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This is a fascinating comment to me as a window into the unexamined assumptions of a liberal mind. (Well, I don't know your politics but I think its safe to sa

This is a fascinating comment to me as a window into the unexamined assumptions of a liberal mind. (Well, I don't know your politics but I think its safe to say this is typical of what American liberals think.) > There is no unborn child. It's not even a thinking mass of cells. A fetus is not a life. The fetus would grow into a life if it were not for the violent intervention of an abortion. Is the future relevant to a system of ethics? Take for example the debate over universal pre-k. What harm is there right now if a toddler in the ghetto doesn't learn their ABCs until a few years later. Or is it the proponents think it will lead to problems later on in life. > What this shows is that conservatives do not give a single shit about harm Maybe a single shit but harm/care is only one of several moral foundations. Read your Haidt. Or atleast this excerpt from the wikipedia page on moral foundations theory: "Researchers have found that people's sensitivities to the five/six moral foundations correlate with their political ideologies. Using the Moral Foundations Questionnaire, Haidt and Graham found that libertarians are most sensitive to the proposed Liberty foundation, liberals are most sensitive to the Care and Fairness foundations, while conservatives are equally sensitive to all five/six foundations." Incidently, another of Haidts' findings is that conservatives are much better at understanding why liberals are liberal than liberals are at understanding why conservatives are conservative. > this is about their own little morals and ethic Well duh! morals and ethics are by definition the principles that drive a person to act. > allows them to justify a miserable existence for a woman and a child From the childs point of view (what child is that btw? I thought a fetus wasn't one.) not existing at all seems to be as miserable as possible. But a better question might be is there no reason to oppose abortion except a desire to cause misery. > because you, as a man who is never going to be in a situation where your only choices are either getting an abortion in secret or being sued for doing do I'm never going to be a loser drug addict who got his neck stepped on by the police. Can I say nothing in support of George Floyd? In general, can one only express a moral opinion on subjects one has direct experience of? > thought that you could control their bodies. This is about a law. Law is an instrument by which human societies control the bodies of women and men. Law is also how those societies can discuss when to control and how much but control is what is going on. As I write this, there is this group of strangers called "doctors" who are attempting to control my body by covering my face and sticking me with needles. Can you think of a non-nefarious reason why they might be doing this?

PeterisP 5y ago
A six-week old fetus would not grow into a life without a womb, and in my opinion the government should not get a right to force someone to provide one if they disagree. But while I accept that this argument may be contested and there may be a debate on "generic abortion" in "benign circumstances", a key issue here is a non-exceptions law (it's six weeks even in case of rape or incest), which to me seems absolutely indefensible. Let's look at a hypothetic but realistic example of a thirteen year old girl who is eight weeks pregnant after being raped by her mother's boyfriend. Would it be morally acceptable to prevent her from getting an abortion and force the victimized kid to carry it to term? If someone's answer is yes or maybe, then IMHO that does pass into the territory of just "a desire to cause misery" and their moral compass is so outrageously immoral that any of their arguments with respect to morality should be ignored without listening/reading. If the answer is no, then a law that implements a blanket ban without allowing for such circumstances (the example may seem outrageous but such cases, sadly, are not that rare) is not morally justifiable if it does not enable abortions at least in such cases. What I'm trying to say is that this particular law is so outrageous that I would expect that both sides of the ordinary "pro-choice" vs "pro-life" argument should be against this particular law, because it does go to essentially misogynic extremes that do not have a sufficient justification in all the reasonable "pro-life" arguments.
- lostmsu 5y ago
  I am not even a proponent of anti-abortion laws, but I can clearly see this argument is faulty. Newborns are about as helpless without somebody feeding them as an unborn child. And even in the fetus stage a transplant may be possible if somebody really cared enough to try.
  - PeterisP 5y ago
    Yes, newborns are a good analogy as they are about as helpless without somebody feeding them, however, we do not have a practice of state intervention forcing mothers to keep and feed their newborn kids if they refuse, quite the opposite, we provide means and process to relinquish these newborns and have the state take over their care. In a similar manner, if the state would want to take care of the fetus that a mother refuses - transplanting it instead of aborting - that would seem quite reasonable, but as far as I understand we don't (yet?) have the medical/technological capacity to do so at an early stage of the fetus.

PeterisP 5y ago

A six-week old fetus would not grow into a life without a womb, and in my opinion the government should not get a right to force someone to provide one if they disagree. But while I accept that this argument may be contested and there may be a debate on "generic abortion" in "benign circumstances", a key issue here is a non-exceptions law (it's six weeks even in case of rape or incest), which to me seems absolutely indefensible. Let's look at a hypothetic but realistic example of a thirteen year old girl who is eight weeks pregnant after being raped by her mother's boyfriend. Would it be morally acceptable to prevent her from getting an abortion and force the victimized kid to carry it to term? If someone's answer is yes or maybe, then IMHO that does pass into the territory of just "a desire to cause misery" and their moral compass is so outrageously immoral that any of their arguments with respect to morality should be ignored without listening/reading. If the answer is no, then a law that implements a blanket ban without allowing for such circumstances (the example may seem outrageous but such cases, sadly, are not that rare) is not morally justifiable if it does not enable abortions at least in such cases. What I'm trying to say is that this particular law is so outrageous that I would expect that both sides of the ordinary "pro-choice" vs "pro-life" argument should be against this particular law, because it does go to essentially misogynic extremes that do not have a sufficient justification in all the reasonable "pro-life" arguments.

lostmsu 5y ago
I am not even a proponent of anti-abortion laws, but I can clearly see this argument is faulty. Newborns are about as helpless without somebody feeding them as an unborn child. And even in the fetus stage a transplant may be possible if somebody really cared enough to try.
- PeterisP 5y ago
  Yes, newborns are a good analogy as they are about as helpless without somebody feeding them, however, we do not have a practice of state intervention forcing mothers to keep and feed their newborn kids if they refuse, quite the opposite, we provide means and process to relinquish these newborns and have the state take over their care. In a similar manner, if the state would want to take care of the fetus that a mother refuses - transplanting it instead of aborting - that would seem quite reasonable, but as far as I understand we don't (yet?) have the medical/technological capacity to do so at an early stage of the fetus.