5 ms·

This fight is not going to be over until the legislature formally defines what is and is not a person. I doubt that's going to happen because nobody wants to ha

by causi 4y ago

This fight is not going to be over until the legislature formally defines what is and is not a person. I doubt that's going to happen because nobody wants to have that discussion.

car_analogy 4y ago
There's a much better argument to legalizing abortion, that holds even if one considers fetuses as persons. In that just as one may not be forced to donate organs or even just blood to save someone else's life, by the same logic, one cannot be forced to bear a child. Of course this is an ethical, not legal argument, so I don't know how it would translate to US law.
- maccolgan 4y ago
  We are talking about a mother, courts frequently force parents to act in the best interests of their children even if it's against the interests of the parents. A mother's child is not an alien unrelated in any way to the mother.
- causi 4y ago
  In that just as one may not be forced to donate organs or even just blood to save someone else's life, by the same logic, one cannot be forced to bear a child. Speaking as a generally pro-abortion person, I don't think it's that black and white. When you agree to sustain someone's life, is taking away that sustainment murder? For example, if you reach out and stop someone from falling off a cliff but then choose to let go before they regain their balance, is that murder? I also don't see how to logically reconcile the idea that abortion isn't murder but letting a baby starve to death is. Either you have a responsibility towards human life you created or you don't.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - car_analogy 4y ago
    You and maccolgan raise good points - the parent-child relationship is not the same as any other. But I'm not sure when parental responsibilities should start. E.g. you said "When you agree to sustain someone's life" - but when one chooses abortion, presumably one never "agreed".
    - causi 4y ago
      but when one chooses abortion, presumably one never "agreed". I suppose that depends on your definition of agrees. If you know that sex creates babies you are agreeing to the baby as much as you are agreeing to an explosion when you light a firecracker.
      - car_analogy 4y ago
        I suppose in this case, if the pregnancy is the result of rape, contraceptive failure, or simple lack of sex education, abortion would be legal, and otherwise it wouldn't be. Maybe odd at first glance, but the more I think about it the more sense it makes. It helps to turn the logic on its head - should it be legal to deliberately or negligently create human fetuses, only to kill them?
        causi 4y ago
        Hence my grandparent comment. Our attitudes and laws about what a person is are wildly different depending on whether we're talking about abortion, or human experimentation, or human cloning. We're allowed to make and kill fetuses but only when it doesn't serve a useful purpose?
- Wistar 4y ago
  "…[L]et me ask you to imagine this. You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist's circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. The director of the hospital now tells you, 'Look, we're sorry the Society of Music Lovers did this to you--we would never have permitted it if we had known. But still, they did it, and the violinist is now plugged into you. To unplug you would be to kill him. But never mind, it's only for nine months. By then he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you.' Is it morally incumbent on you to accede to this situation? No doubt it would be very nice of you if you did, a great kindness. But do you have to accede to it? What if it were not nine months, but nine years? Or longer still? What if the director of the hospital says. 'Tough luck. I agree. but now you've got to stay in bed, with the violinist plugged into you, for the rest of your life. Because remember this. All persons have a right to life, and violinists are persons. Granted you have a right to decide what happens in and to your body, but a person's right to life outweighs your right to decide what happens in and to your body. So you cannot ever be unplugged from him.' I imagine you would regard this as outrageous…" Judith Jarvis Thomas: "A Defense of Abortion," 1971. https://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.htm https://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.h...
  - ars 4y ago
    What kind of a question is that? Obviously you have to agree to it! What right do you have to kill someone just because you are inconvenienced? You aren't required to save their life, but you also can't kill them. Is this seriously an abortion argument, or are you just trolling? Are you seriously telling me people are OK with killing someone just because it's not convenient? I always thought that the abortion argument was because they did not consider their unborn child a person. If you do consider that child a person then obviously you can't kill it.
    - dsego 4y ago
rafale 4y ago
- drjasonharrison 4y ago
  And why would we need to define what a woman or a man is?! Why does what gender, or sex, or pronouns have with body autonomy, and treatment under the laws?
legutierr 4y ago
I wouldn’t say nobody. Certain schools of Islam explicitly teach that “ensoulment” of the fetus occurs after 120 days, as per my limited understanding. This timeframe largely coincides with the beliefs of a significant majority of Americans (per recent surveys) that abortion should be legal until the first few weeks of the second trimester. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ensoulment#Islam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ensoulment#Islam
- causi 4y ago
  I like the "until it can sustain itself" argument but the issue is that's a moving bar. Every time technology improves that time gets a little bit shorter. A hundred years ago a five month fetus had little chance of surviving. Now that survival rate is 85%. If we had the ability to instantly and painlessly teleport a week-old fetus into an artificial womb, would that be cause to ban all abortion? The only fully consistent argument I've heard is that a human mind is the definition of personhood and that parents should be able to terminate up until several months after birth, but that's pretty out there.
  - inkblotuniverse 4y ago
    I have some sympathy for the roman method.
- disambiguation 4y ago
  If you wouldn't mind, could you please cite both of those claims.
seanp2k2 4y ago
Given Citizens United no one should be able to terminate a corporation, as corporations are people.
- zajio1am 4y ago
  Citizens United does not say that corporations are people, it just says people are not restricted on their rights if they create a corporation to exercise them together.

by causi 4y ago

This fight is not going to be over until the legislature formally defines what is and is not a person. I doubt that's going to happen because nobody wants to have that discussion.

car_analogy 4y ago

There's a much better argument to legalizing abortion, that holds even if one considers fetuses as persons. In that just as one may not be forced to donate organs or even just blood to save someone else's life, by the same logic, one cannot be forced to bear a child. Of course this is an ethical, not legal argument, so I don't know how it would translate to US law.

maccolgan 4y ago
We are talking about a mother, courts frequently force parents to act in the best interests of their children even if it's against the interests of the parents. A mother's child is not an alien unrelated in any way to the mother.
causi 4y ago
In that just as one may not be forced to donate organs or even just blood to save someone else's life, by the same logic, one cannot be forced to bear a child. Speaking as a generally pro-abortion person, I don't think it's that black and white. When you agree to sustain someone's life, is taking away that sustainment murder? For example, if you reach out and stop someone from falling off a cliff but then choose to let go before they regain their balance, is that murder? I also don't see how to logically reconcile the idea that abortion isn't murder but letting a baby starve to death is. Either you have a responsibility towards human life you created or you don't.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- car_analogy 4y ago
  You and maccolgan raise good points - the parent-child relationship is not the same as any other. But I'm not sure when parental responsibilities should start. E.g. you said "When you agree to sustain someone's life" - but when one chooses abortion, presumably one never "agreed".
  - causi 4y ago
    but when one chooses abortion, presumably one never "agreed". I suppose that depends on your definition of agrees. If you know that sex creates babies you are agreeing to the baby as much as you are agreeing to an explosion when you light a firecracker.
    - car_analogy 4y ago
      I suppose in this case, if the pregnancy is the result of rape, contraceptive failure, or simple lack of sex education, abortion would be legal, and otherwise it wouldn't be. Maybe odd at first glance, but the more I think about it the more sense it makes. It helps to turn the logic on its head - should it be legal to deliberately or negligently create human fetuses, only to kill them?
      - causi 4y ago
        Hence my grandparent comment. Our attitudes and laws about what a person is are wildly different depending on whether we're talking about abortion, or human experimentation, or human cloning. We're allowed to make and kill fetuses but only when it doesn't serve a useful purpose?
Wistar 4y ago
"…[L]et me ask you to imagine this. You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist's circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. The director of the hospital now tells you, 'Look, we're sorry the Society of Music Lovers did this to you--we would never have permitted it if we had known. But still, they did it, and the violinist is now plugged into you. To unplug you would be to kill him. But never mind, it's only for nine months. By then he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you.' Is it morally incumbent on you to accede to this situation? No doubt it would be very nice of you if you did, a great kindness. But do you have to accede to it? What if it were not nine months, but nine years? Or longer still? What if the director of the hospital says. 'Tough luck. I agree. but now you've got to stay in bed, with the violinist plugged into you, for the rest of your life. Because remember this. All persons have a right to life, and violinists are persons. Granted you have a right to decide what happens in and to your body, but a person's right to life outweighs your right to decide what happens in and to your body. So you cannot ever be unplugged from him.' I imagine you would regard this as outrageous…" Judith Jarvis Thomas: "A Defense of Abortion," 1971. https://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.htm https://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.h...
- ars 4y ago
  What kind of a question is that? Obviously you have to agree to it! What right do you have to kill someone just because you are inconvenienced? You aren't required to save their life, but you also can't kill them. Is this seriously an abortion argument, or are you just trolling? Are you seriously telling me people are OK with killing someone just because it's not convenient? I always thought that the abortion argument was because they did not consider their unborn child a person. If you do consider that child a person then obviously you can't kill it.
  - dsego 4y ago

rafale 4y ago

drjasonharrison 4y ago
And why would we need to define what a woman or a man is?! Why does what gender, or sex, or pronouns have with body autonomy, and treatment under the laws?

legutierr 4y ago

I wouldn’t say nobody. Certain schools of Islam explicitly teach that “ensoulment” of the fetus occurs after 120 days, as per my limited understanding. This timeframe largely coincides with the beliefs of a significant majority of Americans (per recent surveys) that abortion should be legal until the first few weeks of the second trimester. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ensoulment#Islam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ensoulment#Islam

causi 4y ago
I like the "until it can sustain itself" argument but the issue is that's a moving bar. Every time technology improves that time gets a little bit shorter. A hundred years ago a five month fetus had little chance of surviving. Now that survival rate is 85%. If we had the ability to instantly and painlessly teleport a week-old fetus into an artificial womb, would that be cause to ban all abortion? The only fully consistent argument I've heard is that a human mind is the definition of personhood and that parents should be able to terminate up until several months after birth, but that's pretty out there.
- inkblotuniverse 4y ago
  I have some sympathy for the roman method.
disambiguation 4y ago
If you wouldn't mind, could you please cite both of those claims.

seanp2k2 4y ago

Given Citizens United no one should be able to terminate a corporation, as corporations are people.

zajio1am 4y ago
Citizens United does not say that corporations are people, it just says people are not restricted on their rights if they create a corporation to exercise them together.