The Abortion Debate (continued) (1 Viewer)

[KFunk]

Because we actually have a say into what happens to those first world babies, or at least the Australian ones or whatever country we happen to be living in through government, law and voting.

Sure, national borders decide which lives you can exert an influence over via voting and what not but I don't understand why your ability to vote in Australia eliminates the moral worth of an unborn child in another country. Hypothetically speaking: we could live in a country which bordered on another and there could exist a pregnant woman (a dual citizen) who lived on the border. While she stands in your country her foetus appears to have moral worth by your standards and yet it looses it's status once she walks a few meters and crosses the border. Correct me if I've misunderstood your position. If I am correct: how can you defend such a position?

 

[bshoc]

Sure, national borders decide which lives you can exert an influence over via voting and what not but I don't understand why your ability to vote in Australia eliminates the moral worth of an unborn child in another country. Hypothetically speaking: we could live in a country which bordered on another and there could exist a pregnant woman (a dual citizen) who lived on the border. While she stands in your country her foetus appears to have moral worth by your standards and yet it looses it's status once she walks a few meters and crosses the border. Correct me if I've misunderstood your position. If I am correct: how can you defend such a position?

Because you hold a globalist view incapable of deriving national or cultural identity. Also a citizen of the country is techinically bound to the laws of the state of which citizenship is held, I don't get your point. Influence over a situation is vital, whats the point of worrying about something if you're powerless to do anything about it. Funny how pro-abortionists always have to resort to hypothetics, since the real world clearly does not support such a position.

 

[KFunk]

Because you hold a globalist view incapable of deriving national or cultural identity. Also a citizen of the country is techinically bound to the laws of the state of which citizenship is held, I don't get your point. Influence over a situation is vital, whats the point of worrying about something if you're powerless to do anything about it. Funny how pro-abortionists always have to resort to hypothetics, since the real world clearly does not support such a position.

My hypothetical is not that unreasonable - it is a situation which could easily occur. Posed as a direct question:

Do you accept a system of moral reasoning which allows an unborn individual to possess moral worth and to loose it the instant they cross a defined border?

If you accept this then what it says to me is that the death of the child is not what is important. Indeed, within such a system, a death of a child is perfectly ok as long as it takes place outside of the boundary. Within such a system it is not killing in itself which is wrong, instead the location at which the killing takes place is what determines whether or not the killing is wrong. So:

It is not the case that 'To kill an unborn child is wrong'

but, it is the case that "To kill an unborn child at location X is wrong' under a suitable definition of X

Do you accept this geographic ethical system?

 

[bshoc]

My hypothetical is not that unreasonable - it is a situation which could easily occur. Posed as a direct question:

Do you accept a system of moral reasoning which allows an unborn individual to possess moral worth and to loose it the instant they cross a defined border?

Ok - in your hypothetical world and broad argument which encompases humanity in totality as one big egalitarian heap - no in such case I do not. But applying the same kind of reasoning to the REAL world situation today, this is far different, reality has to be brought in at some point, and hopefully not too late.

If you accept this then what it says to me is that the death of the child is not what is important. Indeed, within such a system, a death of a child is perfectly ok as long as it takes place outside of the boundary. Within such a system it is not killing in itself which is wrong, instead the location at which the killing takes place is what determines whether or not the killing is wrong. So:

It is not the case that 'To kill an unborn child is wrong'

but, it is the case that "To kill an unborn child at location X is wrong' under a suitable definition of X

Do you accept this geographic ethical system?

No the question in my mind is not whether the death of a child is bad, thats stupid, ofcourse the death of a child is bad. Especially in the case of abortion. The issue is whether one is in any sort of position in order to make meaningfull judgement over such a scenario.

 

[KFunk]

Then it becomes a case of:

It is not the case that 'We can make a meaningful judgement about whether it is wrong to kill a child.'

but, it is the case that 'We can make a meaningful judgement about whether it is wrong to kill a child, provided the child is situated within geographic location X.'

Why can't moral judgements cross borders?

 

[bshoc]

Then it becomes a case of:

It is not the case that 'We can make a meaningful judgement about whether it is wrong to kill a child.'

but, it is the case that 'We can make a meaningful judgement about whether it is wrong to kill a child, provided the child is situated within geographic location X.'

Why can't moral judgements cross borders?

No the logic is

'We can make a judgement about whether it is wrong to kill a child, its clearly wrong, but it is only truly meaningful in cases where we can apply such a judgement."

 

[KFunk]

No the logic is

'We can make a judgement about whether it is wrong to kill a child, its clearly wrong, but it is only truly meaningful in cases where we can apply such a judgement."

The circularity of that statement tells me nothing - think about it: 'we can make a judgement... but only where we can make such a judgement'. This is like saying "The only time I am allowed to cry is when I am allowed to cry". Could you clarify the above for me?

 

[bshoc]

The circularity of that statement tells me nothing - think about it: 'we can make a judgement... but only where we can make such a judgement'. This is like saying "The only time I am allowed to cry is when I am allowed to cry". Could you clarify the above for me?

Its not circular, but ill try to simplify - we can always make judgement, but it only matters when we can apply it, and thus talking about cases where it wont has little relevance.

 

[KFunk]

I am not entirely clear about what you mean by a judgement being 'meaningful' or 'relevant'. From what I can see it involves you being in a position in which you are able to enact that judgement or render it explicit i.e. by making a choice in a situation or by voting, or some such. As per usual, correct me if I'm wrong in my interpretation. In any case, you seem to reject any hypothetical or bit of theory which does not have direct application to your situation - something which I am unable to understand or accept, as I will try to explain:

Most of the hypotheticals which I throw at you are not entirely outlandish and represent 'possible' circumstances, by which I mean that they could feasibly, in a loose sense, occur in the future. Such hypotheticals mearly act as a testing ground for your logical/ethical system and what I have aimed to show is that your ethical system (as I understand it) and arguments lead to outcomes which present as absurd or perhaps intolerable (value judgements, I know). They act like a test for the validity of your reasoning. If you introduce an ethical system which disagrees with a lot of your personal moral beliefs then that system would appear to be a poor candidate for deciding whether something is 'right' or 'wrong'. Also, if you insist that 'there is no right or wrong' then you shouldn't take part in the abortion debate since you are simply left with a situation of 'everyone can do what they want'.

Once again running with the 'majority will as what is right' system:

- we have already seen that you can have a woman with dual citizenship can move between nation-states, simultaneously affirming and negating the moral worth of the foetus she carries.

- What if you have a society in which opinion on a matter is 50/50? Can individuals then do whatever they like? Could murder thus become an amoral issue? Such a system seems to be able to remove things like murder, which are normally of utmost importance in an ethical debate, from our moral lives.

- The system seems to be able to make a moral issue out of anything. If a society agreed that a certain tradition should be practised on penalty of death e.g. placing knives on the right side of the placemat, then conforming with the rule seems to become the 'right thing to do' despite it's being seemingly amoral.

- As pointed out in another thread, everyone in a society could decide to force genital mutilation upon young girls.


Anyhow, I don't understand your desire to confine judgements within ones own country, nor can I understand the use of majority opinion to justify what should or should not be done (as I have made clear above). It's the end of a long day so I wouldn't be suprised if a lot of the above is fairly muddled (especially as it's something of a net response to three threads). If nothing else I would like it if you could clarify your general position for me, in particular:

(1) How do you determine whether something is right or wrong?

(2) If you posit restrictions on what matters we can judge, then what are these restrictions and why are they so?

 

[kami]

What about we start solving those problems by killing you off first? Heh since you're so clearly advocating the death of other people to solve them, why not you? What makes you worth anymore than the poor baby killed off during an abortion? Lead by example.

She is quite obviously a person under every definition and consensus, and thus for her it would be 'killing'. The same is not demonstrably true for a foetus, you have only assumed it to be so and thus your comparison fails. In order for it to hold meaning you must conclusively demonstrate that a foetus is human at all stages - which you have not as of yet done throughout this entire thread.

Let those who don't want them not create them in the first place, a good way to lower abortion rates would be to remove abortion as an option off the table, it would probably help STD infection rates also.

I agree wholeheartedly with this - as a matter of fact I think it would be a great idea that instead of giving money to biased organisations to counsel women, the government placed extra funding into researching preventatives so that they were more effective and into sex education so that people used them more appropriately.

A better question is why should a secularist or athiest viewpoint be taken over any other, certainly democratic society demands equal say.

Secular, not secularist bshoc, there is a difference. As for why, well a secular agency is divorced from a specific ideology and united simply in its purpose and allows the women involved to exist within their own ideologies be they christian, muslim, buddhist or hindu and thus their own choices. Thus it is not one 'minority' view, but all views. A catholic organisation does not offer the same benefits.

 

[banco55]

Secular, not secularist bshoc, there is a difference. As for why, well a secular agency is divorced from a specific ideology and united simply in its purpose and allows the women involved to exist within their own ideologies be they christian, muslim, buddhist or hindu and thus their own choices. Thus it is not one 'minority' view, but all views. A catholic organisation does not offer the same benefits.

A clinic that was offering all options would hardly be divorced from ideology. Even being willing to offer abortion as a viable option is an idelogical choice after all.

 

[kami]

A clinic that was offering all options would hardly be divorced from ideology. Even being willing to offer abortion as a viable option is an idelogical choice after all.

How so? It permits any person to use their own values to limit their choices or not, it also does not reccomend any choice over another. Offering all options allows someone who is from any ideological branch to exercise their own beliefs in action.

 

[bshoc]

She is quite obviously a person under every definition and consensus, and thus for her it would be 'killing'. The same is not demonstrably true for a foetus, you have only assumed it to be so and thus your comparison fails. In order for it to hold meaning you must conclusively demonstrate that a foetus is human at all stages - which you have not as of yet done throughout this entire thread.

Anyone who has done a scrap of university biology knows that the two states of life are alive or dead, a foetus demostrates ALL necessary features of human life given its environment, thus the burden of proof is on you rather than me. Because if you want to get definitive we could easily render her life outside that of "human" using the same logic abortionists use to justify their ends, lets argue above bullshit here.

I agree wholeheartedly with this - as a matter of fact I think it would be a great idea that instead of giving money to biased organisations to counsel women, the government placed extra funding into researching preventatives so that they were more effective and into sex education so that people used them more appropriately.

We don't need the government regulating or educating sex lives, the bedroom or personal sexual choice is not a place the government should be, neither should taxpayers be expected to shell out for such wasteful rubbish programs, the government should protect its citizens and accord all equal right to opportunity (not equal results), including the unborn, not be a nanny from life to death.

Secular, not secularist bshoc, there is a difference. As for why, well a secular agency is divorced from a specific ideology and united simply in its purpose and allows the women involved to exist within their own ideologies be they christian, muslim, buddhist or hindu and thus their own choices. Thus it is not one 'minority' view, but all views. A catholic organisation does not offer the same benefits.

Secular = Secularist ie. humanist. This kind of thing needs to be purged from society in general, every persons point of reference should be their own, people should not have to live under athiestic rules when most people are clearly not secularists or athiests, and the fact that many athiests themselves would disagree with many of the current stances.

 

[withoutaface]

Anyone who has done a scrap of university biology knows that the two states of life are alive or dead,

Becuz lief has no grey area.

...wait.

 

[bshoc]

Becuz lief has no grey area.

...wait.

No WAF it doesen't, cells are either alive (and dividing) or dead, even a hybernating bear or a coma patient are alive.

 

[withoutaface]

So what happens when the sperm is half way in?

GREY AREA!

 

[kami]

Anyone who has done a scrap of university biology

A) Ad hominem.
B) Not relevant - it is logic, not qualifications that matter.
C) You have not done a 'scrap of university biology'.

knows that the two states of life are alive or dead, a foetus demostrates ALL necessary features of human life given its environment, thus the burden of proof is on you rather than me.

That assumes that the foetus is alive to begin with, and you cannot base an argument on such an assumption when it is the point of contention. Second, what are these features precisely along with evidence demonstrating that there is a consensus (and the arguments leading up to such) among the scientific community that:
A) These are the features that define something as both human and alive and;
B) That a foetus possesses these features at every stage.

Also, as you presented as assumption within an argument then it is upon you to prove that assumption. Not I to disprove it.

When the proponent of an argument claims that it is not up to her to prove her conclusion, but up to her opponent to disprove it, the proponent is attempting to shift the burden of proof. Shifting the burden of proof may count as fallacious when the burden clearly cannot be shifted.

e.g. "I believe that I am the King of the world, and, unless you can prove that I am not, you are obliged to obey me!".

e.g. "I believe that you are an alien in very convincing disguise, and I should believe that unless you can prove to me you are not".

Because if you want to get definitive we could easily render her life outside that of "human" using the same logic abortionists use to justify their ends, lets argue above bullshit here.

I'm not sure whose uterus glitterfairy is supposed to be inhabiting right now however I'm very sure she possesses lungs, heart, brain and a nervous system and a plethora of other physiological traits identified with humans. She also possesses consciousness and thinks for herself. Things that early foetuses do not possess.

We don't need the government regulating or educating sex lives, the bedroom or personal sexual choice is not a place the government should be, neither should taxpayers be expected to shell out for such wasteful rubbish programs, the government should protect its citizens and accord all equal right to opportunity (not equal results), including the unborn, not be a nanny from life to death.

I never once mentioned regulation bshoc, and I'm surprised you are against funding programs that would enable the population to reduce abortion rates and reduce STI infection among the population. All without 'murdering' any foetuses. That very much seems the government would be protecting its citizens by according them opportunity (via improved awareness and more effective preventatives).

Secular = Secularist ie. humanist. This kind of thing needs to be purged from society in general, every persons point of reference should be their own, people should not have to live under athiestic rules when most people are clearly not secularists or athiests, and the fact that many athiests themselves would disagree with many of the current stances.

Secular does not equate to secularist bshoc, secular implies a government which creates civil laws and does not favour a particular religion thus permitting one to practice their values as they see fit (so long as they don't impose them on others). Secularist organisations differ in that they politically advocate the removal of religion from all facets of public life.

Humanist is an ethical philosophy that is about finding truth and morality from humanity rather than god (or in addition god/main deity). Many consider it a religious stance in of itself, and it is compatible with many religions - though generally not fundamentalist branches. Thus it is not quite the same as secular or secularist, its more akin to being very loosely religious(like many of the non practicing christians in australia) if its anything.

Thus under secular government, atheism is just another point of view among many and is certainly not imposed upon the populace in the ideal secular model.

 

[withoutaface]

I'll also briefly point out that the argument is not over whether it is alive, it is over whether it is human.

 

[katie_tully]

Still, as far as I'm concerned the debate regarding the foetus is null. Abortion to me is about the continued well being of the mother - an already existing human. We can debate forever as to whether a foetus is 'alive', whether it constitutes as 'human' etc, but seeing as how science will never definitively rule in favour of one or the other, it's merely a matter of opnion.

 

[BlackDragon]

blah. its a medical procedure.
who are politicians (predominately male at that) to tell women they can't have abortions?

seperate church and state and get medical professionals to do the decision making.

yes exactly. if its so morally debatable then why are we trying to make a universal decision about it?! why not just let the mother decide whether it is moral to abort her baby? Wouldn't that be the best thing to do?

In other words, we have no right to decide for the mother whether it is right or not. Instead of debating about whether it should be legal on moral grounds, we should let the individual make that decision.