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Another example is the abortion debate, every one is quick to show the evils of the other side of the debate. But often they simply disagree on when human life
by xupybd 10y ago
Another example is the abortion debate, every one is quick to show the evils of the other side of the debate. But often they simply disagree on when human life starts and fail to ever identify that as the issue. Because of this most discussions on this topic become far more vitriolic than productive.
- JoeAltmaier 10y agoOne interesting observation was, that human life is continuous and has been for a million years. Don't know how that changes the discussion but its interesting.
- tomjen3 10y agoEven then the argument can actually be solved by the "famous violinist" argument (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/hallq/2012/02/the-under-rated-famous-violinist-defense-of-abortion/ http://www.patheos.com/blogs/hallq/2012/02/the-under-rated-f...) and by pointing out that humans are not forced to donate a kidney, even though doing so has a great chance of saving the life of the recepient, and a live-donation results in a much higher quality of life for the receiver. In this case we value the body integrity of the first person more than the life of the second - even though both are undeniably human.
- Natanael_L 10y agoOTOH in the case of abortion you have the difference that you take direct action against the fetus in favor of the mother, instead of just being passive and "letting nature take its course". In terms of ethics that's a huge difference. In fact I'd argue that an uncontradictory absolutist position for body integrity is impossible in the case of abortion (assuming the fetus is considered human!), since the only absolute resolution technically isn't abortion, but rather premature birth and artificially keeping the fetus alive. Of course the disagreement between camps remains on when a fetus becomes human...