6 ms·

The thing about abortion that most people seem not to understand is that the debate is fundamentally about answering "when does human life start?". One side bel

by karl11 4y ago

The thing about abortion that most people seem not to understand is that the debate is fundamentally about answering "when does human life start?". One side believes it starts at conception, which equates any abortion with murder. The other side believes it starts at some point after that, which makes abortion up to that point a women's health / rights issue. Irreconcilable, but also toxic when the two sides never talk about what they actually disagree on, but instead call each other murderers or anti-women's rights or whatever.

softcactus 4y ago
There is no answer of "when life begins". It's a game of semantics. Like Diogenes bringing a chicken to Plato, any set of traits you can give me to define life, I can find an exception that destroys your definition. Therefore the question should be "when is it ethical to terminate a fetus". Pro-choice voters have different answers for this question. The problem is pro-life hardliners who refuse to play ball whatsoever. They believe life begins at conception with no basis other than religion.
- golergka 4y ago
  Absence of a correct answer doesn't mean that all answers are equally wrong. All we have to do is to become less wrong over time.
  - softcactus 4y ago
    What you are describing is science. The scientists can determine when life begins, but when life begins is ultimately irrelevant. The state already has no issue killing violent criminals, so even if scientists agree and say "a fetus is equivalent to a fully-developed human at 12 weeks", the question will still be "is it ethical to allow the mother to terminate that human beings life?". At which point you start comparing the value of an unborn human life to the cost that raising a child imposes on society. Again, pro-lifers wont engage with any of this discourse. The blame lies with them.
    - golergka 4y ago
      > At which point you start comparing the value of an unborn human life to the cost that raising a child imposes on society Only if you're an utilitarian. There's perfectly good reasons not to subscribe to this moral philosophy.
      - softcactus 4y ago
        Again, religious pro-lifers refuse to have any ethical or philosophical discussion whatsoever. They are absolutists who are unwilling to entertain a utilitarian viewpoint or any other justifications for abortion. There is no "middle ground" with them.
        golergka 4y ago
        > Again, religious pro-lifers And why have you chosen to portray the most radical and unreasonable of all your numerous opponents? It's not exactly "straw-men" because these people exist, but looks pretty similar to it.
        softcactus 4y ago
        Because they are the base that the republican party answers to. They are the Supreme Court justices who are members of the Federalist Society who have been playing the long game to overturn Roe and other decisions. I'm portraying those who have actually been doing the mechanisms of overturning Roe. This isn't some hypothetical debate, these are organized groups mobilizing to enact change.
- coryfklein 4y ago
  > There is no answer of "when life begins". Tell that to a right-leaning Christian pastor, or their congregation. Most of modern Christianity specifically teaches that, in some places, things are most definitely black and white and some basic questions do indeed have easy answers. "Murdering babies", as a family member of mine likes to phrase it, is to them one of the most straightforward and simple of them all.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- xdennis 4y ago
  > The problem is pro-life hardliners [...] No. Most people agree that abortion is acceptable early on (e.g. < 12 weeks). It's hardliners on both sides who are doing the most fighting because they either think that it's okay to abort up to the point of birth or that terminating a bunch of cells is murder. > They believe life begins at conception with no basis other than religion. It's not religion, it's science. A new human life (complete how it looks, what gender it's assigned, etc) begins at conception. It's not a full human, but it's slowly becoming one. The question is when it's too human to terminate.
  - softcactus 4y ago
    I'm about to bring you a chicken, do you consider HeLa cells to be a human life? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks > It's hardliners on both sides who are doing the most fighting because they either think that it's okay to abort up to the point of birth or that terminating a bunch of cells is murder. The pro-life hardliners are the ones currently overturning super-precedents and creating trigger laws in red states. This isn't hypothetical, it's going to cause real harm to poor women and poor children. Again, all these decisions are being made by pro-life hardliners aren't even willing to have a discussion AT ALL, many even believe that contraceptives are "killing babies". There's no basis behind their beliefs other than the bible. Most couldn't even tell you the stages of fetal development.
    - francisofascii 4y ago
      > There's no basis behind their beliefs other than the bible That is a bit unfair. An ultrasound is pretty compelling evidence.
      - softcactus 4y ago
        Can the state compel you to get an ultrasound to prove you are pregnant? No, that would be an invasion of privacy. That was the underlying logic of the Roe V. Wade ruling. Also, I could show you an ultrasound of a mouse or a dolphin at 6 weeks and tell you it's a human fetus and you'd believe it. "Well the human fetus has human DNA" ok, does that have any meaning at that stage of development when their features are all the same? At that point the distinctive trait that allows for abortion of a Dolphin but not a Human is the DNA, or that it's inside of a human mother. It's all arbitrary distinctions. You can have a real discussion about it but pro-lifers start and end at the Bible.
- missedthecue 4y ago
  is there a destroying exception to the conception line of thinking?
  - softcactus 4y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks Also even if there weren't tons of holes to poke in the philosophical argument of "what is a human life? / what makes human life valuable?", life isn't sacred. We kill prisoners, send soldiers overseas, or let people die as a result of preventable diseases (COVID). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life#United_States The question for a utilitarian is when is it ethical to terminate a fetus? Weighing the costs of an unwanted child on society, the cost of life if the mother dies, the cost of preventing back-alley abortions, the cost of her future as a mother if she suffers reproductive damage and cant have kids in the future even if she wants to, etc.
    - missedthecue 4y ago
      I think weighing human lives on the basis of "cost to society" will lead to undesirable or rather deteriorated ends. I hardly need to come up with examples.
      - softcactus 4y ago
        I agree but this is what our government currently does and I'm trying to explain this in the framework of how we currently make decisions in the US. A spherical cow model of Government I guess.
- nmz 4y ago
  Life is also the wrong indicator, tardigrades and ants are alive. But what defines a human is its cognitive abilities. This is why its OK to terminate a coma patient. Fetuses and coma patients are exactly the same, without the host/machine to keep them alive, they will die on their own.
  - softcactus 4y ago
    I also don't really agree with this definition either. This train of logic leads to the justification of euthanizing less intelligent humans. It also doesn't adequately address why a human with microcephaly or no frontal lobe has rights, but a dolphin or octopus or killer whale does not. It also allows for the justification of cruelty against animals who can feel pain but aren't intelligent enough to pass some arbitrary test of intelligence. To be clear, I don't know the answer, I am hesitant to label anything as "innately valuable". I think that there is however a sliding scale of what is "ethical".
    - nmz 4y ago
      > I also don't really agree with this definition either. This train of logic leads to the justification of euthanizing less intelligent humans. How so? less intelligent humans have cognitive ability so they have rights. > It also doesn't adequately address why a human with microcephaly or no frontal lobe has rights, but a dolphin or octopus or killer whale does not. The question is not why the law is the way it is but the way that it should be. As it is now, It has rights because it is a human, we make our laws for ourselves and sometimes for other species, and I would definitely say that animals should have protections/rights (and they do). A law is also a custom or an enforced custom and certainly animals have customs. At least in america, many families take the toll of taking care of their family members with many deformities. the state should not enforce termination of these, but it should be optional for those that do take this unfortunate toll in their hands. (criminalization != decriminalization) > It also allows for the justification of cruelty against animals who can feel pain but aren't intelligent enough to pass some arbitrary test of intelligence. On the contrary, as a cognitive animal capable of pain. it indicates that you should not do so, I would say the capability of pain is the most important aspect to life. given that it is usually an indicator of the will to live. > To be clear, I don't know the answer, I am hesitant to label anything as "innately valuable". I think that there is however a sliding scale of what is "ethical". Neither do I. Abortion is euthanasia, and it certainly has merit. both economically speaking and in the sense of well being for humans. Given that human childbirth is probably one of the worst around on the animal kingdom. It would be nice if we just relegated pregnancies to artificial wombs, but until the technology is there. I guess we'll be having this abortion "debate" forever.
AlexandrB 4y ago
I don't think this is the right question. The better question is one of bodily autonomy: whether someone should be compelled to keep another human being alive at the cost of their own health and safety. This avoids the whole "when does life start" debate, which has been a moving goalpost for the history of abortion related law.
- umvi 4y ago
  So if we had artificial womb technology, should a woman have the choice to terminate the fetus if the fetus could be safely moved to an artificial womb? If so, doesn't that go beyond the scope of your post of abortion being purely about bodily autonomy? If not, whose responsibly is it to raise the child?
  - Ekaros 4y ago
    Probably state or child itself. Though reasonably the child should have rights to at least mother's estate.
  - AlexandrB 4y ago
    I think this is an interesting hypothetical, and in such a universe I suspect many women would choose the artificial womb even for children they want to keep themselves. But let me counter with another hypothetical: if we had a contraceptive device that could safely and reliably turn a woman's reproductive system on/off at the flip of a switch would "pro-life" advocates support it or oppose it?
    - voganmother42 4y ago
      Its an interesting hypothetical explored in the (excellent) Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold - I highly recommend it!
- randyrand 4y ago
  Seems like a side issue to me. If I forcibly put someone under my control, it should be my responsibility not to kill them. Airplane pilots have the same responsibility. Imagine if pilots forced us to fly with them, and then decided they didn’t want to carry our weight anymore! There’s good reason that is illegal.
bern4444 4y ago
The difference is, there is no universal answer, everyone has their own beliefs and answers. Making the right to an abortion an individual decision allows everyone to decide for themselves. Banning that ability is the government deciding for you. This is a loss of individuality for everyone regardless if you can or ever have an abortion. This is how individual rights begin to erode.
koonsolo 4y ago
For me it's not about when life begins, but more about how to prevent most of the suffering.
analog31 4y ago
An interesting aside is that when sperm were discovered, it was hypothesized that each sperm carried a complete, miniature person, a "homunculus." The person became a fully formed human life when God attached a pre-existing Soul. The Soul contained those things which separated us from the animals, such as moral and reasoning capacity if male. It was God's intervention that marked the start of life. "Every sperm is sacred."
erikpukinskis 4y ago
> the debate is fundamentally about answering "when does human life start?" I disagree. I think the more important question is, who should have the power of imprisoning people, on the basis of their interpretations of when life starts. I don’t think the criminal justice system is equipped to make that determination, and therefore I think all abortion should be blanket legalized. The law needs plainly interoperable rules, and I don’t see a rule that works other than “you are a person at birth”.
DesiLurker 4y ago
thats the thing, we dont even know what sentient life means. we arbitrarily define it as human and nothing else (hence we are okay with killing billions of animals for food yearly, not debating that just making a point). so if we are not sure when the life begins indeed we should be more considerate of other factors/right that we may be impacting like womens right to bodily autonomy or even just safety. None of that matters to these zealots. taking a step back, if you look at it with your real world glasses (i.e.. not lawyer ones) you'll realize this is just a bunch of religious crowd trying to backdoor their religion into law. I mean realistically how much of self doubt and introspection Trump crowd you think has had about this issue? How many of them do you think would even be participating in these debates except to 'trigger the libs'?
Splendor 4y ago
Nope. You completely misunderstand the pro-choice argument. You can believe life begins at conception and still believe it's wrong to force a woman to carry a fetus to term.

by karl11 4y ago

softcactus 4y ago

There is no answer of "when life begins". It's a game of semantics. Like Diogenes bringing a chicken to Plato, any set of traits you can give me to define life, I can find an exception that destroys your definition. Therefore the question should be "when is it ethical to terminate a fetus". Pro-choice voters have different answers for this question. The problem is pro-life hardliners who refuse to play ball whatsoever. They believe life begins at conception with no basis other than religion.

golergka 4y ago
Absence of a correct answer doesn't mean that all answers are equally wrong. All we have to do is to become less wrong over time.
- softcactus 4y ago
  What you are describing is science. The scientists can determine when life begins, but when life begins is ultimately irrelevant. The state already has no issue killing violent criminals, so even if scientists agree and say "a fetus is equivalent to a fully-developed human at 12 weeks", the question will still be "is it ethical to allow the mother to terminate that human beings life?". At which point you start comparing the value of an unborn human life to the cost that raising a child imposes on society. Again, pro-lifers wont engage with any of this discourse. The blame lies with them.
  - golergka 4y ago
    > At which point you start comparing the value of an unborn human life to the cost that raising a child imposes on society Only if you're an utilitarian. There's perfectly good reasons not to subscribe to this moral philosophy.
    - softcactus 4y ago
      Again, religious pro-lifers refuse to have any ethical or philosophical discussion whatsoever. They are absolutists who are unwilling to entertain a utilitarian viewpoint or any other justifications for abortion. There is no "middle ground" with them.
      - golergka 4y ago
        > Again, religious pro-lifers And why have you chosen to portray the most radical and unreasonable of all your numerous opponents? It's not exactly "straw-men" because these people exist, but looks pretty similar to it.
        softcactus 4y ago
        Because they are the base that the republican party answers to. They are the Supreme Court justices who are members of the Federalist Society who have been playing the long game to overturn Roe and other decisions. I'm portraying those who have actually been doing the mechanisms of overturning Roe. This isn't some hypothetical debate, these are organized groups mobilizing to enact change.
coryfklein 4y ago
> There is no answer of "when life begins". Tell that to a right-leaning Christian pastor, or their congregation. Most of modern Christianity specifically teaches that, in some places, things are most definitely black and white and some basic questions do indeed have easy answers. "Murdering babies", as a family member of mine likes to phrase it, is to them one of the most straightforward and simple of them all.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
xdennis 4y ago
> The problem is pro-life hardliners [...] No. Most people agree that abortion is acceptable early on (e.g. < 12 weeks). It's hardliners on both sides who are doing the most fighting because they either think that it's okay to abort up to the point of birth or that terminating a bunch of cells is murder. > They believe life begins at conception with no basis other than religion. It's not religion, it's science. A new human life (complete how it looks, what gender it's assigned, etc) begins at conception. It's not a full human, but it's slowly becoming one. The question is when it's too human to terminate.
- softcactus 4y ago
  I'm about to bring you a chicken, do you consider HeLa cells to be a human life? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks > It's hardliners on both sides who are doing the most fighting because they either think that it's okay to abort up to the point of birth or that terminating a bunch of cells is murder. The pro-life hardliners are the ones currently overturning super-precedents and creating trigger laws in red states. This isn't hypothetical, it's going to cause real harm to poor women and poor children. Again, all these decisions are being made by pro-life hardliners aren't even willing to have a discussion AT ALL, many even believe that contraceptives are "killing babies". There's no basis behind their beliefs other than the bible. Most couldn't even tell you the stages of fetal development.
  - francisofascii 4y ago
    > There's no basis behind their beliefs other than the bible That is a bit unfair. An ultrasound is pretty compelling evidence.
    - softcactus 4y ago
      Can the state compel you to get an ultrasound to prove you are pregnant? No, that would be an invasion of privacy. That was the underlying logic of the Roe V. Wade ruling. Also, I could show you an ultrasound of a mouse or a dolphin at 6 weeks and tell you it's a human fetus and you'd believe it. "Well the human fetus has human DNA" ok, does that have any meaning at that stage of development when their features are all the same? At that point the distinctive trait that allows for abortion of a Dolphin but not a Human is the DNA, or that it's inside of a human mother. It's all arbitrary distinctions. You can have a real discussion about it but pro-lifers start and end at the Bible.
missedthecue 4y ago
is there a destroying exception to the conception line of thinking?
- softcactus 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks Also even if there weren't tons of holes to poke in the philosophical argument of "what is a human life? / what makes human life valuable?", life isn't sacred. We kill prisoners, send soldiers overseas, or let people die as a result of preventable diseases (COVID). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life#United_States The question for a utilitarian is when is it ethical to terminate a fetus? Weighing the costs of an unwanted child on society, the cost of life if the mother dies, the cost of preventing back-alley abortions, the cost of her future as a mother if she suffers reproductive damage and cant have kids in the future even if she wants to, etc.
  - missedthecue 4y ago
    I think weighing human lives on the basis of "cost to society" will lead to undesirable or rather deteriorated ends. I hardly need to come up with examples.
    - softcactus 4y ago
      I agree but this is what our government currently does and I'm trying to explain this in the framework of how we currently make decisions in the US. A spherical cow model of Government I guess.
nmz 4y ago
Life is also the wrong indicator, tardigrades and ants are alive. But what defines a human is its cognitive abilities. This is why its OK to terminate a coma patient. Fetuses and coma patients are exactly the same, without the host/machine to keep them alive, they will die on their own.
- softcactus 4y ago
  I also don't really agree with this definition either. This train of logic leads to the justification of euthanizing less intelligent humans. It also doesn't adequately address why a human with microcephaly or no frontal lobe has rights, but a dolphin or octopus or killer whale does not. It also allows for the justification of cruelty against animals who can feel pain but aren't intelligent enough to pass some arbitrary test of intelligence. To be clear, I don't know the answer, I am hesitant to label anything as "innately valuable". I think that there is however a sliding scale of what is "ethical".
  - nmz 4y ago
    > I also don't really agree with this definition either. This train of logic leads to the justification of euthanizing less intelligent humans. How so? less intelligent humans have cognitive ability so they have rights. > It also doesn't adequately address why a human with microcephaly or no frontal lobe has rights, but a dolphin or octopus or killer whale does not. The question is not why the law is the way it is but the way that it should be. As it is now, It has rights because it is a human, we make our laws for ourselves and sometimes for other species, and I would definitely say that animals should have protections/rights (and they do). A law is also a custom or an enforced custom and certainly animals have customs. At least in america, many families take the toll of taking care of their family members with many deformities. the state should not enforce termination of these, but it should be optional for those that do take this unfortunate toll in their hands. (criminalization != decriminalization) > It also allows for the justification of cruelty against animals who can feel pain but aren't intelligent enough to pass some arbitrary test of intelligence. On the contrary, as a cognitive animal capable of pain. it indicates that you should not do so, I would say the capability of pain is the most important aspect to life. given that it is usually an indicator of the will to live. > To be clear, I don't know the answer, I am hesitant to label anything as "innately valuable". I think that there is however a sliding scale of what is "ethical". Neither do I. Abortion is euthanasia, and it certainly has merit. both economically speaking and in the sense of well being for humans. Given that human childbirth is probably one of the worst around on the animal kingdom. It would be nice if we just relegated pregnancies to artificial wombs, but until the technology is there. I guess we'll be having this abortion "debate" forever.

AlexandrB 4y ago

I don't think this is the right question. The better question is one of bodily autonomy: whether someone should be compelled to keep another human being alive at the cost of their own health and safety. This avoids the whole "when does life start" debate, which has been a moving goalpost for the history of abortion related law.

umvi 4y ago
So if we had artificial womb technology, should a woman have the choice to terminate the fetus if the fetus could be safely moved to an artificial womb? If so, doesn't that go beyond the scope of your post of abortion being purely about bodily autonomy? If not, whose responsibly is it to raise the child?
- Ekaros 4y ago
  Probably state or child itself. Though reasonably the child should have rights to at least mother's estate.
- AlexandrB 4y ago
  I think this is an interesting hypothetical, and in such a universe I suspect many women would choose the artificial womb even for children they want to keep themselves. But let me counter with another hypothetical: if we had a contraceptive device that could safely and reliably turn a woman's reproductive system on/off at the flip of a switch would "pro-life" advocates support it or oppose it?
  - voganmother42 4y ago
    Its an interesting hypothetical explored in the (excellent) Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold - I highly recommend it!
randyrand 4y ago
Seems like a side issue to me. If I forcibly put someone under my control, it should be my responsibility not to kill them. Airplane pilots have the same responsibility. Imagine if pilots forced us to fly with them, and then decided they didn’t want to carry our weight anymore! There’s good reason that is illegal.

bern4444 4y ago

The difference is, there is no universal answer, everyone has their own beliefs and answers. Making the right to an abortion an individual decision allows everyone to decide for themselves. Banning that ability is the government deciding for you. This is a loss of individuality for everyone regardless if you can or ever have an abortion. This is how individual rights begin to erode.

koonsolo 4y ago

For me it's not about when life begins, but more about how to prevent most of the suffering.

analog31 4y ago

An interesting aside is that when sperm were discovered, it was hypothesized that each sperm carried a complete, miniature person, a "homunculus." The person became a fully formed human life when God attached a pre-existing Soul. The Soul contained those things which separated us from the animals, such as moral and reasoning capacity if male. It was God's intervention that marked the start of life. "Every sperm is sacred."

erikpukinskis 4y ago

> the debate is fundamentally about answering "when does human life start?" I disagree. I think the more important question is, who should have the power of imprisoning people, on the basis of their interpretations of when life starts. I don’t think the criminal justice system is equipped to make that determination, and therefore I think all abortion should be blanket legalized. The law needs plainly interoperable rules, and I don’t see a rule that works other than “you are a person at birth”.

DesiLurker 4y ago

thats the thing, we dont even know what sentient life means. we arbitrarily define it as human and nothing else (hence we are okay with killing billions of animals for food yearly, not debating that just making a point). so if we are not sure when the life begins indeed we should be more considerate of other factors/right that we may be impacting like womens right to bodily autonomy or even just safety. None of that matters to these zealots. taking a step back, if you look at it with your real world glasses (i.e.. not lawyer ones) you'll realize this is just a bunch of religious crowd trying to backdoor their religion into law. I mean realistically how much of self doubt and introspection Trump crowd you think has had about this issue? How many of them do you think would even be participating in these debates except to 'trigger the libs'?

Splendor 4y ago

Nope. You completely misunderstand the pro-choice argument. You can believe life begins at conception and still believe it's wrong to force a woman to carry a fetus to term.