Abortion

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Danoff

Danoff

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The thread about aborting handicapped children seemed to beg the question. Are you pro-life? Are you pro choice? If you are, when if ever is it ok to abort a baby? At conception? After 6 months of pregnancy? Why is that the cuttoff in your mind?

Should one be allowed to abort if it endangers the mother's life? In cases of rape? Are contraceptives ok in your book?
 
I would say I'm generally pro-life. But I break it down like this ...

You get one choice for conception to birth. If you chose the act of conception, you have no choice in birth. If you did not choose the act of conception, you may choose whether or not to have the child.

Now, "we chose to have sex but didn't intend to have a child" doesn't count. You were up in the woman's honey hole, what the hell did you expect to happen? Your choice has been made.

If the woman is raped she apparently isn't chosing to have a guy impregnate her. She still has a choice left.

The problem with my approach is that there will be an increasing amount of rape claims just so the woman can have an abortion. The line gets fuzzy. You would have couples scheming that she was raped, even by her boyfriend, so she can avert the child. Then after the abortion declair she isn't pressing charges on the guy. So then you may want stricter laws that allow the state to press charges on rapists or what-not. Now you've got a great scape-goat for a psycho woman who just wants revenge on her boyfriend. Get pregnant, get abortion, let the state handle all the legal fees.

Pfft, how about dumbass kids are just responsible for their actions?
 
Thanks for getting the ball rolling loud.

Let me throw my hat in the ring.


I think that the baby is a part of the mother's body until the umbillical chord is severed. I think that because it is physically attached and leeches off of her nutrient supply. Therefore, just as the mother has control whether she has an arm or a leg, I think it is her body and she can chose to abort the baby.

Yes that's right. Even if the baby is out of the mother and breathing and crying... I think it can be aborted. As long as the umbillical chord is still attached.

The line has to be drawn somewhere and I drew it at a logical place. The only other logical place I can see is at conception as loud discussed. But even then, I think the mother has control over her own body.
 
Originally posted by danoff

I think that the baby is a part of the mother's body until the umbillical chord is severed. I think that because it is physically attached and leeches off of her nutrient supply. Therefore, just as the mother has control whether she has an arm or a leg, I think it is her body and she can chose to abort the baby.

Yes that's right. Even if the baby is out of the mother and breathing and crying... I think it can be aborted. As long as the umbillical chord is still attached.
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Couldnt have said it (know for a fact :P ) better myself,.. well put :cheers:
 
Originally posted by danoff

Yes that's right. Even if the baby is out of the mother and breathing and crying... I think it can be aborted. As long as the umbillical chord is still attached.
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What special importance does the umbilical cord have? What is the difference if the baby is two days old (two days since the umbilical cord is cut) and dependent solely on the mother's breast for survival?
 
Originally posted by milefile
What special importance does the umbilical cord have? What is the difference if the baby is two days old (two days since the umbilical cord is cut) and dependent solely on the mother's breast for survival?
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I think he covered that with - The line has to be drawn somewhere and I drew it at a logical place.
 
I dont see any problem with the logic,...

Baby attached = No right to life

Baby not attached = Right to life

With your example,.. your saying that if a baby is scheduled for adoption, and the addoptive parents find something wrong(2 days later), they can "abort it"? I dont think so.
 
Danoff's logic says that if a baby is born, and the mother thinks it's ugly, she can stab it in the head before the cord is cut and call it an "abortion".
 
I think what you are suggesting is bad. I think this special emphasis on the umbilical cord is arbitrary and not thought through. You used the word "attached", as if it clearly illucidates something. I think you don't have a thorough understanding of the word. I would call the perspective that accepts this logic something like "biological reductionism", or "physical determinism", both of which are "isms", and they are generally bad for logic.

I'm not going to freak out or get upset about this, even though the idea deeply offends me, because I know this logic will never see real application in the western world, and there is a reason for this: Most people would call what you are suggesting "infantacide", and their logic is no more or less flawed than yours.
 
Originally posted by DGB454
Let's kill everyone over 60 while were at it.
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I dont know if they need to die, but they definately need a manditory driving test every year ;)

But your example might be better off in the long run.
 
if its legal then go for it. i really dont care on the situation. its not like its really a life yet. ya its "alive." but it hasnt been born and havent started to learn and make a mind and life of its own yet. if you really think u got pregnant the night before just take an after morning pill and thats that. it saves a big headache and its not as "cruel and evil" as some people would say abortion is.
 
Originally posted by SS69
if its legal then go for it. i really dont care on the situation. its not like its really a life yet. ya its "alive." but it hasnt been born and havent started to learn and make a mind and life of its own yet. if you really think u got pregnant the night before just take an after morning pill and thats that. it saves a big headache and its not as "cruel and evil" as some people would say abortion is.
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You didn't read any of the posts, did you?
 
Before the chord is cut, the baby is a phisiological parasite and hence a drain on the mother that she has no choice over. Once the chord is cut the baby no longer has a direct route to drain on the mother's health - at that point it is the choice of the mother to support it.

I think the baby should be able to be aborted while it is "part" of the mother. In order for it to be "part" of the mother, I define it (because this is the only clear way to define it) as phisiologically connected.

I think I already made my point clear, but I don't understand your point mile. You're saying that the line I drew is arbitrary, but it makes perfect sense to me. Where would you draw the line and why? Like I said, the only other place I can see drawing the line is conception. After that it's a weird sort of slippery slope issue until you get to the physical separation of mother and baby.

(note that the father has no role here)

Also, infantacide is exactly what we're talking about here. I'm asking when you think it's infantacide and when you think it's not. That defines your stand on the subject. So bascially you're telling me that the line needs to be drawn earlier. I await your reasoning (if you chose to contribute).
 
I take the being's capacity to suffer as the logical point at which killing it becomes wrong. There is more gray area and it is not as straight forward. There is evidence that babies perceive in the womb at around six months. That is why, to me, this is a logical cut-off time. Anything after is wrong except in the most extraordinary circumstances ( I leave these undefined for now). Being a parasite doesn't strip the baby of anything. Babies continue to be parasites for a long time after birth in a way similar to mosquitoes: not always physically connected but still utterly dependent on another being's survival. Babies contribute nothing to society in their immediate existence. Their futures are inestimable.

The notion that people can choose up until the last minute shelters them from risk in an unreasonable way that reminds me of superfluous legislation designed to protect people from their own actions; babies are the result of people's own actions. It is a matter of responsibility.

Your argument for the umbilical cord is, indeed, logical. I also think it is oversimplified at the baby's expense, the baby who is born, is crying, and does not know it is a parasite, only that it is. And we know it never asked for any of this.

I'm aware that this is all bias and I have already admited that your condition is logical. There is a logic to bias as well, and this is why anyone is able to choose at all. Some things are not as simple as others.

If it was my choice to decide whether to make it criminal to kill a delivered baby as long as the cord is not cut I would be faced with a disturbing moral dilemma. Perhaps as a guideline I would ask "Is this a thing I would witness personally?" Or maybe that's not a good guideline.
 
Originally posted by danoff
Before the chord is cut, the baby is a phisiological parasite and hence a drain on the mother that she has no choice over. Once the chord is cut the baby no longer has a direct route to drain on the mother's health - at that point it is the choice of the mother to support it.

I think the baby should be able to be aborted while it is "part" of the mother. In order for it to be "part" of the mother, I define it (because this is the only clear way to define it) as phisiologically connected.

I think I already made my point clear, but I don't understand your point mile. You're saying that the line I drew is arbitrary, but it makes perfect sense to me. Where would you draw the line and why? Like I said, the only other place I can see drawing the line is conception. After that it's a weird sort of slippery slope issue until you get to the physical separation of mother and baby.

(note that the father has no role here)

Also, infantacide is exactly what we're talking about here. I'm asking when you think it's infantacide and when you think it's not. That defines your stand on the subject. So bascially you're telling me that the line needs to be drawn earlier. I await your reasoning (if you chose to contribute).
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Danoff.

I would like to see how you feel about the situation when you are standing in the delivery room and your child is still attached to the chord. I'm betting you will be talking differently. I don't know any mother or father with a conscience who could abort their child at that point. Are you just playing the devils advocate or do you really believe that way?
 
I think they're just stiring the ****. See who will step in it.

So it's ok to kill the child so long as they're still attached via the umbillical cord. I think that's dumb. If you're going to draw a line, how about we say the child is willing to die unless it can prove otherwise - sounds good to me.

Next time I see a 3 year old I'm going to stick a gun in its mouth and ask it if it wants to live. If it can't answer in 5 seconds I'm going to pull the trigger.
 
I would like to see how you feel about the situation when you are standing in the delivery room and your child is still attached to the chord. I'm betting you will be talking differently. I don't know any mother or father with a conscience who could abort their child at that point. Are you just playing the devils advocate or do you really believe that way?
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I am actually not playing devil's advocate here. I know that it is a disgusting thought to think of what I am suggesting. I also know that I could never... NEVER... do the extreme case that I am talking about. I'm not sure I could abort my own baby at any time, let alone at the lost possible minute.

Once again, what I am talking about here is to make something right because it makes sense, rather than to just follow my gut instinct. My instinct tells me that if I can hear it and see it it is alive and an individual, but that's not what makes sense to me from a medical point of view.

The default when it comes to personal rights should be that a thing is ok to do. If the thing in question infringes on someone else's rights, then it should be protected by law. The question here is when is the baby an individual. The only clear line I can draw is physical separation. Is it brain waves? Then a brain dead person is no longer an individual. Is it a heart beat? That's awefully early in the process and seems as arbitrary as breathing. A heart beat doesn't suggest an individual human being to me. It seems like an individual should have a few rights even after they're dead, so a heat beat doesn't quite do it for me. Then what is it? Physical separation is the only thing I can come up with.

Now, that makes sense to me, so if that is the case, the baby has no rights until it is physically separated. Some people would abuse this and kill the baby at the last possible moment after it were out and breathing. I would never do this, but it is the conclusion I arrived at.

I'd like to add that I'm not completely set on this. If you can suggest a better clear time when a baby becomes an individual with rights... I'm all ears.
 
The notion that people can choose up until the last minute shelters them from risk in an unreasonable way that reminds me of superfluous legislation designed to protect people from their own actions; babies are the result of people's own actions. It is a matter of responsibility.
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That is an interesting point, and you know I hate laws that protect people from themselves. This isn't a question of protecting people from their own actions to me, but of personal rights. As I pointed out above, when the baby is an individual it has rights, before then it is at the mother's descretion because it should be considered her body (which she owns completely).

The question then is when is the baby an individual. It's not really about protecting people from their decisions. I like the point though, and hadn't thought about it from that angle.
 
For your pro-lifers out there. I know that what I said is really disgusting, but think about it this way - it may gross some pro-choice people out enough to become pro-lifers. I might actually be doing you a favor - and you can rest assured I won't be doing any of this myself.

Also, the other clear line that I can see drawing is at conception. Of course then we'd have to claim the a pair of splitting cells is an individual with rights (which I don't really want to do). Or we could use the soul argument. I'm not sure how we're going to figure out when the fetus is actually injected with a soul.
 
Let me weigh in here with something I hope will be useful.

Good moral reasoning must be based on prior good moral reasoning. Subsequently, good laws are based on a foundation of good laws established before it. I think the problem with trying to come to terms with a very difficult issue like abortion is determining the rights of the zygote/fetus/infant and mother: you have a shakey foundation to work with because no one can agree on the definition of when life begins, so there's little basis on the timing of when to grant legal protection to a fetus.

The most reasonable view I've come to on defining the point at which a person is alive, is to look at the legal definition of when a person is dead and the consequences for people who cause death.

You can then use (as a guideline) these rules to determining when a person is alive (and the consequences for the two people who caused it).

A trained physician can pronounce death and the cause. If the cause was natural, then there is no one else involved in the death, therefore no action is needed. But if the person is murdered, then there are legal consequences.

Similarly, a trained physician should be able to pronounce life using the same criteria they use to denone lack of life. Life functions like heart and brain activity can be used to legally pronounce someone as "alive". Since I'm not a physician, I can't nail down the details, but people well trained and more fair than I can certainly do this.

Once a person is legally alive, regardless of whether or not they require assistance to continue living, should granted the rights any of us have. Just like unplugging the life support on a person in a vegatative state is still murder, so is removing a fetus from a mother's body.

Convinently, our laws already have rules for what to do with people who cause death (intentional or accidently) so it is easy to adapt the responsibility to people who cause life: they are both responsible equally, regardless of whether the life was intentional or accidental.

The key is a fair and enlightened understanding of when a person is truly 'alive'. I have read that brain activity begins in a fetus 6-8 weeks after conception. That is probably a reasonable place to begin.



///M-Spec
 
Originally posted by ///M-Spec


The most reasonable view I've come to on defining the point at which a person is alive, is to look at the legal definition of when a person is dead and the consequences for people who cause death.
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So then maybe the logical definition of life would be simply reversing the definition of death. If death means "no heartbeat", then life means "heart is beating" (of course I don't know if those are the definitions). Life and death are opposites. This is also very logical.

The parasite element, which can easily (and preferably) be left out of the question entirely, is far to ambiguous. The are many levels of parasitical existence and it is simply not a reliable way to determine if something is alive.
 
Originally posted by milefile
So then maybe the logical definition of life would be simply reversing the definition of death. If death means "no heartbeat", then life means "heart is beating" (of course I don't know if those are the definitions). Life and death are opposites. This is also very logical.
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Yes, precisely. There's a set of rules that trauma physicians use to determine when a patient is unrecoverable and declare them dead. I don't know what those are, but its a little more complex than heartbeat and brainwaves.. I'll ask a doctor friend.


Originally posted by milefile
The parasite element, which can easily (and preferably) be left out of the question entirely, is far to ambiguous. The are many levels of parasitical existence and it is simply not a reliable way to determine if something is alive.
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Agreed. Again, my analogy in my first post: if you cut life-support to a person who is in a coma --completely dependant on people to sustain life, but otherwise physically healthy and not in any pain, its still murder. A fetus in a mother's womb is not unlike that.


///M-Spec
 
Let's see. Don't have sex if you don't want a baby. That seems simple enough to me. Just because you can't put a condom on or use birth control doesn't mean you should be able to slice a fetus to death with a coathanger.

If you're raped, I believe it is very rare that you will be impregnated as a result of the shock to your system. This may just be a fallacy but it makes sense to me. Someone please inform me if I'm wrong. In the cases where you are pregnant post-rape, you should be able to vacuum the fetus out of your womb as long as it is done within the first month after the rape. They do use a vacuum, right?

On the other hand, it may be better if the baby were born and set up with a foster family. I mean, I'd be pretty pissed if I were aborted. I know there would be no way of knowing that, but you get the idea I hope.
 
Originally posted by Klostrophobic
Let's see. Don't have sex if you don't want a baby. That seems simple enough to me. Just because you can't put a condom on or use birth control doesn't mean you should be able to slice a fetus to death with a coathanger.
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While this is a trivial thing, I should note that even with condoms/birth control, there is still a chance of becoming impregnated, miniscule as it may be.

So far, ///M-Spec's proposal seems the best and most logical to me. 👍 (Not to mention people are less likely to pounce upon it, which would be the case with danoff's, as we've already seen in this thread).
 

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