abortion classic or dud?

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.

You have got to be pulling my leg.

-- Kiwi ([email protected]), September 30, 2002.

"Have I answered the hypothetical question from Plinky regarding my wife if she had a complicated pregnancy?"

I have read the article from your link, thank you.
I'm sorry but I don't think you did answer my question fully, I feel you skirted round the issue by giving a moral standpoint. What I was looking for was an honest, emotion based answer from you. If you had to choose between your wife and your unborn child, who would you choose? No matter how many religiuos, ethical, moral arguments we may have, when it comes right down to it, your life would be turned upside down and your emotions which would be in turmoil at that point. I just wondered if you were capable of getting down off your high horse and actually thinking how you would react put in that situation.

I haven't read the El Catracho stuff cause when I argued w/him way upthread it took him 3 go-rounds to get my basic point, if indeed he did. Is it worth reading?

This thread has proven me wrong. To repeat what jim said: if kiwi/anyone on the greenspun forum thinks that el c has addressed any of the issues raised they are inhabiting a different mental world.

I think the nub of the disagreement appears to be a sort of essentialism, something akin to a belief in the supernatural: a belief in souls or the essential "life". fair?

phil of course i go hammer and tongs with because the difference between is microscopic!!

It strikes me that technology will eventually provide a solution to the 'abortion question' by making it the norm for human infants to be conceived and gestated outside of a human womb.

Having said my piece all that way above, I figured I would just watch from the sidelines as El-C complained and all. Sorta sad, really.

Actually, I've figured I'd just watch from the sidelines as you all complained about me with your little ad hominem attacks. I think I'll just sit back and pour myself a nice tall glass of lemonade. Yawn...sorta sad, really.

Enjoy.

Martin said that I'm the one that is supposed to be smug, not you.

el camatcho hasn't made me change my mind at all. but then, is that down to my inflexibility or el camatchos lack of persuaveness. do i feel like i've been 'defeated'? its difficult for me to think in such terms with an issue like this. i haven't been able to accept any of el camatchos points (but then he could say the same in reverse). is an argument like this 'winnable'? should it be?