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[McTraveller]

Sigh.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It is sad when people think their own rights or personal comfort are important enough to kill anyone, let alone unborn children.

I think people in general aren't really "for abortion", they are really "for women's rights" - and somehow we got stuck on abortion as being an issue of women's rights rather than as the killing of children.

Why can't we promote and maintain women's rights and support a culture of not aborting children?

[Gentlefish]

The issue isn't whether killing children is bad or not.

It's at what point is the fetus is considered human. Because if they have personhood from conception, all miscarriages are deaths, even those unviable from conception like ectopic pregnancies.

[Maximum Spin]

all miscarriages are deaths

That's clearly factually true anyway.

[Hanslanda]

The issue isn't whether killing children is bad or not.

It's at what point is the fetus is considered human. Because if they have personhood from conception, all miscarriages are deaths, even those unviable from conception like ectopic pregnancies.

Idealistically, abortion would be an unnecessary and illegal procedure.

Realistically, it's going to happen in certain circumstances and making it illegal will only increase and magnify the suffering involved for all parties. I refuse to link to coathanger abortions but they are a real thing that happens.

[Egan_BW]

Discarded strands of hair, trimmed fingernails, saliva and urine are all uniquely "human", and yet have less claim to personhood than moths. If the question is at what point a fetus becomes human, the answer is "since before it was created". I don't think that's a very good question to ask for that reason.

I consider, for lack of a better definition, a person to be a thing with the mental properties of an adult human. By that definition, many of the things I like to eat are closer to a person than even a newborn baby human.

[WealthyRadish]

Sigh.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It is sad when people think their own rights or personal comfort are important enough to deprive someone of their property, let alone destroy their livelihood.

I think people in general aren't really "for abolition", they are really "for freedom" - and somehow we got stuck on ending slavery as being an issue of freedom rather than as the theft and destruction of property.

Why can't we promote and maintain freedom and support of a culture of not destroying property?

[The user of this trap card pays 500 life points and summons a monster with the Godwin attribute from their Graveyard whenever their opponent summons a monster of the Strawman type. Your opponent draws one card and may play "indignant misunderstanding" for free.]

[Egan_BW]

Well, I guess it's a good thing that you admitted right below that what you posted was bait?

[MrRoboto75]

I just find it mildly annoying when someone is pro life yet also doesn't want education or healthcare for the theoretical abortion baby.

[Maximum Spin]

I just find it mildly annoying when someone is pro life yet also doesn't want education or healthcare for the theoretical abortion baby.

Well, neither education nor healthcare are constitutionally guaranteed rights, nor should they be.
Life is.

Discarded strands of hair, trimmed fingernails, saliva and urine are all uniquely "human", and yet have less claim to personhood than moths. If the question is at what point a fetus becomes human, the answer is "since before it was created". I don't think that's a very good question to ask for that reason.

I consider, for lack of a better definition, a person to be a thing with the mental properties of an adult human. By that definition, many of the things I like to eat are closer to a person than even a newborn baby human.

Course, that argument now means that "personhood" is not the useful standard for what makes a killing murder, since you presumably still don't intend to legalise killing children or the severely mentally retarded at will, and, even if you do, most people won't. So now the question is "then what IS a murder, and what makes killing a fetus not it?"

[MrRoboto75]

I just find it mildly annoying when someone is pro life yet also doesn't want education or healthcare for the theoretical abortion baby.

Well, neither education nor healthcare are constitutionally guaranteed rights, nor should they be.
Life is.

We're going to give you life but it's going to be short, painful, and unnecessary.  Pay taxes.

[Egan_BW]

Course, that argument now means that "personhood" is not the useful standard for what makes a killing murder, since you presumably still don't intend to legalise killing children or the severely mentally retarded at will, and, even if you do, most people won't. So now the question is "then what IS a murder, and what makes killing a fetus not it?"

Well, I suppose killing can still be regulated without being classified as murder. Right now if you went to Yellowstone and shot a bunch of wolves, it would not count as murder, but it would still be illegal, because that harms the natural system.

Still, if we want a system more defined by facts than making things illegal because people feel uncomfortable about it, we need to do something down these lines. Sperm are individual living things, and very much part of the human species, but allowing them to die is perfectly legal, and must be legal because laws that require them to live full and happy lives would be pretty impractical.

[Folly]

I for one am in favor of doing whatever is convenient.
Babies are expensive and exhausting to support, and they can't really complain or fight back, so un-living them is just the most practical option.

[Dunamisdeos]

There are plenty of people smarter than you and I who do more with their minds due to both opportunity and ability. "The mental properties of an adult human" is nebulous and meaningless. At what point will you qualify as human under your own definition?

Understand I say this to emphasize that there IS no accurate metric that can be applied to whether a human is human enough to matter. Hanslanda has the right of it. Good people die. People who contribute great things to society die. Literally-innocent babies die. The idea that a fetus or premature infant is a human being does not constitute an attack on abortion, it constitutes an acceptance of the fact that either none of us matter for being human, or all of us do, and sometimes we cannot escape the decision of who lives and who dies. Sometimes it's going to be a baby, or a child. Hard truths don't go away if we give them different names.

It's not a jump that the decision-maker here is the woman in question. If her life and/or that of the fetus/baby are in jeopardy, and given that the fetus/baby is not capable of weighing in, the choice lies with her. It doesn't detract from my needs/desires as a Father to admit this. I absolutely matter, but objectively I did not take precedence here. It's not that I have NO place in the matter, it's that I don't have the TOP place in the matter.

[Maximum Spin]

I find it odd, honestly, that the humanity or personhood of fetuses is even considered relevant to the question. Would you balk at killing a fully grown, definitely human person to save your life or defend your home? I wouldn't, even if that person wasn't morally culpable for anything in particular. Would you balk at disconnecting yourself from a fully-grown adult who had been surgically attached to you and would definitely die without your continuous support, even for no better reason than that being surgically attached to someone you don't want to be surgically attached to anymore is gross and super inconvenient? I wouldn't. I don't think most people would if they were being honest.

ETA: And, I mean, I come from a philosophical and cultural tradition that emphasises the importance of preserving life even at considerable cost, which most people don't, and there are still those cases where I'd say "well, there's really no better option here."

[Loud Whispers]

I for one am in favor of doing whatever is convenient.
Babies are expensive and exhausting to support, and they can't really complain or fight back, so un-living them is just the most practical option.

Is this not a consequence of how the nuclear family unit fails to provide the level of support the extended family does, while the increasing costs of living and decreasing wages in spite of increased productivity and work time leads people to conclude that "un-living" their babies is preferable to rearing them? Using abortion as a tool for a whole generation to quietly disintegrate itself because the whole system is fucked seems to compound the fuckery rathern than resolve it