, etc. but the decision should be yours alone.

It is strictly a personal decision that everyone should make on their own.

No, that would be forcing one's view on others.
Click to expand...

I'm not asking what others think to relieve myself of my obligations to make my own decisions. I'm asking out of humility, because I am not the only person with good ideas, and by discussing it I hope to get a better understanding of both my own thoughts and the world around me.

And if you're gonna answer the two questions, explain in detail. Poll answers are not convincing.
 
beachdoc said:
If you guys could answer, do you think I should throw out this construct? If so, I'd love to her the arguments you make to yourself to answer the two salient questions. 1) Is abortion wrong? 2) Should abortion be illegal? These are truly two separate questions.
Click to expand...

No and no.

As you well know, pregnancy is not a benign condition. It has many potential complications as well as side effects, some of which can be life threatening. It is my belief that no woman should ever be forced to gestate and give birth against her will.

Welcome to the board.
 
prometeus said:
It does not matter what anyone else thinks. The decision is yours and yours alone. Sure you can see and consider what others believe, think, etc. but the decision should be yours alone.

It is strictly a personal decision that everyone should make on their own.

No, that would be forcing one's view on others.
Click to expand...

How do you know beachdoc is female?
 
Scrabaholic said:
No and no.

As you well know, pregnancy is not a benign condition. It has many potential complications as well as side effects, some of which can be life threatening. It is my belief that no woman should ever be forced to gestate and give birth against her will.

Welcome to the board.
Click to expand...

Can you continue to explain more why you don't think it is wrong?
 
beachdoc said:
For the fourth time in my life I feel compelled to investigate and reconsider my stance on abortion.

A little background. For the last 6 or so years I've settled the argument in my head this way. After seeing the difficulty associated with trying to figure out when "personhood" starts, I managed to justify that even if abortion is wrong in every circumstance, a proper respect for the right to human autonomy, especially over body, which should be one of the most essential and inalienable rights, requires that even if we grant personhood to a fetus we could not tell a woman she could not evict, in the same way that if homeless man came to your house and needed food and shelter for the next 9 months to survive you would not be required to do so and could evict him even if it meant he would die. This meant I wasn't okay with abortions after viability. Anyhow, this has been helpful for me over the last 6 years. As a libertarian it played to my strong sense of personal rights. As a medical professional (OB/Gyn) who has personally seen many miscarriages, it allowed me to recognize the moral and ethical significance of that loss as well.

Unfortunately for me, a thought entered my brain. Essentially that thought is this. My analogy I had used assumed a stranger. Obviously, a mother's obligation to her child is much different than a stranger's obligation to another stranger.

It has caused me to doubt my previous moral construct for answering the questions.

If you guys could answer, do you think I should throw out this construct? If so, I'd love to her the arguments you make to yourself to answer the two salient questions. 1) Is abortion wrong? 2) Should abortion be illegal? These are truly two separate questions.

Look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for your help.
Click to expand...

The question might be, whether one wants people to be allowed to terminate human lives or not. Then one might think about which human life should be allowed to be killed when or for what reason and may determine it to be done.
 
Scrabaholic said:
No and no.

As you well know, pregnancy is not a benign condition. It has many potential complications as well as side effects, some of which can be life threatening. It is my belief that no woman should ever be forced to gestate and give birth against her will.

Welcome to the board.
Click to expand...

It is your view, is it.
 
As an ancillary, if you believe it is a right, is the right to an abortion a positive or negative right. That is, does the government have an obligation to make sure you are able to get an abortion, or only does not have the right to prevent it?
 
Scrabaholic said:
For the reason I already gave. It's a form of self defense against the effects of pregnancy.
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I don't think that the doctrine of self defense applies here. Self preservation maybe, but I don't think that's the same thing. Furthermore, if we take the stance that the woman can make that decision, it does not change the fact that to elect for an abortion you have a 100% change for destruction of the fetus, while only avoiding a small increased mortality and severe morbidity rate. While I can see you making the argument that they have a right to preservation no matter the cost, if you grant the embryo or fetus personhood then it is a morally just decision to continue to allow that person to live.
 
beachdoc said:
For the fourth time in my life I feel compelled to investigate and reconsider my stance on abortion.

A little background. For the last 6 or so years I've settled the argument in my head this way. After seeing the difficulty associated with trying to figure out when "personhood" starts, I managed to justify that even if abortion is wrong in every circumstance, a proper respect for the right to human autonomy, especially over body, which should be one of the most essential and inalienable rights, requires that even if we grant personhood to a fetus we could not tell a woman she could not evict, in the same way that if homeless man came to your house and needed food and shelter for the next 9 months to survive you would not be required to do so and could evict him even if it meant he would die. This meant I wasn't okay with abortions after viability. Anyhow, this has been helpful for me over the last 6 years. As a libertarian it played to my strong sense of personal rights. As a medical professional (OB/Gyn) who has personally seen many miscarriages, it allowed me to recognize the moral and ethical significance of that loss as well.

Unfortunately for me, a thought entered my brain. Essentially that thought is this. My analogy I had used assumed a stranger. Obviously, a mother's obligation to her child is much different than a stranger's obligation to another stranger.

It has caused me to doubt my previous moral construct for answering the questions.

If you guys could answer, do you think I should throw out this construct? If so, I'd love to her the arguments you make to yourself to answer the two salient questions. 1) Is abortion wrong? 2) Should abortion be illegal? These are truly two separate questions.

Look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for your help.
Click to expand...
To me a fetus is a human at the beginning of all, each and every individual, our development. We were never a sperm, we were never an egg, we came to be when those two joined forming a distinct pattern, or sequence, of individual, [unless a twin, etc...] of DNA that is separate from either the mother or the father. At that point we are not simply discard-able sperm nor egg that unless joined will never achieve the status of a developing human. And we are not squirrels, so we are humans at the beginning of our development. And unless something happens naturally to stop that process, any other process initiated to terminate this life and continued growth/health should be unconscionable as well as illegal.

As we all must take responsibility for our decisions, after creating a life we cannot simply get rid of it for convenience. After conception when another life is involved, its too late, we should not allow killing of fellow human beings without a declaration of guilt after a judge and juried trial upon indictment for a capital crime. So, perhaps when the mother's life is in true and provable jeopardy, not just her health as that is a bar way too low... and I think many would be open to debate regarding rape. Rape not being a choice. That with a police report concurrent to that assertion of rape, not just a potentially convenient, well, he raped me so I dont want to have this child.

But it was not a choice made by the newly created life, either, so eminently debatable.

So, yes it is wrong and yes it should be illegal, at least in 99% of the cases of pregnancy [ if i remember correctly only 1% of abortions are due to reported rape ] or if the mother's life is genuinely in the balance, then she can choose.
 
beachdoc said:
For the fourth time in my life I feel compelled to investigate and reconsider my stance on abortion.

A little background. For the last 6 or so years I've settled the argument in my head this way. After seeing the difficulty associated with trying to figure out when "personhood" starts, I managed to justify that even if abortion is wrong in every circumstance, a proper respect for the right to human autonomy, especially over body, which should be one of the most essential and inalienable rights, requires that even if we grant personhood to a fetus we could not tell a woman she could not evict, in the same way that if homeless man came to your house and needed food and shelter for the next 9 months to survive you would not be required to do so and could evict him even if it meant he would die. This meant I wasn't okay with abortions after viability. Anyhow, this has been helpful for me over the last 6 years. As a libertarian it played to my strong sense of personal rights. As a medical professional (OB/Gyn) who has personally seen many miscarriages, it allowed me to recognize the moral and ethical significance of that loss as well.

Unfortunately for me, a thought entered my brain. Essentially that thought is this. My analogy I had used assumed a stranger. Obviously, a mother's obligation to her child is much different than a stranger's obligation to another stranger.

It has caused me to doubt my previous moral construct for answering the questions.

If you guys could answer, do you think I should throw out this construct? If so, I'd love to her the arguments you make to yourself to answer the two salient questions. 1) Is abortion wrong? 2) Should abortion be illegal? These are truly two separate questions.

Look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for your help.
Click to expand...

Purely from my own point of view, in most cases abortion is wrong, but it should not be illegal. It is killing, and just like killing can be murder in one context and heroic in a different context, the context of an abortion matters. Unlike other forms of killing, this one takes place within the body of another human being. That makes it different. The government cannot infringe on this killing without infringing on the rights of the person who is pregnant and it is not the place of the government to weigh the life and rights of one person to that of another.
 
CriticalThought said:
Purely from my own point of view, in most cases abortion is wrong, but it should not be illegal. It is killing, and just like killing can be murder in one context and heroic in a different context, the context of an abortion matters. Unlike other forms of killing, this one takes place within the body of another human being. That makes it different. The government cannot infringe on this killing without infringing on the rights of the person who is pregnant and it is not the place of the government to weigh the life and rights of one person to that of another.
Click to expand...

That sounds a lot like what my position has been for the last several years. How would you respond to the idea that the relationship between a parent and child is different, and therefore, even though it is the person's bodily autonomy, we may require parents to do things for their children that we would not require citizens to do for other citizens?
 
beachdoc said:
For the fourth time in my life I feel compelled to investigate and reconsider my stance on abortion.

A little background. For the last 6 or so years I've settled the argument in my head this way. After seeing the difficulty associated with trying to figure out when "personhood" starts, I managed to justify that even if abortion is wrong in every circumstance, a proper respect for the right to human autonomy, especially over body, which should be one of the most essential and inalienable rights, requires that even if we grant personhood to a fetus we could not tell a woman she could not evict, in the same way that if homeless man came to your house and needed food and shelter for the next 9 months to survive you would not be required to do so and could evict him even if it meant he would die. This meant I wasn't okay with abortions after viability. Anyhow, this has been helpful for me over the last 6 years. As a libertarian it played to my strong sense of personal rights. As a medical professional (OB/Gyn) who has personally seen many miscarriages, it allowed me to recognize the moral and ethical significance of that loss as well.

Unfortunately for me, a thought entered my brain. Essentially that thought is this. My analogy I had used assumed a stranger. Obviously, a mother's obligation to her child is much different than a stranger's obligation to another stranger.

It has caused me to doubt my previous moral construct for answering the questions.

If you guys could answer, do you think I should throw out this construct? If so, I'd love to her the arguments you make to yourself to answer the two salient questions. 1) Is abortion wrong? 2) Should abortion be illegal? These are truly two separate questions.

Look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for your help.
Click to expand...

Throw your 15 year old daughter out in the street and see how the law treats you....
 
faithful_servant said:
Throw your 15 year old daughter out in the street and see how the law treats you....
Click to expand...

Exactly why I am reevaluating my previous position. What's your position? How do you address the big questions.
 
beachdoc said:
That sounds a lot like what my position has been for the last several years. How would you respond to the idea that the relationship between a parent and child is different, and therefore, even though it is the person's bodily autonomy, we may require parents to do things for their children that we would not require citizens to do for other citizens?
Click to expand...

so if you force her to give birth, are you then going to evaluate her to ensure she is a fit parent

if you do not evaluate, then you endanger the child mentally, physically and emotionally

who is then responsible

if she could be a fit parent but cannot support the child, are you then going to pay completely for the raising of said child

are you going to force the sperm donor to participate

it gets very murky once you decide to enforce your personal values on another no?
 
beachdoc said:
I don't think that the doctrine of self defense applies here. Self preservation maybe, but I don't think that's the same thing. Furthermore, if we take the stance that the woman can make that decision, it does not change the fact that to elect for an abortion you have a 100% change for destruction of the fetus, while only avoiding a small increased mortality and severe morbidity rate. While I can see you making the argument that they have a right to preservation no matter the cost, if you grant the embryo or fetus personhood then it is a morally just decision to continue to allow that person to live.
Click to expand...

Born people can't use another's body for life support against their will. People cannot be compelled to donate blood (practically risk-free) or bone marrow, even if they are the only known compatible potential donor and the patient would die without the blood or bone marrow (or other organ ie. living donor liver donation). Why should the unborn have rights the born don't have?
 
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beachdoc said:
Exactly why I am reevaluating my previous position. What's your position? How do you address the big questions.
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I stack them up against an external standard. In my case, that's The Bible. If the Bible doesn't address an issue, I go with the law of the land. If that doesn't address the issue, then it's prayer, advice from people I trust and more prayer.
 
Scrabaholic said:
Born people can't use another's body for life support against their will. People cannot be compelled to donate blood (practically risk-free) or bone marrow, even if they are the only known compatible potential donor and the patient would die without the blood or bone marrow (or other organ ie. living donor liver donation). Why should the unborn have rights the born don't have?
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You talk about somebody using another's body for life support against her will. What you aren't sayin is that this somebody wouldn't even exist if not for the choice of his or her mother. That fetus didn't simply spring into a woman's uterus to assault her; he or she was created through his or her mother's choice. And the fetus's only crime is having been created through no fault or choice of his/her own.
 
beachdoc said:
For the fourth time in my life I feel compelled to investigate and reconsider my stance on abortion.

A little background. For the last 6 or so years I've settled the argument in my head this way. After seeing the difficulty associated with trying to figure out when "personhood" starts, I managed to justify that even if abortion is wrong in every circumstance, a proper respect for the right to human autonomy, especially over body, which should be one of the most essential and inalienable rights, requires that even if we grant personhood to a fetus we could not tell a woman she could not evict, in the same way that if homeless man came to your house and needed food and shelter for the next 9 months to survive you would not be required to do so and could evict him even if it meant he would die. This meant I wasn't okay with abortions after viability. Anyhow, this has been helpful for me over the last 6 years. As a libertarian it played to my strong sense of personal rights. As a medical professional (OB/Gyn) who has personally seen many miscarriages, it allowed me to recognize the moral and ethical significance of that loss as well.

Unfortunately for me, a thought entered my brain. Essentially that thought is this. My analogy I had used assumed a stranger. Obviously, a mother's obligation to her child is much different than a stranger's obligation to another stranger.

It has caused me to doubt my previous moral construct for answering the questions.

If you guys could answer, do you think I should throw out this construct? If so, I'd love to her the arguments you make to yourself to answer the two salient questions. 1) Is abortion wrong? 2) Should abortion be illegal? These are truly two separate questions.

Look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for your help.
Click to expand...

1) Is abortion wrong?
Depends, once it gets past a certain stage, for example when the fetus would be viable outside the uterus, yes it would be wrong. Otherwise no. you asked to explain our take on this as well. Let me see if I can try to explain it as I see it. People make mistakes, being forced to have an unwanted child would only confound the mistake further. Let me give you a scenario, a 14 year old run away starts having sex while she is high as a kite on cocaine, she gets pregnant, she wants to get an abortion but the government has ruled them illegal, do you think that that kid going to grow up in an environment that is beneficial to the kid? More than likely, no.

So, I guess my argument comes more from thinking of the child that is unwanted yet the mother was forced to have it, what kind of life is that kid going to have? I feel that children should be entitled to growing up in an environment where they are cared for, loved, and nourished, if you can't provide those, then you have no business having a kid.

2) Should abortion be illegal? No. Reasons: See Above.
 
beachdoc said:
If you guys could answer, do you think I should throw out this construct? If so, I'd love to her the arguments you make to yourself to answer the two salient questions. 1) Is abortion wrong? 2) Should abortion be illegal? These are truly two separate questions.

Look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for your help.
Click to expand...

1. Abortion is both and neither. It depends on your own moral standards and the circumstances

As an example if you get abortion because you dont want to quit drinking for 9 months thats immoral

If you get an abortion because you cant quit drinking for 9 months and the kid is going to be born with down syndrome. Thats a morale reason to abort

2. I personally do t think abortion should be illegal but understand if they did make it illegal absent of a good reason to abort


Sent from my SM-G920P using Tapatalk
 
beachdoc said:
I'm not asking what others think to relieve myself of my obligations to make my own decisions. I'm asking out of humility, because I am not the only person with good ideas, and by discussing it I hope to get a better understanding of both my own thoughts and the world around me.
Click to expand...
OK that is the way to go.

And if you're gonna answer the two questions, explain in detail. Poll answers are not convincing.
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I am not sure what detail I can add to what I said. I believe in freedom and thus being free to make my own decisions on all matters, while not forcing any of my beliefs, convictions or positions on others and respecting their freedoms.
 
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