I would tend to agree that the whole 25%/75% is more than trivial to solve. It becomes very subjective. I would also have to wonder, why are we basing 100% on those three inches needed to travel, rather than based on some other statistic, such as IQ, physical development, chance of survival, etc. But if we base it on those other statistics, wouldn't that mean that we would be justified in killing premature babies?

Basically, if we agree an infant born at 10 months is 100%, and everything before that is below 100%, wouldn't that suggest that a baby born at 5 months is only 50%, and therefore eligible for abortion? Or, if we have the technology, a baby born at 1 month is a measly 10%, barely human at all?

I'm not sure legality is a good basis to fight this argument. Is legality the basis for what is right or wrong? If it were, there would be no argument. Currently, abortions are legal. They are not wrong, in the context of the law. But you obviously cannot accept this. It's a bit unfair to say that causing the death of a human is wrong because it is illegal, but then ignore the law when it obviously implies that abortion and death are, in fact, not compatable, and are separate things.

Rather, this is a moral question that falls on values, not so much law. If you think that abortion is akin to murder, you don't need the law to justify your beliefs, and you are right to seek to change it. But, morality is a rather ambigious thing, and far less objective. You will have a difficult time, for example, convincing an avid pro-choice advocate that their opinions on the matter are wrong and yours are correct, if you two don't share the same outlook on the world. I see humans cause the death of many things without appearent need of consequence, and you seem to see that that responsibility is dependant on your involvement. I find it questionable.



And if she wanted one anyways? what's the punishment? Kill her? Life imprisonment? 15 years? A fine? I find pro-life advocates seem rather hesitant to answer that one. Your example seems easy with a fetus who's "three inches" from full rights, but what about the case of one that's two weeks development? Do we wait her another 9 months? Throw her in prison for something that's barely the size of a pea? I'd say you'd have prisons full of adolescents, if that's the case.



No one is saying that it's "okay". It's just an interesting point, especially in the position of intent. Curious. You see doctors who do this sort of thing as hitmen? What would the docor's charge be in this case?



From my understanding, plenty of people actually do do that (not the leaving because they didn't want to clean the part, the walking away part). I'm not sure I think the comparison between a house and your body is very accurate. One can go without a house. One can't go without a body. One doesn't have a right to a house. People do have a right to their body. A house can be resided by many people over centries. Your body is yours, is districtively you, in an undeniable sense.



Why do you feel more responsible for a human than you do for other animals? Why do they deserve more? I think the rest of this statement specifically refers to the person that you are, and not what you have a right to do. People kill animals all the time, for various reasons, and in the first world, often times not for food or necessity. Have  you ever willingly killed an insect? Did you eat that animal afterwards? If you have, why did you do it?



I find those ideals conflicting at times. More on that later.



To be honest, in the time between the posting a couple of weeks ago and now, I've forgotten the point I was making with that. I know I had a point with it, but I just can't remember at the current moment. Sorry.



Interesting. So you think that intent plays no part in this? Alright, let me throw you a hypothetical. Say a woman who's pregnant does a risky action (let's say, riding a bike), and the worst occurs, she falls hard and the baby dies. Is this akin to manslaughter? According to our laws, on the supposition that fetus's are people, it is. She should know that the risks of biting the dust on a bike or skateboard in a manner that causes injury are pretty high, and it doesn't take much to cause a miscarrage at all. Would you agree, or disagree, with this assessment? If you agree, does that mean pregnant women should be confined to safe areas, or be charged with child abuse?



But in your own statement, you willfully admit that women do have abortions for other reasons, but I'm not allowed to mention them. What you're basically telling me is "prove that women who have abortions for comfort aren't having abortions for comfort." Or, more accurately, "excluding women who have abortions for reasons other than comfort, prove to me that there are women have abortions for reasons other than comfort." You might as well ask me to give you examples of things are round things, excluding anything that's round.

I would like to take this time, however, to point out a necessary and interesting note, however. You make no exception on rape. Because, if you are to classify it, I think it would have to be, more than necessity, abortion of a pregnancy as a result of rape is, for the most part, an abortion of convenience. And, yet, you have repeatedly in the past made an exception for them. Perhaps not all abortions of convenience are as callous as you seem to imply.



Living also has a high tendancy to result in the thing that is alive to eventually kill other creatures. But we don't seem to place much emphasis on that. It seems, by that ideology, things shouldn't have a right to live if it means there's a likely chance that they will eventually kill other organisms. Living also has a high tendancy to result in reproduction. Any woman who's alive should know that there is a chance that because she is alive, that she could get pregnant eventually.

Why should a woman be exempted on ignorance? If you didn't realise that driving drunk could kill someone, they should be excepted from the law if they do end up killing someone, right? If someone didn't know that pointing a gun at someone could eventually get them killed, they should be exempt from the results in that action if it causes injury, should they not? More to the point, if a woman has an abortion because she legitimately didn't know sex causes babies, why is the child's right to life less in this case?

If I didn't know better, katisara, I'd say that, from your writings on this matter, the only thing that makes abortion wrong is the responsibility, not the loss of life at all, or at the very least, plays a much larger role than the right to life. You don't really come off very pro-life at all, but rather pro-responsibility. Women who are knowingly take the risk are at fault of killing something, and women who didn't knowingly take the risk aren't, if I'm understanding you correctly. Why is the case any less in the latter instead of the former?



It's a false comparison, in my opinion, because in the car example, the death played no part in your intent. In the latter, it does. Having an abortion of a pregnancy that resulted from rape is the willful termination of a living organism, one that wasn't responsible for the circumstances that spawned it. It's not a tire flying off and killing someone, it's a tire flying off, then the victim, in their grief, runs off and kills someone.



I'm sorry, but I'm not sure I do agree. It's not exactly that I disagree, per say, but I'm not sure it is as you describe. I find the rules of such morality to be very difficult to answer in any such manner. And I'm not so arrogant as to suggest that I hold all the answers. Some believe there is value in all life, including non-humans, and think killing anything for any reason is wrong. Some people see no innate value in life and don't see anything wrong in killing for conveience or for bettering one's position. Others still say only human life matters. And there are some that praise all life but humans, thinking that it is our fault the world is dying, that we upset the balance maliciously, no better than a virus. Where to draw the line is a difficult choice indeed.

I'm sorry, this might seem a little strange to people to head from a pro-choice person, but I'm rather sure not all women do have an abortion thinking it's the lesser of two evils. Motivations are difference, and yes, I can see abortions for mere convenience happening. That isn't to say that's the majority, but I do see it a plausible possibility in some cases, and if it's the truth, I don't think that portrays the moral dilema that you're painting.




I'd say you're drawing a very narrow line between the two.

And I'd say you're not exactly being fair in said consequence. You're not enforcing that all people be responsible for sex. You're espousing that women be responsible for sex. I've heard no proposals from you on making men responsible. I've heard no proposals from you on making sure men suffer consequences. All I've heard is how you desire to make women suffer consequences for having sex.

Let's face it, the whole responsibilities-consequences outlook at present only punishes women, not men. Let's throw a woman in jail for not respecting her role in procreation, but let's just give men a penalty for neglecting theirs. If a woman doesn't respect a right to life of the fetus, she's a murderer. If a man doesn't, he's just a bad father. I'd say this system doesn't really make sure that there are consequences and responsibilities. Rather, it thrusts all the supposed responsibility on the mother, leaving little to nothing for negligent fathers. Do you disagree?



It almost sounds like you're contradicting yourself. Abortion isn't undoing what happened, as you state here. But a woman is owed the option to kill the resulting child. You make a point to talk about the critical differences, and the lack of intent, when you've previously stated that intent doesn't matter, that the killing of a creature is. You speack of the critical differences, but the difference remains in the case of rape as well. The sperm, egg, and embryo have no more intent, knowledge or foresight in the case of rape. In sex, however, you seem to imply that the right to life matters above convenience. But in the case of rape, convenience matters more than right to life. It's all wishy washy double standards, from what I can see, because you don't like the idea of a woman suffering consequences for something she didn't choose.



Oh, so it's not rape at all if she knew she was going to be raped, or there was a chance she was going to be raped? What if she did know there was a chance someone could try to take advantage of her? Or a chance that she could be raped? Women who are raped often know of the possibility. We're all taught in school and from certain programs to watch our drinks and be careful around strangers who make themselves too friendly (or even friends who make themselves too friendly). Is the argument now that she played a role in it, taking a chance she knew was there? If you believe so, admit it. Radical islam and many very traditional Christians sometimes thinks so. Believe it's possible that a woman invited rape upon herself and thus has responsibility.



Oh, but I do see responsibility as an important factor. You're assuming that, I, in this case, would be one to pull the plug. I'm not sure what I would do, but to be honest, I don't think I would, because it would play on my personal guilt. However, I do think I have the right to do so, even if I don't take it. I don't think only moral actions are the ones we have rights to. I think people have rights to actions I personally disagree with. For example, people have a right to be jerks to each other. I wouldn't advise it, but they have that right.

You're attributing something to me that doesn't exist. It's not that I see no value in responsibility. Rather, my emphisis on responsibility is less than yours. From my perspective, you have a very very heavy emphisis on responsbility. In fact, from my perspective, you value responsibility more than life in most of these arguments.



If find this an ironic statement from someone who basically says that killing person because of your grief from rape is the lesser of two evils from forcing said person to be encumbered with it to let that person live.

I happen to think that the right to body is an inalienable right. The law happens to disagree with me on this manner sometimes, but it's my personal belief. That doesn't mean that I agree with every expression of that right either, no more than I agree with the expression of our right to free speech to incite hatred, but I do think we have a right to it. Telling people that they don't have a right to it because I don't like it is arrogant to me, because it seems to stem from a belief that I know better than them, and frankly, I'm not comfortable with that idea. There is much about life, death, and morality that I don't understand, and I try not to be so quick to condemn.

In this particular example, the doctor abused their position, in my opinion, the trust of the woman. Much like a lawyer who commits fraud on trust, and tricks his clients into signing something over recklessly. Only this is much more personal. Is it the other person's fault? No, and if she decides that that is more important, she can decide to keep him on. However, I do think she has the right to detach herself, if she so chooses.



This is possibly a point of essential disagreement. I think they have that right, even then. You may say that legally they would not, I have no idea, but if you were to say that, I would also point out that, currently, abortions are legal as well. Inevitably, in this case, it comes as a matter of values. In your value set, the responsibility is more important. In mine, their right to their body is.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:07, Mon 27 Oct 2008.

This message was deleted by the player at 05:37, Mon 27 Oct 2008.

Oh, I didn't mean to imply that this was my take on abortion. I'm rather uncertain on my feelings myself. This is what I took from Thomson's writings. Actually, she only came to one conclusion, because she didn't think it possible that someone would come to the conclusion that abortion is wrong in every case. However, that is another way around the argument. There are people who believe abortion is wrong in all cases, and if they believe so, that would get around each of those examples.

I'm not sure I agree with your percentage philosophy either, however. Specifically, because where 0 starts and 100 ends is rather difficult to say. To a degree, I think that the sperm and the egg are the starts of a new person, not the embryo. Or, rather, I see no legitimate logical reason why it starts at the zygote. Most people don't like to think that way, mostly because it holds some consequences that perhaps other people don't like. Likewise, if in the future, embyros were allowed to be taken from their host and put into a kind of incubation chamber where they can grow on independant from the body, I'm not sure your philosophy works anymore. Where's 100% then?

Ahh..the ABC hypothesis. Yes, TitL, this argument does exist, has existed for a long long time now (well, long in my years is probably different than yours). It's called, as stated, the Abortion-Breast Cancer (ABC) hypothesis.

Certain prolife organizations and researchers hold this position, and believe in it's truth, but I see it as bias more than anything. For example, that very 1993 study Dr. Brind made (very famous in this argument) did happen to find statistically significant results, but just barely. The results of the study did find that those who have had an abortion did appear to have a higher risk, but if it was 800% higher, the results would have been much much greater than just barely significantly different. His conclusion doesn't match his given results.

At any rate, it was one study. There have, in fact, been a multitude of studies in this region, and while some do have a difference, the vast majority say that there is no difference in cancer rates. This is why the major institutions on cancer research, namely the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society, have concluded, based on the availble current research, that there is no association between abortion and cancer. The scientific community, for the most part, has found evidense of the hypothesis lacking. Somehow, however, I find this won't persuade you in the least. Damn science and it's bigoted views.

I don't feel it's quite as clear cut as you state. I find it difficult to believe that two wrongs make a right. Taking away the rights of an individual because they take away the rights of someone else is a questionable principle, I find. I can understand why people follow it, but I don't think at all that it's a perfectly just way of doing things. I think this is too simple an outlook. For example, what about the case of hospital care, as I mentioned before. A person who can't afford a life saving treatment isn't entitled one. What happened to right of life there? What law did he break? It would appear that, in many cases property, or more directly, money is more important than life. Where does this fit in your diagram?



So, you don't think there should be any actual punishments if an abortion is performed? Why can't we just have a negative PR campaign for abortion then, instead of making it a law?



Interesting justification. If it's the creation of one person, it's okay to destroy if they choose to, but if it's the creation of two people, it's not, even with their consent. Are you saying that if two people created a parasite and they both wanted to kill it, they shouldn't be allowed to? How about clones? Could a woman kill a clone of herself if she made it?



Not true. There are examples of animals doing this. For example, lions will often kill of their unborn when a new pride leader takes over. I've heard some monkeys and wolves will do it as well. Interestingly, you hear about these more in the intelligent animals than you do in the non-intelligent ones, seemingly infering that they do it because they know it, not because of ignorance.



I will overlook this time because you're relatively new here, but for future reference, there's few things that will irritate my faster than someone else telling me what I believe when I never said anything to the point. I cannot speak for others who are pro-choice, but I personally am pro-choice because I am pro-choice.

There seems to be some personal slights to my character a few times in this debate, so let me clarify something for you. I don't approve of abortion. I don't like the concept. I've never had an abortion. I don't think I ever will, unless my views drastically change or there's something about me in this nature that I don't understand. It's simply not how I value things. So, if I end up pregnant, even if it results in an early end for my college career, I don't think I will end it prematurely, and I don't even think I'll give it away. It's simply not what I was raised to do.

However, that is "my" choice, based on "my" beliefs. And I feel, given this is such a complex, personal, and convoluted issue, that people should be allowed to make their choices based on their beliefs. I'm not so arrogant as believe that everyone should follow my values, that I know better than them when it comes to such complicated matters. No one should be punished for not having my values. And, especially given this is so heavily tied into religion, this is more personal than not, I feel. I'm against any religious institution legislating for me or anyone else to follow their belief structure, and frankly, I see that happening in many of the cases for pro-life. I was given a choice, and I've chosen it thusfar not to accept abortion for myself. I feel everyone should be entitled the same choice, even if it means that they may choose something I disagree with.



Oh? So, if they wrecklessly get a girl pregnant, what responsibility do they have, under your argument? Your position seems to be to make the woman have it, no matter what the choice is. What's their responsibility? A check? A small payment of support a month? That sure sounds like a fair distribution of responsibility. You said it yourself earlier, it takes a man and woman to make a child. Unfortunately, the position you seem to advocate seems to be making the woman take the vast majority of the responsibility, and the man's very little in comparison.

Unless, you are going to institute a law that states that a biological father must be with his unborn child's mother in all cases, appointments, costs, etc. That as much as she's burdened with this, he must be too. Then I could buy the responsibility argument. As is, however, you're just telling women to bear the responsibility, giving her no choice in the matter, and telling men that they can be involved to a level of their choosing. I think the biggest lesson from this position is "don't be born female".



Interesting. You seemed to have a bad reaction to this question. The parasite examples were hypotheticals as well, but you didn't seem to mind them. Why is this time a problem?

The fact is, though, we're all making hypotheticals. You're assuming the hypothetical position that your views are correct, that the fetus is a person and killing a person is almost always wrong. According to law, which is the closest thing we have to objectivity at the moment, it isn't. That's why women aren't charged with manslaughter after abortion, because the law doesn't view it as the same kind of act at all. After that, however, like on matters of whether it should be or not, it's all placed on personal values. So, if we're going to throw out what ifs, why are your what ifs better than mine?



Alright, but I would just like to know that if it's still a matter of responsibility, the position that rape victims still shouldn't be allowed to abort compromises that position, right? After all, what did she do to take this responsibility? Live? Keep herself healthy? Be female? If this is as you state it is, then the personal responsibility argument isn't really worth that much, at least that's how I see it.



Now this is funny. You just made the implication that personal responsibility isn't the key factor in why abortion is wrong, then here you make the personal responsibility argument. Technically, every moment we females are alive there's a chance we could become pregnant. After all, we're going on the assumption that someone didn't have sex with us in our sleep, or release their seed on our underwear this morning. Or that divine intervention doesn't occur, and we become virgin mothers. So the chance is out there, just slim.

I suppose the answer to not being pregnant is simply not to be a living female who's fertile. Oh, no, wait...doesn't the bible have a case of a post-menopausal woman becoming pregnant, as evidensed by the conception of Issac? I suppose that means that the only sure way not to become pregnant is to not be a female.

Again, I have to question the personal responsibility of men in these cases. Where's the lesson of responsibility here?



As Jesus would, right?



Again, you use the responsibility angle. What exactly was the woman who got pregnant from rape responsible for? Oh, right. Being female.

I'm surprised you object to this. Why? Does the man not have a right to life? I expect the objection from katisara, because he seems to believe that responsibility overweighs right to life (at least, that's my impression). You, however, don't think abortion is acceptable even in the case of rape. Are you saying that the person in this case doesn't have a right to your body?



Okay. There are differences. However, this is still the life of an innocent man, right? In that sense, is it any different? Why is my example different from rape in that sense? You object in that case, why wouldn't you in this one?
This message was last edited by the player at 06:52, Mon 27 Oct 2008.

I know you don't understand, that's why I keep trying to get you to think about it.  The reason you need to get out of the binary mindset is because it's limiting your view of the problem artificially.  Reality isn't a binary situation, but your trying to force it into a binary model.  It's like trying to count how many cars of each color are on the road, but only being allowed to describe them as red or blue.  You can do it, you can get some result like 75% of cars are blue, and the other 25% are red, but it doesn't really reflect reality, because in the real world, there's lots more colors than that.  Artificially imposing the assumption that all cars are either red or blue results in a lose of information.  It results in you saying that a yellow car is the same color as a green car, etc.  Likewise, if you look at things through an imposed 100%/0% assumption, then you end up with incorrect views like two things that are clearly qualitatively different are exactly the same.


Yeah, that description doesn't seem to have worked well for anyone.  And it did suffer the same problem of being an arbitrary label, even if it didn't suffer the binary problem.  So, instead of talking about "percentage human," lets move on to objective qualities instead.  Without using any "percentage human" values, including 0% and 100% (note that saying something is human is the same as saying it's 100% human), which we don't seem to be able to agree on, tell us what it is about fetuses that makes you think it's never, under any circumstance acceptable to kill them?  What are the objective qualities, as opposed to just a label, that we should be considering?


And what is the likelihood of survival for a baby born at 6 months?  What is the likelihood of severe disabilities, or other problems?  Now, imagine you're a doctor at a very understaffed hospital, where there are two emergencies, at the same time, and you're the only one who can attend to them.  One is a baby just born at 6 months, who needs a surgery, the other is a baby born after nine months, who also needs a surgery.  Both are, as far as you can tell, not going to live through the night without the surgery, but whichever gets the surgery will be just as likely to have a normal life as any other 6-month or 9-month baby (ie, the 6-month baby has a much worse prospect).  Which do you choose to treat?  Is it a complete coin toss, or do you save the 9 month baby because it's more likely to survive in the long run?  If you can honestly say you'd just flip a coin, then we just have different views on how to make those decisions, and that's fair enough.  If you think it's possible the pick one over the other, even though you consider them both 100% human, then you can hopefully start to see what I'm talking about.  It's not an issue of saying "it's okay to let that one die, it's only 6 months and not a human," but rather it's an issue of saying "it's worse to let the 9 month old die, because it has a better chance of having a good life."  If you can see it as a better/worse issue, rather than a okay/not-okay issue, then you'll start to see where I'm coming from.


Again, because you're stuck on the human/not-human issue, you don't realize that letting someone die in one case isn't the same as letting them die in another.  If you have one heart that someone has donated after they died, and two people who need it, but one is 10 years old, and the other 95, which do you give it to?  I would give it to the 10 year old.  Not because it's 100% to let 95 year olds die when you have a chance to save them, but because it's better to let a 95 year old die than let a 10 year old die.  It's not that ones 100% okay, and the other is 100% not okay.  It's that you can compare their relative badness, and decide which is worse than the other.  In a binary system, you can't compare things like that, because there's no better or worse, only yes or no.


No, but it is something that needs to be considered when making decisions that might affect their survival.


So an intelligent alien, which could speak with us, feel the same emotions as us, do everything that a human does, but didn't happen to be human (think pretty much any of the aliens for star trek, if you're into that show), can be killed at will with no guilt at all?  How about the death penalty?  That's killing a 100% human, but I believe you consider that to be acceptable?  If so, then clearly just being human isn't sufficient reason by itself that something shouldn't be killed.  It's not the only factor to consider.  What other factors need to be weighed?




Your argument is circular: animals are different from humans because they have different value, and they have different value because they're not human.  You have to either state what it is that makes us human, and then argue why we value that, or state what qualities we value, and show that humans have them and animals don't.  You should be able to do this, it's not a trick question.  You may not have thought about it before, and have always just accepted it as "the way things are."  Most people are probably in that position, really.  But thinking about it deeper is a good thing.  Asking why that's the way things are is a good thing.  Dig deeper, TitL, and figure out why you value things that are human.

The two are related. We make some things illegal because they are wrong, theft or animal abuse, for instance. In fact the basis of US law, the Constitution, was built on moral grounds. Of course, there are a good many laws which are not based on moral grounds (speeding) and a good many moral activities which have no representation in law (adultery, in some states. Or painting your house a garish color.) The two are not completely equivalent, and at times the law has supported distinctly immoral things (such as slavery), but it at least gives us an agreed upon basis to build off of.

I think it would be hard to find a non-medieval moral code which feels that property or convenience is on the same level as a life (although I'm open to it). Meanwhile, I can find a good number of moral codes which seem to proclaim the opposite. Even Islam, which at times has been considered brutal, makes it clear the punishment for theft is cutting off a hand, and death doesn't follow until several offenses.



I don't think I ever said that. I think we both agree, causing the death of a human, and denying a human his time, property, future, etc. are both morally wrong. However, I'm looking for a way to compare them. Most people seem to accept that life trumps property, time, etc. and I gave evidence for it - in most democratic nations, this is enforced and not even worth debate. You are welcome to give counter-evidence, otherwise I think it's safe to assume that life DOES trump property and time.




You feel I am responsible for things I wasn't involved in? I was perhaps responsible for OJ killing his wife, or for Manson trying to start a race war?



If a woman decided to kill a fetus at 10 months, I think the punishment should be the same as if she decided to kill a newborn baby. Again, they are basically identical, biologically speaking. To use Tycho's terms, it's 100% human (at least if a newborn is, I'm not so sure about that myself).



If she JUST became aware of it? No, I think that would be excessive for a few reasons. For one, biologically, at two weeks development, the creature is still an embryo. It has no brain activity, no heart activity. It is not, biologically speaking, independently alive. There are few, if any cells in there which are the final cells it will be born with. The woman has had little or no time to consider her options. She hasn't "sat on it" for months and months. I would consider a first trimester abortion one that should carry few, if any legal repurcussions.  (Note, I may not have thought this last week. Unfortunately, with so much time between your posts, I regularly forget my arguments, so I sort of have to remember them as I go along.)




In cases where they are legally protected, probably on the order of $200-$500. There's little danger to himself, physically or legally. If we legalized assassination, we'd probably find the actual cost to kill someone who is unable to defend himself and good enough to make appointments would run about the same, if not less (you don't generally need a medical degree to kill someone). If abortion were made illegal, the cost would likely go up, to represent his financial and legal risk, and if the mother didn't come in for an appointment, but if instead she had to be captured and aborted against her will, the cost would probably be in the area of $20,000 or more, I have to guess, so still comparable (but then again, I'm just making that number up, so maybe it would be higher. Certainly not lower.)

Or am I missing the point of your question?



Yes, and they pay a significant legal consequence for that. They are generally not able to buy a house again in the future, or at least for a very long time. People also kill their wives rather than file for a divorce. That doesn't mean it should be without legal repurcussions.



If the pregnancy were such that it would be considered a serious possibility of your going without a body as a result, I think abortion would be considered an acceptable option. Since, after the vast majority of pregnancies, the body still functions properly and is in the possession of the original owners (I'm not counting voodoo pregnancies here, I suppose), I don't see the point.



Humans are sensing, self-aware creatures, capable of greater knowledge and understanding than other animals. They also don't taste as good. I think it's unethical to kill apes, except in cases of pressing need.  In fact, I could be convinced that it is more ethical to kill a newborn than it is to kill an adult chimpanzee. But I also recognize the value of a creature's future is important. I consider my four-year-old more valuable than an adult chimpanzee because, while he is not as smart, and perhaps only slightly less smelly, one day he will most likely achieve something a great deal more impressive than that chimpanzee. Similarly with my two-year-old, although slightly less so (since his current awareness and therefore his present "value" is lower).



Yes, generally because it poses a threat to my health (mosquitos).



Sometimes



It's sort of an eye for an eye thing. You bite me, I bite you. I stopped when I remembered that they sometimes carry other peoples' blood too, since that's sort of gross. I also don't eat cockroaches for health reasons, or ants when I used poison on them. Otherwise they're fair game.



It's okay, I do that all the time too. Maybe I should start using the scratchpad more.






Oh, I think intent completely plays a part in this.



If she were truly, completely reckless, yes. Like if she decided she wanted to take up stair tumbling, when there's a pretty high likelihood of causing harm. If she was just riding her bike, which is generally considered safe for most people, probably not. Just like living in an apartment, even though every year children climb up and fall out of windows, wouldn't be manslaughter because it isn't especially reckless.

But then again, maybe a better legal definition of reckless is necessary.

I think if she were 9-months pregnant and took up bungee cord jumping, that would probably be manslaughter (although the sentence would be diminished, most likely).




I'm only trying to exclude abortions for medical necessity. For the sake of argument, I'll concede that abortions out of medical necessity are in fact necessary and while lamentable, are not morally wrong (or at least, are the lesser of two evils). I'm saying those abortions which are NOT for medical necessity are for convenience (not comfort, convenience).




That is true. And I think that comes back to the front end of it.

I think my argument boils down to this;
Abortions are terrible things, and should be avoided whenever feasible. An abortion becomes more allowable given certain factors:
The mother is not responsible for the abortion (lacking foresight, intent or knowledge)
For some reason, the mother cannot safely complete the pregnancy (medical necessity)
(optional) The fetus is not yet developed enough, or is unable to develop to the point of being considered human

On the flip side, a woman is fully responsible for committing, or having lead to the death of her fetus if:
She, with knowledge, foresight and intent, engaged in behavior to kill the fetus. As these three factors are reduced, so is her culpability, and her legal culpability should be lower, but absolutely not higher, than her moral culpability.

Do I think it is less moral to kill a fetus at 10 months than at 2? Yes, but I'd have to consider more. It would probably come back to Tycho's argument, basically, based on biological flags and baselines. Does that mean it should be completely legal to abort at 2 months? Not sure yet.



Yes, it's called "eating" :) As long as we feed on lesser animals, I don't see it as a problem. My rabbits don't write sonnets or give themselves names. They mostly just eat, poop and jump at shadows. Not all life is created equal.



I don't know of any woman who has gotten pregnant solely by virtue of being alive.



You're making a moral statement based on laws. The laws don't accept ignorance because then it becomes legally preferable to remain ignorant. The current legal situation does incentivize educating yourself. We can't really incentivize morals, so that argument doesn't apply.

Now, if someone did not realize that drinking reduces his reaction time, and went out and killed someone drunk driving, only now realizing why he got into a crash, yes, I'd say that morally he has reduced responsibility. He's pretty stupid, but morally he's not as bad as the guy who realized what alcohol does to a person. Even moreso, a person who drinks alcohol without realizing it (someone spiked the punch) and therefore has no knowledge that he is drunk has even less culpability.



If my four-year-old didn't realize a gun goes bang and shot me, yes, he'd have reduced culpability.



You can answer that question yourself :) Because we can argue that a woman's right to her body is reduced when she intentionally engages in behavior which may result in certain reactions she doesn't ultimately desire, but we can't say her right is reduced when these reactions start without her making that first compromise.

In other words, a woman does have a right to control over her body, perhaps even that right is equal to the right the fetus has to life. HOWEVER, her right to control over her body is REDUCED when she engages in behaviors with certain known side effects, while the right of the fetus to life maintains the same level. If her right to her body is reduced because of her irresponsible decisions, that means it is now below the right the fetus has to live. If her right to her body is not reduced, than they are equal and we go back to the previous debates.

I suppose, in short, "the person responsible for the situation is responsible for setting it right". If no one is responsible, it shakes out differently.



I'm trying it on for size. Not sure yet if I like it.



In both cases the abortion is equally tragic and terrible. However, in the former, the woman is the one who created the situation, and so it falls onto her (and her male co-conspirator) to set it right, not onto the fetus. In the latter, the woman literally did find herself in the situation, and so has equal responsibility for it occuring as the fetus (i.e. - none).





If your only concern is motivation, I can live with that and move on. I'm simply trying to say that if we could all be happy without an abortion ever being necessary (if, for instance, we could take out the fetus or embryo and grow it perfectly in an incubator), that that would be the preferable solution. That abortions are not "good" things by any stretch of the imagination.

Do you feel that in some cases, an abortion is inherently good, or morally neutral? Or is it always naturally an undesirable situation?



Which isn't surprising, since punishment is a subset of consequences. Punishment is the practice of imposing (by an outside party with intent) something unpleasant or aversive on a person or animal, usually in response to disobedient or morally wrong behavior; a penalty inflicted for an offense, fault, etc. (from wikipedia and American Heritage).

Pregnancy is not a punishment, unless you believe God and a literal reading of Genesis. It's a natural consequence. Dropping a jar of pickles on my foot isn't a punishment because there's no outside force who puts it on me. Giving or not giving an abortion could hypothetically be a punishment, if we said we are enforcing it based on whether an initial behavior is wrong, offensive, etc., but that isn't what we're saying. If I damage someone's house, my paying for it isn't so much a punishment (meant to be a penalty against me), but a recompense (meant to make his house right). Only if I'm charged something above and beyond what is required to make the situation right is it a punishment.

From what I've been trying to argue, birthing the baby is what is required to make the situation right, since it only temporarily denies the rights of one person, and only the person who is responsible for the situation in the first place. It is recompense. Punishment would be if the mother had to do something else above and beyond getting the fetus to the point where it can be cared for properly outside of the womb, which I'm not suggesting.



I've been trying to, when I remember, but it gets very complex to write out "the woman and the man..." every time. You can assume that, when I talk about the woman going through this, the man is also responsible to some degree, to help drive her to appointments, to make up for lost income, to help buy groceries, whatever. Since the woman's job is pretty clear cut and the man's is not, however, it becomes more fuzzy (especially in cases where there's no real relationship between the man and the woman). At absolute minimum, the man is responsible for financial assistance to help the woman through this very difficult time. If the man could help by giving birth or donating blood or whatever, he should be there too. The responsibility lies with him just as much. But nature does not allow for that, so he will simply have to assist in every other way possible.



I don't think I ever said that, and in fact, it's a little offensive that you're accusing me of such. However, the woman is where all the action is, frankly. A woman can get an abortion, a man cannot. If you'd rather argue about whether it is ethical for men to get abortions, we can do that, but I think it'll be a very short conversation. A man who pays for, drives to, consents to, encourages, etc. an abortion is JUST as responsible as the woman involved, but I find it difficult to imagine a situation where the woman is LESS responsible (since ultimately, she too has to consent) unless she's bound and gagged (which I believe we all agree is morally wrong, even though in theory a man too has a right to request an abortion, regardless as to the mother's feelings on the matter.)



I'm pretty sure I said intent does matter. In this case, the woman has almost no responsibility, therefore we can't rightly ask her to forego her other rights to correct the situation.

Again, if you willingly engage in behavior, YOU are responsible for fixing what results. If you do NOT willingly engage in behavior, you are NOT responsible for repairing what results.




I didn't say that either, and your strawmen are getting old.

I would say, however, that if I told you "hey, behind that door is an S&M rape club. Don't go in there, because they like the kinky stuff and don't believe in safe words, and won't ask permission. You see? There's even a sign on the door saying do not enter, rapists here." And you unlocked the door and entered, yes, I would say you share some responsibility for what resulted (still far, far less than the rapist, of course). But women rarely, if ever do that, at least without suffering some mental derangement of their own which would in turn reduce their culpability.

A lot of this also relies on measuring risks and percentage chances. You will almost never find a situation with a double digit percent chance of getting raped. The odds are real, but fairly low. That is generally considered an acceptable risk, as in the woman has done what is necessary to address the risk. So, aside from works of fiction and cases where the woman does not have true choice in the matter (through slavery, financial dependence, mental coercion, etc., etc.) a woman basically never "chooses" rape. If she did, it wouldn't be rape any more, it would just be really rough but consensual sex.



I'm really not trying to argue personal beliefs here. Not to say I don't care, but your personal beliefs are irrelevant, except insofar as you may or may not be trying to force them on someone else. You seem to feel it is acceptable for someone to pull the plug, and that's all I need to know, even if you, personally, never would.



Again, I'm not arguing what Vexen thinks is appropriate and necessary for Vexen. I'm arguing what Vexen thinks is necessary and appropriate for Jane Shmoe. When I say "you don't believe", "you don't think", whatever, it isn't your personal ethics, but what you feel is universal enough to apply to every man and woman in the US.



I think, when comparing between two heavy rights, responsibility is a good way to determine which trumps. It's a measure of who needs to care for whom, not whi has more rights.



But you didn't answer the question.

(And I didn't say that. What I am trying to say is, I have no idea, really, and I'm not going to argue it either way, however let's assume it is so we can focus on the cases where my argument does apply.)



Even though the doctor told her there are risks, including death? What else should he tell her? "Yes, the risk of this experiment really, really does include death and genital warts, really, really, I'm not kidding!!! And you might end up hooked to a fat guy for ten months!!! Really, THIS EXACT TEST runs those risks!!! Do you still want to sign up?"



Again then, I would like you to answer the question about the rope.

It sounds to me like it's okay for me to say "yes, yes, I will take care of you. I voluntarily accept this risk. You can put your life on the line for me." Then, when the rubber hits the road I can stand up and run away laughing, "hahaha, psych! Loser!" And watch as the guy dies on the operating table. You seriously think that's morally acceptable? I find that idea morally repugnant, and absolutely unacceptable.

Yeah, it seems the percentage idea isn't working for people, and I now realize that while it's a better description, it's just another version of the "human/not human" concept, rather than something more objective.  Instead of X% human, I think we need to look at the specific traits/qualities, and weigh those up when making the decision.  People probably won't be able to agree on 50% human anymore than they can agree on 0% or 100%, but they should be able to agree on this like degree of awareness, complexity of nervous system, likelihood of survival if removed from womb right now, etc.

Katisara seems to have picked up on what I'm getting at when he talks about the value of chimpanzees vs. that of his kids.  Those are the kinds of thoughts I think we should be exploring, because he's talking about real-world properties that we can all agree on, like self-awareness, sensing, potential for future state, etc.

Just to be clear to everyone, I'm not claiming to have the final answer to this, I'm just suggesting that we might be able to find more agreement if we look at these objective qualities, rather than arguing over whether one arbitrary label applies or not.

Legality defines four types of issues:

1- Legality puts a floor on what is socially acceptable behavior.  In other words, it defines the lowest acceptable morality in our society (the lowest common denominator), even though it doesn't promote it.  (For example, smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol).  This is what we call the "social contract" of society.

2- Based on the theory of "natural law," the law tries to define what is absolutely wrong or right (such as murder).  Usually, this coincides with #1 because people won't tolerate it, but sometimes people would tolerate it.

3- Laws address the "positive law" which refers to things that are not individually right or wrong but are necessary laws to fulfill a public policy.  (Example:  Paying your taxes -- because revenue is required to run the country -- or speed limits -- based on the underlying principle of safety.)

4- Laws address certain public policies that it wants to promote or regulate in a manner with a positive outcome for the public good.  (Many family laws fall under this category, the national defense might fall under here, mortgage tax deductions fall here--to encourage people to be homeowners and positively impact the economy, etc.)

I suggest reading Beccaria if you want to know a lot about legal theories, particularly relating to crime and punishment.

___

The key factor here is whether the right to privacy and choice of action with one's body outweighs the value/sanctity of the life within the body.  The supreme court essentially said that at a certain point, the child's life outweighs the personal rights of the mother.  That's where there's disagreement.  Science cannot say when a human life begins, so obviously the conservatives believe it is better to be safe than sorry (particularly the religiously devout).  The other side says "it's my body," which I think is a terrible saying, since it's really the body inside your body we're talking about.

Once we successfully develop a uterine replicator and the technology to safely transfer a fetus from a womb to a replicator, we will obviate the abortion issue.
I'm looking forward to that day.

Heh!  I've been re-reading Brave New World recently, so that idea is quite timely for me!

The Vorkosigan series has some wonderful discussion of uterine replicators as well.
I'm very much in favor.

Saw this today and it gave me a good laugh!

http://www.theonion.com/conten...utm_source=a-section

It sort of reminded of katisara talking about how he likes to have the teaching of the catholic church, so he doesn't have to rely on his own interpretation of prayer in moments of extreme stress.  Sadly for the pope, he has to take his own interpretation of prayers into account! ;)

It's April 1st every day on the Onion >_<, made me go "that can't be right" while I looked up further information. :P

Humans are no better than other animals. Abortion is okay by me.

Animals are delicious.

Donner, Party of 47 *hands out the menus* :P
This message was last edited by the player at 01:10, Thu 09 Apr 2009.

Good point. So cannibalism is okay?

Only if you're a good cook.

The Stomach has no moral dilemma if you're hungry enough.  Besides, they're in a better place now :P

Let me expand - are you okay with my KILLING and eating people?

Nope; I wouldn't eat a hamburger either if I had to kill the cow myself, though.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:22, Thu 09 Apr 2009.

So it's okay to hire someone else to kill people for you to eat.

Would money really matter to people when it gets to the point of eating each other to survive?

On a grim addendum, have you ever read the short story "Survivor Type" by Stephen King? (most commonly found in the Skeleton Crew Anthology)