Abortion

[Havoc]

And the future Hitler argument is as unsound as the future Beethoven argument for precisely the same reasons.

In a way yes, but it goes to the motive of morality. If one is convinced that all life is sacred and thus all abortions should be banned, then would that same abortion suddenly be okay when it would save millions of lives like in the case of a future Hitler? In other words, would the life of an unborn baby be worth more than that of millions of people?

And if you were to scale that down to realistic proportions, would the life of one unborn child be worth more than the life of the mother or the family?

[STM]

Depends, if you are making such a cynical question you require a cynical answer?

+ A child can be a beautiful person due to it's up-bringing, there are no evil babies.
+ What has the mother done? Is she a good person?
+ What is the income of the family, could they support the baby?
+ Perhaps this is the baby that cures cancer when it grows up? Alternatively (and i know these are unlikely extremes) is it the next Jack the Ripper?

[Bullet Magnet]

I've already said, that route of arguments is pointless. Usually I'm arguing against the grows-up-to-cure-cancer one.

[Wings of Fire]

Similarly, nobody in the world has the right to demonize a woman who aborted a baby who would as a guarentee grow up to cure cancer.

[Bullet Magnet]

I'm wondering if, in this world where the future achievements of viable foetuses are known in advance, whether the mother is made aware of them before she takes control of her own body.

[T-nex]

Depends, if you are making such a cynical question you require a cynical answer?

+ A child can be a beautiful person due to it's up-bringing, there are no evil babies.
+ What has the mother done? Is she a good person?
+ What is the income of the family, could they support the baby?
+ Perhaps this is the baby that cures cancer when it grows up? Alternatively (and i know these are unlikely extremes) is it the next Jack the Ripper?

I just think all that doesn't matter.
I'd say you're a pretty cold-hearted person if you ignore the emotional happiness and well-being of the mother.
If the mother is happy having the baby, then she should have it. if not, then she should have the opportunity not to have it.

[Wings of Fire]

Aren't you being hypocritical by ignoring the baby?

Ask any sane person 'Would you have wanted your mother to abort you?' and see what answers you get.

[Bullet Magnet]

I'll take that bet.

If my mother had not wanted to have me she was perfectly within her right to flush me out. At no point in my existance have I had the right to parasitise her body against her will. I was a planned pregnancy and in retrospect I'm very happy that she afforded me the board. But no person has the right to infringe upon another person's body in such an intimate, violating and physically dangerous way without permission, and a foetus can only be a person or less than a person, so there's no circumstance whereby its rights take priority. As it is my existence is already mindbogglingly improbable, an extra hurdle of difficulty is peanuts.

I have had someone who was very nearly aborted himself try a similar line of emotional blackmail on me, and I wasn't having any of it.

[Wings of Fire]

Of course she was within her right to abort you, but the fact remains that as a materialist you'd naturally prefer a life to no life. Nobody has the right to ignore either the concerns of the mother or the foetus, it's entirely the mother's call on a case by case basis.

Even if I don't agree with killing for convenience, violinist argument be damned, it is not and will never be my call.

[Bullet Magnet]

That's because you don't have a uterus.

[Wings of Fire]

Well damn.

[T-nex]

As I said.. I don't care much for future. potentialities. As it is, the fetus most likely has no concept of anything yet, and probably doesn't even understand its being aborted. I could be wrong cos Im not a biologist.

And even if it DID want to live, I'd still value the Mother's wishes more, because she has a personality, developed nervous system which can cause pain, depression and she has dreams and wishes and concepts of what's going on. I think it's way more important to keep her happy and alive than a fetus with no history.

And I'm not being hypocritical by ignoring the baby, cos I'm staying pretty true to my beliefs. That the Mother(actually the father too) is the one who should be kept happy.

[Havoc]

T-nex's theory could be compared to the culture where elders are always to be respected. In those cultures an elder would never be sacrificed for the good of a younger 'tribe' member. The one with more life experience has the right to live, which is the only right way in my book.

[Wings of Fire]

I meant that it was hypocritical to accuse anyone not taking the mother's interests first to be cold hearted whereby a consequence of your argument is casually killing an unborn life because you just don't feel like having it.

Not saying that they shouldn't have the right to do so, just that I'd expect a better self-justification than 'Well it couldn't feel pain yet could it?'

Then again, my arguments eventually commit me to vegentarianism, so go hypocrisy!

[Bullet Magnet]

I don't think there's ever anything casual about it.

T-nex's theory could be compared to the culture where elders are always to be respected. In those cultures an elder would never be sacrificed for the good of a younger 'tribe' member. The one with more life experience has the right to live, which is the only right way in my book.

I don't think that holds up once the younger life form becomes independent of the older one.

[Havoc]

Howso?

[Wings of Fire]

I don't think there's ever anything casual about it..

And people tell me I'm too idealistic.

[Phylum]

What if you have a test that says the baby will have down's syndrome (or any intellectual disability)? Should it be allowed then?

[Wings of Fire]

It should be allowed whenever, but it's not like disabled children can't be happy, and it's ridiculously prejudiced of anyone to assume otherwise.

[Bullet Magnet]

I'm more concerned about very malformed children that the body did not abort by itself. Their lives are short and horrific.

[Havoc]

I'm more concerned about very malformed children that the body did not abort by itself. Their lives are short and horrific.

Not according to jezus christ, because he loves them anyway.

[Nate]

I see no difference between potentiality and actuality.

(Playing devil's advocate)

By that logic, every ovum is a potential fetus and every woman is wasting a life every time she menstruates. We owe it to the potential child to impregnate every woman every time she ovulates.

[Ridg3]

Not according to jezus christ, because he loves them anyway.

Unless they're bastard children, he hates those fuckers.

[Wings of Fire]

(Playing devil's advocate)

By that logic, every ovum is a potential fetus and every woman is wasting a life every time she menstruates. We owe it to the potential child to impregnate every woman every time she ovulates.

Chicken isn't potentially chicken soup, neither is water or stock. It's only when you put the ingrediants together and leave them to stir for a while that it comes anywhere near to resembling soup in potentia.

[Bullet Magnet]

Pregnancy is hardly an inactive process. A lot needs to go right. Complex processes have so many opportunities to go wrong, and so they do.

[Wings of Fire]

I know that, but I don't believe that the chance that a miscarriage might happen justifies abortion.

I apologize for using the word 'guarenteed' so handwave-y. What I meant that was that if the baby is born it is guarenteed to have the inherent value of a human life.

[MeechMunchie]

You're honestly saying that someone who is unavoidably going to die in the next five minutes has the same priority as someone who could live on for twenty years?

Just a thought, not related to my point: If someone has been brain-dead for a few months, doctors will start giving the family the option of pulling the plug. If we can do that, we can certainly abort a foetus.

[Bullet Magnet]

I know that, but I don't believe that the chance that a miscarriage might happen justifies abortion.

I apologize for using the word 'guarenteed' so handwave-y. What I meant that was that if the baby is born it is guarenteed to have the inherent value of a human life.

At birth, yes. Prior to that point it is more difficult to discern, largely because we continue to insist that our biology conform to the discrete ideas in our head, rather than wrapping our ideas around the continuum of development that actually exists.

[Wings of Fire]

You're honestly saying that someone who is unavoidably going to die in the next five minutes has the same priority as someone who could live on for twenty years?

I don't really understand what you mean by this? I couldn't make that call because I lack the medical or physical responsibility. I do think in that case it would be good to seriously advise the mother to abort if it were known about beforehand.

[Dixanadu]

I was intended to be aborted, my mother had sent a medical form to the clinic.

Then there was a postal strike.

I'm living proof that sometimes an abortion is the way to go.