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Don't you think it's better if morality issues are left to individuals? Don't want an abortion? Don't get one. Care about fetus rights? Start help centers for

Don't you think it's better if morality issues are left to individuals? Don't want an abortion? Don't get one. Care about fetus rights? Start help centers for pregnant women, engage in education and activism, provide social nets for new mothers and children. It's not like we have mandatory abortions. To me, the abortions is similar to the right to chose to end your own life, ultimately, you can't outlaw killing yourself.

gonehome 4y ago
The critical difference is the individual rights of the fetus. If you hold that at some point the fetus has rights of its own then this becomes more difficult. I think that’s the fundamental question and what makes this issue challenging. For a provocative example, we don’t allow infanticide to be left up to the individuals moral decision, and then suggest those that care about it engage to help stop infanticide. We decide at that point the infant has rights and we care about suffering. I think for societal pragmatic reasons women should retain the right to terminate pregnancy even though it does result in ending a life and in some cases suffering of the unborn (depending on stage). But I don’t pretend that tradeoff isn’t a real thing, I just think that’s the best outcome on net. I also think contraception should be widely and easily available to reduce the likelihood of this happening generally. I can understand how a reasonable person could disagree and have stronger views about when the fetus’ individual rights should kick in.
- camgunz 4y ago
  > The critical difference is the individual rights of the fetus. Theoretically yeah, but the stats [0] pretty much moot it. Some quick clips: - 79.3% of abortions were performed at ≤9 weeks’ gestation - nearly all (92.7%) were performed at ≤13 weeks’ gestation The point here is that "nearly all" abortions occur very early in development. It's hard to imagine that something the size of a chocolate chip has "individual rights", especially when balanced against the rights of the pregnant person. This is important because as you move through the trimesters, cases become crushingly tragic [1]. We're talking things like "we probably thought your fetus was abnormal in the 2nd trimester but you couldn't bring yourself to do it until the 3rd", cancer, fetal death, etc. There's this myth that it's like Celebrity Deathmatch out there: women vs. babies, but the stats are clear: nearly all abortions happen in the 1st trimester, and then when they don't it's typically scheduling or something very tragic happened. All of which should force us to ask: what's the urgent need for regulation on this? [0]: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/ss/ss7009a1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/ss/ss7009a1.htm [1]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10426234/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10426234/
  - wilsonnb3 4y ago
    > It's hard to imagine that something the size of a chocolate chip has "individual rights", especially when balanced against the rights of the pregnant person. Clearly it is not hard for a lot of people in the US to imagine this, since that is what they believe.
    - the_mar 4y ago
    - camgunz 4y ago
      > Clearly it is not hard for a lot of people in the US to imagine this, since that is what they believe. Well if they do, they're not acting like it. For example, miscarriages are pretty rampant. If there were a disease that affected people the same way miscarriages affect embryos and fetuses, it would be a bonkers plague that reduced our population to a a fraction of what it is. I imagine people would be acting differently than they are if we really equated humans with fetuses on this level. Or we can go full personhood. How do we discern the will of a 14 week old fetus? What constitutes child abuse? When do child support payments start? Can fetuses sue for damages? What do their free worship rights look like? Do fetuses have a right to medical care? Can a fetus earn income and pay taxes? Do fetuses count towards population for apportionment? I don't doubt the sincerity of people's held positions on abortion. What I do doubt is the rationality, and the more I dig into it, the more I find tons of ignorance about women, fetuses, and pregnancy.
      - erulabs 4y ago
        I don't like defending opinions of straw-men, and particularly opinions I don't agree with, but I'm not sure your argument holds up. There is a important difference between a tragedy like a miscarriage versus a chosen act like having an abortion. That would be a bit like equating seeing someone being hit by a car with murder. Particularly if you come from a theological background there is a dramatic difference between a plague and a murder (not suggesting that's what abortion is, but that's the rationality). I think fossuser got it exactly correct: there is a good-faith disagreement here. The disagreement is "when does a citizen come into existence?". This is what lawmakers are supposed to decide - we elect them to draw a line in the sand. Denmark's line seems extremely reasonable.
- the_mar 4y ago
  I'm not saying it's a simple moral question. I'm not sayin abortion is something that has no trade-offs. While I agree with you, how a reasonable person can strongly object abortions, and they should not get abortions. But when their moral stance spills out to legislation, I am concerned. You can say we "engage to stop infanticide", but millions of people endure child abuse and thousands die from it every year. And having no access to abortions will surely increase that number. At which point a fetus is a person? We do kind of have an answer to this, when it's viable outside of the mother's body. If we keep going down the rabbit hole of fetus rights, it gets real ugly. Is contraception murder? Is plan b murder? Does having a miscarriage warrant an investigation? Should we prosecute a fetus that absorbed it's twin in-utero? What about IVF and thousands of embryos that are thrown out? What about stem cells?
  - gonehome 4y ago
    I think broad abortion rights is pragmatic policy for the reasons you suggest. I think it's better for societal reasons on net. I also think the compromise around this issue found in European law (Germany, Denmark, France) is pretty reasonable. That said, I don't think a constitutional right exists and the Roe decision that found one was somewhat tortured (even RBG said as much early in her career iirc). Given that this should be argued democratically and via policy. I'm in favor of federal protections that raise the minimum bar to what Europe has and prevents states from enacting all-out bans. I also can see reasonable disagreement about later stage abortion rights for the reasons I mentioned above. It's a messy issue, it's not the job of SCOTUS to legislate these kinds of issues and I think having done so here has ultimately led to a more polarized situation where we're worse off. Fighting this out democratically is probably healthier for our democracy.
    - the_mar 4y ago
      Denmark, France and Germany allow on-demand abortions. How was that different from the US until now?
      - gonehome 4y ago
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gonehome 4y ago

The critical difference is the individual rights of the fetus. If you hold that at some point the fetus has rights of its own then this becomes more difficult. I think that’s the fundamental question and what makes this issue challenging. For a provocative example, we don’t allow infanticide to be left up to the individuals moral decision, and then suggest those that care about it engage to help stop infanticide. We decide at that point the infant has rights and we care about suffering. I think for societal pragmatic reasons women should retain the right to terminate pregnancy even though it does result in ending a life and in some cases suffering of the unborn (depending on stage). But I don’t pretend that tradeoff isn’t a real thing, I just think that’s the best outcome on net. I also think contraception should be widely and easily available to reduce the likelihood of this happening generally. I can understand how a reasonable person could disagree and have stronger views about when the fetus’ individual rights should kick in.

camgunz 4y ago
> The critical difference is the individual rights of the fetus. Theoretically yeah, but the stats [0] pretty much moot it. Some quick clips: - 79.3% of abortions were performed at ≤9 weeks’ gestation - nearly all (92.7%) were performed at ≤13 weeks’ gestation The point here is that "nearly all" abortions occur very early in development. It's hard to imagine that something the size of a chocolate chip has "individual rights", especially when balanced against the rights of the pregnant person. This is important because as you move through the trimesters, cases become crushingly tragic [1]. We're talking things like "we probably thought your fetus was abnormal in the 2nd trimester but you couldn't bring yourself to do it until the 3rd", cancer, fetal death, etc. There's this myth that it's like Celebrity Deathmatch out there: women vs. babies, but the stats are clear: nearly all abortions happen in the 1st trimester, and then when they don't it's typically scheduling or something very tragic happened. All of which should force us to ask: what's the urgent need for regulation on this? [0]: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/ss/ss7009a1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/ss/ss7009a1.htm [1]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10426234/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10426234/
- wilsonnb3 4y ago
  > It's hard to imagine that something the size of a chocolate chip has "individual rights", especially when balanced against the rights of the pregnant person. Clearly it is not hard for a lot of people in the US to imagine this, since that is what they believe.
  - the_mar 4y ago
  - camgunz 4y ago
    > Clearly it is not hard for a lot of people in the US to imagine this, since that is what they believe. Well if they do, they're not acting like it. For example, miscarriages are pretty rampant. If there were a disease that affected people the same way miscarriages affect embryos and fetuses, it would be a bonkers plague that reduced our population to a a fraction of what it is. I imagine people would be acting differently than they are if we really equated humans with fetuses on this level. Or we can go full personhood. How do we discern the will of a 14 week old fetus? What constitutes child abuse? When do child support payments start? Can fetuses sue for damages? What do their free worship rights look like? Do fetuses have a right to medical care? Can a fetus earn income and pay taxes? Do fetuses count towards population for apportionment? I don't doubt the sincerity of people's held positions on abortion. What I do doubt is the rationality, and the more I dig into it, the more I find tons of ignorance about women, fetuses, and pregnancy.
    - erulabs 4y ago
      I don't like defending opinions of straw-men, and particularly opinions I don't agree with, but I'm not sure your argument holds up. There is a important difference between a tragedy like a miscarriage versus a chosen act like having an abortion. That would be a bit like equating seeing someone being hit by a car with murder. Particularly if you come from a theological background there is a dramatic difference between a plague and a murder (not suggesting that's what abortion is, but that's the rationality). I think fossuser got it exactly correct: there is a good-faith disagreement here. The disagreement is "when does a citizen come into existence?". This is what lawmakers are supposed to decide - we elect them to draw a line in the sand. Denmark's line seems extremely reasonable.
the_mar 4y ago
I'm not saying it's a simple moral question. I'm not sayin abortion is something that has no trade-offs. While I agree with you, how a reasonable person can strongly object abortions, and they should not get abortions. But when their moral stance spills out to legislation, I am concerned. You can say we "engage to stop infanticide", but millions of people endure child abuse and thousands die from it every year. And having no access to abortions will surely increase that number. At which point a fetus is a person? We do kind of have an answer to this, when it's viable outside of the mother's body. If we keep going down the rabbit hole of fetus rights, it gets real ugly. Is contraception murder? Is plan b murder? Does having a miscarriage warrant an investigation? Should we prosecute a fetus that absorbed it's twin in-utero? What about IVF and thousands of embryos that are thrown out? What about stem cells?
- gonehome 4y ago
  I think broad abortion rights is pragmatic policy for the reasons you suggest. I think it's better for societal reasons on net. I also think the compromise around this issue found in European law (Germany, Denmark, France) is pretty reasonable. That said, I don't think a constitutional right exists and the Roe decision that found one was somewhat tortured (even RBG said as much early in her career iirc). Given that this should be argued democratically and via policy. I'm in favor of federal protections that raise the minimum bar to what Europe has and prevents states from enacting all-out bans. I also can see reasonable disagreement about later stage abortion rights for the reasons I mentioned above. It's a messy issue, it's not the job of SCOTUS to legislate these kinds of issues and I think having done so here has ultimately led to a more polarized situation where we're worse off. Fighting this out democratically is probably healthier for our democracy.
  - the_mar 4y ago
    Denmark, France and Germany allow on-demand abortions. How was that different from the US until now?
    - gonehome 4y ago
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