Real questions about pro choice

[brashbrother]

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I'd say right up until birth.

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I don't understand this - This causes far too much suffering for all parties involved to be considered moral IMO - the suffering of those witnessing the abortion / the mother / the child.

Pulling a living child out of you and watching it be killed systematically can't possibly be justified. Oh - and this has nothing to do with religion.

My own opinion is that the cutoff should be very soon after conception. Perhaps give a week for the parents to decide what they truly want. There is no reason for carrying child for weeks or months and letting it grow inside you if you don't want it.

Pro-choice is a very cheery name in opposition to 'pro-life' - pro-death ?

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If you pull a living child out of a woman, she can certainly no longer abort it. She can refuse to nurse it, feed it, or care for it, but she cannot kill it.

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No, she cannot legally kill it, but refusing to do those things would be against the law also, unless she arranged for them through a specific process, in which case, she is providing for it, just not by her self.

[chezlaw]

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Personally, I think neurulation is a reasonable cutoff. At least you know there is no suffering involved before that point.

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Causing suffering shouldnt be too much of a factor when considering abortion. Obviously, causing suffering to innocent creatures should be avoided. But if the aborted fetus is the equivalent of an insignifigant animal, than the suffering it endures during an abortion is negligible against protecting the woman holding it.

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I disagree. If the woman choses not to have an abortion then she is taking some responsibilty for what happens next. Suffering caused by a later abortion can't then be dismissed as suffering of an insignificant animal any more than causing suffering to a pet dog can.

Freedom to chose doesn't mean freedom from the consequences of that choice.

chez

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This is absolutely true and something I think a lot of pro-choice advocates are dead wrong about, or at least do not give proper consideration to. I personally think abortion is morally acceptable until birth, but it is CLEARLY better earlier.

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Its a weak analogy but: If the women makes an informed decision not to have an early abortion then we can consider that a contract has been entered into with the feotus (like with a pet) and having a late abortion is a breach of contract which is therefore wrong. As a general rule we don't allow people to freely enter a contract and then harm the other parties by choosing to break the contract.

On the bit we agree on - it follows that the right thing to do is ensure people are able to avoid unwanted pregnancies in the first place, quickly determine they are pregnant, provide information on the options (abortion, parenthood, adoptions etc), and provide easy access to early abortions.

chez

[vhawk01]

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A trimester is 13 weeks. How old does that make the (whatever) during the 11th and 12th trimester?

To elaborate, my point is that "viability" in terms of months in the womb would be just as arbitrary a cutoff as 13 weeks is. I would think that true viability - that is, the ability to survive "on one's own" - cannot exist before age three or so as a bare minimum. In other words, viability requires about 2 trimesters in the womb, and, at the bare minimum in the most exceptional case in the most non-threatening environment, another 11 or 12 more trimesters outside.

In still other other different words, by extension, an argument for viability as the cut-off ought to extend to about age 3. In my post, I mentioned that some people find "viability" palatable, and therefore plausible. I think its palatability (for some) is the only thing lends it any credibility (to those who find it credible) whatsoever.

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Thats not even close to what viability means. This is particularly important to my own pro-choice stance. There are always parents awaiting children.

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Viability seems an especially strange choice, even among a list of arbitrary choices, since the range of survivability is both broad and in itself subject to arbitrary qualifications. For example, in vitro fertilization plainly demonstrates the ability of a conceptus to survive outside the womb quite literally from the moment of fertilization, perhaps indefinitely. At the other end of the spectrum, eight-month-old infants clearly cannot survive "on its own" outside the womb for more than a hundred hours or so.

Among its other relatively obvious defects, from a practical standpoint, viability-based criteria (if they were broadly accepted) would incent certain abortion proponants - for instance, politicians who use the issue to appeal to a certain demographic they view as important to the continuation of their career - to take steps like cutting funding for research into techniques that would help preserve the lives of premies born under 22 weeks.

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I agree with all of this, and have never defended viability as a standard or demarcation. But still, what you posted has nothing to do with viability. Its important to some parts of my position, although they are minor ones. For instance, if it were possible to remove the fetus or zygote or blastula or morula at any stage, at no harm to the mother, and incubate it and bring it to life, then making any choice but this one would be immoral and wrong for the mother. So, scientific viability is important, but not fundamental, to my position, and we need to be clear on definitions. I wasn't really attacking you, but these debates often center around criss-crossed semantic points, and they are defeating. Just look at the insistence of some posters on using a 'potentiality' argument while admitting all along the absurdity of potentiality arguments.

[vhawk01]

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I'd say right up until birth.

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I don't understand this - This causes far too much suffering for all parties involved to be considered moral IMO - the suffering of those witnessing the abortion / the mother / the child.

Pulling a living child out of you and watching it be killed systematically can't possibly be justified. Oh - and this has nothing to do with religion.

My own opinion is that the cutoff should be very soon after conception. Perhaps give a week for the parents to decide what they truly want. There is no reason for carrying child for weeks or months and letting it grow inside you if you don't want it.

Pro-choice is a very cheery name in opposition to 'pro-life' - pro-death ?

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If you pull a living child out of a woman, she can certainly no longer abort it. She can refuse to nurse it, feed it, or care for it, but she cannot kill it.

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No, she cannot legally kill it, but refusing to do those things would be against the law also, unless she arranged for them through a specific process, in which case, she is providing for it, just not by her self.

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Nope. I mean, she can't really leave it on a doorstep at the local church, I guess, but more or less she can just refuse to care for it and give it up. Due to red tape, you have a point that this is not entirely a painless procedure, but I think you are being a bit of a nit there.

[vhawk01]

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Personally, I think neurulation is a reasonable cutoff. At least you know there is no suffering involved before that point.

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Causing suffering shouldnt be too much of a factor when considering abortion. Obviously, causing suffering to innocent creatures should be avoided. But if the aborted fetus is the equivalent of an insignifigant animal, than the suffering it endures during an abortion is negligible against protecting the woman holding it.

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I disagree. If the woman choses not to have an abortion then she is taking some responsibilty for what happens next. Suffering caused by a later abortion can't then be dismissed as suffering of an insignificant animal any more than causing suffering to a pet dog can.

Freedom to chose doesn't mean freedom from the consequences of that choice.

chez

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This is absolutely true and something I think a lot of pro-choice advocates are dead wrong about, or at least do not give proper consideration to. I personally think abortion is morally acceptable until birth, but it is CLEARLY better earlier.

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Its a weak analogy but: If the women makes an informed decision not to have an early abortion then we can consider that a contract has been entered into with the feotus (like with a pet) and having a late abortion is a breach of contract which is therefore wrong. As a general rule we don't allow people to freely enter a contract and then harm the other parties by choosing to break the contract.

On the bit we agree on - it follows that the right thing to do is ensure people are able to avoid unwanted pregnancies in the first place, quickly determine they are pregnant, provide information on the options (abortion, parenthood, adoptions etc), and provide easy access to early abortions.

chez

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Yes, this is exactly right, and usually a point it takes forever to get to. It is shaky ground, but I think that if a woman makes a decision early on in the pregnancy not to abort, you can make a strong case that she is now no longer allowed to break that contract, because of the excess suffering.

This leads to the obvious next point: isn't having unprotected sex (or any sex at all, really) the same as entering into this implicit contract? And my answer is a typically poker-like one: It depends. Certainly, an educated couple who willfully choose to have unprotected sex know full well the potential consequences of their actions, so you could say that the reasonable expectation of their acts are pregnancy. In that case, abortion is breaking the contract, causing suffering, and wrong. But I think the case of two people who use oral contraceptives and condoms and choose to have sex is vastly different. There is really just NO reasonable expectation of pregnancy in that case. Sure, its possible, but so is being struck by a meteor. Even having sex hundreds of times doesn't make the likelihood high enough to justify a reasonable expectation.

But thats a more technical question and a further point of debate. I am generally only interested in securing abortions for the victims of rape, and then letting the legal system try to figure out how they are going to make the law discern who was raped and who wasn't.

[brashbrother]

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I'd say right up until birth.

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I don't understand this - This causes far too much suffering for all parties involved to be considered moral IMO - the suffering of those witnessing the abortion / the mother / the child.

Pulling a living child out of you and watching it be killed systematically can't possibly be justified. Oh - and this has nothing to do with religion.

My own opinion is that the cutoff should be very soon after conception. Perhaps give a week for the parents to decide what they truly want. There is no reason for carrying child for weeks or months and letting it grow inside you if you don't want it.

Pro-choice is a very cheery name in opposition to 'pro-life' - pro-death ?

[/ QUOTE ]

If you pull a living child out of a woman, she can certainly no longer abort it. She can refuse to nurse it, feed it, or care for it, but she cannot kill it.

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No, she cannot legally kill it, but refusing to do those things would be against the law also, unless she arranged for them through a specific process, in which case, she is providing for it, just not by her self.

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Nope. I mean, she can't really leave it on a doorstep at the local church, I guess, but more or less she can just refuse to care for it and give it up. Due to red tape, you have a point that this is not entirely a painless procedure, but I think you are being a bit of a nit there.

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I see what you meant there. I thought you werre implying she could "allow" it to die by not feeding,caring for it, but couldn't "actively" kill it. Wasn't trying to be a nit, just didn't read your post correctly.

By the way, at least in Texas, you can leave a newborn infant at any random hospital without fear of prosecution, no questions asked. Not sure what the age cutoff for that is?

[vhawk01]

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I'd say right up until birth.

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I don't understand this - This causes far too much suffering for all parties involved to be considered moral IMO - the suffering of those witnessing the abortion / the mother / the child.

Pulling a living child out of you and watching it be killed systematically can't possibly be justified. Oh - and this has nothing to do with religion.

My own opinion is that the cutoff should be very soon after conception. Perhaps give a week for the parents to decide what they truly want. There is no reason for carrying child for weeks or months and letting it grow inside you if you don't want it.

Pro-choice is a very cheery name in opposition to 'pro-life' - pro-death ?

[/ QUOTE ]

If you pull a living child out of a woman, she can certainly no longer abort it. She can refuse to nurse it, feed it, or care for it, but she cannot kill it.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, she cannot legally kill it, but refusing to do those things would be against the law also, unless she arranged for them through a specific process, in which case, she is providing for it, just not by her self.

[/ QUOTE ]

Nope. I mean, she can't really leave it on a doorstep at the local church, I guess, but more or less she can just refuse to care for it and give it up. Due to red tape, you have a point that this is not entirely a painless procedure, but I think you are being a bit of a nit there.

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I see what you meant there. I thought you werre implying she could "allow" it to die by not feeding,caring for it, but couldn't "actively" kill it. Wasn't trying to be a nit, just didn't read your post correctly.

By the way, at least in Texas, you can leave a newborn infant at any random hospital without fear of prosecution, no questions asked. Not sure what the age cutoff for that is?

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Yeah, there probably IS no cutoff. I think those laws are to encourage these mothers to do something that wont ENSURE the babies death, like putting it in a dumpster. My point is really just that you cannot force anyone to sacrifice their body to help someone else, even if that other person will die as a result. You cannot force me to give my kidney, you cannot force me even to give a unit of blood, no matter how helpless the child is who will die otherwise. Am I being selfish? Of course, but as many threads on this forum have demonstrated, so are you, assuming you drive a car, eat good food, go to movies, or have furniture. So, if it was possible to remove the fetus without harming it, abortion becomes instantly immoral in my opinion. That death is the (currently) inevitable result of removing the fetus is unfortunate, and no one's fault but evolution or God.

[brashbrother]

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Personally, I think neurulation is a reasonable cutoff. At least you know there is no suffering involved before that point.

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Causing suffering shouldnt be too much of a factor when considering abortion. Obviously, causing suffering to innocent creatures should be avoided. But if the aborted fetus is the equivalent of an insignifigant animal, than the suffering it endures during an abortion is negligible against protecting the woman holding it.

[/ QUOTE ]
I disagree. If the woman choses not to have an abortion then she is taking some responsibilty for what happens next. Suffering caused by a later abortion can't then be dismissed as suffering of an insignificant animal any more than causing suffering to a pet dog can.

Freedom to chose doesn't mean freedom from the consequences of that choice.

chez

[/ QUOTE ]

This is absolutely true and something I think a lot of pro-choice advocates are dead wrong about, or at least do not give proper consideration to. I personally think abortion is morally acceptable until birth, but it is CLEARLY better earlier.

[/ QUOTE ]
Its a weak analogy but: If the women makes an informed decision not to have an early abortion then we can consider that a contract has been entered into with the feotus (like with a pet) and having a late abortion is a breach of contract which is therefore wrong. As a general rule we don't allow people to freely enter a contract and then harm the other parties by choosing to break the contract.

On the bit we agree on - it follows that the right thing to do is ensure people are able to avoid unwanted pregnancies in the first place, quickly determine they are pregnant, provide information on the options (abortion, parenthood, adoptions etc), and provide easy access to early abortions.

chez

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Yes, this is exactly right, and usually a point it takes forever to get to. It is shaky ground, but I think that if a woman makes a decision early on in the pregnancy not to abort, you can make a strong case that she is now no longer allowed to break that contract, because of the excess suffering.

This leads to the obvious next point: isn't having unprotected sex (or any sex at all, really) the same as entering into this implicit contract? And my answer is a typically poker-like one: It depends. Certainly, an educated couple who willfully choose to have unprotected sex know full well the potential consequences of their actions, so you could say that the reasonable expectation of their acts are pregnancy. In that case, abortion is breaking the contract, causing suffering, and wrong. But I think the case of two people who use oral contraceptives and condoms and choose to have sex is vastly different. There is really just NO reasonable expectation of pregnancy in that case. Sure, its possible, but so is being struck by a meteor. Even having sex hundreds of times doesn't make the likelihood high enough to justify a reasonable expectation.

But thats a more technical question and a further point of debate. I am generally only interested in securing abortions for the victims of rape, and then letting the legal system try to figure out how they are going to make the law discern who was raped and who wasn't.

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Quick Google search on "pregnancy risk condom" to find the stats I had heard before: Best case scenario with condoms, risk of preg = 3%, but that is with perfect use; standard use risk is actually 12-15% . Risk with perfect use of birth control pills is also around 3%.

Do you think you have a 12% risk of being struck with a meteor? Even a 3% risk? Or is it possible your presumption is wrong there?

[Prodigy54321]

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Personally, I think neurulation is a reasonable cutoff. At least you know there is no suffering involved before that point.

[/ QUOTE ]

Causing suffering shouldnt be too much of a factor when considering abortion. Obviously, causing suffering to innocent creatures should be avoided. But if the aborted fetus is the equivalent of an insignifigant animal, than the suffering it endures during an abortion is negligible against protecting the woman holding it.

[/ QUOTE ]
I disagree. If the woman choses not to have an abortion then she is taking some responsibilty for what happens next. Suffering caused by a later abortion can't then be dismissed as suffering of an insignificant animal any more than causing suffering to a pet dog can.

Freedom to chose doesn't mean freedom from the consequences of that choice.

chez

[/ QUOTE ]

This is absolutely true and something I think a lot of pro-choice advocates are dead wrong about, or at least do not give proper consideration to. I personally think abortion is morally acceptable until birth, but it is CLEARLY better earlier.

[/ QUOTE ]
Its a weak analogy but: If the women makes an informed decision not to have an early abortion then we can consider that a contract has been entered into with the feotus (like with a pet) and having a late abortion is a breach of contract which is therefore wrong. As a general rule we don't allow people to freely enter a contract and then harm the other parties by choosing to break the contract.

On the bit we agree on - it follows that the right thing to do is ensure people are able to avoid unwanted pregnancies in the first place, quickly determine they are pregnant, provide information on the options (abortion, parenthood, adoptions etc), and provide easy access to early abortions.

chez

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Yes, this is exactly right, and usually a point it takes forever to get to. It is shaky ground, but I think that if a woman makes a decision early on in the pregnancy not to abort, you can make a strong case that she is now no longer allowed to break that contract, because of the excess suffering.

This leads to the obvious next point: isn't having unprotected sex (or any sex at all, really) the same as entering into this implicit contract? And my answer is a typically poker-like one: It depends. Certainly, an educated couple who willfully choose to have unprotected sex know full well the potential consequences of their actions, so you could say that the reasonable expectation of their acts are pregnancy. In that case, abortion is breaking the contract, causing suffering, and wrong. But I think the case of two people who use oral contraceptives and condoms and choose to have sex is vastly different. There is really just NO reasonable expectation of pregnancy in that case. Sure, its possible, but so is being struck by a meteor. Even having sex hundreds of times doesn't make the likelihood high enough to justify a reasonable expectation.

But thats a more technical question and a further point of debate. I am generally only interested in securing abortions for the victims of rape, and then letting the legal system try to figure out how they are going to make the law discern who was raped and who wasn't.

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Quick Google search on "pregnancy risk condom" to find the stats I had heard before: Best case scenario with condoms, risk of preg = 3%, but that is with perfect use; standard use risk is actually 12-15% . Risk with perfect use of birth control pills is also around 3%.

Do you think you have a 12% risk of being struck with a meteor? Even a 3% risk? Or is it possible your presumption is wrong there?

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I remember these types of stats in my high school sex ed classes..

am I crazy or are these absolutely absurd?..I can't imagine that condoms fail even 3% [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[vhawk01]

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Personally, I think neurulation is a reasonable cutoff. At least you know there is no suffering involved before that point.

[/ QUOTE ]

Causing suffering shouldnt be too much of a factor when considering abortion. Obviously, causing suffering to innocent creatures should be avoided. But if the aborted fetus is the equivalent of an insignifigant animal, than the suffering it endures during an abortion is negligible against protecting the woman holding it.

[/ QUOTE ]
I disagree. If the woman choses not to have an abortion then she is taking some responsibilty for what happens next. Suffering caused by a later abortion can't then be dismissed as suffering of an insignificant animal any more than causing suffering to a pet dog can.

Freedom to chose doesn't mean freedom from the consequences of that choice.

chez

[/ QUOTE ]

This is absolutely true and something I think a lot of pro-choice advocates are dead wrong about, or at least do not give proper consideration to. I personally think abortion is morally acceptable until birth, but it is CLEARLY better earlier.

[/ QUOTE ]
Its a weak analogy but: If the women makes an informed decision not to have an early abortion then we can consider that a contract has been entered into with the feotus (like with a pet) and having a late abortion is a breach of contract which is therefore wrong. As a general rule we don't allow people to freely enter a contract and then harm the other parties by choosing to break the contract.

On the bit we agree on - it follows that the right thing to do is ensure people are able to avoid unwanted pregnancies in the first place, quickly determine they are pregnant, provide information on the options (abortion, parenthood, adoptions etc), and provide easy access to early abortions.

chez

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, this is exactly right, and usually a point it takes forever to get to. It is shaky ground, but I think that if a woman makes a decision early on in the pregnancy not to abort, you can make a strong case that she is now no longer allowed to break that contract, because of the excess suffering.

This leads to the obvious next point: isn't having unprotected sex (or any sex at all, really) the same as entering into this implicit contract? And my answer is a typically poker-like one: It depends. Certainly, an educated couple who willfully choose to have unprotected sex know full well the potential consequences of their actions, so you could say that the reasonable expectation of their acts are pregnancy. In that case, abortion is breaking the contract, causing suffering, and wrong. But I think the case of two people who use oral contraceptives and condoms and choose to have sex is vastly different. There is really just NO reasonable expectation of pregnancy in that case. Sure, its possible, but so is being struck by a meteor. Even having sex hundreds of times doesn't make the likelihood high enough to justify a reasonable expectation.

But thats a more technical question and a further point of debate. I am generally only interested in securing abortions for the victims of rape, and then letting the legal system try to figure out how they are going to make the law discern who was raped and who wasn't.

[/ QUOTE ]

Quick Google search on "pregnancy risk condom" to find the stats I had heard before: Best case scenario with condoms, risk of preg = 3%, but that is with perfect use; standard use risk is actually 12-15% . Risk with perfect use of birth control pills is also around 3%.

Do you think you have a 12% risk of being struck with a meteor? Even a 3% risk? Or is it possible your presumption is wrong there?

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I think I said if used properly, and if I didn't, I meant it. If used properly, the risk of condom failure is less than 1%. The often-cited numbers are always grossly inflated because of incorrect usage.

In other words, laboratory tests have shown that latex prevents sperm and viral passage at rates greater than 99%. The problem is in the use, but you have a point, we are talking about EXPECTED risk, and most people can't expect they are going to use them perfectly.

Like I said, this is a much more interesting debate for me, since I think the stuff leading to this is settled and boring. We could certainly have good discussions about how likely something needs to be before we can assign culpability.