abortion classic or dud?

All I was trying to illustrate (however muddily, and I apologise), is that I don't have any problem with destroying something that isn't sentient.

(unless it was once sentient, in the case of someone in a coma or some such, and has the potential to become sentient again. Obviously the destruction of such a future-sentient being would be detrimental to those who loved it in it's previous sentience.)

You're the only one who'll nurture this discussion into an "atomic kitten sized debacle" with blatantly provocative comments like "do you hate all men or just the ones who have a penis?"

I don't agree with this, for any number of personal reasons. Your body is your own, not your partner's (or anyone else's for that matter).

The decision to abort a child is, ultimately, the mother's.

However, if a man and a woman are in a relationship together, and the woman becomes pregnant, obviously the two will have to have lengthly discussion, and arrive at a mutual decision, before any action is taken.

From the male point of view:

I would not want a child that is 'half me' being born without my consent, especially if I wouldn't be able to care for the child directly. I would expect many to react with sympathy for me on this issue.

On the other hand, were I anti-abortion, and were I wanting my partner (or ex-partner) to have this child on my behalf, I would expect people to react negatively towards me. I have no right to force someone else to have a child.

I guess the bottom line is this: before sleeping with someone you should find out how they feel about abortion. If you're not comfortable with their views, then don't fuck. End of story.

translate: you feminist bitch, shut your mouth, how dare you make valid criticisms of my flimsy arguments?

I realize that this is considered the "logical" way of looking at pregnancy, but unfortunately it is wrong wrong wrong. A women HAS to DO NOTHING (and should not have to DO ANYTHING). She does not have to inform her husband. No mutual decision need be arrived at. No lengthy discussions either. A women wants to end a pregnancy, she does. No man, no other woman, no government, no religious organization should be able to decide whether or not the pregnancy is carried to term. End of story.

Additionally how pleasant is life likely to be if your parents resent you before you are even born.

Also, the morning after pill isn't "a simple fix", it's a bloody painful one

"Additionally how pleasant is life likely to be if your parents resent you before you are even born."

I would guess that having my parents "resent" me would be slightly more pleasant than the alternative of having my parents "terminate" me before I was born. :-(

I wonder how many people here would rather not be living today because their parents weren't perfect.

I suppose that you could be severely injured by either an accidental car crash or an intentional car crash; but you view both as morally equivalent events. Is life just a big game of chance? Is moral ambivalence the answer? That solution seems a bit defeatist.

Looking at your argument, if your parents never met, you are correct: you would never have existed. If your mother chose to abort you, you would most certainly have existed. If you argue that you "didn't exist" in the second case, it's funny that pro-choice doctrines even claim that the baby of a pregnant woman doesn't "exist."

It seems that you want to tie personhood to consciousness--a "person" only exists when he/she is self-aware. Following this logic, murder is only wrong if the person killed "knows" that she has been killed. Would it be OK to kill someone in her sleep because she wouldn't realize that she was killed? She couldn't speculate on the reasons for her non-existence. So is this the new litmus test for murder: the victim must know that she has been murdered?

Gareth, you write: "what if two people decide not to have sex but to just be friends. a 'potential life' has been lost hasn't it?"

Gareth, I guess some would argue that a potential "opportunity" for life has been lost. But, in your hypothetical, no life has been lost, because no life had been created.

Enjoy

This is obviously not a pro-choice argument, and I never said it was - I was just pointing out that "how would you like it if you had been aborted?" doesnt work as an argument.

(I am pro-choice as it happens for the simple reason that I think the mother has a right to decide whether or not a pregnancy should be brought to term. I think this does, morally, involve classification of foetuses as 'not-alive', and I'm willing to do that.)

"it has life = it is sacred" is not a position most christians adhere to: the get-out clause is of course the exchange of the "soul" (unquantifiable argument-winner) for "consciousness"

Kiwi's definition of a "human being," above, would include the hangy bit of skin I just picked off of my pinky and flicked into the trash.

El Catracho doesn't get at what Gareth is pointing to, how purpose-laden the Catholic idea of sex is: i.e., if two people are going to copulate, they're not to do anything at all to try and prevent a live birth from resulting. (I'm still not certain where the great "rhythm"-type loopholes come from, as they seems to violate the overarching spirit of the doctrine.)

I think this issue comes down even more to religion than people like to think -- which is to say, I don't think it's so much a matter of asking at what point a fertilized cell becomes a murderable "person" as it is about a lot of people who have a sort of non-biological idea of "souls" lurking behind their thinking. (See El Catracho's questions to Tom.)

IIRC, the most important factor affecting a woman's attitude after an abortion is the nature of support she receives (if any) from her family and friends, and most women report feeling relieved afterwards.

1. the character of the debate around it, as Alex in SF says.

2. because they were pressured by partner, parents, or work environment into making the decision

3. because they do actually think that pro-lifers' arguments have a genuine moral force. I dont think its 'natural' to view a baby you're carrying as a separate individual but I've certainly known women who do feel that - and if you do think that then abortion surely will be traumatic, propaganda or no propaganda.

With 1 and 2 the trauma is the by-product of other people's misguided or evil actions. With 3 the trauma is the by-product of a difficult ethical choice. A compound problem with 2 and 3 I'd think is that women are then SOMETIMES told AFTERWARDS very AGGRESSIVELY that abortion is something NOBODY should feel ANY GUILT about it so ARE they some kind of WHINER whose parents wouldnt get them a TOOTHBRUSH?

"Very often"? No. That it happens? Yes. It happened to someone I know quite well actually: a kind of angry resentment from friends and family that she did feel bad and didnt 'get over it'. I wasn't trying to be funny, Alex, and no I don't think it happens often at all and yes I think the general rhetorical climate/automatic assumptions around abortion is much worse which is why I put it as point #1 agreeing with you in my list.

Look, from my p.o.v. it's simple. Hand in hand with the absolute right a woman has to determine what happens in her pregnancy is an absolute right to feel however the hell she likes about it and not be told how she should or should not feel. Your uncharacteristically super-aggressive tone seemed to me (and maybe I overreacted cos I'm sensitive on this point too, see para above) to be suggesting that women who do feel traumatised are dismissable or suffering from some kind of false consciousness or irritating hindrances to the righteous pro-choice cause. Apologies if I misrepresented you on that.

You write:

"El Catracho doesn't get at what Gareth is pointing to..."

Nabisco, I do get what Gareth is "pointing to." I was simply answering his question that "pointed to" something else. He had a misconception. I addressed his misconception. I'm not going to pretend I know what he is thinking. I just kept it simple and answered his question.

Alan responds to me:

" it is not that people are connecting personhood with consciousness (however you like to think about that word), but I think most people here (unlike yourself) would not identify a grown person with the earlier fetus/embryo/egg that they developed from. at some point most people would say, OK, they are not the same person."

Alan, I wouldn't be able to identify close friends in their childhood pictures. Does this mean that they are "not the same person?" And if so, who were they back then? Is this more pro-choice wisdom: the fetus/child is an entirely distinct person? The fetus that developed into "Alan Trewartha": was that someone else? The logic is dizzying.

Back to Nabisco who writes:

"I think this issue comes down even more to religion than people like to think -- which is to say, I don't think it's so much a matter of asking at what point a fertilized cell becomes a murderable "person" as it is about a lot of people who have a sort of non-biological idea of "souls" lurking behind their thinking. (See El Catracho's questions to Tom.)"

I might agree with you that this can be seen as a "religious question." I think that there's a blurry line between fields like law, philosophy and religion--they all overlap one-another. To me, every attempt to impose temporal power is a morality issue. Every law, right down to speed limits, is an attempt to impose one person's beliefs on another. Every law is a "restriction of choice"--a imposition of "anti-choice" beliefs. I guess some die-hard pro-choice people will try to argue away this statement; but I leave it for everyone to consider on his/her own.

Mystery writes:

"I don't want your opinion of me or what I've done, the only opinions that matter to me are those of the people I love, but I feel some of you are looking only at the moral question and not the reality of what you would do should it happen to you."

Mystery, I respect your wishes and won't comment on your story. Separate from your personal experiences, I will say that you should not presume to know what is going on in another persons mind and judge them based on your "feelings." I know what choices I have made in my life, and I don't need someone chiding me as if this is all hypothetical to me.

All my best,

"clearer way to put it: it takes time and work to make a person, it doesn't happen in a magical mystical instant"

OK, Mark...so is there a point at which you were 1/2 a "person"? Or is there a "magical mystical instant" when you transform from "blob of tissue" into "legal person" at birth. Is that the instant you're talking about? I'd better take a few deep breaths...

if person [x] dies, are you entitled to back-argue from their corpse nature that since they were always going to be dead, being dead is part of their personhood so it doesn't matter when it occurs (some strands of martyr-friendly xtianity — arguing from the eternal nature of the soul i spose — have argued something not unlike this btw)?

I think in some cases the age of timing of legal abortion should rise to fit the circumstance.
How old is Ted Cruz again?

looks like dr. ligma is about to lose medical license no. 8008135

So… apparently Texas has passed some asinine anti-abortion law where private citizens can claim a fucking bounty for spying on their neighbours, and someone setup this site to take reports from anyone on which women to persecutehttps://t.co/FpQ8HimpaV

— Claire Ryan (@aetherlev) August 21, 2021

also C. Ray Oneater, M.D.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/06/politics/texas-abortion-ban-federal-judge-order-block/index.html

but thanks to SCOTUS punting, some facilities hesitant to re-open considering Texas has appealed already

was on leave when this email went out, but apparently my company is reimbursing colleagues who have to travel 50 or more miles for an abortion (though apparently this was already in place, unbeknownst to me, and is continuing and more visible now).

anybody else's company have policies like this? I am kind of smiling thinking of the pro-life assholes who probably got angry at this email and are putting in their 2 weeks notice.

I really thought our CEO would make an announcement like that last week or at least by this week. They were so on the money regarding the pandemic. And people working at our Mississippi distribution center are already living under an abortion ban.

There was an email soon after the decision, mentioning ‘divisive issues’ and ‘respecting others’ beliefs’ and that kind of crap. I heard that wasn’t gonna be THE announcement. But since then… nothing.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/13/health/otc-birth-control-pill.html

i didn't see that coming...

Paxton and Texas SCOTUS are fucking inhuman ghouls

https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/11/us/texas-woman-leaves-state-abortion/index.html

Kate cox is a hero. Voluntarily signed up for weeks of expense and scrutiny and risk to her health, and probably years of harassment, to get them on the record.

Definitely

Highly recommend reading the Texas Supreme Court decision for the rage factor alone: https://www.txcourts.gov/media/1457645/230994pc.pdf.

It's like the Dred Scott decision, the same kind of viciousness disguised by dry judicial reasoning. And so hypocritical — they're like, "Hey, the law leaves it up to doctors, not judges." Not acknowledging at all that a doctor risks prosecution themselves by having to meet a standard that is both exacting and vague. Just so so awful. This is where we are just 18 months after Dobbs.

and of course, we know not everyone is fortunate enough to be able to go to another state for the procedure, or might not be willing to go through the scrutiny in the same way.

this is what they wanted. literal control over women at the granular level.