abe smith

:Anyone who demurs at woman's right to abort a conception contained in her body...>>> the person who takes offense at woman's right to abort shd get busy and perfect a technique to produce humanbeings without having to involve the use of another human being's body for the 9 months of gestation. (The POOPe won't LIKE this
but this will solve the problem. He of course cannot BEAR the fact that women have bodily & other autonomy.)
Apart from the foregoing, it is my firm opinion that, until the newly-dumped-out human creature is severed from the "mother's" body (= by cutting the navel-cord), the woman whose body contains the conceptus-therein has an *ABSOLUTE* ownership/power/control over that entity
(whatever name you want to call it by and whatever category you may want to assign it to)
and, hence the container-woman can *kill* the contained if she chooses to.
And any of you who don't LIKE that can find another way to produce human beings -- a way that does not enslave an unwilling woman for 9 months.

GeoTheo

Abe, I am trying to present moral arguements that perhaps would sway a woman into not getting an abortion. This whole "you are a man, so you have no right to decide" argument is rather tired. Plenty of women are against abortion. I posted this in the Moral foundations and Principles to debate the morality of the subject. Men can present moral arguments on this subject just as well as women can. The arguments stand or fall on their own merits not by the sex of the person presenting them. As far as the legality goes. I am fine with keeping the law the way it is as long as
there would be a way to get the numbers of abortions dramatically down voluntarily.
This would mean that people would need to be persuaded that having an abortion would be the wrong thing to do.
Everybody, incidentally seems to be falling in line with my statement that in reality people decide the personhood status of the fetus by whether it is wanted or not.
If it is wanted it becomes a baby at conception, often with a name, if it is not wanted it is likened to some horrible parasite that enslaves the mother for nine months and sucks energy from her body. When in essence the baby in no way changes. So what you are saying is that the personhood of a fetus is dependant on how it is percieved by the mother.

GeoTheo

All these arguements for when a fetus becomes a person, such as viability, brain function, etc. are all rationalizations. None are the real reason. A fetus is pronounced human when it is wanted and does not have that stautus when not wanted. Does anybody disagree that this is effectively how it goes?
Women mourn a miscarriage like they lost a child if the baby was wanted regardless of it's developmental stage. They don't mourn after the age of viability at some line of demarkation and not before. I also would assume women don't name, talk to and read to fetuses they plan to abort even if it is past the age of viability.

Dr Rick

Very well put; abortion rights are privacy and freedom of choice issues that concern all of us.

<strong> Now you've lost me: how are abortion rights, privacy, and freedom of choice dependent upon getting the numbers down?

<strong> The personhood status of the fetus is an unsolvable philosophical riddle that is not the central issue in abortion rights. The rights of all women, reproductive rights, privacy rights, and individual freedom are the central issues.

Rick

GeoTheo

Rick,
Abortion rights are not dependant on getting the numbers down. I am arguing that no mother has a "moral" right to get an abortion, except in the case of self defense. The legality is a seperate issue. For example I think getting drunk is immoral but i am not for prohibition. Or maybe that is not the best analogy. I still can present moral arguments against drunkenness, though. I do not think making abortion illegal would end it. It would also make abortion more dangerous.
If everyone was convinced abortion was immoral and no one got them anymore, the law would not matter.

Dr Rick

Your postion is no different; you have not shown why a zygote is a person but a gamete or tumor cell is not. Your opinion is just rationalization, as well.

<strong> It doesn't "go" anything like that. A fetus may not be aborted in the third trimester except in very extraordinary circumstances whether or not it is "wanted."

On the other hand, a woman may "want" the fetus she aborts because the pregnancy occured in untenable circumstances.

<strong> Abortion, privacy, and freedom of choice are not dependent upon mourning or naming of a fetus.

Rick

GeoTheo

Rick,
If there is no way to determine for sure, when a fetus becomes a person should not one err on the side of personhood? I mean, obviously no one thinks a sperm is a person. I never heard of a person having noctunal emissions being accused of manslaughter. So since this line between personhood and non-personhood is so unclear in the case of the fetus,there is good reason to believe that fetuses that have crossed the "personhood Rubicon" if you will, are aborted.
In that case, an injustice has been committed against a person by another person. If privacy issues can be construed as superseding the right to life, I ask on what grounds?
Surely privacy is somthing one would want when committing a murder, but how is it justified?
If a fetus is a person, than it is within a community of persons and therfore it's rights need to be valued and protected by other persons.
And they should be valued over the rights of a person wishing privacy for the purpose of extinguishing its life.

Pseudonymph

I think it should be a central issue. Mainly because we are talking about the rights of a future child. Who, if said child was dead, in essence has been denied the basic right to live.

Maybe people can help me understand, because I am willing to learn more, but I fail to see how it is even pertinent to this discussion, to
determine, or even try to determine, WHEN at what point a fetus has rights like any other people.

My reason for that is, it will BECOME a child at some point. No one can argue that. To me this is analogous to pulling the plug on someone in a coma, even though you know they will wake up. What it usually comes down to is that it's simply inconvienent to have a child.

I may be wrong about everything I'm saying but when you put all this rhetoric aside and look at the basic idea of abortion, that's what it appears to boil down to.


edited to add...please I don't need to be flamed about how it's a womans body etc...I think I would know...being a woman and all

[ October 28, 2002: Message edited by: SirenSpeak ]</p>

Dr Rick

Your "moral" definition should not be binding upon anyone other than you and those that agree with you.

<strong> I can present moral arguments against you going to the grocery store: it's dangerous (you might kill yourself and anyone else in your car as you drive), the gasoline purchases necessary to get to the store support evil petroleum empires and regimes, your food purchases support evil agricultural and industrial conglomerates, and so on.

But I do not propose that we restrict your freedom to go to the grocery store arbitrarily because it is immoral. The 'morals' argument doesn't hold in either that circumstance or in the abortion rights debate because both are issues of freedom and rights that transcend our individual opinions.

Your free to live your life; every women should be free, as well.

Rick

GeoTheo

What are "untenable circumstances"?
If I were to find you trapped in a burning car and had the power to save you, but was wearing a new suit that would get damaged- Would that be a case of me "wanting" you to live, but finding the circimstances for preserving your life "untenable"?
I think that is analogous to a mother who would normally want a baby, but doesn't want to drop out of college or take time off from work.
"untenable" means "pain in the ass". That is not sufficient justification in a life and death situation.