abortion classic or dud?

As I've pointed out, I'm not an atheist at all. As to whether atheism creates an ideological superstructure for the atheist in the way that Christianity does for the Christian: clearly not! Though Christians are fond of claiming that atheists are as reliant on faith in their daily lives as are Christians, it's not so. Atheists, for example, can believe that Christ rose from the dead if they like -- nothing in their atheism prevents them from believing that. A Christian, however, can't believe that Christ died & was buried & did not rise. From this example it's clear that atheism per se isn't a governing ideology in the way Christianity is. That's why I think you should be honest and begin your argument by saying "As a Christian, abortion seems wrong to me & here's why" rather than attempting to construct a sort of Socratics-for-Christ style of interrogation.

Your analogy to the terminally ill, by the way, supports my point entirely: as soon as a person is dependent on someone's providing life support to maintain life -- life support paid for and thus "provided" by family -- it's quite normal for the family to cease providing that support. (The strict analogy here is: if it's only through your actions -- above and beyond the provision of basic care, as with a child -- that a particular life can continue to exist, you're in no way obligated to continue providing that support.)

Another important question, just for informational purposes: are you arguing this on a moral or a legal level? Is your viewpoint strictly predicated on any religious or quasi-religious belief? (These are simple questions that you can't spend three paragraphs carefully avoiding, I hope.)

"That's why I think you should be honest and begin your argument by saying, 'As a Christian, abortion seems wrong to me & here's why" rather than attempting to construct a sort of Socratics-for-Christ style of interrogation.'"

With all due respect to Socrates and Christ, my intent hasn't been to ask questions in order to push my position. Maybe my position's not too difficult to imagine. But I'm asking (not interrogating) people why they believe what they believe--I'm genuinely interested. I am not telling people what to believe. I am not attempting to ridicule others for their beliefs, even though others may want to Christian-bash here. I'm just asking questions. Don't get so defensive.

I wonder why you aren't faulting those who have presented totally loaded hypothetical questions to me. Is this something that I should be upset about? Are they "interrogating" me like a police officer? Do I care? No.

J0hn writes:

"it's clear that atheism per se isn't a governing ideology in the way Christianity is."

OK, so if atheism "isn't a governing ideology," don't you think it would be much more interesting to learn about the diversity of opinions of those free from a "governing ideology?" I ask myself questions and I have some answers. I'm curious how other people approach the same questions. Yet, you have expressed that it's better not to discuss these things. Sounds like thought police. Is that the part you need to play? Officer? :-)

All my best,

Officer Catracho.

Incidentally, I haven't opined -- not once -- that it's better not to discuss things. I've pointed out that you aren't entering the discussion in good faith. I don't think that a discussion rooted in dishonesty can produce much more than a lot of words. I have always been eager to hear a variety of opinions; I'd just prefer to actually hear them, rather than having to root them out from "questions" that are actually arguments.

"I don't anticipate your ever properly responding to anything anyone asks you..."

Yet I already have responded to questions directly. The facts are against you.

Nabisco writes:

"Note that one doesn't even have such an obligation for the care of a born infant!"

Laws and penalties exist for those who do not care for infants. And they are pretty severe.

Nabisco writes:

"Your analogy to the terminally ill, by the way, supports my point entirely: as soon as a person is dependent on someone's providing life support to maintain life -- life support paid for and thus "provided" by family -- it's quite normal for the family to cease providing that support. (The strict analogy here is: if it's only through your actions -- above and beyond the provision of basic care, as with a child -- that a particular life can continue to exist, you're in no way obligated to continue providing that support.)"

If the family ceases to provide support, may the state cease to provide support? May the state terminate the life of the "useless eater"? I don't think many people would want to live in a country whose government acted in that way.

Nabisco writes:

"Another important question, just for informational purposes: are you arguing this on a moral or a legal level? Is your viewpoint strictly predicated on any religious or quasi-religious belief? (These are simple questions that you can't spend three paragraphs carefully avoiding, I hope.)"

Which questions do you claim that I have avoided?

1) Am I arguing on a moral or legal level?

I am asking questions which I myself face. I am curious to learn how others answer these questions. I suppose I'm asking the questions on a moral level. Basically, I'm trying to understand how other people form their personal morality. I've stated my motivations repeatedly. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, though.

2) Is your viewpoint strictly predicated on any religious or quasi-religious belief?

No, I'm just here asking questions. I promise I won't push my beliefs on anyone here; but I will state my position if anyone is curious. Is my morality influenced by my religious beliefs? Yes...I would suggest that everyone's religious beliefs (because they are so fundamental) have an important impact on their entire belief system.

Thanks

PS--J0hn, if you believe that I'm avoiding questions after this post, please support your claim with concrete examples.

"I have always been eager to hear a variety of opinions; I'd just prefer to actually hear them, rather than having to root them out from "questions" that are actually arguments."

Though you claim to be "eager to hear a variety of opinions," I'm actually acting on my interest to hear a variety of opinions.

Here's my question, J0hn:

"Does life have inherent value outside of the value that other people give it?"

What "argument" do you have to root out? The question is there. It's an honest question. There's three possible answers: yes, no, or maybe. Which one do you believe and why?

Why do you need to keep avoiding the actual discussion and focus on personal attacks? The personal attacks don't matter to me. They aren't germane. :-)

Why are you afraid of such a simple question?

Enjoy

2) Is your viewpoint strictly predicated on any religious or quasi-religious belief?

No, I'm just here asking questions. I promise I won't push my beliefs on anyone here; but I will state my position if anyone is curious. Is my morality influenced by my religious beliefs? Yes...I would suggest that everyone's religious beliefs (because they are so fundamental) have an important impact on their entire belief system.

This is anything but a straight answer. (It certainly isn't the kind of straight talk favored by the historical personage of Christ as we know him.) No-one asked if your morality was influenced by your religious beliefs. You re-cast the question to suit your own ends. Your questions aren't questions! At all! They're positions! If you want to have it out, then do so honestly, like Paul of Tarsus used to, for example.

The preceding has been a concrete example, or as concrete as we can get at the level of language, of how you haven't answered any of the questions people on this board have asked you.

I'd rather avoid the rest of the thread (i.e. the subject), but I have to say I don't agree with this at all -- the choice is not binary, God vs. social construction/"consensus": there are other alternatives. That's pretty much been one of the core issues that philosophy has been confronting since the Enlightenment, and even if you don't agree with them, it would be unwise to lightly dismiss the attempts that have been made to locate ethics in reason -- in other words, to say that (for one) valuing/having respect for human life is an inevitable consequence of the survival instinct/pleasure principle/etc. that should be present in a sentient, conscious, sane, non-omnipotent being who wants to continue to exist. Yeah, "proven by science", all the attendant dangers, etc., but it beats the hell out of the alternatives.

I do hope for your own sake that you're a vegetarian, as your apparent position leaves little room for the killing of sentient beings who lack the means to speak on their own behalf.

also Phil is right: it's not either life has inherent value OR there's no God -- that's another one o' them Christian tricks

(E.g.: if your reading comprehension was as good as your written grammar you'd have noted that I was very plainly saying that the required level of care for an infant is less than what you're asking of a pregnant woman -- all you're really required to do is feed and generally shelter it as best you can, which is a lot less than feeding it, keeping it inside your body, eating for it, breathing for it, etc. So on the "questions you haven't answered" slate there is still that one, which is a very direct one: what obligates a woman to provide that care?) ("That care" is above and beyond the care of a born child -- see below -- so you can leave children out of it.)

(On the side-stepping front: you seemed to acknowledge that I was correct about families providing life support, and then jumped a little, saying "well would you want the state to do that." So far as I'm aware, we are not discussing any situation in which the state forces abortions -- we're talking about a woman herself deciding not to carry a child to term, which I'm equating to a family's decision not to provide for the ongoing life of another person who can't survive without someone else's providing for their basic body functions.) (I italicize that so you don't say "oh, well children need to be provided for too" -- I'm drawing a line here between caring for something and actually motoring its existence, i.e., without you it wouldn't just eventually starve but it would immediately cease to live.)

Of course, the flip side of your point (which came off the flip side of my own, at that) is that it is entirely possible to be anti-abortion without locating that position in religious beliefs. I daresay the pro-choice rhetoric on this one -- i.e. that anyone who isn't of their views is a Bible-thumping, woman-hating cretin -- easily equals the rhetoric spouted by the pro-life folks about their own adversaries: both sides certainly will stereotype, generalize, and belittle those who don't agree with them, if it serves their own agendas.

"social construction = consensus" isn't a defensible synonym, incidentally

You're right, Phil. I just get kind of worked up when I feel like somebody's trying to weasel through a discussion without putting their cards on the table. I actually believe that the whole abortion question is actually painfully complex and generally do take the position that it ought to be left entirely to women. Our mutual friend Mr. Catracho, though, brings out the troo-black-metal-silence-the-Christians adolescent who's semi-latent within me.

And yes, social construction and consensus definitely aren't synonyms, nor did I intend to suggest they were. I invoked imprecisely.

we value reason = reason is contained within the realm of the values of the living (even if we don't agree on what constitutes reason) (in the sense that i don't think knowledge eventually reaches an indisturbable plateau where you no longer have to worry about its truthm, and can just absorb it uncritically, and that this knowledge can be co-opted into the sphere of reason)

*if god is some big old v.ancient alien who can read all our minds and intervene in earth affairs, then he's "people", even if not my kind of people (necessarily) (if 12-foot tall and saurian i can reconsider)

The Hegelian argument, insofar as I understand it, is congruent with my own: the value of any other human life is the value of one's own, because the process of becoming conscious demands that one be able to recognize oneself in the Other (a recognition in which reason and emotion collaborate -- the instinct for compassion plus the loglcal process which Hegel outlines) (while of course simultaneously recognizing that they are not oneself). Daevid Allen writes "You can't kill me"; maybe the second half of that statement is "...without killing you."

I don't know what this has to do with anything but but I can't think about Hegel without thinking about how De Sade dips his cup into the same waters and comes up with a completely different drink

"Our mutual friend Mr. Catracho, though, brings out the troo-black-metal-silence-the-Christians adolescent who's semi-latent within me."

See, J0hn, at least you're enjoying yourself. :-)

J0hn writes:

"I do hope for your own sake that you're a vegetarian, as your apparent position leaves little room for the killing of sentient beings who lack the means to speak on their own behalf."

Aren't vegetables living things too? According to that logic, your caricature of me should restrict his diet to a balanced diet of water, minerals and other non-living things! :-) Hmm...

J0hn writes:

"also Phil is right: it's not either life has inherent value OR there's no God -- that's another one o' them Christian tricks"

Well, I personally didn't assert (nor infer) the either/or. I simply asked a question related question--no "Christian tricks" here. The answer to the question (not just yes/no, but an attempt at a why) is still interesting to me.

J0hn, thanks for answering my question.

I wrote:

"2) Is your viewpoint strictly predicated on any religious or quasi-religious belief?

No, I'm just here asking questions. I promise I won't push my beliefs on anyone here; but I will state my position if anyone is curious. Is my morality influenced by my religious beliefs? Yes...I would suggest that everyone's religious beliefs (because they are so fundamental) have an important impact on their entire belief system."

J0hn, you weren't happy with this answer. I'm sorry. Let me try again: is my viewpoint strictly predicated on any religious belief? No. My religious beliefs are "predicated" on my viewpoint. Is that a better answer? Here's my breakdown: my viewpoint (my experiences, my education) made me arrive at my religious beliefs. My religious beliefs have an important impact on my entire belief system. I apologize if I didn't articulate my point well before. I hope you'll forgive me.

J0hn writes:

"The preceding has been a concrete example, or as concrete as we can get at the level of language, of how you haven't answered any of the questions people on this board have asked you."

J0hn, are you so sure you should be using absolute statements so freely? Must I re-post each of the questions that I have answered? Have I answered the hypothetical question from Plinky regarding my wife if she had a complicated pregnancy? Yes. I even gave a link. Nick asked me to compare the loss due to miscarriage to the death of a child from leukemia. I gave a complete answer. If you have any more accusations about my ability to answer other people's questions, please give me the specific question and I'd be happy to give the question another try.

Enjoy

PS--this is a fast moving thread!

You get the prize for both the most interesting answer and the most interesting re-phrasing of the question. For those who don't like my phrasing:

Why should one give a tinker's damn about the Other?

Enjoy

I was emotionally incapable of caring for a child, and knew it, and really felt that I had no right to bring a child into the situation I was living in. I decided to terminate the pregnancy (I was 4 weeks along) and I'll harbor some feeling of guilt about it for the rest of my life, thanks partially to my Catholic upbringing, and partially to the letter my 'best' friend wrote me 7 years later berating me for having done it when I "knew" she and her husband were trying to have a baby (I didn't), and how could I have been so selfish.

Ultimately, though, I think I did what was best.

On the other facet of this thread, I can't remember the last time I saw such a volume of sustained, disingenuous, smug, bad-faith 'arguing' (or 'questioning' if you prefer) as from El Catracho here.

I'm starting to believe that he is a troll here.

(In other words, I agree with you, although I think we're able to abstract those types of values until they do seem like they hinge on some overaching non-relative "rule" -- there doesn't have to actually be the arbiter-God so long as we've constructed rules we want to take approximately that seriously.)

(with no offense intended to the ether-dwellers either)

Also note that was I was saying was what you said above (sort of): "the value of any human life is the value of my own" can derive from an outright social contract, a constructed agreement that we all value our lives and thus it stands to reason that not-killing is a net benefit to those collective life-values. I'm saying the end result of that is "thou shalt not kill," whether we thought it up or God said it; I don't think God said it, so I think we should.

One point: since my reason for beliving abortion should be available is nothing to do with the fate of the foetus and entirely about believing a woman has the right to control of her own body, I have nothing to say about what happens to the foetus after removal, which leads to some more questions. If it can be removed and then kept alive, what reason is there to object to this? Should the would-have-been mother know what happens? Or have any rights? Who is responsible for/in authority over the baby that might develop? I am not advocating this - the world is hardly short of people, though adoptive parents are in lengthy queues - but technology is extending the period where this is possible, so the fate of the foetus becomes more separated from the rights of the pregnant woman.

Don't get me wrong, I agree that enlightened self-interest and the social contract -- or analogues thereof -- are in practice what allow society to function: human intercourse is governed, as you say, by constructed laws and contracts. But I stand firm by my belief that the principles that animate those laws and contracts are real and secular -- and that without those principles, they're little more than a charade.

It was in the following months that it began to haunt me somewhat. Yes, I felt bereft at the loss of the pregnancy but the fact that it was necessary to save my life, justified the termination. But I began to question why, when organ transplants are so commonplace today, couldn't the foetus have been removed from my fallopian tube and replanted successfully in my womb. It quickly became apparent that this was not possible for various reasons and re-emphasised to me how totally and utterly dependent this 'life' was on the conditions being right in my body. Therefore, it would put paid to Martin's suggestion that removing the foetus and transplanting it elsewhere (another woman's womb?) would not be an option.

Curiously, Martin's other point about what happens to aborted foetus played heavily on my mind. It only struck my a couple of months after the termination and I've resisted contacting the hospital to date to find out, as I'm not sure I could handle the response, even though I'm already pretty sure about what happens. But I now believe I had a perfect right to say what should/shouldn't happen with my foetus, and yes Martin, you're right, it does throw up some pretty searching questions - questions which I've yet to get some shape and cohesive thought into. Apologies if this hasn't contributed to the philosophical/moral debate, but I just wanted to put it out there.

"why shd i care about others?"

once we get beyond a basic "as people it's what we do already" (in other words, once we start to refine the answer into a practice, an argument, a culture, a polity, into something we can discuss and explore and use)

i. "care" is very roomy
ii. "others" is very roomy

i: eg just because you have your old dog put down when it gets sick doesn't mean you didn't adore it
ii: eg a pigfarmer who feeds porkchops to his kids (and not childchops to his hogs) nevertheless gives more than a cuss about all the species of other in his charge

sometimes people kill people *because* they love them: sometimes identification-confusion of "me" with "the other" goes too far

(part of) reason is this testing: but the tests aren't over yet (which is why we're arguing)

I don't think a woman who gives birth to a full-term baby and kills/attempts to kill it straight away has done anything wrong.

I consider myself pro-choice, but that sounds completely insane to me.

I never said it was better or worse to act any way on a message board. I was just pointing out that the anonymity of the internet allows people a certain freedom to exaggerate (both themselves and their opinions) that "real" social interaction does not necessarilly allow. It's not that internet is "unreal", it's more that is not an adequate reflection of the kind of interaction most people have with one another in the work-a-day world. It's much like saying that the sort of social interaction you see college seminars are the same sort you will experience on a day to day basis at your job. And those differences (or more accurately perhaps the freedom and anonymity allowed by the internet) are precisely why you see people trolling internet message boards and not harrassing people at their local cafes (although I occassionally do that too so haha). The fact is though that anyone who posts on boards is (or should be) WELL aware that the range of opinions (and the unfilterability in a certain sense of those opinions) means that there is a HIGH probability that someone is gonna say something that offends you and that you may very well say something that will offend someone else. It's a fact of the medium.

That said, I didn't quite mean to sound quite as insensitive as I sounded so for anyone who thought that I was saying that feeling bad about their abortion was dopey or that their trauma was equivalent to not getting a toothbrush (which isn't actually what I said, but whatever) then I sincerely apologize. Obviously Tom is right, people have an absolute right to feel however they choose about whatever. It's the AUTOMATIC assumption that they SHOULD feel a certain way that I found problematic and I inadvertently allowed myself to become part of that problem.

more evidence that el catracho can't read.