Abortion - Not as diametrically divisive as often thought?

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With which statement do you agree?

I want it to be illegal for a very poor teenager who was impregnated from being raped by an immediate family member to get an abortion even in the first week of pregnancy even if the doctors can and did detect the baby has severe genetic disorders and that the pregnancy if taken to term would have complications greatly risking the life of both the mother and would-be baby.
7
9%
I want it to be legal for a wealthy woman who is 5 days past her due date (of birth) to get an abortion even though doctors are sure that the healthy baby would be delivered safely and relatively easily otherwise and even though many safe, healthy, loving families are willing to adopt the would-be newborn immediately and even pay the woman significantly for that.
14
18%
I do not agree fully with either one of the above statements.
59
74%
 
Total votes: 80

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Maldon007
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Re: Abortion - Not as diametrically divisive as often though

Post by Maldon007 »

Spiral, is it so hard to see the point of view that sees the unborn as alive? And therefore deserving of protection?

For the sake of argument & understanding, give the pro-life people their live babies... Empathise, look at a fetus as being equal to a born baby. If you can, then see if maybe you would want to defend these babies from being killed.

If mothers routinely killed born babies, and it was legal, I would fight to change that practice/law... To them, it is the same... I can understand it, can you?
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Re: Abortion - Not as diametrically divisive as often though

Post by Leninist »

Hi Scott,

I voted for B and I would like to say why. We consider ourselves, our identity, as our person. It is not, I think, because of something mystical but because we out of necessity understand the world in relation to us. We form our identity by understanding our relation to it, primarily with our body and its sense-perceptions. A woman should have the right to abort her fetus any time she wants, unless, you consider slavery a morally good act. She is practically a slave to these conditions which can change, it is forced upon her. This would not be so black and white if we understood the state of the fetus and our empathetic relation to it.From a scientific perspective - It is now said by neurologists that babies do not hold memories until at least the first year of their lives. The fetus is just flesh with instinctual desires and emotions. It doesn't know anything about the world or itself, it hasn't learned language and it has no experience. Knowing this, abortion is not the same as killing a fellow human being who has gained self-awareness, who can express their desires, and who is generally, consciously, are trying to survive, escape from a concept called death. One argument to this is that the fetus will become a human being and by example ask if you would disconnect a patient that is comatose. However, if we look at this argument, the comatose patient actually had a life prior to the event, the fetus did not.

I would like to also respond to your questions that you put forward to Kingkool. I found them very interesting and thought provoking.

1. This was the most challenging and interesting problem. However, I came to the conclusion that this is not a moral problem. Every single outcome ended up with an immoral act in consideration to our societies lifeworld. The answer was, to make it legal and let them sort it out. This is equivalent to the ecosystem, the lion that kills the buffalo or vice versa. Now you may think this sound extremely horrid, however, if she is determined to escape her situation then every action you take will only oppress someone else. It would be say, if I save the moth from the spiders web. Indeed, I felt good, however, the spider(for this example) does not have any food. This is not considered ignoring the problem, you are very much aware of it. It is a problem that situates itself in the state of nature.

2. This was quite an easy one. The situations were not a cause of the inequalities in nature, but a contingent political social one - Land property.

3. This is not just a case of the baby, but, the mental stability of the mother. There is no reason, in a society that accepts foster care ,why she shouldn't give it up to them. It is currently immoral and cruel to torture animals, so this, enhance, has a greater effect because the new born is considered the same species.

4. When the baby leaves her body then it ceases to be her baby if she wants to end its life, it ceases to infringe on her freedom. It becomes a baby of the state, the state can determine what will happen to it. Perhaps a nice nurse will take the new born home. A society that views abortion in this way does not necessarily have to be a cruel and malevolent society.

5. This was a little difficult to answer because before surgery, patients are usually asleep. If they wake up prematurely they are not very coherent. However, lets say this one is, then yes, he has a right to leave. However, he might be charged with murder. I feel this is more of a legal issue. A contract does not have the power to enslave you, because it does not supersede the social contract. Unless of course your actions directly effect the social contract.

The extreme side of this argument is emotionally personifying a fetus which does not yet resemble human characteristics. It would be the same if you considered killing a human who doesn't have a brain(completely gone) and saying it is immoral.

Now do not get me wrong, I would hate to see any of this; It would make me sick to my stomach. I am arguing, of course, philosophically.

What would maybe appease everyone in this situation is a law that birth control was necessary. If you wanted a baby then you'd have to be psychologically analysed (and in capitalism, financially analysed). It seems almost nonsensical why the burden of our society is increased by children who grow up with unstable homes and families, thereby, more likely, statistically, mimic their parents. We are constantly tested in our society. If you want to be a lawyer, a medical doctor, a teacher. Yet, for some reason, being a parent and the devotion necessary to be parent is not tested.
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Re: Abortion - Not as diametrically divisive as often though

Post by Spiral Out »

Maldon007 wrote:Spiral, is it so hard to see the point of view that sees the unborn as alive? And therefore deserving of protection?

For the sake of argument & understanding, give the pro-life people their live babies... Empathise, look at a fetus as being equal to a born baby. If you can, then see if maybe you would want to defend these babies from being killed.

If mothers routinely killed born babies, and it was legal, I would fight to change that practice/law... To them, it is the same... I can understand it, can you?
I read a post in another forum recently where someone had alluded to their support for affording a man's sperm protections under that same reasoning.

So when exactly does it become an "unborn"? The moment the gamete is "born"? The moment the zygote is "born? The moment the embryo is "born"? The moment the fetus is "born"? These are all examples of "unborn" life. Where do you draw your line and why is that where I should draw my line? Why is your opinion supposedly superior to mine?

We all have draw that line somewhere. Different people just draw that line in different places.

What if that line were drawn too far for your liking in the other direction as in the example of affording protections to sperm? Let's say your fellow man has determined that sperm is life and is deserving of protection. So now what do you do? It's an absurd notion, right? But why is it absurd? Is it only for the fact that it is unenforceable? Then what if it was enforceable and, through some kind of crazy nano-tech advancements, it was made possible to "tag and track" your sperm's movements and location, and if they weren't inside a woman making their way toward a woman's egg then you were complicit to the murder of millions of life forms? This is why you have to draw a line somewhere! It becomes an exercise in futility and absurdity.

The notion of an embryo as being equal to a baby outside the womb is equally absurd to me.

What if abortion, through technological advancements, becomes a safe and easy home-based procedure, and any law against abortion is now wholly unenforceable? Why bother?

You cannot use the pro-life argument "because it's a life form". We stamp out life every day without a second thought. Everyone does to some degree. That's quite my point, it is a question of degrees.

We all have draw that line somewhere. Different people just draw that line in different places.

When a woman unknown to you, being in an place unknown to you, has an abortion unknown to you, how does that cause an injury to you personally? What is your personal stake in that unborn?
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Re: Abortion - Not as diametrically divisive as often though

Post by Maldon007 »

Spiral Out wrote:
When a woman unknown to you, being in an place unknown to you, has an abortion unknown to you, how does that cause an injury to you personally? What is your personal stake in that unborn?
I don't see this as a strong argument, unless you give that no one has a stake in anything that happens to anyone, they don't personally know. Why oppose slave labor, if you don't know any slaves, etc. If you give that a fetus is a human being (which they do), that argumnt fails.

Personally, I would draw the line at the point where, if the fetus was delivered & not aborted, it would have a decent chance at surviving to adulthood. I don't know what that is, maybe 6 months? And I'm sure it has changed & will change, but that is my line.
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Re: Abortion - Not as diametrically divisive as often though

Post by Eckhart Aurelius Hughes »

Spiral Out wrote:That's quite my point, it is a question of degrees.

We all have draw that line somewhere. Different people just draw that line in different places.
Yes, exactly. Yet, it seems almost everyone draws that line between my option A and option B such that everyone is at least a little pro-life and a little pro-choice. (Granted, there are the very few extremists who do indeed support giving sperm the same rights as babies or who support infanticide.)
Maldon007 wrote:Personally, I would draw the line at the point where, if the fetus was delivered & not aborted, it would have a decent chance at surviving to adulthood. I don't know what that is, maybe 6 months? And I'm sure it has changed & will change, but that is my line.
For the purposes of what is legal, that incidentally matches up to what I might think. But the point is that we often mistake all the interesting philosophical disagreements that arise from the questions about whether to somewhat arbitrarily draw the line at 6 months or 7 months or 5 months at birth viability or at heart beat or at brain activity as symptomatic at diametric opposition (i.e. a bunch of strictly pro-life people versus a bunch of strictly pro-choice) when indeed I think we can see it is not (i.e. almost everyone is pro-life and pro-choice).

***
Scott wrote:Do you want it to be illegal for a Mary to hire a doctor and the doctor to perform the operation which leads to Jane's death despite Jane's protests? Yes or no? Yet, that doesn't resemble the abortion situation too much because the mother with the 5-day-late fetus can be surgically separated via c-section from her unborn child such that both mother and baby live just fine. So what if it is possible for the doctor to separate the twins such that they both live but Mary opts for an operation to have her sister killed and then removed, or Mary intentionally opts for a procedure that removes Jane in a a way leads to her dying rather than living?
Leninist wrote:1. This was the most challenging and interesting problem. However, I came to the conclusion that this is not a moral problem. Every single outcome ended up with an immoral act in consideration to our societies lifeworld. The answer was, to make it legal and let them sort it out. This is equivalent to the ecosystem, the lion that kills the buffalo or vice versa. Now you may think this sound extremely horrid, however, if she is determined to escape her situation then every action you take will only oppress someone else. It would be say, if I save the moth from the spiders web. Indeed, I felt good, however, the spider(for this example) does not have any food. This is not considered ignoring the problem, you are very much aware of it. It is a problem that situates itself in the state of nature.
So you want it to be legal for Mary to hire a doctor to separate her conjoined twin Jane against Jane's protests event though it will kill Jane? Are you also saying you want it to be legal for Mary to opt to a procedure that kills Jane even though the doctor could separate them without killing Jane? If so, I think you have contradicted yourself judging by your desire to criminalize infanticide even seconds after birth when the umbilical cord has not yet been cut.
Scott wrote:Do you want it to be illegal for the landlord to not take any of those options and instead evict the tenet immediately from the home to the tenets certain death? What if the landlord doesn't merely forcefully evict the tenet but actually shoots the tenet dead inside the house and then removes the dead body? Do you want that to be legal?
Leninist wrote:2. This was quite an easy one. The situations were not a cause of the inequalities in nature, but a contingent political social one - Land property.
So what is your answer? Do you want it to be illegal or not?
Scott wrote:Imagine a mother just gave birth to a premature baby. She was just shy of 8-months pregnant let's say. To the midwife or doctor's, she seems happy, eager to be a mother and able to take. At a home a few days later she changes her mind and decides she doesn't want the baby and doesn't want to be a mother. She could bring the baby in to give up for adoption, but it would be somewhat inconvenient and may cost her some money such as the cost of gas to drive the baby or the cost of using her phone minutes to call around about it. So she just takes the baby outside and leaves her behind her backyard just over the property line. Maybe we can say she lives just slightly excluded enough that her neighbors wouldn't notice the crying for a few days while the baby starves to death. Do you want that to be legal? What if instead of leaving the baby to starve to death the mother kills the baby herself by drowning her in the bathtub or hiring a doctor or hitman to euthanize the infant (remember this is baby that has been born but only a few days prior)? Do you want that to be legal?
Leninist wrote:This is not just a case of the baby, but, the mental stability of the mother. There is no reason, in a society that accepts foster care ,why she shouldn't give it up to them. It is currently immoral and cruel to torture animals, so this, enhance, has a greater effect because the new born is considered the same species.
You seem to be contradicting yourself. How can you ot want actual infanticide to be illegal and vote for option B for the reasons you stated (e.g. "It is now said by neurologists that babies do not hold memories until at least the first year of their lives. The fetus [or newborn] is just flesh with instinctual desires and emotions. It doesn't know anything about the world or itself, it hasn't learned language and it has no experience. Knowing this, abortion [or infanticide] is not the same as killing a fellow human being who has gained self-awareness, who can express their desires, and who is generally, consciously, are trying to survive, escape from a concept called death.")? Remember, the baby in this example is significantly younger measuring from conception than the baby in option B that is able to be delivered easily and safely. The argument you gave for allowing a woman to kill the fetus 5-days after its due date even though it can be delivered safely applies equally if not more to this mother committing infanticide via neglect.
Scott wrote:What about if the baby is being delivered vaginally, she is out and everything is going fine but the umbilical cord is not cut yet and the mother says to kill the baby before cutting the umbilical cord? What if the baby's not fully out yet but her head is half way out and then they kill it before the rest of the head falls out of the vagina and living baby is born? Do you want that to be legal?
Leninist wrote:When the baby leaves her body then it ceases to be her baby if she wants to end its life, it ceases to infringe on her freedom. It becomes a baby of the state, the state can determine what will happen to it. Perhaps a nice nurse will take the new born home. A society that views abortion in this way does not necessarily have to be a cruel and malevolent society.
At best, your argument seems to rely on highly arbitrary assumptions. Worse yet, it may be contradictory. You want it to be legal for a women to have doctors kill a fetus that is 5 days past its due date to stop it from safely popping out of her any minute, but you do not want it to be legal for the women to be able to have the doctor kill it while it is still connected by umbilical cord even if it is premature and thus younger and less developed then the fetus/baby you are allowing her to kill in the former example measuring age from conception. Don't you see the seeming contradiction?

Your argument seems to me to be that the you want neither the newborn nor the fetus to have a right to life anymore than the average pet rabbit has a right to life. Accordingly, your argument seems to be that prior to the baby popping out of the vagina it is the woman's property and she can kill it or hire a doctor to kill it just like one can hire a vet to put down their own pet rabbit, but that after it is born even before the umbilical cord is cut it is the property of the state (assuming she does not want to raise it and keep it alive) and thus her killing it would be like me killing my neighbor's pet rabbit against my neighbor's will. This assumption of ownership and disregard for the rabbit/fetus/baby as being a victim at all may indeed save your argument from contradiction but it seems to arbitrary to be justifiable to me. To illustrate, is the baby still hers when only it's forehead is poking out of her vagina or has it become a baby of the state at that point? What about if it is all out except for one foot and right then the women decides she wants to have it killed rather than let it pop out the last inch? Is it hers or the states at that point? When exactly in the small handful of minutes between before the forehead pops out and after the baby is out but before the umbilical cord is cut does the baby become a baby of the state as opposed to being the property of the mother and thus you wanting her to be allowed to have it killed?
Scott wrote:Do you want that to be legal for Joe to back out and thus let his brother die? What if they don't just let his brother die, what if Joe actually kills his brother before his brother regains consciousness from the unfinished surgery? What if Joe hires the doctor to chemically inject Fred's unconscious body with poison (maybe because Joe doesn't want the inconvenience of explaining to Fred about how he didn't go through with surgery and he would die soon when Fred wakes up or because there is some minor expense or other inconvenience Fred would avoid by allowing Fred to wake up)? Do you want that to be legal?
Leninist wrote:5. This was a little difficult to answer because before surgery, patients are usually asleep. If they wake up prematurely they are not very coherent. However, lets say this one is, then yes, he has a right to leave. However, he might be charged with murder. I feel this is more of a legal issue. A contract does not have the power to enslave you, because it does not supersede the social contract. Unless of course your actions directly effect the social contract.
They are all legal issues. The original question about abortion was a legal issue. I'm not asking if the abortion is "morally right" or not whatever that would mean; I asked whether or not it shall be legal. I'm not asking if it is "morally okay" for Joe to back out of the surgery; I am asking if you want it to be legal. It cannot be legal if he is charged with murder.
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Re: Abortion - Not as diametrically divisive as often though

Post by Leninist »

Scott wrote:So you want it to be legal for Mary to hire a doctor to separate her conjoined twin Jane against Jane's protests event though it will kill Jane? Are you also saying you want it to be legal for Mary to opt to a procedure that kills Jane even though the doctor could separate them without killing Jane? If so, I think you have contradicted yourself judging by your desire to criminalize infanticide even seconds after birth when the umbilical cord has not yet been cut.
You are giving Mary precedents over Jane. It should be legal,it should be a decision made by the doctor. Jane would have to be kicking and screaming, if you consider Jane an individual then the doctor will not do it because it can mean murder or perhaps homicide(I'm not familiar with legal jargon), consequently legal repercussions. In other words, the operation is legal, what is not, is doing if Jane declines, it is done by force and she dies. If Jane and Mary live then even if Jane refused and was forced then perhaps the legal issue can be considered assault or some such which is directed at the doctor and Jane; depending on the situation and what happened.

This may sound like a contradiction, so i'll give an example. Consider the surgery a law which allows people to carry guns(like America). There are two sisters and one is tied up to a pole, the other is standing right next to her. There is a guy who is standing with a gun and is ready to shoot an apple that is on top each other their heads. The one sister agrees to it, the other doesn't. The sister that doesn't agree, is forced into this situation, and murder will follow if she dies. Firing the gun is not illegal. The intent is here is not to kill.
Scott wrote: So what is your answer? Do you want it to be illegal or not?
I can't really answer this because it is a problem with capitalism and property. In my Marxist and communist ideals, I consider this a problem ingrained within capitalistic ideology. It is the concept of land-ownership that seems to be the problem.
Scott wrote: You seem to be contradicting yourself. How can you ot want actual infanticide to be illegal and vote for option B for the reasons you stated (e.g. "It is now said by neurologists that babies do not hold memories until at least the first year of their lives. The fetus [or newborn] is just flesh with instinctual desires and emotions. It doesn't know anything about the world or itself, it hasn't learned language and it has no experience. Knowing this, abortion [or infanticide] is not the same as killing a fellow human being who has gained self-awareness, who can express their desires, and who is generally, consciously, are trying to survive, escape from a concept called death.")? Remember, the baby in this example is significantly younger measuring from conception than the baby in option B that is able to be delivered easily and safely. The argument you gave for allowing a woman to kill the fetus 5-days after its due date even though it can be delivered safely applies equally if not more to this mother committing infanticide via neglect.
You're right, I did contradict myself - I let my moral compass judge the conclusion in this matter. Yes it should be legal to kill a baby while the cord is still connected. The only reason I would think it would not be, is a more humane way to die. In other words, it is against the law to end the new-born inhumanly. Of course, this should be judged by society itself. The neglect should carry consequences as it does in our society, not entirely because the baby dies(even though people would feel strongly against her actions). But rather, because she is incapable of being a mother and therefore should not be allowed any children.

There seems to be another problem in this question which seems to concern the ownership of the new-born in question. It is not that she has control over the babies life that is primarily concerned here, it is the concern regarding her rights to her body.
Scott wrote:At best, your argument seems to rely on highly arbitrary assumptions. Worse yet, it may be contradictory. You want it to be legal for a women to have doctors kill a fetus that is 5 days past its due date to stop it from safely popping out of her any minute, but you do not want it to be legal for the women to be able to have the doctor kill it while it is still connected by umbilical cord even if it is premature and thus younger and less developed then the fetus/baby you are allowing her to kill in the former example measuring age from conception. Don't you see the seeming contradiction?
You're right it was contradictory as I said earlier. My primary concern here is ending the new born's life humanely, which of course, depends on the society. As I said earlier, if she does want to end the babies life then there should be repercussions. Killing a new born does seem extreme to me, nonetheless, I need to try look at this from a perspective which doesn't involve ideologies or innate evolutionary desires.
Scott wrote: Accordingly, your argument seems to be that prior to the baby popping out of the vagina it is the woman's property and she can kill it or hire a doctor to kill it just like one can hire a vet to put down their own pet rabbit, but that after it is born even before the umbilical cord is cut it is the property of the state (assuming she does not want to raise it and keep it alive) and thus her killing it would be like me killing my neighbor's pet rabbit against my neighbor's will.
Yes, you got it spot on. Even with pets, pet lovers have narcissistic anthropomorphic projection, which they place on their pet; it is an egotistical sense of pleasure.
Scott wrote: This assumption of ownership and disregard for the rabbit/fetus/baby as being a victim at all may indeed save your argument from contradiction but it seems to arbitrary to be justifiable to me. To illustrate, is the baby still hers when only it's forehead is poking out of her vagina or has it become a baby of the state at that point? What about if it is all out except for one foot and right then the women decides she wants to have it killed rather than let it pop out the last inch? Is it hers or the states at that point? When exactly in the small handful of minutes between before the forehead pops out and after the baby is out but before the umbilical cord is cut does the baby become a baby of the state as opposed to being the property of the mother and thus you wanting her to be allowed to have it killed?
I honestly cannot answer when the new-born becomes state a state issue(even if this should be the case). I think this has to be answered on the spot, at the discretion of the doctors; when she considers herself free from being oppressed. The doctors job is a safe birth and to release her burden - that is, the baby. Even though your questions are important, there are just too many variables to calculate.
Scott wrote: They are all legal issues. The original question about abortion was a legal issue. I'm not asking if the abortion is "morally right" or not whatever that would mean; I asked whether or not it shall be legal. I'm not asking if it is "morally okay" for Joe to back out of the surgery; I am asking if you want it to be legal. It cannot be legal if he is charged with murder.
Ah yes, I think I have a good answer for you. If something is illegal in medicine(I would think all laws) then the surgeon might not do it, of course, because the repercussions follow the doer. In this case it will not be so, the repercussions are focused on Joe, because his decisions directly caused his brothers death on the spot. The surgeon opened his bother up in agreement with all parties, the surgeon caused the death of his brother in that particular moment. Yet, the surgeon has no right over Joe. (this was to answer your question: when Joe wakes up and decided to leave at a critical moment in surgery)
Scott wrote:What if Joe hires the doctor to chemically inject Fred's unconscious body with poison (maybe because Joe doesn't want the inconvenience of explaining to Fred about how he didn't go through with surgery and he would die soon when Fred wakes up or because there is some minor expense or other inconvenience Fred would avoid by allowing Fred to wake up)? Do you want that to be legal?
These questions are just about murder, I'd think all these examples should be illegal.
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Re: Abortion - Not as diametrically divisive as often though

Post by Bricklayer »

Newme wrote:
When is it "time to kill"?

And who decides when that time is?

Are there requirements: like one must be a certain age & be able to voice his/her opinion?
Good questions!

For example: I am in favor of the death penalty in cases of rape; however, I prefer to see the rapist killed not the baby.
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Re: Abortion - Not as diametrically divisive as often though

Post by Eckhart Aurelius Hughes »

Leninist wrote:In other words, the operation is legal, what is not, is doing if Jane declines, it is done by force and she dies. If Jane and Mary live then even if Jane refused and was forced then perhaps the legal issue can be considered assault or some such which is directed at the doctor and Jane; depending on the situation and what happened.
Okay, so you do want it to be illegal for the twins to be separated against Jane's will, and she is killed (or severely hurt) and they knew that risk was there going into the surgery, correct?

Why do you not afford the same protections you give to Jane to the fetus whose mother wants to kill it shortly after it pops out but is still connected by umbilical cord? Remember, measuring by gestational age it is older (and healthier, more alter, having more memories, etc.) than many newborn babies and yet you want it to became illegal to kill even premature newborn babies around the time the umbilical cord is cut, which seems to mean you have disregarded the potential of basing the legality of killing the baby/adult-conjoined-twin on its intrinsic so-called right to life (i.e. based on qualities like brainpower, level of consciousnesses, etc. that differ for example from a 3-month fetus and a 3-year-old child in positive correlation to age and development).
Leninist wrote:I honestly cannot answer when the new-born becomes state a state issue(even if this should be the case). I think this has to be answered on the spot, at the discretion of the doctors; when she considers herself free from being oppressed. The doctors job is a safe birth and to release her burden - that is, the baby. Even though your questions are important, there are just too many variables to calculate.
Fair enough. But what are these variables? Do they indeed converge so narrowly around the few moments when the baby pops out and the umbilical cord is cut with other factors like gestational age or the fetuses/infant's mental capabilities/sentience?
Leninist wrote: Yes it should be legal to kill a baby while the cord is still connected.
What about 10 seconds after the cord is cut? 10 minutes?
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Re: Abortion - Not as diametrically divisive as often though

Post by Leninist »

Scott wrote:Fair enough. But what are these variables? Do they indeed converge so narrowly around the few moments when the baby pops out and the umbilical cord is cut with other factors like gestational age or the fetuses/infant's mental capabilities/sentience?
I think what is important in these cases is when to logically feel empathetic towards babies, not to let our emotional desires override what is actually going on in reality. Our empathetic nature is a good thing, it lets us form a connection with other people. I also think it is a necessity for developing our identity. Nonetheless, understanding what we truly value in our fellow human being is imperative. What is valued is not just flesh, it is the developing individual. A baby that has no memories, no understanding of its being, is in fact similar to an animal.

The torture of animals is illegal, and I suspect, because we understand the pain, it is a connection of emotions which we learn from childhood. We do however kill animals on a large scale, because we do not share our identity with them(most of us anyway). Now I'm not saying we should all become baby killers, however, we should recognize what we value in our fellow human being.
Scott wrote:What about 10 seconds after the cord is cut? 10 minutes?
Yes, humanely. I don't really enjoy talking about this subject, nevertheless, I think I'm being logical in this matter. Would I do this? No. Would I pass a law that stated you can kill babies? No. My answers here are purely emotional moralities that I have been institutionalized to. If I was, say, a Spartan, this wouldn't be an issue.

-- Updated August 27th, 2012, 4:42 am to add the following --
Scott wrote:Why do you not afford the same protections you give to Jane to the fetus whose mother wants to kill it shortly after it pops out but is still connected by umbilical cord? Remember, measuring by gestational age it is older (and healthier, more alter, having more memories, etc.) than many newborn babies and yet you want it to became illegal to kill even premature newborn babies around the time the umbilical cord is cut, which seems to mean you have disregarded the potential of basing the legality of killing the baby/adult-conjoined-twin on its intrinsic so-called right to life (i.e. based on qualities like brainpower, level of consciousnesses, etc. that differ for example from a 3-month fetus and a 3-year-old child in positive correlation to age and development).
I saw the quote to Jane so I thought you were asking this to someone else.

Firstly, because the fetus has no idea what is going on. It has no idea of the concept of death or life. The baby issue is important, because I have no idea when the baby starts to become self aware.

What seems to be going on here is an ownership problem when it comes to killing the baby or new-born. I find it difficult to fathom who actually owns the baby, if at all. I understand the necessity to have control over your own body. If something is leeching off you and has no identity, then obviously it is a one sided argument. When the baby is born it comes somewhat of an ownership issue, who actually is in control of the baby's life?
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Re: Abortion - Not as diametrically divisive as often though

Post by Eckhart Aurelius Hughes »

Leninist, it seems we agree in a major way: We both want the killing of a newborn baby 10 minutes after the cord is cut to share the same legal status of aborting a fetus inside its mother around the time of her due date. Our disagreement is simply that I want both to be illegal and you want both to be legal. This fits with the reasoning of my main thesis in this topic which is that both the strict pro-life and the strict pro-choice position are absurd and very, very unpopular because one is tantamount to legalizing infanticide and one is tantamount to criminalizing typical contraception (e.g. killing sperm or unfertilized eggs). Of course, I do not deny there are a few people about who would support infanticide or legal-sperm-protection and that such a tiny minority would be strictly pro-choice or strictly pro-life respectively in addition to their even more disagreeable and unpopular position regarding newborns and sperm/eggs respectively. But that all fits with my thesis.
Leninist wrote:Yes it should be legal to kill a baby while the cord is still connected.
Scott wrote:What about 10 seconds after the cord is cut? 10 minutes?
Leninist wrote:Yes, humanely. I don't really enjoy talking about this subject, nevertheless, I think I'm being logical in this matter. Would I do this? No. Would I pass a law that stated you can kill babies? No. My answers here are purely emotional moralities that I have been institutionalized to. If I was, say, a Spartan, this wouldn't be an issue.
What about an hour after the cord is cut? What 24 hours after the cord is cut? What about a week after the cord is cut? What about a month after the cord is cut?

If you were a Spartan slavery and pedophilia would be no problem either. ;)
Leninist wrote:I think what is important in these cases is when to logically feel empathetic towards babies, not to let our emotional desires override what is actually going on in reality. Our empathetic nature is a good thing, it lets us form a connection with other people. I also think it is a necessity for developing our identity. Nonetheless, understanding what we truly value in our fellow human being is imperative. What is valued is not just flesh, it is the developing individual. A baby that has no memories, no understanding of its being, is in fact similar to an animal.

The torture of animals is illegal, and I suspect, because we understand the pain, it is a connection of emotions which we learn from childhood. We do however kill animals on a large scale, because we do not share our identity with them(most of us anyway). Now I'm not saying we should all become baby killers, however, we should recognize what we value in our fellow human being.
These are some very good points. They can be addressed in more detail in the topic Eating Babies.

On the issue of animals, I mostly agree. Infanticide makes as much sense to me as slaughtering a pig or dog. Again we agree on the comparison but not on the result. You want both to be legal; I am a vegetarian opposed to infanticide.

Animals aside, however, you say that newborn babies have no memories. Are you sure? What research or evidence do you have to back that up? The evidence I see contradicts it:
ABC News wrote:In a study of 100 of pregnant women in the Netherlands, researchers say they found evidence that fetuses have short-term memory of sounds by the 30th week of pregnancy, and develop a long-term memory of sound after that.

[full article]
Scientific American wrote:Fetuses habituate in other ways, too. Substance-abusing moms give birth to drug-addicted babies. A study found that the babies of mothers who watch a popular Spanish-language soap opera while pregnant calm down when they hear the show’s theme music. And anecdotally, some dads who read to fetuses in the womb think their babies are born recognizing their voices, says pediatrician Tanya Remer Altmann, a spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics.

[full article]
N.L. GONZALEZ-GONZALEZ1, M.N. SUAREZ, B. PEREZ-PIÑERO, H. ARMAS, E. DOMENECH, J.L. BARTHA wrote: Newborns who were stimulated in utero habituated earlier than those who had not previously experienced the stimulation. These results suggest that fetal memory persists into neonatal life.

[view article]
It's also important to consider childhood amnesia -- the fact that children several years of age lose all their memories from before presumably as a result of learning to think verbally -- to discount the idea that the fact that these infant memories do not last into adulthood means they shall be discounted in terms of choosing whether or not to kill the infant. That is, assuming you are not okay with killing 3 and 4 year olds.

Of course, the evidence I provided shows that fetuses form memory in the womb which they carry out after birth. We are now talking about infanticide, not abortion, though. Needless to say, the evidence that newborns form memories is even more convincing then the evidence that fetuses do. Here are some interesting examples of it:
Spring.org.uk wrote:What Rovee and Rovee (1969) found was that even infants as young as 8 weeks old could learn the association between kicking and the mobile movement.

[...]

In one experiment infants only 8-weeks-old were trained with the mobile over a period of 3 days for 9 minutes each day. Twenty-four hours later the infants only kicked at above their baseline levels when the same mobile was above their heads. This showed they remembered the particular mobile they had been trained with and not just any old mobile. It was an especially exciting finding because it had previously been thought that long-term memory (and 24 hours is long-term for psychologists) didn't emerge until as late as 8 or 9 months.

[full article]
My entire political philosophy summed up in one tweet.

"The mind is a wonderful servant but a terrible master."

I believe spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline) manifests as bravery, confidence, grace, honesty, love, and inner peace.
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Re: Abortion - Not as diametrically divisive as often though

Post by Rombomb »

Abortion is good!

Aborting a fetus is not murder, since a fetus is not a person.

A person is a being that is capable of having preferences, e.g. the preference for not dying, or for not suffering.

Note that by "preference" I mean person-type preferences -- preferences that we create. I'm not referring to hard-wired/instinctual/preprogrammed instincts wired into a mind by the beings genes.
We are all fallible -- anyone of us can be wrong about any one of our ideas. So shielding any one of my ideas from criticism means irrationally believing that I have the truth.
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Re: Abortion - Not as diametrically divisive as often though

Post by Eckhart Aurelius Hughes »

Rombomb, what is a preference that we create? Does a 1-week old baby have such preferences? Does a 5-minute-old baby have them? Does a 1-year-old baby have them? Does a 3-year-old child have them? Does a fetus inside the womb 5 minutes before birth have them when the mother is already several days late meaning that fetus is older, counting from conception, then most most just-born babies?
My entire political philosophy summed up in one tweet.

"The mind is a wonderful servant but a terrible master."

I believe spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline) manifests as bravery, confidence, grace, honesty, love, and inner peace.
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Re: Abortion - Not as diametrically divisive as often though

Post by Rombomb »

Scott wrote:Rombomb, what is a preference that we create?
As soon as the brain is capable of reason. By "reason" I mean guessing and criticizing.

Since we don't yet know when that happens, its best to be safe. So I'd say that before the end of the 2nd trimester, is a safe choice. Agreed?
We are all fallible -- anyone of us can be wrong about any one of our ideas. So shielding any one of my ideas from criticism means irrationally believing that I have the truth.
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Re: Abortion - Not as diametrically divisive as often though

Post by Eckhart Aurelius Hughes »

So you are opposed to aborting a fetus in the third trimester?

Anyway, I'd aim for the first trimester only. But I'm a vegetarian.

Incidentally, age 7 or so is considered the age of reason in humans.
My entire political philosophy summed up in one tweet.

"The mind is a wonderful servant but a terrible master."

I believe spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline) manifests as bravery, confidence, grace, honesty, love, and inner peace.
Rombomb
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Re: Abortion - Not as diametrically divisive as often though

Post by Rombomb »

Scott wrote:So you are opposed to aborting a fetus in the third trimester?
Yes.
Scott wrote: Incidentally, age 7 or so is considered the age of reason in humans.
What do you mean by "reason"? Here's what I mean by it.
We are all fallible -- anyone of us can be wrong about any one of our ideas. So shielding any one of my ideas from criticism means irrationally believing that I have the truth.
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