5 ms·

I think you missed the point of my analogy on abortion. Let's say there's someone you know who's going to die in 24 hours if she doesn't get a kidney transplant

by v64 10y ago

I think you missed the point of my analogy on abortion. Let's say there's someone you know who's going to die in 24 hours if she doesn't get a kidney transplant. She's too far down on the list to get one in that timeframe. Out of all the people she knows that have been tested, you're the only one who's a match. If you donate your kidney, she lives. If you don't donate your kidney, she dies. Either way, the government cannot compel you to donate your kidney to save her life. You can say "This is my body, my choice" and the woman dies. Same with abortion. The woman makes a choice about her body, the baby dies. This isn't the government's business. > Opponents of abortion simply feel that much abortion is highly questionable ethically and feel that a society's treatment of the weakest and most defenseless among them speaks much about the character of their society. Then by that logic, they should be arguing for organ donation to be mandatory. > In modern society women do have complete autonomous control over their bodies in determining whether or not to become pregnant. Tell that to a woman who gets pregnant from being raped.

cb18 10y ago
So you're basically saying that all babies in the womb should be regarded as having an illness. The illness being whether or not the mother chooses to terminate the pregnancy in an unnatural way. Just think about that, the stark unnaturalness of abortion. What other animal acts in such a way? There is nary a stronger force in nature than a mother's protection of her young. What is it about our society that compels women to do this? Does it have something to with the mixed messages being sent to women telling them they should act like men? Then by that logic, they should be arguing for organ donation to be mandatory. The crux of the illogic in this is that, left to take the natural course a baby is more often than not, not going to die. Whereas a terminal kidney disease patient, resulting from particular circumstances will die without intervention. Tell that to a woman who gets pregnant from being raped. I thought of that as I wrote that,(almost added a parenthetical). I think we can both agree that that is an edge case. An over-attention on edge cases can cloud our thinking about the larger issues.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  If you spend long enough looking at a problem you'll realize that there are a lot more 'edge cases' than there are 'normal' ones. Nobody undergoes an abortion for fun.
  - cb18 10y ago
    But if you're solving/addressing a problem efficiently, you should work out a solution where the event space can be mapped such that events classed 'typical' should far outnumber events classed 'edge.' Yes it's never going to be perfect when trying to overlay a closed system of logic on the open system that is the universe, but we've shown ourselves pretty capable at getting to good enough. In this case it is a question of what is "good enough"? Meaning, what are we trying to accomplish? I'd always been mostly ambivalent toward abortion but thinking about it more recently, it does seem quite the tragic and brutal practice. I'm inclined to believe you that no one does it for fun, at least in retrospect. I think there is a problem of too much of a glib attitude about it from the SJW/Tumblr types which hides a lot of the torment an abortive mother is likely to feel after going through with the procedure. I'll repeat: What is it about our society that compels women to do this?
    - v64 10y ago
      > I'll repeat: What is it about our society that compels women to do this? I don't think society has much to do with it. Pregnancy is an incredible ordeal for a woman to go through. Not only does it drastically change a woman's body, sometimes permanently, but it's also a process the woman has to endure for nine months. I don't see how it's surprising at all that this is something some percentage of women simply don't want to endure at all. If you want to look at societal factors, I think a major one is that when an unwanted pregnancy occurs, the man is the one who has the ability to walk away. Faced with 18 years of single parenthood or an abortion that can reset everything to how it was before the pregnancy, the latter is the better option. Some people say abortion is morally reprehensible. But like religion, I think your morality is a personal issue. If you're against abortion, then when you get pregnant, you're free to keep the child. If you're religious, pray for them. But in a free country, I don't believe you can make that choice for others. Homosexuality, interracial marriage, women not wanting to have children, these are all things that some group has argued as immoral at some point in history, but society has progressed. I hope abortion will progress similarly.
jxramos 10y ago
Just want to throw this out there for folks who don't realize the origins of this argument: Google "Judith Jarvis Thomson violinist critique"
- cb18 10y ago
  Thanks for providing that. Thomson grants for the sake of argument that the fetus has a right to life Thomson says, abortion does not violate the fetus's legitimate rights, but merely deprives the fetus of something—the use of the pregnant woman's body and life-support functions—to which it has no right. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Defense_of_Abortion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Defense_of_Abortion This has a real sleaziness to it. Her argumentation is to separate into two, something that cannot logically be separated. It's like saying you have a "right to breathe all you want from our oxygen rich biosphere," ... while in outer space. I'll say this again, because it has just struck me so strongly, and it is so strange. What is it about our society that we have people so passionately arguing for killing off our progeny?

by v64 10y ago

cb18 10y ago

So you're basically saying that all babies in the womb should be regarded as having an illness. The illness being whether or not the mother chooses to terminate the pregnancy in an unnatural way. Just think about that, the stark unnaturalness of abortion. What other animal acts in such a way? There is nary a stronger force in nature than a mother's protection of her young. What is it about our society that compels women to do this? Does it have something to with the mixed messages being sent to women telling them they should act like men? Then by that logic, they should be arguing for organ donation to be mandatory. The crux of the illogic in this is that, left to take the natural course a baby is more often than not, not going to die. Whereas a terminal kidney disease patient, resulting from particular circumstances will die without intervention. Tell that to a woman who gets pregnant from being raped. I thought of that as I wrote that,(almost added a parenthetical). I think we can both agree that that is an edge case. An over-attention on edge cases can cloud our thinking about the larger issues.

jacquesm 10y ago
If you spend long enough looking at a problem you'll realize that there are a lot more 'edge cases' than there are 'normal' ones. Nobody undergoes an abortion for fun.
- cb18 10y ago
  But if you're solving/addressing a problem efficiently, you should work out a solution where the event space can be mapped such that events classed 'typical' should far outnumber events classed 'edge.' Yes it's never going to be perfect when trying to overlay a closed system of logic on the open system that is the universe, but we've shown ourselves pretty capable at getting to good enough. In this case it is a question of what is "good enough"? Meaning, what are we trying to accomplish? I'd always been mostly ambivalent toward abortion but thinking about it more recently, it does seem quite the tragic and brutal practice. I'm inclined to believe you that no one does it for fun, at least in retrospect. I think there is a problem of too much of a glib attitude about it from the SJW/Tumblr types which hides a lot of the torment an abortive mother is likely to feel after going through with the procedure. I'll repeat: What is it about our society that compels women to do this?
  - v64 10y ago
    > I'll repeat: What is it about our society that compels women to do this? I don't think society has much to do with it. Pregnancy is an incredible ordeal for a woman to go through. Not only does it drastically change a woman's body, sometimes permanently, but it's also a process the woman has to endure for nine months. I don't see how it's surprising at all that this is something some percentage of women simply don't want to endure at all. If you want to look at societal factors, I think a major one is that when an unwanted pregnancy occurs, the man is the one who has the ability to walk away. Faced with 18 years of single parenthood or an abortion that can reset everything to how it was before the pregnancy, the latter is the better option. Some people say abortion is morally reprehensible. But like religion, I think your morality is a personal issue. If you're against abortion, then when you get pregnant, you're free to keep the child. If you're religious, pray for them. But in a free country, I don't believe you can make that choice for others. Homosexuality, interracial marriage, women not wanting to have children, these are all things that some group has argued as immoral at some point in history, but society has progressed. I hope abortion will progress similarly.

jxramos 10y ago

Just want to throw this out there for folks who don't realize the origins of this argument: Google "Judith Jarvis Thomson violinist critique"

cb18 10y ago
Thanks for providing that. Thomson grants for the sake of argument that the fetus has a right to life Thomson says, abortion does not violate the fetus's legitimate rights, but merely deprives the fetus of something—the use of the pregnant woman's body and life-support functions—to which it has no right. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Defense_of_Abortion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Defense_of_Abortion This has a real sleaziness to it. Her argumentation is to separate into two, something that cannot logically be separated. It's like saying you have a "right to breathe all you want from our oxygen rich biosphere," ... while in outer space. I'll say this again, because it has just struck me so strongly, and it is so strange. What is it about our society that we have people so passionately arguing for killing off our progeny?