New Restrictions on Abortion Have Real World Consequences

Post Reply New Topic

This is actually the only other start-of-life position that is somewhat consistent, but it too comes with problems. I don't know if you know what a late term abortion involves. Briefly - it is unsafe to "scramble" and pull out the pieces as you would in an early abortion. The baby is pulled out whole and its neck is severed with a scalpel. This horrified many people, on all sides, and this was how the whole partial-birth/viability argument started. Folks were quite rightly worried that what was actually happening was induced birth followed by medieval style execution.

There were a few who argued that later term abortion would be ok - if only you could kill the baby inside the womb before you pulled it out - they were trying to make it consistent with the idea that "personhood" or "right to life" began as soon as the baby was out. But this idea didn't gain much traction and rightly so I think, sounding something like an argument where killing a baby under a piece of cloth was somehow radically different from doing it in the open air. Thus we ended up with viability. The strange idea that if you could theoretically remove a baby and it had a chance of surviving (but n.b., doing so would be a terrible crime) - it had somehow acquired humanness or personhood or whatever idea you want to apply. I'll grant that birth as beginning is more consistent than viability, but it is not consistent enough.



This definition of personhood or self awareness or sentience or whatever has to be absolutely airtight if we are using it as justification to kill, and I find it never is, which is why I fall back to simple "human". The traits suggested to determine whether a human deserves protection often isn't present in regular babies or even toddlers.



I do agree with this, but I find the reasons for termination in the vast majority of cases are not sufficient to breach that threshold where (an innocent) human can be justifiably killed to alleviate the suffering of a different human.



I'm don't rely on personhood or anything like that. I understand them as humans, human as in human rights. At conception in a regular pregnancy, that is not a potential human, that is a human. If you don't interfere - someone like you or me is the result.

A sperm or an egg is not a human life in progress, that truly is (or is part of) a potential human. If you do nothing with it, nothing can happen, further action is required to bring a human into existence. Arguably every skin cell you shed is a potential human, it could theoretically be used to clone you or the DNA artificially fused to create a new human. That argument to me not about protecting lives-in-progress, but about whether we should create human life at every opportunity, using every available genetic resource, but that isn't a position I hold.



Logically we must at least give them at least the same consideration as any other young human, young humans who we usually instinctively value more than adult humans - illogically.

I'm familiar with the process, I went to a Catholic school that had no problem with letting kids do anti-abortion speeches that involved holding up all sorts of gory pictures to traumatize the rest of the class into not questioning their indoctrination. Doing that topic guaranteed that you'd be selected by the Knights of Columbus for their speech contest so there was a trend of increasingly gory and hysteric speeches from a few classmates between grade 5 and 8.

Anti-choicers like to focus on late-term abortions to form the front of the wedge but they're demonstrably not an issue and the rate wouldn't be impacted in most areas with greater restrictions because those restrictions would either have exemptions for the vast majority of reasons why late-term abortions are sought or they'd be so strict that even some people who aren't pro-choice will start to feel uncomfortable with the results.

Yes, but do you see the problems with drawing the line at birth that viability attempted to resolve? How do you resolve them, if at all?

---

"Logically we must at least give them at least the same consideration
as any other young human, young humans who we usually instinctively
value more than adult humans - illogically."

This Reminds me of the Only Solution Some Folks

Will Provide When Someone Who Is Sad

As The Direction May Be

"Please Don't

Be Sad" As From

Their Point of View

Human Emotions Have

Simply An Off and On 'Trolley Switch'

For 'Trained Emotions'; Although They 'Should' 'Know' Better

Yet This is What One Feels Senses Over 'Think' to Understand...

Love Comes into the Equation of this issue; Obviously, Overall, Parents

Are Gonna Value Their Born Children That They Are Actually Emotionally

Bonded With More Than A Developing Human Within; No 'Train Trolley Test'

Needed to Understand

This Equation

For Those

Who Have Ever

Been A Parent; i For

One Will Truthfully Say i Have

Been A Parent For a Short-Time in

My Life From An Experiential Perspective

Of Humanity Feeling And Sensing Reality

of the Parent And Child Bond, Obviously Ya Ain't

Got A Clue of What You Are Speaking of my FRiEnD;

I'll
Be Very

Surprised

If You've Ever

Been A Parent

Which Such A Cold

And Inhumane Analysis

of The 'Equation At Hand';

A 'Turing Test' May Be in Order in This Case it seems...

And It's Ironic How Empathy And Compassion Is Somehow Lost in All the

Complex Emotional Issues Associated With This Entire Human Situation...

For People

Who Say

They

'Care' About Humans...

It's A Work of Art And
Never a Science Project of Logic Alone...

And There is Emotional Intelligence Required

To 'See' More Aspects of The Complex Human Emotional Issues Associated At Hand;

Again, Not A Work of Science Alone; A Very Complex Human Condition to Fully Consider indeed...

Yet Unless one Has the Tools of Empathy And Compassion to See Farther than Their Own Considerations;

Pretty

Much

A Lost Cause

For Understanding More...

Yet Change Is Most Always A Possibility...

---

You make it sound so sinister. I was just acknowledging the absurdity of human instinct. We do value children over adults, I feel it too, even though it is illogical by many metrics. But this instinct vanishes when the human is just a little too young in the womb, even though it is logical for that instinct to continue all the way back to day one.

I see them but I would note that problems exist literally no matter where that line is drawn so it's always going to be a matter of trade-offs.

If only ovulation was voluntary.

---

---

---

Always Welcome to Clarify And Validate Your Analysis; It Just Sounded A Bit Far Removed From the Reality of Nature.

And Surely Not Illogical In Terms of Instinct As The Bond Between All Living Human Beings in Terms of

Oxytocin, the Neurohormone, Is The Glue that Keeps Social Animals Together; True, Humans Tend to

Grow a Bit More Unlovable As They Age as They Get All Caught Up in Mechanical Cognition; And Often Lose

The Warm And Fuzzies That Even Make Humanity What it is; At Least As Much as A Pack of Dogs As Dogs

Serve As A Human Substitute For That Human Connection Precisely As They Help Generate the Warm

And Fuzzy Neurohormone Oxytocin Connection that Reduces Anxiety And Enhances OverAll Well Being

And Healing Tremendously; So The Dogs Get To Accompany Their Owners to Walmart To

Make the Whole Experience Ironically Seem More Humane With Their Canine Friends...

My Child Got To Spend 51 Days in Only Pain At a Children's Hospital;

Basically, Just So Medical Science Could Him Stay Alive Those Days; As

From Day One, The Doctors Understood Where He Was Eventually Going

After A Third of a Million Dollars to Help Him Breathe in Only Pain for 51 Days...

We Had Great Insurance; The People Across the Street in A Similar Situation Did Not;

They Sacrificed All their Material Goods to Keep their Child Alive; It's True, It's Part of

Nature; Other Mammals Take Priority One Over All Stuff Existence in Supporting the Bond

Of Their New Offspring through Making it on their Own; Hey Baby, I'm Pro-Life too; Yet Like

70 Percent of Other Americans Polled, Pro-Choice, As i Understand How Dark Life Will Get in Just

About Every God Dam Way Life Will Come And Go Away; Again, Mostly it Depends on All the Places

One has Been in Life; This Issue is Way too Dam Complicated for One Binary Answer Other Than Choice;

Humanity

In this

Case is Far

Removed From

A '0 Or 1 Bit' Solution...

Anyway, The Debate Link on

Abortion for those Who Are interested

in All the Pros And Cons Are Surely Thoroughly

Discussed in the Provided Link From Wiki; The Real

Life Emotional Considerations From Actual Life Experiences Helps

Finalize my Decision And Likely The Other 70 Percent of Humans Who See A Bigger Picture too in the U.S...

Of Which 66 Percent Are Pro-Life As Far As The Way They See Existence; They Understand Really Bad Stuff

Happens in Life;

Even If It's

Never

Happened to Them....

The Snake of Nature Eats the Snake...

Lots of Ups and Downs and Hard Decisions to make...

And This One Will Never Be A Decision That is Only A Binary Yes or No, Alone...

Anymore Than The Rest of the Spectrum of What is; Always Changing Always Different....

Only

Same

Is Change...

Yet Again, In A Democracy,

'24 Percent' Or so of the Country is

Now Doing Whatever It Can And Will

In Underhanded Ways By Arms of Representation to Keep

Their Political Power to Dominate Others Who are the Majority...

The Days are Numbered; The Days are Numbered For Political
Control at Least; Yet That Kind of Nature Will Always Exist as

Part of Human Nature too... No,

Not Suggesting You Don't Have

Emotions; Perhaps Just

Experience

And the

Cognitive

Empathy That

Easier comes With Experience...

At 33, i Surely Didn't Understand

A Fuller Gravity Of All of This, Until i Actually Had a Child at 37;
It is often Suggested That Many Men Don't Become 'Fully Human' Till then
Where They Are Willing to actually Lay Their Lives Down for Another Breathing Human...

Yes, It's Very

Logical;

Core to
Our Very

Existence

of Being Human Now...

For Without it; We Wouldn't Continue to Exist...

With A Couple or More Decades it takes to Mature...

With Parents at Least That Hold Us In Value over

All other considerations.

i had Parent Who Did,

And One Parent Who Did Not...

The Second One is Where my

Autism Spectrum And My Sister's

Autism Spectrum Comes From Challenging Socially Empathically Emotionally Indeed

As True, It Is Assessed As A Condition Where Social Empathic Abilities are at Deficit...

And The Fact Is Some Folks Are Just Not Cut Out to Either Nurture Children or Endure A Pregnancy...

It's Part of Nature too; Morally Describe it However one Chooses too; Yet It's Part of Nature And Real Life too...

And Every
Human

Case Is

Different;

So Choice is

Truly A Rational Decision...
Just My Opinion Among A
70 Percent Other 'Moral Majority'..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_debate

---

Also, pregnancy can cause some women major health risks and even death in some cases, lets not forget about that bit. Damn right the life of the living breathing person is more important than the fetus.

Anyone who thinks pregnancy is just an "inconvenience" isn't educated enough about pregnancy to have valid opinion on it.

Pregnancy can wreak severe psychological, emotion, and physical havok on women, and giving birth can still kill women.

And the ultimate question is one of bodily autonomy. There is no legal or moral right of one person to use the body of another person, without their consent, to survive. None. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

They don't pull live babies out and slice their throat with a scalpel. The procedure used is not survivable and if need be they use medication to stop the fetal heartbeathttps://www.factcheck.org/2019/03/the-facts-on-the-born-alive-debate/

Also sometimes complications develop and they have to make a choice of save the mom or try and save the baby. A lot of later abortions happen for reasons like that. Like by forcing the woman to go through with having the baby you'd be asking her to sacrifice her life. Understandably most people would probably rather not.

So what is your opinion on that, if its life or death should the woman be able to chose to save herself vs. the baby? or should giving birth still be forced?

all these anti-sex-leaguers need to step up to the plate and volunteer to adopt the babies of all the women they're forcing to give birth. fat chance of that happening.

We've already established that when you ask these people what they DO to HELP these women, they have no idea what you're talking about. The concept does not exist between their ears. Their idea of "taking action" is rage-screaming until other people comply with their wacky demands.

I don't know about recently, but back when the procedure was invented they used to pull them out live and viable. They are pulled out up to the neck facing forwards, then the spine is severed (between part 3 and 4 below, to ensure the baby is dead before you suck its brains out). And thanks for that horrifying link. I'd forgotten about Kermit Gosnell until now.

Older folks might remember these diagrams floating around in the 90s:









I believe abortion is justified in those sorts of situations or where the mother otherwise faces beyond ordinary risks from pregnancy. I've said it at least once or twice in this thread but it's pretty long, I don't expect you to have read the whole thing.

Also, don't forget the things that ACTUALLY prevent abortion, like comprehensive sex education, easy access to contraceptives, strong social safety nets, affordable daycare, ect. Conservatives don't want any of that either.

It's just about forcing women to give birth, then dropping them like a hot potato once the babies are born.

I'm not here to take a side in this abortion debate since both sides make good points persuasive to their contentions, but I would like to comment on the premise of your argument. To argue for a moral position does not necessitate the obligation to invest total sacrifice in mitigating a tradeoff consequence of said moral position. Your line of argument is used by war hawk conservatives when they say "If you oppose invading a country to remove a dictator then you better sacrifice everything to support said people living overseas," or when the issue of Trump's draconian border policy came to light conservatives used to respond "If you're so outraged by kids in cages why not you take in illegal immigrants into your homes"

To propose a moral policy will always have trade offs; that doesnt mean that every proponent of any moral policy has to personally invest in compensating for the trade offs

Well good, at least you're not that extreme...I still disagree with your position on abortion over-all but at least there is that. Trouble is voting for say anti-abortion measures makes it more likely women could be forced to go through with pregnancy even if their health was put at risk by it...even if your goal is just to do the morally right thing.