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[W:560] Abortion 101

Angel said:
No, life is a mystery, but within that mystery human life is clearly defined by DNA. Six jars of formaldehyde containing six specimens of different mammalian embryos and the identification of the human embryo is certain.
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Umm...you've missed the point exactly. Every cell contains the markers of "Human life" which means every single cell is a "Human lifeform" by your own argument.

Thus my point when I said if we accept your simple definition then every time you harm any single cell in your body you have "killed" a "Human life." Your argument fails on the merits by your own response, since your definition is too broad.
 
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Any pregnancy carries real risk. It's not like the mortality rate of pregnant women is zero. There are also a myriad of medical conditions associated with pregnancy, during and post. By the logic of the OP, any abortion could therefore be seen as self-defense.
 
Angel said:
This other being was invited in, no?
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Most ( over 65 percent of US women of child bearing years ) use artifical Birth control contraceptives consistently.

Thus they said no to an unwanted pregnancy.
 
Angel said:
"Human life" is not a matter of a poll; it's a matter of DNA.
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And most ( about 2/3 of fertilized human eggs ) do not live more than a week or two. They usually pass right through the body or self abort within the first week of implantion.

It does not matter if they had DNA.
 
Angel said:
The taking of human life for any reason other than self-defense is immoral.

Except where the pregnant woman's life is at risk, abortion is immoral.
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Since when are you only allowed to use violent force to defend yourself if the person is actually murdering you?

If someone is attempting to physically injure you or cause you any pain whatsoever against your will you have a legal right to use whatever force is necessary to make them stop. Now, in most cases you don't need to use force, you can just run away. But when the person causing you pain is actually inside of you then removing that person is the only means at your disposal.

Take, for example, Trevon Martin. Martin was allegedly on top of George Zimmerman punching him. Despite Martin being a child, and despite it being Zimmerman's own fault that Martin was attacking him so long as Zimmerman had a legitimate fear for his own safety(or in the case just a debatable fear for his safety) he was legally allowed to shoot and kill Trevon Martin.

So, in essence, Republicans considered Travon Martin to be nothing more than an incredibly late-term abortion by someone that wasn't even the mother and that was fine.
 
bongsaway said:
Nothing. Abortion is the law and yet so many folks seem to get upset when women use that particular law.
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The OP calls our attention to the distinction between the moral and the legal question, and leaves off comment on the rationalization involved in the latter. Perhaps the people you refer to in your post are upset with the legal rationalization, yes?
 
Skeptic Bob said:
And I'm saying it isn't your DNA that makes me care about you, Angel. I care about what happens to you and believe that you should have rights. Why? It isn't because your DNA is similar to mine, or that you have a beating heart, or that you have hands and feet, or that you breath oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. The only thing that makes you matter to me as a person, morally speaking, is that you have a mind. And a mind is an emergent property of a functioning, sufficiently developed brain.

So it doesn't matter how you define "human life". The phrase "human life" doesn't address what makes a human a person, morally speaking, not legally speaking (which is settled law).

The following bit of sci-fi is just to make a point, I'm not making any predictions about it: Some day it could be possible to replicate the operations of the human brain via software on a computer or an articial hardware brain. Maybe we could "download" or "copy" our consciousnesses over or created unique artificial beings that posses consciousnesses in their own right. If that ever happens, my position doesn't change. It is the mind, not the bits and pieces, that make someone, or something, a "person" morally speaking.

Now, I find that many religious people don't buy my above reasoning, and I think I know why. It is because they focus on words like "DNA" and "human life" to keep things secular. But I don't think those are the things they really care about, just as they aren't the things I really care about. No, just as I believe it is the mind that makes a person a person, I think a large percentage of pro-life religious people believe it is the soul that makes a person a person. And if you believe that and you believe that a human life is infused with a "soul" at conception, then of course you are going to think it is immoral to abort a fetus at any stage. But pro-lifers know that in order to have a chance in the courts they have to make their case as secular as possible. They also know that the argument holds no sway on those of us who don't believe in souls or spirits or ghosts and such.

That is how I see things, anyway. There are a minority of atheists who also oppose early term abortions but their reasoning isn't internally consistent to me, while at least the position of pro-lifers who believe in souls is internally consistent.
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Your physicalist assumptions and speculations do not reach anything on the order of mind, spirit or soul, and accordingly never rise above the sphere of DNA, which is present and active from the zygote on. In short, physicalism has no answer to the moral argument and merely a legal fiction for the rationalization involved in the legal argument. Rejoin me in the Philosophy of Spirit thread for cigars and brandy and we can discuss this soberly without the hot-button issue of abortion jangling anyone's nerves.
 
Lursa said:
There's no rationalization, only fact or opinion based on fact/law.

For people arguing from the view that abortion should be illegal, that's what that means. You cant have one without the other.

What is your reason for objecting to it?
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I don't understand what you're asking here. But your rationalization is a rationalization is a rationalization despite your wish to call it something else.
 
Lursa said:
Personhood is not a red herring, it's a legitimate legal/political term. It has clear criteria.

So does 'human life,' as you say, with human DNA.

Both of these are based on *objective* criteria.

In neither example is value applied, value is subjective.

While you can hold any opinion on abortion that you desire, you cannot do anything about abortion without using the law. And then the law must take into consideration women, for whom the violation of rights, bodily sovereignty, and self-determination have huge ethical impacts. The law does not operate in a vacuum, it has consequences.
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Personhood is a legal fiction. The law is the result of the rationalization mentioned in the OP -- a rationalization you seem intent to cite chapter and verse of in each and every post you make in this forum. Bene. I'm pro-life and pro-choice after all. I'm just trying to keep everyone honest.
 
Captain Adverse said:
Umm...you've missed the point exactly. Every cell contains the markers of "Human life" which means every single cell is a "Human lifeform" by your own argument.

Thus my point when I said if we accept your simple definition then every time you harm any single cell in your body you have "killed" a "Human life." Your argument fails on the merits by your own response, since your definition is too broad.
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No, not by my argument, but by your sophistical spin on my argument. By your precious reasoning there is no difference between killing a man and giving him a haircut. Yours is a reductio ad absurdum of my argument. In short, you distort the point to dispute it.
 
minnie616 said:
Most ( over 65 percent of US women of child bearing years ) use artifical Birth control contraceptives consistently.

Thus they said no to an unwanted pregnancy.
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They said probably no.
 
minnie616 said:
And most ( about 2/3 of fertilized human eggs ) do not live more than a week or two. They usually pass right through the body or self abort within the first week of implantion.

It does not matter if they had DNA.
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This is an argument for the preciousness of human life, it seems to me.
 
MrWonka said:
Since when are you only allowed to use violent force to defend yourself if the person is actually murdering you?

If someone is attempting to physically injure you or cause you any pain whatsoever against your will you have a legal right to use whatever force is necessary to make them stop. Now, in most cases you don't need to use force, you can just run away. But when the person causing you pain is actually inside of you then removing that person is the only means at your disposal.

Take, for example, Trevon Martin. Martin was allegedly on top of George Zimmerman punching him. Despite Martin being a child, and despite it being Zimmerman's own fault that Martin was attacking him so long as Zimmerman had a legitimate fear for his own safety(or in the case just a debatable fear for his safety) he was legally allowed to shoot and kill Trevon Martin.

So, in essence, Republicans considered Travon Martin to be nothing more than an incredibly late-term abortion by someone that wasn't even the mother and that was fine.
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You conflate the moral and the legal questions. And your analogy is far-fetched and politically partisan. The OP points to, but steers clear of, politics.
 
Angel said:
You conflate the moral and the legal questions. And your analogy is far-fetched and politically partisan. The OP points to, but steers clear of, politics.
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I disagree.

The health of the woman is a very moral reason for abortion.

Any pregnancy can take a turn at a moments notice and put the woman’s health and even her life at risk, at a point where an abortion once the symptoms are there will be too late to prevent a death of the woman or lifelong major irreparable disability.

That’s why no woman should be forced to take the risk if she wants an early elective abortion it should be her choice not to risk the pregnancy. Some women can sence there is something wrong ahead of time.


Life threatening complications aren't rare up to 8 percent of all pregnancies affected by pre- eclampsia or one of it's variants including HELLP syndrome.

We never know when a pregnancy might take a turn and become life threatening to someone we love.

Another 1 to 2.5 percent of pregnancies are ectopic pregnancies which are also life threatening.

So about 1 out 10 pregnancies can be life threatening just from 2 of the many types of life threatening complications.... eclampsia variants and ectopic pregnancies.

My daughter had HELLP syndrome with her pregnancy and she was very close to death when they performed the emergency
C section.

She went to the ER a few weeks before her due date because she was getting a horrible pain in her back just below her ribs which was caused because her liver was being damaged from the HELLP syndrome.
Usually there is pain the upper right part of the abdomen but her pain was in the back because her liver was swelling and shutting down.
They were worried her liver might fail.


Her OB/GYN was shocked when her test results came back showing she had HELLP syndrome. She had just seen him a couple days before and everything with the pregnancy appeared fine then.

My daughter was one the up to 8 percent of women in the US who every year developes 'preeclampsia, eclampsia, or a related condition such as HELLP syndrome." Thankfully she was not one of the roughly 300 US women who do die from the syndrome every year but she was one of the roughly 75,000 women every year who are counted as near misses.

From the following article:


Every year in the U.S., up to 8 percent, or 300,000, of pregnant or postpartum women develop preeclampsia, eclampsia, or a related condition such as HELLP syndrome.

Roughly 300 women die, and another 75,000 women experience “near misses”—severe complications and injury such as organ failure, massive blood loss, permanent disability, and premature birth or death of their babies.
Usually, the disease resolves with the birth of the baby and placenta. But, it can occur postpartum—indeed, most maternal deaths occur after delivery.
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Beyond Downton Abbey: Preeclampsia Maternal Deaths Continue Today

A little more about HELLP Syndrome:

HELLP syndrome is a life-threatening pregnancy complication usually considered to be a variant of preeclampsia. Both conditions usually occur during the later stages of pregnancy, or sometimes after childbirth.

HELLP syndrome was named by Dr. Louis Weinstein in 1982 after its characteristics:

H (hemolysis, which is the breaking down of red blood cells)
EL (elevated liver enzymes)
LP (low platelet count)

HELLP syndrome can be difficult to diagnose, especially when high blood pressure and protein in the urine aren't present. Its symptoms are sometimes mistaken for gastritis, flu, acute hepatitis, gall bladder disease, or other conditions.

The global mortality rate of HELLP syndrome has been reported to be as high as 25%.
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HELLP Syndrome: Preeclampsia Foundation

Now many women like myself and my daughter continue our pregnancies because we choose to become parents.

But I cannot morally support a law or a country that did not allow elective abortions (before viability ) and thus forced women to continue a pregnancy that may very well put her long term health or life at risk.

On the other side of the coin I could not morally support a law or a country that would force a women to have an abortion against her will even if her unborn were so malformed that if it did survive birth it would cost taxpayers millions of dollars in medical care.

Each woman should have the legal option to choose whether or not she wishes to continue her pregnancy.
 
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Angel said:
You conflate the moral and the legal questions. And your analogy is far-fetched and politically partisan. The OP points to, but steers clear of, politics.
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It's impossible to steer clear of politics. If you're asking how we, as a society, grapple with this morally, then you specifically asking a political question because society does not have one set of morals unless they are codified in some way.

You already answered your own OP without realizing it. If it's OK to abort if the mother's life is in jeopardy or self-defense, then any pregnancy qualifies, since every pregnancy carries some degree of mortal risk. You can read about it here. Yes, the number is small, but it's not insignificant. If there is any risk of death or disease from pregnancy, then could every abortion not then fall under self-defense or life saving?

I think you need to change your criteria around your moral question. If you want to take the moral high ground, then you should explain the inherent hypocrisy in the belief that a fetus is precious and should be saved from murder in one instance vs. it's okay to to do away with it in another. It's either precious or isn't. How do you explain this discrepancy?
 
Angel said:
No, the many just forgot they sent the invitation.
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Many people don't view sex as an invitation for pregnancy.

They view sex more recreationally.
 
Angel said:
"Personhood" is a political red herring. "Human life" is clearly defined by DNA.
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Very true. That is why a human tumor, containing human DNA, is also human life. For that matter all parts of the body are also human life, except the outer layers of skin and hair. Those are dead. And that is why personhood is important.

In your analogy, if you volunteered, you have no right to disconnect unless your own life is put at risk.
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Actually, it is already established that you do have such a right. You cannot be required to continue to have your body used in any manner that you do not wish. That is the entire basis of bodily autonomy. It is the exact same.principle that allows a person to withdraw permission during sex even in the middle of it.

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Skeptic Bob said:
And I'm saying it isn't your DNA that makes me care about you, Angel. I care about what happens to you and believe that you should have rights. Why? It isn't because your DNA is similar to mine, or that you have a beating heart, or that you have hands and feet, or that you breath oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. The only thing that makes you matter to me as a person, morally speaking, is that you have a mind. And a mind is an emergent property of a functioning, sufficiently developed brain.

So it doesn't matter how you define "human life". The phrase "human life" doesn't address what makes a human a person, morally speaking, not legally speaking (which is settled law).

The following bit of sci-fi is just to make a point, I'm not making any predictions about it: Some day it could be possible to replicate the operations of the human brain via software on a computer or an articial hardware brain. Maybe we could "download" or "copy" our consciousnesses over or created unique artificial beings that posses consciousnesses in their own right. If that ever happens, my position doesn't change. It is the mind, not the bits and pieces, that make someone, or something, a "person" morally speaking.

Now, I find that many religious people don't buy my above reasoning, and I think I know why. It is because they focus on words like "DNA" and "human life" to keep things secular. But I don't think those are the things they really care about, just as they aren't the things I really care about. No, just as I believe it is the mind that makes a person a person, I think a large percentage of pro-life religious people believe it is the soul that makes a person a person. And if you believe that and you believe that a human life is infused with a "soul" at conception, then of course you are going to think it is immoral to abort a fetus at any stage. But pro-lifers know that in order to have a chance in the courts they have to make their case as secular as possible. They also know that the argument holds no sway on those of us who don't believe in souls or spirits or ghosts and such.

That is how I see things, anyway. There are a minority of atheists who also oppose early term abortions but their reasoning isn't internally consistent to me, while at least the position of pro-lifers who believe in souls is internally consistent.
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I have used similarly to this in other positions where personhood.is important. You could just as easily use Star Trek or Star Wars references. Are Wokkies or Vulcans any less deserving of rights because they are not human? Personhood is the key to it all.

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Angel said:
This other being was invited in, no?
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When you have cases of rape or failed birth control, then no, they were not invited in. Some will welcome them despite not having invited them in. And those that did invite them in very rarely kick them out later, and even then usually due to major health issues.

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Northern Light said:
Any pregnancy carries real risk. It's not like the mortality rate of pregnant women is zero. There are also a myriad of medical conditions associated with pregnancy, during and post. By the logic of the OP, any abortion could therefore be seen as self-defense.
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As a point of note, when has the mortality rate of anything been zero?

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