How do you feel about abortion?

[Lacius]

I don't believe a fetus is a person, and if a fetus were a person, I don't believe that causes a woman to lose her right to bodily autonomy.

 

[JellyPerson]

A fetus is a person
It kicks
It has a brain
It looks like a person
It turns into a baby
Bodily autonomy? The fuck?
Killing a fetus is almost the same as killing a fellow human

 

[osm70]

Unless there is a really good reason, it IS murder.
You can't just abort because you forgot prevention.

Also, some people on here are really insane.

I am not saying that I agree. Let me just point out the contradiction you made.

What you say implies that it isn't murder if there's a really good reason. In reality, it is murder that was committed for a really good reason.

 

[Lacius]

A fetus is a person
It kicks
It has a brain
It looks like a person
It turns into a baby
Bodily autonomy? The fuck?
Killing a fetus is almost the same as killing a fellow human

First, I don't believe anything you said makes a fetus a person. If anything, your qualifier "almost the same" shows that you don't even think a fetus is actually a person.

Second, hypothetically, if a fetus were a person, that doesn't take away a woman's right to bodily autonomy, even if it results in the death of a person. If you want to argue the fetus is a person and abortion results in the death of the person (I respectfully disagree), okay, but that's not technically murder.

If a person dying from failing kidneys requires you to donate your kidney in order to save his or her life, that doesn't take away your right to bodily autonomy and your ability to decline. If the person dies because you decline and because you were the only compatible match, that's not murder.

 

[FAST6191]

A fetus is a person
It kicks
It has a brain
It looks like a person
It turns into a baby
Bodily autonomy? The fuck?
Killing a fetus is almost the same as killing a fellow human

If it is almost the same then we have scope to consider whether it is acceptable.
Most of the world seems to think it is acceptable.

I can't say I find your points terribly useful in deciding why it might not be acceptable though.

Many things could turn into a baby -- you can print DNA these days, inject DNA into cells and otherwise do all sorts of things. If you are going to argue for it being more likely (and considerably so) than the nitrogen, oxygen, carbon, hydrogen and such ( https://www.thoughtco.com/chemical-composition-of-the-human-body-603995 ) then it is not an untenable position. The question then becomes what about ovulation, or masturbation to completion? What about some of the fertility treatments where you freeze an embryo?

As far as kicking. That is surely a later stage of development. Same for brains.
A rock outside my door looks like a person too, and again it is another of those later stages thing.

Bodily autonomy is the name for the right to do what you like with your body and attempt to treat your conditions. As pregnancy, birth and then maybe raising a child for a couple of decades is potentially unpleasant or hard when the ability to painlessly and simply remove things and forgo all that is an option it becomes a fairly potent argument from where I sit.

Edit.

Here's the thing, NOBODY wants an abortion. No little girl plays with her Barbie doll with it's clothes its house... and it's coathanger. Abortions are always a traumatic event that everyone (except for a few sickos) would have preferred to avoid, but feel they can't

When working on a job site I will try very hard to be safe but should it go wrong I have superglue, stitches, bandages and such.
I have met a few women that have the similar mindset of "I will do all the sex and try to be safe, should it fail I will go get it vacuumed out of me".

I don't find that mindset troubling from a moral perspective.

 

[osm70]

First, I don't believe anything you said makes a fetus a person. If anything, your qualifier "almost the same" shows that you don't even think a fetus is actually a person.

Second, hypothetically, if a fetus were a person, that doesn't take away a woman's right to bodily autonomy, even if it results in the death of a person. If you want to argue the fetus is a person and abortion results in the death of the person (I respectfully disagree), okay, but that's not technically murder.

If a person dying from failing kidneys requires you to donate your kidney in order to save his or her life, that doesn't take away your right to bodily autonomy and your ability to decline. If the person dies because you decline and because you were the only compatible match, that's not murder.

Yeah, if we talk about donating organs, it gets interesting.

Imagine this situation: 5 people are injured and they need new organs to survive. Each one of them needs a different organ. You are completely healthy and you are a perfect match for all five. Now, forcing you to "donate" those organs (and actually committing murder by forcibly taking those organs from you) is OBJECTIVELY the right thing to do. After all, they save 5 lives by sacrificing one. (And yeah, I do realize that's fucked up. I am not saying that's the moral thing to do or that I agree it should be done. I'm just trying to be objective here.)

 

[Lacius]

Yeah, if we talk about donating organs, it gets interesting.

Imagine this situation: 5 people are injured and they need new organs to survive. Each one of them needs a different organ. You are completely healthy and you are a perfect match for all five. Now, forcing you to "donate" those organs (and actually committing murder by forcibly taking those organs from you) is OBJECTIVELY the right thing to do. After all, they save 5 lives by sacrificing one. (And yeah, I do realize that's fucked up. I am not saying that's the moral thing to do or that I agree it should be done. I'm just trying to be objective here.)

Forcing you to die to save those five people is not the objectively right thing to do.

Edit: To explain, forcing you to die is murder. Allowing the five people to die is not murder.

 

[x65943]

Yeah, if we talk about donating organs, it gets interesting.

Imagine this situation: 5 people are injured and they need new organs to survive. Each one of them needs a different organ. You are completely healthy and you are a perfect match for all five. Now, forcing you to "donate" those organs (and actually committing murder by forcibly taking those organs from you) is OBJECTIVELY the right thing to do. After all, they save 5 lives by sacrificing one. (And yeah, I do realize that's fucked up. I am not saying that's the moral thing to do or that I agree it should be done. I'm just trying to be objective here.)

"Is objectively the right thing to do."

There can be no objectivity in morals. There is no way to scientifically prove what is right or wrong.

There is no logically sound reason why it is more right to consider murder evil than good.

As strange as it sounds - it's all relative.

See here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_relativism

 

[osm70]

Forcing you to die to save those five people is not the objectively right thing to do.

Edit: To explain, forcing you to die is murder. Allowing the five people to die is not murder.

"Is objectively the right thing to do."

There can be no objectivity in morals. There is no way to scientifically prove what is right or wrong.

There is no logically sound reason why it is more right to consider murder evil than good.

As strange as it sounds - it's all relative.

Not talking about morality. Morality is all subjective. I was just taking the very binary (and flawed) stance of "saving as many lives as possible". I am not saying doing that is the right decision.

 

[x65943]

Not talking about morality. Morality is all subjective. I was just taking the very binary (and flawed) stance of "saving as many lives as possible". I am not saying doing that is the right decision.

By saying it was objectively "right" you made a moral statement.

"Right" is a word which only has value in a moral schema. Right and wrong are inherently moral concepts. Here you chose the moral "to save the most lives". So yes if that is the moral you ascribe to, then killing the one person is objectively the best way to achieve that. However you have to make it clear when you are predicating your statement on a moral idea that is not exactly universal.

 

[osm70]

By saying it was objectively "right" you made a moral statement.

"Right" is a word which only has value in a moral schema. Right and wrong are inherently moral concepts. Here you chose the moral "to save the most lives". So yes if that is the moral you ascribe to, then killing the one person is objectively the best way to achieve that. However you have to make it clear when you are predicating your statement on a moral idea that is not exactly universal.

Yeah, I worded that wrong. My mistake.

 

[Lacius]

"Is objectively the right thing to do."

There can be no objectivity in morals. There is no way to scientifically prove what is right or wrong.

There is no logically sound reason why it is more right to consider murder evil than good.

As strange as it sounds - it's all relative.

See here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_relativism

If we very specifically define what it means to be moral first, objective morality can exist.

Not talking about morality. Morality is all subjective. I was just taking the very binary (and flawed) stance of "saving as many lives as possible". I am not saying doing that is the right decision.

When you're talking about something being the "right thing to do," you're talking about morality.

 

[StarTrekVoyager]

You do not kill a killing fetus. Most people against abortion seem to ignore everything about the rules and the laxs about abortion. There is a quite strict time limit about when you can do that. And trust me, you wouldn't be able to flush a fetus that's already capable of kicking. We're talking about lifeless lumps of unspecialized stem cells.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Anyways, this thread reflects how ultraconservative GBATemp, and the US in general, are. In France even the far-rightists aren't questioning th fundamental right to abortion. But well, different cultures I guess...

 

[osm70]

Why are we talking about politics here?

Look, I don't know what's going on in the US, but here in the Czech Republic we have one or two political parties that oppose abortion, seven or so that approves and the rest (about 70) doesn't even bother putting it in their political plan.

So, abortion isn't even close to being a political issue here.

(We have 88 political parties as of today - April 22nd, 2018.)

 

[osaka35]

Abortion is no more murder than masturbation is.

Some history is required to understand why people think abortion is murder.

back in the day, people weren't very knowledgeable about biology at all. The believed the entirety of the person was in the man's sperm. The woman's womb was just where the baby was grown. They thought it was like crops. Man had the seed, the woman had the ground. This is why we still say women are "barren", which is a agricultural term for ground that can't grow stuff. Also terms like "bear fruit" and "sewing your wild oats/seeds", etc., etc. come from this conceptual understanding.

So, with that established, let's move into religion doctrine. the catholic church took that cultural concept and made masturbation a crime against their god. if the entirety of the person was contained in the sperm, then surely not having it put in a place that could be planted was a crime against god. on a related note, this is also why so many people circumcise in the US. Kellogg (yes that Kellogg) thought circumcision would reduce the evil evil act of masturbation. You can also blame the catholic church and related religions for a large chunk of cultural hangups on masturbation.

Eventually we got to the point we understand genetics and that women contribute half of the genetic material. But even now, we still use those antiquated terms and concepts, so that culture and those concepts are still around in bits and pieces. There's still this concept that the "whole" of the person is contained there, just people adapted it to include the woman's half. So now rather than sperm, it's on the moment of conception. But that's still just an adaptation of that antiquated concept. It is not in line with biology.

What *actually* happens, based in biology, is sperm and eggs contain *~blueprints~*. a fertilized egg is not a person, it does not contain a "whole" person, but rather general instructions for the building of a person. (I say general because it's not exact, and the plans change quite a bit depending on the environment of the mother/fetus. They're adaptive blueprints and are not of a certain final product). They are an instructional code for the body to begin construction of a person. The man has half of the code, the women has the other half. When both are combined, the body begins the process of building based on those blueprints.

BUT it doesn't start out from the beginning with the bits that make a person a person. No, first the mother's body starts by creating a...vessel (to keep in line with the religious talk) for the person. The body. Eventually, after about the third trimester (29-40 weeks), the blueprints ask for the final bits to be installed; the important brain stuff. It is at this point most people agree an actual person has been grown. Pretty much no one thinks abortion should happen at this stage. Only before those stages the blueprints have asked for the "person" bits to be start being added do people think abortion to be viable. The closer to the "planning/conception" stage, the better for most people.

You can add whatever soul or religious context you'd like, but that's the sciency bit of what's happening.

 

[osm70]

Abortion is no more murder than masturbation is.

Some history is required to understand why people think abortion is murder.

back in the day, people weren't very knowledgeable about biology at all. The believed the entirety of the person was in the man's sperm. The woman's womb was just where the baby was grown. They thought it was like crops. Man had the seed, the woman had the ground. This is why we still say women are "barren", which is a agricultural term for ground that can't grow stuff. Also terms like "bear fruit" and "sewing your wild oats/seeds", etc., etc. come from this conceptual understanding.

So, with that established, let's move into religion doctrine. the catholic church took that cultural concept and made masturbation a crime against their god. if the entirety of the person was contained in the sperm, then surely not having it put in a place that could be planted was a crime against god. on a related note, this is also why so many people circumcise in the US. Kellogg (yes that Kellogg) thought circumcision would reduce the evil evil act of masturbation. You can also blame the catholic church and related religions for a large chunk of cultural hangups on masturbation.

Eventually we got to the point we understand genetics and that women contribute half of the genetic material. But even now, we still use those antiquated terms and concepts, so that culture and those concepts are still around in bits and pieces. There's still this concept that the "whole" of the person is contained there, just people adapted it to include the woman's half. So now rather than sperm, it's on the moment of conception. But that's still just an adaptation of that antiquated concept. It is not in line with biology.

What *actually* happens, based in biology, is sperm and eggs contain *~blueprints~*. a fertilized egg is not a person, it does not contain a "whole" person, but rather general instructions for the building of a person. (I say general because it's not exact, and the plans change quite a bit depending on the environment of the mother/fetus. They're adaptive blueprints and are not of a certain final product). They are an instructional code for the body to begin construction of a person. The man has half of the code, the women has the other half. When both are combined, the body begins the process of building based on those blueprints.

BUT it doesn't start out from the beginning with the bits that make a person a person. No, first the mother's body starts by creating a...vessel (to keep in line with the religious talk) for the person. The body. Eventually, after about the third trimester (29-40 weeks), the blueprints ask for the final bits to be installed; the important brain stuff. It is at this point most people agree an actual person has been grown. Pretty much no one thinks abortion should happen at this stage. Only before those stages the blueprints have asked for the "person" bits to be start being added do people think abortion to be viable. The closer to the "planning/conception" stage, the better for most people.

You can add whatever soul or religious context you'd like, but that's the sciency bit of what's happening.

I have never heard any of those terms.

 

[osaka35]

I have never heard any of those terms.

They're English terms, so that may be why. Any native speaker will have heard these terms. usually "seed" or "barren" are the most common for non-native speakers.

 

[x65943]

I have never heard any of those terms.

The terms are biblical in origin. I associate them mainly with the book of Genesis.

 

[osm70]

They're English terms, so that may be why. Any native speaker will have heard these terms. usually "seed" or "barren" are the most common for non-native speakers.

Well, I heard seed (assuming it means sperm). We actually use that word in Czech.

 

[TotalInsanity4]

Abortion is no more murder than masturbation is.

Some history is required to understand why people think abortion is murder.

back in the day, people weren't very knowledgeable about biology at all. The believed the entirety of the person was in the man's sperm. The woman's womb was just where the baby was grown. They thought it was like crops. Man had the seed, the woman had the ground. This is why we still say women are "barren", which is a agricultural term for ground that can't grow stuff. Also terms like "bear fruit" and "sewing your wild oats/seeds", etc., etc. come from this conceptual understanding.

So, with that established, let's move into religion doctrine. the catholic church took that cultural concept and made masturbation a crime against their god. if the entirety of the person was contained in the sperm, then surely not having it put in a place that could be planted was a crime against god. on a related note, this is also why so many people circumcise in the US. Kellogg (yes that Kellogg) thought circumcision would reduce the evil evil act of masturbation. You can also blame the catholic church and related religions for a large chunk of cultural hangups on masturbation.

Eventually we got to the point we understand genetics and that women contribute half of the genetic material. But even now, we still use those antiquated terms and concepts, so that culture and those concepts are still around in bits and pieces. There's still this concept that the "whole" of the person is contained there, just people adapted it to include the woman's half. So now rather than sperm, it's on the moment of conception. But that's still just an adaptation of that antiquated concept. It is not in line with biology.

What *actually* happens, based in biology, is sperm and eggs contain *~blueprints~*. a fertilized egg is not a person, it does not contain a "whole" person, but rather general instructions for the building of a person. (I say general because it's not exact, and the plans change quite a bit depending on the environment of the mother/fetus. They're adaptive blueprints and are not of a certain final product). They are an instructional code for the body to begin construction of a person. The man has half of the code, the women has the other half. When both are combined, the body begins the process of building based on those blueprints.

BUT it doesn't start out from the beginning with the bits that make a person a person. No, first the mother's body starts by creating a...vessel (to keep in line with the religious talk) for the person. The body. Eventually, after about the third trimester (29-40 weeks), the blueprints ask for the final bits to be installed; the important brain stuff. It is at this point most people agree an actual person has been grown. Pretty much no one thinks abortion should happen at this stage. Only before those stages the blueprints have asked for the "person" bits to be start being added do people think abortion to be viable. The closer to the "planning/conception" stage, the better for most people.

You can add whatever soul or religious context you'd like, but that's the sciency bit of what's happening.

You missed "fruit of my loins," in reference to a father speaking of his offspring