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> 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.

> 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.
  - camgunz 4y ago
    > There is a important difference between a tragedy like a miscarriage versus a chosen act like having an abortion. Fair! Well, a couple things. First, many abortions are not chosen. We can go a little further and say many conceptions are not chosen (assault), but it's a little irrelevant, so I'm just noting. Second I'm not comparing abortions to miscarriages. I'm comparing miscarriage (a thing that affects embryos and fetuses) to a disease that affects born people. In doing so, I note the different reactions people have to miscarriage (it's natural and unavoidable) to the reactions people have to a disease that statistically killed as many born people as miscarriage kills embryos and fetuses (the vast majority of us die, it's very very bad). To me, this is strong evidence that we value embryos and fetuses differently than born people.
    - Banana699 4y ago
      >First, many abortions are not chosen. How many? There is a survey floating around the Internet that asked ~2000 women in 2003 about abortion reasons, and about 80% or so said what amounted to "Pregnancy was too inconvenient". Was that updated ? >many conceptions are not chosen Again, how many? That same 2003 survey had 0.1% as the percentage of women who reported rape as the reason they aborted. People are arguing against the common case, the common case I'm seeing is celebrities and middle class women writing op-eds about how without abortion they would have never gotten that raise and pregnancy demolished their career. >I'm comparing miscarriage (a thing that affects embryos and fetuses) to a disease that affects born people. I think pro abortion folks have this common failure mode where they notice the non-linearity of the brain's moral response on abortion, and think that it points to a deeper hypocrisy or contradiction somewhere in the anti abortion stance. Here is a couple of examples of things where people believe something but "don't act like it" : - Vegetarians and Vegans (I'm one of them btw) believe that hundreds of millions of sentient, moral-consideration-worthy persons are murdered in the most brutal and cowardly fashion each year, and that doesn't turn them catastrophically mad or into genocidal terrorists. - Climate Change believers (I'm one of them btw) believe that our (in)actions now is setting the stage for the death of tens of million and the suffering of hundreds of millions of human and non-human animals, as well as uncountable billions of damage in material resources. They don't seem to be doing much except shouting, just like standard politics. - Believers in the harm of smoking (I'm... Ah screw it) think that 1.1 billion people are actively killing themselves by poisoning, and slowly poisoning those around them, 7 million people are killed each year due to this mass voluntary poisoning, more than 1/10 of WW2. And yet, I don't see any crusades (except the usual advocacy). The point is, what you're describing isn't new. It's what I called the brain's "Non Linear Moral Response" above, your brain saturates. One death makes you cry, two deaths make you scream, 3 make you want to gouge your own eyes off, but 10 just make you numb. And beyond 50 or so its just meaningless data. Your brain isn't equipped to respond meaningfully to tragedies at scale. That's probably for your own good.

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.
- camgunz 4y ago
  > There is a important difference between a tragedy like a miscarriage versus a chosen act like having an abortion. Fair! Well, a couple things. First, many abortions are not chosen. We can go a little further and say many conceptions are not chosen (assault), but it's a little irrelevant, so I'm just noting. Second I'm not comparing abortions to miscarriages. I'm comparing miscarriage (a thing that affects embryos and fetuses) to a disease that affects born people. In doing so, I note the different reactions people have to miscarriage (it's natural and unavoidable) to the reactions people have to a disease that statistically killed as many born people as miscarriage kills embryos and fetuses (the vast majority of us die, it's very very bad). To me, this is strong evidence that we value embryos and fetuses differently than born people.
  - Banana699 4y ago
    >First, many abortions are not chosen. How many? There is a survey floating around the Internet that asked ~2000 women in 2003 about abortion reasons, and about 80% or so said what amounted to "Pregnancy was too inconvenient". Was that updated ? >many conceptions are not chosen Again, how many? That same 2003 survey had 0.1% as the percentage of women who reported rape as the reason they aborted. People are arguing against the common case, the common case I'm seeing is celebrities and middle class women writing op-eds about how without abortion they would have never gotten that raise and pregnancy demolished their career. >I'm comparing miscarriage (a thing that affects embryos and fetuses) to a disease that affects born people. I think pro abortion folks have this common failure mode where they notice the non-linearity of the brain's moral response on abortion, and think that it points to a deeper hypocrisy or contradiction somewhere in the anti abortion stance. Here is a couple of examples of things where people believe something but "don't act like it" : - Vegetarians and Vegans (I'm one of them btw) believe that hundreds of millions of sentient, moral-consideration-worthy persons are murdered in the most brutal and cowardly fashion each year, and that doesn't turn them catastrophically mad or into genocidal terrorists. - Climate Change believers (I'm one of them btw) believe that our (in)actions now is setting the stage for the death of tens of million and the suffering of hundreds of millions of human and non-human animals, as well as uncountable billions of damage in material resources. They don't seem to be doing much except shouting, just like standard politics. - Believers in the harm of smoking (I'm... Ah screw it) think that 1.1 billion people are actively killing themselves by poisoning, and slowly poisoning those around them, 7 million people are killed each year due to this mass voluntary poisoning, more than 1/10 of WW2. And yet, I don't see any crusades (except the usual advocacy). The point is, what you're describing isn't new. It's what I called the brain's "Non Linear Moral Response" above, your brain saturates. One death makes you cry, two deaths make you scream, 3 make you want to gouge your own eyes off, but 10 just make you numb. And beyond 50 or so its just meaningless data. Your brain isn't equipped to respond meaningfully to tragedies at scale. That's probably for your own good.