The Abortion Debate Containment Thread - Put abortion sperging here.

[Zero Day Defense]

I didn't, I said that DNA was irrelevant to defining personhood. A human being is a person; a zygote is merely human.

You said:

Exactly, which is precisely why DNA is irrelevant.

in response to:

We're not talking about individual cells, we're talking about collections of cells in the process of arraying themselves into the complex organism we know as a human being.

Again, track the conversation better.

 

[Hellbound Hellhound]

You suggested it as a reasonable and acceptable course of action. You're saying it's morally fine. By saying that the responsibility has limitations you are saying that the methods people use to abdicate those responsibilities are absolutely fine and acceptable. No, that responsibility does not have limitations.

I'm not suggesting anything of the sort. Of course it's not morally fine for parents to neglect or abuse their children, but it's equally not morally fine for society to refuse to step in once this is taking place. The moral thing to do is to make the best of a bad situation, and in cases where children are being abused, or where women end up with unwanted pregnancies, it's pretty clear to me which is the least morally harmful course of action to take.

No, because once the person exists, it's a person. You don't get to fucking end them once they exist. You have gone past the point of no return. You cannot remove them without murdering them. You chose to get into that situation. You are now stuck with it. That's that. No one cares if you consent to the consequences of your choices that you don't like. You still chose them.

I don't accept that a fetus is a person, and I think my argument for why is far more supportable, both philosophically and scientifically, than yours is. We've already gone over why DNA is not a sustainable way to define personhood, and I have thus far heard no better argument to support the notion that a zygote, embryo, or fetus is a human being.

I'm also not convinced by the idea that this hypothetical personhood you seem desperate to assert would change anything about the way that the conflicting rights we're talking about would be settled with one another. I can think of no examples outside of abortion where one person's right to bodily integrity is forfeit on account of another person's right to life, and I am certainly not inclined to agree with such a notion.

Again, track the conversation better.

It's not me who's struggling to track the conversation here. If a person is more than the mere sum of the biological processes which comprise them, then DNA is irrelevant to their personhood; it's as simple as that.

 

[Zero Day Defense]

It's not me who's struggling to track the conversation here. If a person is more than the mere sum of the biological processes which comprise them, then DNA is irrelevant to their personhood; it's as simple as that.

That's not the argument you were making prior to that I had to highlight.

That said, that's a nonsensical statement. If a person is more than the sum of their biology, that doesn't somehow mean that an addend is irrelevant. You can't exclude that component and then still have the gestalt you're referring to.

 

[Hollywood Hulk Hogan]

That's not the argument you were making prior to that I had to highlight.

That said, that's a nonsensical statement. If a person is more than the sum of their biology, that doesn't somehow mean that an addend is irrelevant. You can't exclude that component and then still have the gestalt you're referring to.

I will still help you get laid off Tinder if it means it'll make you finally relax a bit and not want to punish women for having sex

 

[FEETLOAF]

I'm not suggesting anything of the sort. Of course it's not morally fine for parents to neglect or abuse their children, but it's equally not morally fine for society to refuse to step in once this is taking place.

Is it? Are those things really equal? Is a stranger's duty to a child literally exactly the same as it's mother's? Really?

The moral thing to do is to make the best of a bad situation

No, the moral thing to do is to not make a bad situation. The moral thing to do is to raise your child.

And in cases where children are being abused, or where women end up with unwanted pregnancies, it's pretty clear to me which is the least morally harmful course of action to take.

The least morally harmful course of action to take is to not abuse her child and raise it properly. You're playing this weird game of assumed compromise where you rule out all of the actually morally good choices and then say, "Okay, among all these morally bad options, which is the least morally bad?" That's silly. Just be good instead.

I don't accept that a fetus is a person, and I think my argument for why is far more supportable, both philosophically and scientifically, than yours is. We've already gone over why DNA is not a sustainable way to define personhood, and I have thus far heard no better argument to support the notion that a zygote, embryo, or fetus is a human being.

Person is literally just a synonym for human. A fetus is human. It's not a goat.

I'm also not convinced by the idea that this hypothetical personhood you seem desperate to assert would change anything about the way that the conflicting rights we're talking about would be settled with one another. I can think of no examples outside of abortion where one person's right to bodily integrity is forfeit on account of another person's right to life, and I am certainly not inclined to agree with such a notion.

Children have a right to their parents. You do not have "bodily autonomy." From the instant your child exists, the purpose of your body and mind is to feed and raise that child. You exist for them, you are not autonomous.

 

[Hellbound Hellhound]

The least morally harmful course of action to take is to not abuse her child and raise it properly. You're playing this weird game of assumed compromise where you rule out all of the actually morally good choices and then say, "Okay, among all these morally bad options, which is the least morally bad?" That's silly. Just be good instead.

I'm not ruling out anything. I'm all in favor of people taking care to avoid unwanted pregnancies, but if and when they do occur, I see no reason why abortion shouldn't be an option for those who'd benefit from it.

Person is literally just a synonym for human. A fetus is human. It's not a goat.

In casual conversation, perhaps, but in more precise terms, the words have different definitions. A human liver can be described as human, but it is not a person.

Children have a right to their parents. You do not have "bodily autonomy." From the instant your child exists, the purpose of your body and mind is to feed and raise that child. You exist for them, you are not autonomous.

Children have a right to a nurturing home, and if their biological parents can't provide that, they become wards of the state. I suppose you must have no problem with that, given that the removal of abortion as an option for unwanted pregnancies would create a lot more children who fit this description. Then again, if you're of the view that children must remain with their parents no matter what, then the alternative would be for those children to remain in neglected or abusive circumstances.

I won't speak on your behalf, but allowing children to be born into either of those circumstances doesn't strike me as particularly moral.

That's not the argument you were making prior to that I had to highlight.

The argument I have been making since the beginning is that our DNA is not what delineates us as people, otherwise, we would have to conclude that identical twins were the same person.

That said, that's a nonsensical statement. If a person is more than the sum of their biology, that doesn't somehow mean that an addend is irrelevant. You can't exclude that component and then still have the gestalt you're referring to.

If the whole is worth more than the sum of it's parts, then it's parts are not relevant to what gives the whole it's value.

Once again, you're hobbling your ability to understand what I'm trying to tell you with a kind of nominalist pedantry which is neither relevant nor profound. I don't need you to tell me that our DNA influences who we become; I already know that. What I'm trying to get you to understand is that it's not the DNA itself which makes us who we are.

Your house may be comprised of bricks and mortar, but it is not the bricks and mortar which make it yours.

 

[Zero Day Defense]

If the whole is worth more than the sum of it's parts, then it's parts are not relevant to what gives the whole it's value.

I'm not going to engage in a back-and-forth with you about your fatal misunderstanding of what a "gestalt" is while you throw around pretentious lingo for its own sake. If a whole is worth more than the sum of its parts, that worth will still include the technical sum, and you will not be able to have the same gestalt if you were to remove any of the whole's parts.

 

[knobslobbin]

What's the best reason for an aborsh? To not cancel vacation plans, to support research, or being low on ingredients for meatloaf?

discuss

 

[Hellbound Hellhound]

I'm not going to engage in a back-and-forth with you about your fatal misunderstanding of what a "gestalt" is while you throw around pretentious lingo for its own sake. If a whole is worth more than the sum of its parts, that worth will still include the technical sum, and you will not be able to have the same gestalt if you were to remove any of the whole's parts.

The only person who is failing to understand anything here is you. Consciousness and DNA are conceptually distinct things, irrespective of whatever causal relationship may exist between them. The physical processes which lead to consciousness have no bearing on it's value in defining who we are as people, and it is here where you are failing to see the forest for the trees.

 

[DancingDino]

I only support abortion in 3 cases

Rape, incest, having the child will kill or seriously damage the mother,

You can make cases for people who are poor and can't afford it and the massive amounts of unwanted kids already in the system but Just go to planned Parenthood they provide free condoms and will help you get a discount on birth control lazy niggers

 

[Rekkington]

I don't accept that a fetus is a person, and I think my argument for why is far more supportable, both philosophically and scientifically, than yours is. We've already gone over why DNA is not a sustainable way to define personhood, and I have thus far heard no better argument to support the notion that a zygote, embryo, or fetus is a human being.

Because if you sent a zygote into space and it was recovered by an extraterrestrial, they would view it as a lifeform and they would give it some appropriate name. It's not a sandwich, it's not a plant, it's not a disease. If we found a similar lifeform on Mars we wouldn't say it's some random bullshit, either. Also to say a fetus is not a human being is insane, it literally looks exactly like a living humanoid. Medical professionals call it a fetus until the moment it is born, it is preposterous to say that a baby 5 minutes before being born isn't a human.

I can think of no examples outside of abortion where one person's right to bodily integrity is forfeit on account of another person's right to life, and I am certainly not inclined to agree with such a notion.

Yeah, because it's unique. Saying that it doesn't remind you of anything else in life doesn't really mean anything.

 

[Trianon]

The people who wrote the Declaration of Independence couldn't even decide if "humanity" included black people, and you want me to dogmatically defer to them on the matter of what constitutes personhood? We've come a long way since the 18th century, you know, and I think you'll find that even back then, the general attitude towards abortion was not in line with what modern pro-lifers suggest should be policy.

And yet their arguments were so sound that the Declaration was used against them decades and centuries later to argue against slavery as a moral evil and for civil rights of the unlanded classes, blacks, and women. The words outlived and outshone the writers, and all of them would agree and hope for that.

Early Christian thought on the subject of abortion was mostly influenced by the Aristotelian concept of delayed ensoulment, and the writings of Christian scholars like Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine reflect this. The view they took was that before the very late stages of pregnancy, an embryo/fetus was ontologically on the same level as plant life: alive, but without a soul. It wasn't really until the middle of the 19th century that the modern pro-life movement began, after the Catholic church finally took a firm line against abortion, having decided that personhood begins at conception.

This is not entirely true. The concept of ensoulment has a history within the Church, but the condemnation of abortion goes back much further to the earliest Christian scholars in 100 A.D., who forbade "murder of a child by abortion" and any number of chemical concoctions intended to induce miscarriage. Anything intended to "destroy" rather than "create" was considered contrary to God's laws. We know this because they thought it was hilarious that they were accused of being cannibals while abortion was common in the Roman world. They argued against abortion because it involved murder, violence, selfishness, witchcraft, an indifference toward life, an indifference toward children, a misunderstanding of human biology ("that is a man which is going to be one; the fruit is already in the seed" - Tertullian), and a misunderstanding of your responsibility to your neighbor, which includes the child who is dependent upon you but not part of you. It was never based purely on the speculative theory of ensoulment, though that does appear sometimes in their treatises against it, and it's usually tied to conception, not a "delayed" form. Ensoulment is just a theory designed to explain a biblical incident where John the Baptist and Jesus "leapt for joy in their mother's wombs" when their moms met. Their personhood is already present there, reactive, emotive, spiritual, and integral to the Incarnation. Christian thought has always understood the unborn as their neighbors, as fully human and worthy of protection, and they used a similarly wide range of arguments that pro-lifers use today to talk, on the one hand, of the value of all human life, and on the other, the responsibility of a mother to her child even in the womb.

 

[FEETLOAF]

In casual conversation, perhaps, but in more precise terms, the words have different definitions. A human liver can be described as human, but it is not a person.

Yes it is. My liver is a person. That person is me. If you point at my liver, you're pointing at me. Parts of me are me.
If you point at a fetus, you are pointing at a person, and that person is not the mother.

Children have a right to a nurturing home, and if their biological parents can't provide that, they become wards of the state.

Children have a right to the nurturing of their parents. All rights exist in a state of nature, before The State is even formed. All rights exist without the state. You do not have a right to a state, or to any of its services. In fact, the opposite: You have a right to sovereignty, which you give up 'consensually' in a 'social contract.' Anarchy is a human right.

Then again, if you're of the view that children must remain with their parents no matter what, then the alternative would be for those children to remain in neglected or abusive circumstances.

Why is the alternative of not abusing your child not an option? Again, why do you just write off all actually good options and then decide which of the bad options is least bad?

I won't speak on your behalf, but allowing children to be born into either of those circumstances doesn't strike me as particularly moral.

What you mean to say is it doesn't strike you as particularly kind.
Morality doesn't care what's kind. Morality doesn't care what you like or dislike, or what makes you happy or sad. It is what it is. Don't murder people, not even if they have a super duper sad life that's just like so not cool bro. Just don't murder them at all.

The argument I have been making since the beginning is that our DNA is not what delineates us as people, otherwise, we would have to conclude that identical twins were the same person.

The retarded argument you have been having for two pages is retarded. Zero pointed out that DNA differentiates people. You pointed out twins as though he was saying DNA is the singular and only feature which can differentiate people. Zero has clarified that this is not the case, but that DNA still certainly differentiates people. Two twins are different people (Spiritually and genetically there is actually a strong case that they are the same person, but that's a whole argument) despite having the same genome. But there are plenty of other features that still differentiate them, making them clearly different. This does not negate the argument that a fetus is clearly a different person because it has a different non-mutant genome. Two twins can have the same genome and be different people, but there is no such thing, ever, anywhere, as one person with two non-mutant genomes. The fetus has a different genome. It is clearly a distinctly different human than the mother. In a sane world this would be obvious.

Once again, you're hobbling your ability to understand what I'm trying to tell you with a kind of nominalist pedantry which is neither relevant nor profound. I don't need you to tell me that our DNA influences who we become; I already know that. What I'm trying to get you to understand is that it's not the DNA itself which makes us who we are.

Ironically you are the one being pedantic and missing the point. Hopefully my explanation will help.

Your house may be comprised of bricks and mortar, but it is not the bricks and mortar which make it yours.

No, but if a really pedantic and psychopathic asshole wants to burn my house down because he claims it's actually his house, pointing out the completely different construction methods might be one way to try to make him see reason.

The only person who is failing to understand anything here is you. Consciousness and DNA are conceptually distinct things, irrespective of whatever causal relationship may exist between them. The physical processes which lead to consciousness have no bearing on it's value in defining who we are as people, and it is here where you are failing to see the forest for the trees.

They are completely inextricable. You cannot have consciousness without DNA. Consciousness is not some super special thing. It's just your brain working.
You are your body.

 

[Hellbound Hellhound]

Because if you sent a zygote into space and it was recovered by an extraterrestrial, they would view it as a lifeform and they would give it some appropriate name. It's not a sandwich, it's not a plant, it's not a disease. If we found a similar lifeform on Mars we wouldn't say it's some random bullshit, either.

This is exactly what scientists do when they discover a new species of plant or bacteria. Recognizing that something is a lifeform, giving it a name, and studying it, does not mean that what is being studied is a sentient being, and the concept of personhood only applies to sentient beings.

Also to say a fetus is not a human being is insane, it literally looks exactly like a living humanoid. Medical professionals call it a fetus until the moment it is born, it is preposterous to say that a baby 5 minutes before being born isn't a human.

It doesn't look "exactly like a living humanoid" until well within the third trimester, and for the first few weeks, it isn't even possible to distinguish a human embryo from the embryo of any other cordate species without a DNA test. The period of fetal development where personhood could arguably be a matter of contention is far later than the window when the vast majority of abortions are performed, so it really isn't constructive to your argument to quibble over this.

Yeah, because it's unique. Saying that it doesn't remind you of anything else in life doesn't really mean anything.

Except it's not unique. One could quite easily apply the logic pro-lifers use to situations outside of abortion, and arrive at conclusions that just about all of them (I hope) would find immoral.

There are plenty of people who have two functioning kidneys; there are even a handful of people who are born with three kidneys. Would it be moral to demand that these people give up some of their spare kidneys so that someone else can live? Or is the right to bodily integrity not something which someone else can infringe upon, even if it means them dying?

And yet their arguments were so sound that the Declaration was used against them decades and centuries later to argue against slavery as a moral evil and for civil rights of the unlanded classes, blacks, and women. The words outlived and outshone the writers, and all of them would agree and hope for that.

And yet it remains the case that this evolution in our understanding of rights hasn't resulted in the conclusions that pro-lifers have come to. In fact, it's done the opposite, culminating in Roe v. Wade. The legal and moral precedents which our society have set have invariably came to the conclusion that one person's right to life doesn't grant them the license to infringe upon another person's right to bodily integrity, and this is beginning from the very shaky assumption that a fetus is even a person to begin with.

Yes it is. My liver is a person. That person is me. If you point at my liver, you're pointing at me. Parts of me are me.
If you point at a fetus, you are pointing at a person, and that person is not the mother.

A liver can belong to a person, but it is not a person in it's own right. Someone who has suffered brain death can still have a working liver, but most people would not object to shutting off the life support system and killing it, because the person it used to belong to no longer exists. Keeping it alive also imposes a cost on other people by potentially denying them a hospital bed they might need, just as an unwanted pregnancy imposes a cost upon the woman carrying it.

Children have a right to the nurturing of their parents. All rights exist in a state of nature, before The State is even formed. All rights exist without the state. You do not have a right to a state, or to any of its services.

I was a libertarian too once; then I turned 17.

Why is the alternative of not abusing your child not an option? Again, why do you just write off all actually good options and then decide which of the bad options is least bad?

I never said it wasn't an option. It should go without saying that people shouldn't abuse their children, just as it should go without saying that people should take steps to avoid unwanted pregnancy, but in the real world, morality can't always be proactive. Ultimately, people are going to make mistakes; people are going to do bad things, and when that happens, society has to decide how to best respond to the situation. You can't just let abuse go unpunished, just as you can't make unwanted pregnancies magically disappear. I don't pretend that either scenario is ideal.

Spiritually and genetically there is actually a strong case that they are the same person, but that's a whole argument

There is absolutely no sane case that could be made for such a notion. If one identical twin commits a crime, do you suppose that they should both be prosecuted? Don't be silly.

 

[FEETLOAF]

There are plenty of people who have two functioning kidneys; there are even a handful of people who are born with three kidneys. Would it be moral to demand that these people give up some of their spare kidneys so that someone else can live? Or is the right to bodily integrity not something which someone else can infringe upon, even if it means them dying?

If your mother is dying of kidney failure and you don't give her a kidney you are a bad person and you will burn in hell.
If a complete stranger is dying of kidney failure and you don't give them a kidney no one gives a shit.
You have specific moral duties to your family. They have a specific relationship to you which creates mutual obligations.

A liver can belong to a person, but it is not a person in it's own right.

I didn't say "in its own right." I said it's a person, and that person is me. It's not all of me, only a part, but it's certainly still me.

Keeping it alive also imposes a cost on other people by potentially denying them a hospital bed they might need, just as an unwanted pregnancy imposes a cost upon the woman carrying it.

Utilitarian arguments of pragmatic necessity will get you nowhere, don't even bother. I don't care what the material consequences of not doing something immoral are. Don't do it.

but in the real world, morality can't always be proactive

It absolutely can.

Ultimately, people are going to make mistakes; people are going to do bad things,

Only if they choose to. If they choose not to, they won't.
It all gets so much simpler when you actually believe human beings have agency.

If one identical twin commits a crime, do you suppose that they should both be prosecuted?

Yeah. Twins have weird psychic voodoo powers man. They're the same person in two bodies.

 

[Hollywood Hulk Hogan]

I am still amazed at how our resident incel/autistic rightwingers act like puritanical boomers

 

[Thomas Highway]

People who use abortion as birth control are disgusting. Abortion itself is disgusting. Plenty of disgusting things are still legal and should remain so.

The pro-choice crowd sort of lost the messaging war by pretending that abortion isn't a gross necessity and instead some sort of womanly expression.

 

[Rekkington]

I am still amazed at how our resident incel/autistic rightwingers act like puritanical boomers

I'm amazed you are not currently dilating.

 

[Hollywood Hulk Hogan]

I'm amazed you are not currently dilating.

Why would I be? You are the one who seems to be seething at people who have sex. Maybe if you troon out you'll be able to get laid

 

[Muh Vagina]

What's the best reason for an aborsh? To not cancel vacation plans, to support research, or being low on ingredients for meatloaf?

discuss

Because people deserve bodily autonomy. No fucking man is going to demand that I be an incubator. Embryos and fetuses have no legal rights or pain receptors, therefore the pregnant woman comes first.