8 ms·

You don't have to believe in God to make the argument that an embryo is a developing human being who is therefore worthy of legal protection. There are plenty o

by 19guid 10y ago

You don't have to believe in God to make the argument that an embryo is a developing human being who is therefore worthy of legal protection. There are plenty of secular pro-lifers. [1] [1] http://www.secularprolife.org/ http://www.secularprolife.org/

ghurtado 10y ago
I suppose if your definition of "plenty" is different than mine, that you could be right. Having said that, I have a hard time taking any anti-abortion group seriously (whether religious or not) which does not actually have an official position on rape. What possible non-religious argument could there be made to force a woman to carry to term (and care for) the child of their rapist?
- komali2 10y ago
  Dunno, lemme give it a shot: First off, if a compromise can be found, that could solve the problem instantly - for example, if instead of abortion, a fetus could be removed and implanted safely in another woman, or in a laboratory, and brought to term, and there was a legal apparatus in place to ensure the child received care, that could eliminate the "killing" aspect of an abortion while preventing a woman from being forced to keep a rape-induced pregnancy to term. That doesn't exist yet though, so, lemme try this, though I feel very dirty doing so: If abortion is murder, then there's no legal justification in carrying it out because one is a victim of a crime, even if the abortion is a "solution" to one of the long-term effects of that crime (the rape). Just as one is not allowed to steal to replace stolen goods, one should not be allowed to "murder" an unborn child in response to a rape. Well, you're not wrong, it's a pretty hard argument to make without bringing religion in.
  - rhizome 10y ago
    Religion is the only place where you'll find people arguing that a zygote is a human, so I'll say it's impossible to make the argument without religion.
    - protomyth 10y ago
      For a secular reference search "plead the belly".
    - refurb 10y ago
      That's a pretty bold claim that many disagree with.
      - ghurtado 10y ago
        Don't be shy: if it is so bold, why not explain why? Feel free to present non-religious arguments that contradict the claim.
        refurb 10y ago
        I'll bite. Human life deserves protection. Human life starts at some point in time. Saying human life starts at birth (when the child leaves the womb), makes no sense. There is nothing unique about leaving the womb that infers humanity. There is nothing different between killing at newborn and killing a baby still in the womb who is past-due. Location doesn't infer something is a life or not. So we need to find a better indication of when a human life begins. One could argue that if a child could live outside the womb, then it is a human life. Currently children commonly survive being born 26 weeks premature (3 months before being normally born). Again, killing a premature baby is no different than killing it in the womb. It's the same life. Other believe that human life starts before that. Some believe that once the self-sustaining process of forming a baby starts (fertilization), then it's human life. I'm not arguing for one or the other. However, I do understand why some people hold those beliefs.
        spacemanmatt 10y ago
        The mother's life again gets zero consideration. How about if we consider that she should not be forced to feed and carry a parasite against her will. It is risky, regularly including death and disfigurement. People love to talk about the right to life when they are referring to an innocent zygote but suddenly everything changes if the mother's rights are brought into it.
  - vkou 10y ago
    If killing a person is murder, then there is no legal justification in carrying it out because one is a victim of a crime. Yet, in capital punishment cases, we go ahead and do so anyways. There is also the religious assertion that in its present state, a zygote is a human being, yet, say, the biological matter that is removed from the body in a woman's period is not. I am not aware of an argument that does not hinge on the zygote being empowered by a magical soul.
    - 19guid 10y ago
      Well, a zygote is a developing human being while a placenta is clearly not. You don't have to believe in a soul to think that all human beings -- regardless of their stage of development -- merit legal protection.
      - ghurtado 10y ago
        > Well, a zygote is a developing human being while a placenta is clearly not. In that case, pro-lifers should have no issues with a pregnant woman asking her doctor to remove her placenta - as long as they don't touch the zygote.
        ferongr 10y ago
        Wouldn't that equate to imprisoning someone but not providing them with food?
        Arizhel 10y ago
        It seems to equate to imprisoning someone in the house of a very poor person who can only afford to feed themselves, and requiring that poor person to provide the prisoner with food, and then punishing the poor person when they refuse.
        spacemanmatt 10y ago
        Do you prefer to force the mother to feed and host a parasitic child against her will? That's pretty uh...totalitarian.
- 19guid 10y ago
  The argument is fairly straightforward if you accept -- as pro-lifers do -- that abortion constitutes the killing of an unborn child. Parents have a prima facie duty of care towards their children by virtue of the biological connection between parent and child, and this duty of care exists regardless of the circumstances of the child's conception. This position in no way denies that rape is gravely immoral. It simply recognizes that the child is not responsible for the crimes of his father. The injustice of rape does not justify the additional injustice of abandoning or killing one's own child. I think most people have no difficulty accepting this argument at least with respect to born children. Nobody would argue that infanticide, for example, is an appropriate response to rape. But there's no reason why the same logic doesn't apply before birth as well.
  - SeanBoocock 10y ago
    A typical answer to this is to develop notions of a "moral community" and individuals that belong to it[1]. Those within the moral community can make certain basic claims, thus rights, on others within it such as a right to life. Depending on how you define membership within the moral community, you can make an argument that (early stage) abortion is permissible but infanticide is not. [1]: http://www.csus.edu/indiv/g/gaskilld/ethics/abortion.htm http://www.csus.edu/indiv/g/gaskilld/ethics/abortion.htm
    - reitanqild 10y ago
      I rarely bring up nazis but this sounds like something that could have been fetched straight out of nazi Germany: they had a number of programs for getting rid of unwanted individuals and actually not only forced people but also did public (IIRC) outreach to sell the idea to doctors and parents of severly disabled or otherwise unwanted kids. (Long time since last I read about this but I think "aktion t4" and "Tiergartenstraße" is the thing to search for if anyone is interested.)
  - filoeleven 10y ago
    > It simply recognizes that the child is not responsible for the crimes of his father. The injustice of rape does not justify the additional injustice of abandoning or killing one's own child. Yet the implicit argument here is that the injustice of rape DOES justify the additional injustice of forced pregnancy upon the victim. Pregnancy involves a profound set of changes to the body, not all of them temporary. I find it incredibly unjust that people are willing to argue that the rights of a handful of cells that will eventually become a human outweigh the rights of an inarguably human woman whose body was forcibly violated, by way of causing a second, 9-months-long forced violation of her right to control her own body. A concrete reminder of the rape that she cannot ignore because it's literally inside her and growing every day. It's despicable. This is not to mention the lesser injustice of failing to provide her with any assistance during the pregnancy--she will need to consume more calories, will eventually find it difficult or impossible to perform her work duties until the child is born, etc. Where is that assistance provided for in all this legislation? And for that matter, where are the appeals to the duty of caring for one's children when an adult with young kids is carted off to prison? Clearly there are circumstances in which that duty is superceded by some set of societal concerns. Why is conception by rape not one of them while some crime committed by a parent is?
StavrosK 10y ago
I don't think anyone disagrees with that. The question is at which point the embryo becomes enough of a human where its needs outweigh the needs of the parents.
- rhizome 10y ago
  The question is whether it ever does, and since (US, at least) domestic policy is to cut the social safety net and say "you're on your own" after a child is born, I'll take the "never" position. THat is, [US] government policy is that its needs outweigh the parents' only during gestation.
- bduerst 10y ago
  We have the technology to freeze viable embryos, right? If it's a question of balancing human lives, you could just freeze the removed embryos until a suitable parent or technology came along.
  - StavrosK 10y ago
    Wouldn't that solve the problem?
- gnaritas 10y ago
  That's really not relevant, it can be stipulated that life begins at conception and it simply doesn't matter, no persons right to life trumps another persons right to bodily autonomy. It's not murder to let someone die if you're the only bone marrow donor that could save their life and you refuse to donate and it's not murder to get an abortion; not all killing is murder, nor is all killing wrong. As long as the baby requires use of the mothers body to survive, it's right to life is secondary to her consent to carry it and that's true even if you give a fetus the full rights any other grown person would have. No grown person could demand their right to life is more important than your consent to your control your own body, even if your refusal kills them.
  - refurb 10y ago
    It's not murder to let someone die if you're the only bone marrow donor that could save their life and you refuse to donate and it's not murder to get an abortion "One of those things is not like the other, one of those things..." Not donating bone marrow requires doing nothing. Having an abortion require an active procedure.
elastic_church 10y ago
You can unsubscribe from both life/choice "camps" and realize the Supreme Court rationale that inadvertently created those reactionary groups simply doesn't fit our standards of judicial review any longer. The whole case is on shaky legal ground without you having to take a stance on it!
- nikdaheratik 10y ago
  Well considering how long the precedent has been in place and how it has been kept in place over multiple different courts, it seems to hold the status of "good law" no matter your opinion on the legal arguments themselves. The real issue is that Congress has not wanted to try to push this issue no matter which side has control because it is so divisive. Since the harms to the women from leaving a patchwork system of laws in place are real, that just leaves the courts to fill in the vacuum as far as setting a national policy goes.
  - elastic_church 10y ago
    The Supreme Court makes rulings that are easy to comply with. Their job is to interpret things based on the constitution, in practice they weigh society's ability to stomach their rulings as well. This is primarily the reason it hasn't been overruled, and its been close in times past! The "precedent" hasn't been in place that long as far as case law goes. Check out a few of the dissenting opinions
bsder 10y ago
And religious people have argued that ensoulment did not occur until after recognizable human fetal development. And, by the way, female ensoulment occurred significantly later than male ensoulment. "Life begins at conception" is primarily a political construct.
- acqq 10y ago
  False! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_and_the_Catholic_Church https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_and_the_Catholic_Chur... "The Catholic Church opposes all forms of abortion procedures whose direct purpose is to destroy an embryo, blastocyst, zygote or fetus, since it holds that "human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception". From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person – among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.""
  - protomyth 10y ago
    Well, you are correct for the modern church, but there is a history. The term quickening (sometimes animation) had various meanings from both secular (search for "plead the belly") and religious. Interpretations of Exodus also sometimes strayed into fetus having the features of a baby. For the modern policy a search of the Vatican's excellent web server is probably the best source http://gsearch.vatican.va/search?q=abortion&btnG=Search+on&site=default_collection&client=default_frontend&output=xml_no_dtd&proxystylesheet=default_frontend&sort=date%3AD%3AL%3Ad1&entsp=a__policy_documenti&wc=200&wc_mc=1&oe=UTF-8&ie=UTF-8&ud=1&exclude_apps=1&filter=0 http://gsearch.vatican.va/search?q=abortion&btnG=Search+on&s...
    - acqq 10y ago
      The Church disproves you, quoting older texts, even from the second century of the Church: See "Declaration on procured abortion, 18 November 1974," it can be thankfully found using your search: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19741118_declaration-abortion_en.html http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/docum... "Athenagoras emphasizes that Christians consider as murderers those women who take medicines to procure an abortion" [(c. 133 – c. 190 AD) he was a Father of the Church, another author quoted is Tertullian c. 155 – c. 240 AD, moreover, Synod of Elvira, the fourth century, and on and on through the centuries...] "In the course of history, the Fathers of the Church, her Pastors and her Doctors have taught the same doctrine - the various opinions on the infusion of the spiritual soul did not introduce any doubt about the illicitness of abortion. It is true that in the Middle Ages, when the opinion was generally held that the spiritual soul was not present until after the first few weeks, a distinction was made in the evaluation of the sin and the gravity of penal sanctions. Excellent authors allowed for this first period more lenient case solutions which they rejected for following periods. But it was never denied at that time that procured abortion, even during the first days, was objectively grave fault." To repeat: "the various opinions on the infusion of the spiritual soul did not introduce any doubt about the illicitness of abortion."
Jarwain 10y ago
Well, technically, our constitution only gives legal protection to those who are Citizens of the United States of America (or Citizens of some other country I guess). However, one must be born for them to be considered a citizen of the United States. Since an embryo is by definition unborn, the argument could be made that they are not worthy of legal protection.

by 19guid 10y ago

ghurtado 10y ago

I suppose if your definition of "plenty" is different than mine, that you could be right. Having said that, I have a hard time taking any anti-abortion group seriously (whether religious or not) which does not actually have an official position on rape. What possible non-religious argument could there be made to force a woman to carry to term (and care for) the child of their rapist?

komali2 10y ago
Dunno, lemme give it a shot: First off, if a compromise can be found, that could solve the problem instantly - for example, if instead of abortion, a fetus could be removed and implanted safely in another woman, or in a laboratory, and brought to term, and there was a legal apparatus in place to ensure the child received care, that could eliminate the "killing" aspect of an abortion while preventing a woman from being forced to keep a rape-induced pregnancy to term. That doesn't exist yet though, so, lemme try this, though I feel very dirty doing so: If abortion is murder, then there's no legal justification in carrying it out because one is a victim of a crime, even if the abortion is a "solution" to one of the long-term effects of that crime (the rape). Just as one is not allowed to steal to replace stolen goods, one should not be allowed to "murder" an unborn child in response to a rape. Well, you're not wrong, it's a pretty hard argument to make without bringing religion in.
- rhizome 10y ago
  Religion is the only place where you'll find people arguing that a zygote is a human, so I'll say it's impossible to make the argument without religion.
  - protomyth 10y ago
    For a secular reference search "plead the belly".
  - refurb 10y ago
    That's a pretty bold claim that many disagree with.
    - ghurtado 10y ago
      Don't be shy: if it is so bold, why not explain why? Feel free to present non-religious arguments that contradict the claim.
      - refurb 10y ago
        I'll bite. Human life deserves protection. Human life starts at some point in time. Saying human life starts at birth (when the child leaves the womb), makes no sense. There is nothing unique about leaving the womb that infers humanity. There is nothing different between killing at newborn and killing a baby still in the womb who is past-due. Location doesn't infer something is a life or not. So we need to find a better indication of when a human life begins. One could argue that if a child could live outside the womb, then it is a human life. Currently children commonly survive being born 26 weeks premature (3 months before being normally born). Again, killing a premature baby is no different than killing it in the womb. It's the same life. Other believe that human life starts before that. Some believe that once the self-sustaining process of forming a baby starts (fertilization), then it's human life. I'm not arguing for one or the other. However, I do understand why some people hold those beliefs.
        spacemanmatt 10y ago
        The mother's life again gets zero consideration. How about if we consider that she should not be forced to feed and carry a parasite against her will. It is risky, regularly including death and disfigurement. People love to talk about the right to life when they are referring to an innocent zygote but suddenly everything changes if the mother's rights are brought into it.
- vkou 10y ago
  If killing a person is murder, then there is no legal justification in carrying it out because one is a victim of a crime. Yet, in capital punishment cases, we go ahead and do so anyways. There is also the religious assertion that in its present state, a zygote is a human being, yet, say, the biological matter that is removed from the body in a woman's period is not. I am not aware of an argument that does not hinge on the zygote being empowered by a magical soul.
  - 19guid 10y ago
    Well, a zygote is a developing human being while a placenta is clearly not. You don't have to believe in a soul to think that all human beings -- regardless of their stage of development -- merit legal protection.
    - ghurtado 10y ago
      > Well, a zygote is a developing human being while a placenta is clearly not. In that case, pro-lifers should have no issues with a pregnant woman asking her doctor to remove her placenta - as long as they don't touch the zygote.
      - ferongr 10y ago
        Wouldn't that equate to imprisoning someone but not providing them with food?
        Arizhel 10y ago
        It seems to equate to imprisoning someone in the house of a very poor person who can only afford to feed themselves, and requiring that poor person to provide the prisoner with food, and then punishing the poor person when they refuse.
        spacemanmatt 10y ago
        Do you prefer to force the mother to feed and host a parasitic child against her will? That's pretty uh...totalitarian.
19guid 10y ago
The argument is fairly straightforward if you accept -- as pro-lifers do -- that abortion constitutes the killing of an unborn child. Parents have a prima facie duty of care towards their children by virtue of the biological connection between parent and child, and this duty of care exists regardless of the circumstances of the child's conception. This position in no way denies that rape is gravely immoral. It simply recognizes that the child is not responsible for the crimes of his father. The injustice of rape does not justify the additional injustice of abandoning or killing one's own child. I think most people have no difficulty accepting this argument at least with respect to born children. Nobody would argue that infanticide, for example, is an appropriate response to rape. But there's no reason why the same logic doesn't apply before birth as well.
- SeanBoocock 10y ago
  A typical answer to this is to develop notions of a "moral community" and individuals that belong to it[1]. Those within the moral community can make certain basic claims, thus rights, on others within it such as a right to life. Depending on how you define membership within the moral community, you can make an argument that (early stage) abortion is permissible but infanticide is not. [1]: http://www.csus.edu/indiv/g/gaskilld/ethics/abortion.htm http://www.csus.edu/indiv/g/gaskilld/ethics/abortion.htm
  - reitanqild 10y ago
    I rarely bring up nazis but this sounds like something that could have been fetched straight out of nazi Germany: they had a number of programs for getting rid of unwanted individuals and actually not only forced people but also did public (IIRC) outreach to sell the idea to doctors and parents of severly disabled or otherwise unwanted kids. (Long time since last I read about this but I think "aktion t4" and "Tiergartenstraße" is the thing to search for if anyone is interested.)
- filoeleven 10y ago
  > It simply recognizes that the child is not responsible for the crimes of his father. The injustice of rape does not justify the additional injustice of abandoning or killing one's own child. Yet the implicit argument here is that the injustice of rape DOES justify the additional injustice of forced pregnancy upon the victim. Pregnancy involves a profound set of changes to the body, not all of them temporary. I find it incredibly unjust that people are willing to argue that the rights of a handful of cells that will eventually become a human outweigh the rights of an inarguably human woman whose body was forcibly violated, by way of causing a second, 9-months-long forced violation of her right to control her own body. A concrete reminder of the rape that she cannot ignore because it's literally inside her and growing every day. It's despicable. This is not to mention the lesser injustice of failing to provide her with any assistance during the pregnancy--she will need to consume more calories, will eventually find it difficult or impossible to perform her work duties until the child is born, etc. Where is that assistance provided for in all this legislation? And for that matter, where are the appeals to the duty of caring for one's children when an adult with young kids is carted off to prison? Clearly there are circumstances in which that duty is superceded by some set of societal concerns. Why is conception by rape not one of them while some crime committed by a parent is?

StavrosK 10y ago

I don't think anyone disagrees with that. The question is at which point the embryo becomes enough of a human where its needs outweigh the needs of the parents.

rhizome 10y ago
The question is whether it ever does, and since (US, at least) domestic policy is to cut the social safety net and say "you're on your own" after a child is born, I'll take the "never" position. THat is, [US] government policy is that its needs outweigh the parents' only during gestation.
bduerst 10y ago
We have the technology to freeze viable embryos, right? If it's a question of balancing human lives, you could just freeze the removed embryos until a suitable parent or technology came along.
- StavrosK 10y ago
  Wouldn't that solve the problem?
gnaritas 10y ago
That's really not relevant, it can be stipulated that life begins at conception and it simply doesn't matter, no persons right to life trumps another persons right to bodily autonomy. It's not murder to let someone die if you're the only bone marrow donor that could save their life and you refuse to donate and it's not murder to get an abortion; not all killing is murder, nor is all killing wrong. As long as the baby requires use of the mothers body to survive, it's right to life is secondary to her consent to carry it and that's true even if you give a fetus the full rights any other grown person would have. No grown person could demand their right to life is more important than your consent to your control your own body, even if your refusal kills them.
- refurb 10y ago
  It's not murder to let someone die if you're the only bone marrow donor that could save their life and you refuse to donate and it's not murder to get an abortion "One of those things is not like the other, one of those things..." Not donating bone marrow requires doing nothing. Having an abortion require an active procedure.

elastic_church 10y ago

You can unsubscribe from both life/choice "camps" and realize the Supreme Court rationale that inadvertently created those reactionary groups simply doesn't fit our standards of judicial review any longer. The whole case is on shaky legal ground without you having to take a stance on it!

nikdaheratik 10y ago
Well considering how long the precedent has been in place and how it has been kept in place over multiple different courts, it seems to hold the status of "good law" no matter your opinion on the legal arguments themselves. The real issue is that Congress has not wanted to try to push this issue no matter which side has control because it is so divisive. Since the harms to the women from leaving a patchwork system of laws in place are real, that just leaves the courts to fill in the vacuum as far as setting a national policy goes.
- elastic_church 10y ago
  The Supreme Court makes rulings that are easy to comply with. Their job is to interpret things based on the constitution, in practice they weigh society's ability to stomach their rulings as well. This is primarily the reason it hasn't been overruled, and its been close in times past! The "precedent" hasn't been in place that long as far as case law goes. Check out a few of the dissenting opinions

bsder 10y ago

And religious people have argued that ensoulment did not occur until after recognizable human fetal development. And, by the way, female ensoulment occurred significantly later than male ensoulment. "Life begins at conception" is primarily a political construct.

acqq 10y ago
False! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_and_the_Catholic_Church https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_and_the_Catholic_Chur... "The Catholic Church opposes all forms of abortion procedures whose direct purpose is to destroy an embryo, blastocyst, zygote or fetus, since it holds that "human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception". From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person – among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.""
- protomyth 10y ago
  Well, you are correct for the modern church, but there is a history. The term quickening (sometimes animation) had various meanings from both secular (search for "plead the belly") and religious. Interpretations of Exodus also sometimes strayed into fetus having the features of a baby. For the modern policy a search of the Vatican's excellent web server is probably the best source http://gsearch.vatican.va/search?q=abortion&btnG=Search+on&site=default_collection&client=default_frontend&output=xml_no_dtd&proxystylesheet=default_frontend&sort=date%3AD%3AL%3Ad1&entsp=a__policy_documenti&wc=200&wc_mc=1&oe=UTF-8&ie=UTF-8&ud=1&exclude_apps=1&filter=0 http://gsearch.vatican.va/search?q=abortion&btnG=Search+on&s...
  - acqq 10y ago
    The Church disproves you, quoting older texts, even from the second century of the Church: See "Declaration on procured abortion, 18 November 1974," it can be thankfully found using your search: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19741118_declaration-abortion_en.html http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/docum... "Athenagoras emphasizes that Christians consider as murderers those women who take medicines to procure an abortion" [(c. 133 – c. 190 AD) he was a Father of the Church, another author quoted is Tertullian c. 155 – c. 240 AD, moreover, Synod of Elvira, the fourth century, and on and on through the centuries...] "In the course of history, the Fathers of the Church, her Pastors and her Doctors have taught the same doctrine - the various opinions on the infusion of the spiritual soul did not introduce any doubt about the illicitness of abortion. It is true that in the Middle Ages, when the opinion was generally held that the spiritual soul was not present until after the first few weeks, a distinction was made in the evaluation of the sin and the gravity of penal sanctions. Excellent authors allowed for this first period more lenient case solutions which they rejected for following periods. But it was never denied at that time that procured abortion, even during the first days, was objectively grave fault." To repeat: "the various opinions on the infusion of the spiritual soul did not introduce any doubt about the illicitness of abortion."

Jarwain 10y ago

Well, technically, our constitution only gives legal protection to those who are Citizens of the United States of America (or Citizens of some other country I guess). However, one must be born for them to be considered a citizen of the United States. Since an embryo is by definition unborn, the argument could be made that they are not worthy of legal protection.