Considering the legal framework for abortion

[Ronin]

A) You have no right to deny someone life because YOU think their life is not worth living. B) Who is advocating not loving or caring for their children?

in a general sense you do not have the right to deny someone else their life.
but.
during a pregnancy the fetus is directly dependent and connected to the woman's body, my position comes from the fact that the woman has the right to decide she does not want her body doing that....the fetus death is a consequence yes, but still she has the right to make that choice.
this is a very different situation from normal day to day life, because at no other moment there is no way to have someone physically dependent of another like this.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

If I read this right...in a case where there is a choice between:

A) 40% chance of death for the mother. Guaranteed survival of baby.
B) Abortion.

You would say: A? Because they both weigh equally and the 100% > 40%.

I think that's very wrong.

Why? You are choosing the certain death of one human being over the possible (not even probable) death of another, when there is a probable outcome that both will survive. In such cases I would have to say that the guiding principle should be to save the most lives.

If a fetus has human rights at the moment of conception, then I've half killed more children than there are in this country. I'm pro-Abortion, we've been over this subject enough times that quite frankly I don't really care to rehash it for the millionth time. Yay, you saved the babies life... now let it live a life of being unloved and uncared for. Congratulations for being so moral.

Half-killed? Is that because you signed off on millions of abortions, or because you masturbate? You shed skin too, those could be used to extract your genetic code and clone you. The fact is, most of the sperm your produce expires before ever even leaving your body, just like all the other types of cells you produce.

A.) Quite Frankly, Yes I do. I am talking from a position of personal experience. How dare you enclose people's thoughts, feelings, and situations into a "Yes" or "No" box. It isn't that simple.
B.) Maybe you haven't been to many children's homes.. maybe you should.

If you believe morality is binary all your moral decisions are yes/no.

As regards children's homes - I've met children who grew up in care, I've met several who were given up for adoption. None of them have expressed a desire to have been aborted, most have expressed dissinterest in their birth parents though. The fact is, all life strives, including children, and to essentially claim that children in care would be better off dead is at best absurd.

Hello gang

That's nonsense. Even if we'd concede that abortion in the absence of any danger towards the carrier's life should be illegal on moral grounds, accepting the fact that a human being should be forced to risk one's life, even marginally, to save another is preposterous. It is unconscionable to deny personal option in this case.

I submit that the role of the state, and of the law, is to protect the vulnerable, most especially the young, the old and the infirm. Once upon a time in Britain you were considered to have a moral and legal responsibility to risk your safety to save another's life. Pregnancy is inherrently dangerous, I should know because I almost killed my mother a couple of times and she almost killed me, and I believe that a woman has already taken on that responsibility when she engaged in consenual sex, with all its attendant risks. As such, I don't believe she has the right to change her mind just because she regrets her initial decision, not if the result is to cost another human being its life. THAT is unconcionable, just as execution for judicial crime is uncontionable.

A reasoning from the wrong vantage point. Creation and nourishment of a child do involve the father. Getting a pregnancy to term does not, biologically. The female is the sole carrier, with all the physical and mental issues it entails. She is the only one who can award a male rights onto her body. To re-quote a point I made earlier:

At most one could ensure a widely accessible and very simplified legal procedure where the couple would agree on the need for consent of both parties in regards to the fate of an eventual embryo resulting from their relationship.
It is the only possible solution acknowledging a male’s right to safeguard the existence of his potential offspring through his own choice.
Bar this type of pre-emptive legally binding agreement, the male completely waves off any rights by default, even if the father, once the pregnancy is underway, offers to raise the child on his own.

It cannot be a "Right" that you are allowed to execute anonother human being, that would not be a right under any other circumstances and, as noted above, the woman has already made an informed decision and I see no reason why she should have any "right" to make it again when the man does not. A man also has the right to consent to sexual congress, his right to consent can be violated just as a woman's can. You are speaking from a sexist discource based on a fallacious reading of traditional gender roles as popularised by feminist writers. If women have equal rights, so do men, accidents of biology notwithstanding.

in a general sense you do not have the right to deny someone else their life.
but.
during a pregnancy the fetus is directly dependent and connected to the woman's body, my position comes from the fact that the woman has the right to decide she does not want her body doing that....the fetus death is a consequence yes, but still she has the right to make that choice.
this is a very different situation from normal day to day life, because at no other moment there is no way to have someone physically dependent of another like this.

Two things:

1. I do not accept "but" when talking about moral rights, if it is not universal applicable it is not moral or a right. One cannot say, "you have the right to life except when you are old" so one equally cannot say, "you have the right to life except when you are utterly dependant on your mother as a fetus", without modern technology ALL children would die without their mothers shortly after birth, just because we have not succeeded in inventing an artificial womb does not allow us to fudge the moral issue.

2. The woman has already made the decision to have sex, if she cannot bear to be pregnant she should not have had sex.

[Ronin]

1. I do not accept "but" when talking about moral rights, if it is not universal applicable it is not moral or a right. One cannot say, "you have the right to life except when you are old" so one equally cannot say, "you have the right to life except when you are utterly dependant on your mother as a fetus", without modern technology ALL children would die without their mothers shortly after birth, just because we have not succeeded in inventing an artificial womb does not allow us to fudge the moral issue.

about the bold part, that is not the same thing, in that situation the children need someone, anyone can perform that task...like I said above there is no other situation in life were a person a directly and irreparably linked biologically to another...because of this the "rules" cannot be expected to be the same.
I do not believe in "absolute" rules....if the situations change then the rules change also.
about us being able to invent something artificial do "fudge" the issue....the issue is itself created by something artificial......abortion by decision is not a natural process....

2. The woman has already made the decision to have sex, if she cannot bear to be pregnant she should not have had sex.

She made a decision...and then she makes another one...it's a decision...that's the entire point.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

about the bold part, that is not the same thing, in that situation the children need someone, anyone can perform that task...like I said above there is no other situation in life were a person a directly and irreparably linked biologically to another...because of this the "rules" cannot be expected to be the same.

Baby needs milk, so you need either the mother, or "a" mother, but even then the milk a woman produces immidiately after birth is the most important, so that a newborn who has, say, a wet nurse who gave birth three months ago is at a considerable dissadvantage. The point is that that biological tether is not actually severed at birth, because in the absense of modern medicine you are going to have extrmee trouble keeping a baby alive without its mother.

I do not believe in "absolute" rules....if the situations change then the rules change also.
about us being able to invent something artificial do "fudge" the issue....the issue is itself created by something artificial......abortion by decision is not a natural process....

Well, morality is about absolute rules. Regardless, abortion is an action and actions require justification equal to their consequences, homocide is not generally justified or forgiven on the basis of convenience of the perpetrator, why should it be so with abortion? I submit that abortion is looked at askance, because it is possible to ignore the consequences as we are not generally explicitiely presented with an image which we can interpret in the same way as a small child's corpse. Also, it's status as "a medical procedure" sanitises the act of homocide in this case.

She made a decision...and then she makes another one...it's a decision...that's the entire point.

Yes... and she should not be allowed to make the second decision, given that she has already made the first. She is not allowed to kill the child after it is born, we should she be allowed to kill it before hand?

[Ronin]

because in the absense of modern medicine you are going to have extrmee trouble keeping a baby alive without its mother.

you keep trying to jump to a scenario where you don´t have modern medicine.
again, if we don´t have modern medicine we don´t have abortions and so we wouldn´t be having this talk in the first place.
decisions do not exist in a vacuum, modern medicine exits...so our rules have to deal in that reality....if it ever goes away then it's back to the drawing board.

Yes... and she should not be allowed to make the second decision, given that she has already made the first. She is not allowed to kill the child after it is born, we should she be allowed to kill it before hand?

I have already explained before why this is different to me.
when the fetus is still inside her as far as I am concerned the woman has the right to say "I don´t want my body to be taking part in this biological connection".....the fact is that this cannot be done without the fetus dying....well..you can´t make an omelet without breaking eggs.
my position is that it should happen as soon as possible in the pregnancy...this is just to try and reach a balanced position against the possibility of awareness on the fetus part in later parts of the pregnancy.
as soon as the child is not directly biologically linked to the mother the circumstance changes...therefore the rules change.

the rules about homicide are societal rules destined to prevent inter-citizen violence...but when you think about it the society does not consider the fetus a citizen...there is a reason why kids are counted on the census but fetus aren´t.

[Nowake]

Hello again

Pregnancy is inherrently dangerous, I should know because I almost killed my mother a couple of times and she almost killed me, and I believe that a woman has already taken on that responsibility when she engaged in consenual sex, with all its attendant risks. As such, I don't believe she has the right to change her mind just because she regrets her initial decision, not if the result is to cost another human being its life.
(...)
the woman has already made an informed decision and I see no reason why she should have any "right" to make it again when the man does not.

Sigh, how can one place oneself on such a shabby footing. First of all, creating a legal obligation to risk your existence for the mere engagement in the most basic life experience of your species grossly ignores the anthropological realities of the species’ community, which was developed around sex as a main social nexus.
Second of all, and more importantly, even if the woman engages in consensual sex with the intention of having a child, pregnancy is a pretty innocuous enterprise in what the mother’s life is concerned for the vast majority of cases. A female legally forced to undergo the process in the presence of a recognized medical risk, when she would be able to repeat it in perfectly safe conditions, is literally endangered by the state.

A man also has the right to consent to sexual congress, his right to consent can be violated just as a woman's can. You are speaking from a sexist discource based on a fallacious reading of traditional gender roles as popularised by feminist writers.

Please, I would have written that a male is the only one who can award a female rights onto his body as well, yet it didn’t describe a real & relevant legal situation. Kind of why in civilised societies adultery is not against the law And why the judiciary should never give a gender a default right over the other. That right must be asked for personally, and awarded personally each time, on a case by case basis – before you restate your presumption over what consent to a sexual act entails, do reread the first part of this reply. Oh and fact of life: while genders are socially equal, they are not equivalent from a biological standpoint, and pregnancy is the very unique and clear case in which this inequality is illustrated.

The point is that that biological tether is not actually severed at birth, because in the absense of modern medicine you are going to have extrmee trouble keeping a baby alive without its mother.

Factually untrue for thousands of years now. Mothers commonly died at birth leaving behind offspring who developed normally in pre-industrial societies.

[Viking]

For me, abortion is more of an aesthetic issue rather than a real moral one. It doesn't look pretty, but that does not make it immoral.

Opposing the killing of foetuses that are only a fraction as self-aware as the cow whom I had a piece of included in my breakfast this morning, makes no sense. So, it is aesthetics.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

For me, abortion is more of an aesthetic issue rather than a real moral one. It doesn't look pretty, but that does not make it immoral.

Opposing the killing of foetuses that are only a fraction as self-aware as the cow whom I had a piece of included in my breakfast this morning, makes no sense. So, it is aesthetics.

It is generally considered imoral to eat people, too. We treat our own species differently from a moral perspective.

[Vladimir]

For me, abortion is more of an aesthetic issue rather than a real moral one. It doesn't look pretty, but that does not make it immoral.

Opposing the killing of foetuses that are only a fraction as self-aware as the cow whom I had a piece of included in my breakfast this morning, makes no sense. So, it is aesthetics.

Great thread so far but I've never heard someone seriously compare an unborn child to something they would eat for breakfast. I hope that's a translation error.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

you keep trying to jump to a scenario where you don´t have modern medicine.
again, if we don´t have modern medicine we don´t have abortions and so we wouldn´t be having this talk in the first place.
decisions do not exist in a vacuum, modern medicine exits...so our rules have to deal in that reality....if it ever goes away then it's back to the drawing board.

I am of the firm belief that modern technology is essentially irrelevent to morality, factoring such technology is a case of understanding how it relates to moral questions, not reshaping morality around. The fact is, abortions and various versions of the "morning after potion" have been available as long as caesarian section, if not longer (the clue there is in the name) but the advances in modern medicine have greatly increased the chances of survival of both mother and baby, and that is new. Such advances have also reduced the likelyhood of complications in an abortion, but that does not make it right.

I have already explained before why this is different to me.
when the fetus is still inside her as far as I am concerned the woman has the right to say "I don´t want my body to be taking part in this biological connection".....the fact is that this cannot be done without the fetus dying....well..you can´t make an omelet without breaking eggs.
my position is that it should happen as soon as possible in the pregnancy...this is just to try and reach a balanced position against the possibility of awareness on the fetus part in later parts of the pregnancy.
as soon as the child is not directly biologically linked to the mother the circumstance changes...therefore the rules change.

You are still sidestepping the issue though, abortion includes homocide, you are balancing the mother's inconvenience with the child's life and deciding in favour od the mother.

the rules about homicide are societal rules destined to prevent inter-citizen violence...but when you think about it the society does not consider the fetus a citizen...there is a reason why kids are counted on the census but fetus aren´t.

Ah, so you don't believe in moral law, fine then.

Hello again

Sigh, how can one place oneself on such a shabby footing. First of all, creating a legal obligation to risk your existence for the mere engagement in the most basic life experience of your species grossly ignores the anthropological realities of the species’ community, which was developed around sex as a main social nexus.

Maybe because I know, anthropologically speaking, that most societies license and regulate sexual activity because of the consequences in engaging in sexual intercorse. We are one of the most sexuallly unregulated societies ever, and as a result we have large numbers of single women with unwanted pregnancies, selective abortion is plaster on a wound in our society, not a solution. You describe sex as a social aspect of our society, but you ignore the fact that in the West people are increasingly engaging in sexual practices which either have no social dimension (one night stands) or negative ones (people getting together, jumping into bed after a couple of dates and then the woman getting pregnant, not to mention being infected with an STD.)

Second of all, and more importantly, even if the woman engages in consensual sex with the intention of having a child, pregnancy is a pretty innocuous enterprise in what the mother’s life is concerned for the vast majority of cases. A female legally forced to undergo the process in the presence of a recognized medical risk, when she would be able to repeat it in perfectly safe conditions, is literally endangered by the state.

Pregnancy is actually pretty dangerous, it's just that modern antinatal care is so good that most problems are caught before they become life threatening.

Please, I would have written that a male is the only one who can award a female rights onto his body as well, yet it didn’t describe a real & relevant legal situation. Kind of why in civilised societies adultery is not against the law And why the judiciary should never give a gender a default right over the other. That right must be asked for personally, and awarded personally each time, on a case by case basis – before you restate your presumption over what consent to a sexual act entails, do reread the first part of this reply. Oh and fact of life: while genders are socially equal, they are not equivalent from a biological standpoint, and pregnancy is the very unique and clear case in which this inequality is illustrated.

The judiciary do give one gender rights over the other though, women have the right to abort the baby which is 50% their sexual partner. If the woman has a "right" over her own body then does the man have a "right" over his own sperm? Those cells only belong 50% to the woman, so how can she legally be allowed to about 100% of the fetus? It's absurd, and it shows up the madness the in pro-elective stance. A teenage girl isn't allowed to cut her own breasts off just because she doesn't like them, the changes a woman's body go through in pregnancy are a part of her maturity, they are not unnatural or actually negative, quite the opposite. I fail to see why a woman, having chosen to initiate a pregnancy should then be allowed to cancel it. This isn't a hotel reservation, it's a new human life and one which, once it comes to term, the woman has only 50% rights over. Why should she have 100% rights in the womb?

Factually untrue for thousands of years now. Mothers commonly died at birth leaving behind offspring who developed normally in pre-industrial societies.

If you were rich enough to aford a wet nurse, otherwise you probably died. It doesn't change the fact that the child and the fetus are both dependants, but we accord one full rights and the other none based purely on the stage of development.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Maybe because I know, anthropologically speaking, that most societies license and regulate sexual activity because of the consequences in engaging in sexual intercorse. We are one of the most sexuallly unregulated societies ever, and as a result we have large numbers of single women with unwanted pregnancies, selective abortion is plaster on a wound in our society, not a solution. You describe sex as a social aspect of our society, but you ignore the fact that in the West people are increasingly engaging in sexual practices which either have no social dimension (one night stands) or negative ones (people getting together, jumping into bed after a couple of dates and then the woman getting pregnant, not to mention being infected with an STD.)

There's not much “increasing” there, except single women. There used to be practice of reserving virgins in brothels for affluent clients for a reason, precisely because of the prevalence of STDs. HIV & Ebola are new ones, but the point is that this sort of thing is now much more actively campaigned against. Similar to the campaigns of the early and mid 20th century in Western Europe which also brought DDT to the masses.

In any case it is not clear that the legalisation of abortion corresponds to a statistical increase in abortions (according to Viking the opposite appears true for Nordic countries, and you can add the Netherlands to that list as well).

If you were rich enough to aford a wet nurse, otherwise you probably died. It doesn't change the fact that the child and the fetus are both dependants, but we accord one full rights and the other none based purely on the stage of development.

True but there remains adoption which is a very common trait among humans. We even frequently adopt the young of other species.

It is actually a biological plan B, it is pervasive beyond the human species to the point that human babies can be adopted and raised by other species.