I think one way of stating the dichotomy is to point out the difference between a prohibition against killing life, and an imperative to support life at any cost. One doesn’t necessarily imply the other.
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I think everyone gets life begins at the embryonic stage, if scientists found microbes on Mars they would be celebrating discovering life on mars.
the question to some is when is it ethical to abort and not to abort, some do put it at the embryonic stage, others might put it at the point consciousness occurs, around 24 weeks, others it seems put it at the point a heart beat is detected, others like myself think 3 months sounds reasonable.
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I wonder what people who believe in reincarnation would think about aborting a fetus. Because abortion in this sense is taking away a soul’s opportunity to be reborn.
Or people who believe in the existence of soulmates. Wouldn’t aborting a fetus be interfering in a soul contract that the soul might have arranged with other souls.
Or for Christians, Jeremiah 1:5
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.”
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If you think not having a guarantee that a fetus, which, when born, is quite clearly a human, does not deserve quality of life, then you have a very messed up idea of what “life” is. A heartbeat and breath while living in total misery as the world spits on them for their “inability” to do anything is “living”? I mean, based on your definition of a fetus being a living human or life on Mars it is, but that’s a really sad way of looking at life. Why would anyone want to populate the Earth with humans that have pretty high odds of a low quality of life?
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I think the point is if you took a day after pill what is being aborted does not have any awareness, or consciousness while @keoni does bring up the interesting question of a soul. Carrying a child impacts the mothers life so deeply there does IMO need to be an option for abortion, especially so when you include rapes.
But also IMO once the fetus has consciousness, about 24 weeks, the argument to allow abortion to continue after that unless to secure the safety of the mother or something going terribly wrong, seems wrong. Some were even arguing that a baby could be “aborted” after birth not so long ago. I find that indefensible.
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I’m not arguing for a blanket allowing of abortions at any stage. There’s a point wherein it makes sense that most people would say abortion is not OK. If the fetus is viable without the mother, for example. But what does that mean? I had two childhood friends (twins) that were born at 23 weeks. Doctors predicted they would be in wheelchairs and unable to function, likely to die at a young age. But they only had minor cognitive disabilities and some physical issues that were easily addressed with physical therapy at a young age. Both of them are now fully-functioning adults with college degrees and full-time, white collar jobs. So when it a fetus no longer viable?? Also, there ALWAYS need to be exceptions made for when the mother’s life is in danger. The US has the highest maternal death rate of the entire developed world as it is. To say shit like “sorry, your baby is already dead but we can’t help you remove the dead mass of cells because abortion is illegal after this point in your pregnancy” goes directly against “do no harm”, but Texas (and all these “pro-life” states) don’t care.
I am not going to stop pointing out that, as Texas sees it, women should be forced to carry almost all pregnancies to term, essentially no exception, while also doing nothing at all to make sure the child has any quality of life. The NYT article is saying that everyone should have a social safety net, from conception to death. That actually makes sense, because if you want a functioning society, you do not want a huge percentage of your population unable to feed themselves and then also forced to give birth. Texas is the opposite: no one but the wealthiest corporations deserve any government handouts at all, but women must give birth and then figure out a way to raise the children themselves, fathers need take no responsibility, even though childcare costs more than college tuition, which means it costs more for most single mothers to work than it does to stay at home and raise their unwanted children. What great goals we have for the future!
Which is fine @nz everyone on here is voicing opinions, they might not agree with each other and I’m sure we all think our opinions are the right opinions. I have mine, which I can’t say with 100% confidence is the right one, but after thinking of many factors think is the right balance, but accept it might be wrong.
Please, you do keep pointing out what you think are the important things to consider, I for will will listen and consider your thoughts.
So therefore it is ok to abort them from that chance of having their life? Which belongs to them not you.
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I never said that. I merely don’t believe it is the government’s job to ensure a quality of life.
I don’t think it is a sad way of looking at life. In fact, I think your way (do we want to allow life on this earth if it will not have a high quality of life) is not only sad, but extremely dangerous. That is the same thinking of the eugenics folks and would be a justification to any number of atrocities committed on people. I’m pretty sure it was Thanos’ reasoning, in fact.
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How about “who is going to look after them?!” You keep saying it’s not the government’s responsibility. It’s not the father’s responsibility, we’ve already established that it’s all too easy for him to not work or slink off to another state. So who raises the children? The woman who was forced to give birth to them? What about her life? She’s supposed to give up everything because some men decided to protect the life of her fetus? How’s about the men who made that decision for her foot the bill? Quality of life doesn’t matter?! I’m not talking about aborting children with Down syndrome. I’m literally questioning why humans should be brought into this world if no one is going to help look after them. That’s how to drive up crime rates 101.
This seems like the right direction to me. What makes a human life valuable? A soul is one answer. If (like me) you don’t believe in souls, then we need something else. I’m not sure awareness is it, though – we demonstrably don’t care about lots of lives that have awareness, both human and non-human.
I think maybe a better answer is impact on the community. The death of a person affects their family, their friends, their wider social group. As a community, our concern for people is ultimately selfish. We care more about our family than our country, more about our country than other countries, and more about humans than animals.
So, should we care about a fetus? The parents often do, but not always. I’m not sure the wider community has any real connection with it until later.
I’m a bit tentative here because I’m not sure if this is actually my stance or not. I’m looking for a way to reconcile my feeling that a society should take care of its people, with my feeling that a woman shouldn’t be forced to abandon her life as she knew it because a condom failed. Both those things feel ethically right to me, but nailing down why is tricky.
Of course it is. And the mother, of course.
No, I established the opposite. But even if it were true, the answer would be to enforce the laws against the father.
The mother, father, grandparents, siblings, adopted parents, orphanage, etc. The possibilities are nearly endless even without resorting to killing.
I’m not sure why you keep introducing this false and misandrist argument into the discussion. It doesn’t reflect well on you.
I’d appreciate it if you stop misrepresenting my views.
Yes, and I’m explaining why that is an abhorrent moral justification.
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That’s an understandable position which I can respect, and even mostly agree with.
As I affirmed many times above, there is a lot of truth to the proposition of a sliding scale of legal protections for unborn babies depending on developmental stage.
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People should have control over their own bodies. Ensuring that everyone has that right is taking care of people. Forcing someone to accommodate the rights of a fetus at the expense of their own bodily autonomy is immoral.
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It would seem only fair that if the woman is not allowed to abort, then the guy who inseminated the woman should be required to provide financially for the woman’s health checkups and also for the entire life of the child.
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I don’t know exactly what she said, but it is possible to conceive right after menstruation ends. And you would not notice until you missed your next period. The first symptoms of pregnancy occur for most women 1-2 weeks after a missed period. So in that situation, four weeks would have already passed and you would only have two weeks to schedule and get an abortion.
The fact that medication abortion can be done up to 10-12 weeks makes this even more ridiculous.
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Absolutely, including time commitments, etc. That’s becoming more and more feasible, I imagine.
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I’ll agree until age 18. Beyond that, adults gotta adult.*
*I understand that the term “life of the child” could mean “until the child is an adult”, so I’m merely clarifying.
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I agree, but as a justification I think it leads to some other contradictions – why is it okay to have an abortion but not okay to abandon the baby after birth, for instance?
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It certainly does, but I think TG was providing a possible justification, not necessarily an all encompassing policy for which he is advocating. Regardless, I’m sure he’ll elaborate.