A secular debate about abortion

[jcmmanuel]

JCEmmanuel, there are many, many people in the world that see sex as shameful, not "good," or endorsed by "nature" as a design entity. In fact, I'm surprised that a christian is unfamiliar with the writings of Paul on this matter.

But you add, further on: "And sex IS dangerous, in many ways". So... But of course, opinions on what endangers it, will differ - yet there's a common rationale here. And how do we read a philosopher who wrote stuff 2000 years ago, really? (Paul is seen as a 'philosopher of the will' typically). Greeks, Persians, Jews, Babylonians ... we know there was wisdom too then. These people all had a life, they had a capacity to think, and to write. With regard to Paul, it is now understood that he was far more Jewish in his thinking than was formerly believed. And the Jewish idea about women was not that bleak. E.g. divorce was possible, but the social well-being of the woman was protected (divorce letter was required, for instance). Song of Songs is widely known as an eloquent eulogy on the woman, not as an sex object but as a being in high regard. (There are more people today - in relative numbers - who see the woman as sex object than there were in the past). Okay, this is not the particular danger you were mentioning here - but still. There isn't just one danger here, of course.

Paul's polemic also need an understanding in context of his letters. Bible verses about 'Paul on women' are too often isolated from the wider context - where some abuse in the early churches was being addressed, for instance. But I won't dig into that shit now (although it's quite interesting shit, if you love good shit, that is).

Christians are not necessarily unfamiliar with these things. In documents like these, there's always good and bad points, situations, stuff; they are usually good or bad in quite a different way than is being assumed by a 21st century citizen reading an ancient text while sipping a sophisticated drink, seated in an opulent armchair. Let's be honest, we usually don't know too well how to read people of the past with some sense of dignity. Some of us still think that believers in the middle ages thought the world was flat. (Today we know which writers were responsible for this nonsense - but we are very slow to correct our collective mind).

This attitude towards sex, that it is shameful, or dirty (except in specific endorsed circumstances, such as within marriage, or for the purpose of conceiving children) is one of the many reasons that sex education isn't provided to people who need it.

Right. But you can be right, and at the same time be incomplete in what you are saying. For instance, sex isn't dirty, but sex can be made very dirty - ask the hookers in LA. Read the statistics, how many of them have Herpes, Chlamydia, Gonorrhea etc. - in spite of the sex industry officially having rules in place (condoms required etc). - Oh well, the whole scene is one of abuse. The sex industry exists because of men, mostly. I dare to call that a dirty sex situation. So it isn't just a one-side kind of situation we have here. And if unjustified association of sex with dirty requires education, I'm sure a lot of people need education to call some aspects of what they call sex as dirty when it really is dirty. It is all about human dignity, hadespussercat. I'm not the one dictating that the 12 million teens who are regularly watching porn online today SHOULD be cared for by Big Brother - but there are many serious and open-minded mothers who think something's wrong with our overall education level and how we deal with our freedoms.

In my opinion, what Paul was telling 2000 years ago is peanuts compared to what we have today. Paul was, even if interpreted in the worst possible way, a softy compared to what WE sometimes have to say today in order to educate a 100+ billion dollar porn industry out there.

You talk about nature not being our enemy, that we don't need to fight against it. Since when does nature have intent? ... Nature wants us to get pregnant?

If you defend an atheist or a naturalistic position at this point, only with the suggestion 'since when', I'm not going to argue against you. Indeed, we differ in our presuppositions.

But for the sake of clarity: nature has a habit of fighting for survival, for life, and for the 'good stuff' in general. Of course, in terms of ethics or even aesthetics we know there are natural inclinations that are quite commonly seen as asocial (or worse), and we tend to differentiate our judgments accordingly - life, joy and honesty: yes; egotism, hostility, hurting: no. Generally speaking, we think favorably about nature when nature promotes life in non-violent ways. Of course, it is only in the human mind that we subjectively consider nature this way - but that is how it is: it is how we are, and it is what we choose (it is our liberum arbitrium). I strongly favorize a humanistic understanding of nature. I'm not the only one of course, neither does everyone agree with this. But the argument is out there to be considered.

And if a woman is pregnant, and doesn't want to have the baby, or is physically, financially, or socially at risk if she carries it to term, abortion does indeed present a solution to her problem. A last-ditch solution, to be sure, but in our world as it stands, a necessary one.

I can agree with this formulation. I would put the emphasisis on "last-ditch" and I would say "seemingly necessary", to avoid determinim at this point.

Kind regards.

[jcmmanuel]

...there is also the issue of the foetus using the mother's body for sustenance - which arguably it has no "right" to do against the mother's will, irrespective of whether or not you dignify it with personhood. See the Violinist Thought Experiment.

I think the Violinist comparison is a typical intellectuualist approach, not necessarily a human / humane one. A human being is not a number on the display of a calculator. The Violinist argument is quite absurd, not realistic. It seems to be a concocted pseudo-rational attempt to argue our way out of our being human. Yet, in any case there would be the option to choose - which is unique to human beings. Scaffolding a surrealistic conceptual stage like this, as an argument, still tells us nothing about how the 'victim' would act. He could just decide to support the life of the Violinist - and then? Should we call him an idiot who's taking the wrong decision then? Who are we to judge? So the conundrum isn't being solved, it's just being intellctualized, almost as making a game of it. But life is, of course, not a game - especially not if you're dead or dying.

Let's face it - most women don't abort because they have issues with their body being used to support the development of a baby, or even particularly because they don't like the idea of going through birth - but because they don't wish to become biological parents, point blank. It's primarily birth-control.

But then birth-control is also what the Spartans did after birth, when they did not have the means or knowledge to do it 'properly'. Also, it was already suggested that 1 day before or 1 day after birth really doesn't seem to makes all the difference with regard to considering 'life' or a 'person' - so as a concept of birth-control this reasoning is no solid basis for an argument.

If foetuses at whatever stage in pregnancy are to be granted some basic acknowledgement of sentience and personhood (which would be subject to evidence)

Calling 'evidence' something the criteria of which are still so widely under dispute, would be premature. We are not there yet - far from. We all know, or at least sense, that simply accepting a materialistic (read: philosophical materialism) point of view is not going to be accepted widely any time soon. I don't know your personal opinion on this (and I don't have to) but mine is one of greatefulness, that after thousands of years we still didn't lose our basic respect for life, generlly speaking. I believe we can even make more progress, still. And such progress doesn't mean that all abortions can be avoided - but I am hoping, with all people who have positive hopes, that we find ways to real solutions, and there is no rational argument to posit that this would not be possible. There is no rational argument that abortion is the only solution to the problems at hand. It just happens to be a situation we find ourselves in today, for a number of reasons related to our current cultural context.

[Cunt]

I haven't read everything here, but I think the question about the fetuses rights sidesteps the issue. The woman has rights.

The woman (or any host) has the right to evict anyone from their body at any time for any or no reason. I don't see how it is so complicated. If a woman is granted a late-term abortion, she must live with the knowledge. If a woman is denied a late-term abortion and simply tosses herself down the stairs until she miscarries, she must live with the knowledge.

Anyone who wants to limit the rights of a person should have better reason than 'it's icky'. Anyone (including the state) who forces a woman to carry a child to term should (I would hope this goes without saying) take responsibility for raising that child.

[lordpasternack]

...there is also the issue of the foetus using the mother's body for sustenance - which arguably it has no "right" to do against the mother's will, irrespective of whether or not you dignify it with personhood. See the Violinist Thought Experiment.

I think the Violinist comparison is a typical intellectuualist approach, not necessarily a human / humane one. A human being is not a number on the display of a calculator. The Violinist argument is quite absurd, not realistic. It seems to be a concocted pseudo-rational attempt to argue our way out of our being human. Yet, in any case there would be the option to choose - which is unique to human beings. Scaffolding a surrealistic conceptual stage like this, as an argument, still tells us nothing about how the 'victim' would act. He could just decide to support the life of the Violinist - and then? Should we call him an idiot who's taking the wrong decision then? Who are we to judge? So the conundrum isn't being solved, it's just being intellctualized, almost as making a game of it. But life is, of course, not a game - especially not if you're dead or dying.

In English, please?

For the record, the Violinist Thought Experiment was raised to concede to the notion that the foetus is a "person" - to make the point that, even if it WERE a person, it has no particular right to live inside and live off another person, and that other person has the right to withdraw that support, at any rate. That's all conceding that the foetus is a "person" - which, at least during the first trimester of pregnancy, it just frankly ISN'T. Killing other fully developed conscious beings (non-human animals) is far more ethically questionable than flushing a 10-week-old foetus out of a woman.

Let's face it - most women don't abort because they have issues with their body being used to support the development of a baby, or even particularly because they don't like the idea of going through birth - but because they don't wish to become biological parents, point blank. It's primarily birth-control.

But then birth-control is also what the Spartans did after birth, when they did not have the means or knowledge to do it 'properly'. Also, it was already suggested that 1 day before or 1 day after birth really doesn't seem to makes all the difference with regard to considering 'life' or a 'person' - so as a concept of birth-control this reasoning is no solid basis for an argument.

That's just naive denial of reality. The fact that the lines in the sand are fuzzy, and there's no particular discrete moment at which personhood, or childhood, or adolescence, or adulthood, or middle-age, or old age suddenly emerge, doesn't let you avoid the fact that there is a clear qualitative difference between this:



This:



This:



This:



This:



And this:



As for birth being a fair marker for personhood - you're right - it shouldn't just be a matter of intellectual convenience to place it there because it seems to suit our tastes. Having said that though - there's increasing evidence that birth actually does make a very significant difference to the neurology (and hence putative sentience and consciousness) of the being that just emerged from their mother.

In reviewing the neuroanatomical and physiological evidence in the fetus, it was apparent that connections from the periphery to the cortex are not intact before 24 weeks of gestation and, as most neuroscientists believe that the cortex is necessary for pain perception, it can be concluded that the fetus cannot experience pain in any sense prior to this gestation. After 24 weeks there is continuing development and elaboration of intracortical networks such that noxious stimuli in newborn preterm infants produce cortical responses. Such connections to the cortex are necessary for pain experience but not sufficient, as experience of external stimuli requires consciousness. Furthermore, there is increasing evidence that the fetus never experiences a state of true wakefulness in utero and is kept, by the presence of its chemical environment, in a continuous sleep-like unconsciousness or sedation. This state can suppress higher cortical activation in the presence of intrusive external stimuli. This observation highlights the important differences between fetal and neonatal life and the difficulties of extrapolating from observations made in newborn preterm infants to the fetus.

My emphases.

http://www.rcog.org.uk/fetal-awareness- ... s-practice

You are quite correct though, that it might be arguably ethical in some cases to euthanise neonates. Well, I know that's probably not the effect you were batting for. You were probably trying to play infanticide of full-term infants as some trump card, offered as part of your neat Slippery Slope fallacy - but no cigar, I'm afraid.

If foetuses at whatever stage in pregnancy are to be granted some basic acknowledgement of sentience and personhood (which would be subject to evidence)

Calling 'evidence' something the criteria of which are still so widely under dispute, would be premature. We are not there yet - far from. We all know, or at least sense, that simply accepting a materialistic (read: philosophical materialism) point of view is not going to be accepted widely any time soon. I don't know your personal opinion on this (and I don't have to) but mine is one of greatefulness, that after thousands of years we still didn't lose our basic respect for life, generlly speaking. I believe we can even make more progress, still. And such progress doesn't mean that all abortions can be avoided - but I am hoping, with all people who have positive hopes, that we find ways to real solutions, and there is no rational argument to posit that this would not be possible. There is no rational argument that abortion is the only solution to the problems at hand. It just happens to be a situation we find ourselves in today, for a number of reasons related to our current cultural context.

[/quote]

There are a lot of words here, but not much meaning I can strain from them, I'm afraid. Apart from that we haven't fully defined sentience and consciousness yet, and need to work more on that, and do more interesting work on neurological development (not just human, either) before and after birth, to assess these qualities as the most respected consensus holds them to be. I'm a materialist - but that doesn't mean that I don't respect life, particularly conscious life. Far from it. I'm just not sure at all what you're batting at.

You're right that there's no rational argument that abortion is the only solution to any which issue you care to mention that it does resolve. When did anyone ever claim it was? For a start, proper preventative contraception in use at the time of sex, or failing that, emergency contraception, is ALWAYS far more ideal than having to undo a conception and implantation of an embryo after the fact. But there are times when, failing that, abortion simply is the best or least worst choice - and frankly, during very early pregnancy, so far as I'm concerned, it doesn't even require any kind of elaborate rationalisation - other than that the mother does not wish to be a biological mother. The End. (I'd add that it's a shame that males don't have any say in the matter after they ejaculate, even if they were taking precautions themselves to avoid impregnating the woman - but unfortunately biology can be discriminatory like that. On the bright side - people are currently developing male hormonal contraceptives, meaning that guys will likely at least have more choice available in future when it comes to controlling their fertility.)

For the record, I have had the grand total of one abortion now myself - literally as soon as was procedurally possible (and I was fast-tracked because I had travel plans), at about six weeks' gestation. It wasn't a walk in the park. The particular type I got (medical rather than surgical) involved a fair bit of indignity, and PAIN - like a really, really bad period. They do give you painkillers, but assure you calmly that there will be some pain - and there was. And not long after I vomitted, a nurse casually walked into my little compartment and enquired whether I'd like a shot in my arse or some pills to help with the queasiness. I took the shot... Believe me when I tell you that I'd take all the prevention in the world to avoid that cure, but as it happened at the time, it beat the alternative. I'm sorry, but I'm not ready or willing to become a mother, and bring another human being into the world - and the life I extinguished on that day was on a par with pond-life.

[Hermit]

I actually kinda think that the "cultural fetish" of pregnancy, motherhood, babies, etc., is a Very Good Thing for the ongoing survival of human beings...

I actually kinda think that the "cultural fetish" of pregnancy, motherhood, babies, etc constitutes a grave danger for the ongoing survival of human beings. Sustainability, anyone?

Nice propaganda tactic, there. The thing I can't help remembering is that each of the numbers that goes into that rather alarming-all-by-itself chart of yours represents a human being. They're not actually just numbers. Do you really think that undermining values that serve as ties between people is a good answer (particularly ties that DON'T have as their anchor point money, status, and power)?

Yes, the graph represents human beings. How perspicacious of you. Six billion of them ten years ago, and there'll be 7 billion in a year or so. You don't see a problem with the growth rate? You are right, they are not just numbers, but does that mean we can therefore ignore the numbers? And what values are being undermined? No, wait. Let me guess. Yes, I think I got it. Let's all hold hands now and sing:

Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate.

[Thea]

I actually kinda think that the "cultural fetish" of pregnancy, motherhood, babies, etc., is a Very Good Thing for the ongoing survival of human beings...

I actually kinda think that the "cultural fetish" of pregnancy, motherhood, babies, etc constitutes a grave danger for the ongoing survival of human beings. Sustainability, anyone?

Nice propaganda tactic, there. The thing I can't help remembering is that each of the numbers that goes into that rather alarming-all-by-itself chart of yours represents a human being. They're not actually just numbers. Do you really think that undermining values that serve as ties between people is a good answer (particularly ties that DON'T have as their anchor point money, status, and power)?

Yes, the graph represents human beings. How perspicacious of you. Six billion of them ten years ago, and there'll be 7 billion in a year or so. You don't see a problem with the growth rate? You are right, they are not just numbers, but does that mean we can therefore ignore the numbers? And what values are being undermined? No, wait. Let me guess. Yes, I think I got it. Let's all hold hands now and sing:

Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate.

I'm still waiting for the information on distribution of resources, wealth, and control of wealth, and what that information might suggest about what's actually going on and how to fix it. Whenever you're ready to have a serious discussion, take your time, no rush...

And it is interesting that you are now talking about sperm, when this forum is about abortion...more propaganda tactics, the same ones, with the addition of cherry picking what I said and skewing the issue, in which you seek to trivialize my stance that human life is actually rather important to humans. Laugh it up or get to work, eh?

[Hermit]

I'm still waiting for the information on distribution of resources, wealth, and control of wealth, and what that information might suggest about what's actually going on and how to fix it.

An equitable distribution of resources, wealth, and control of wealth will not create sustainability. The facts of the matter are quite simple: We are using up resources faster than we discover replenishment for them. Redistribute as much as you like (and I doubt that is even feasible, given the number of libertarians and undemocratic rulers and their cronies that are in control). It won't change this sorry state. In conjunction with population growth, it can only worsen.

As for the Monty Python ditty I quoted, are you trying to tell me that the use of the word semen instead of foetus is of any import in regard to where you are coming from? Excuse me for being flippant with you. With nine out of the total of your ten posts confined to this thread, you strike me as a single-minded crusader rather than a bona fide forum member, and given the rash of non-sequiturs, evasions and plain waffle emanating from your keyboard I do find it difficult to take you seriously.

[zmonsterz]

This debate should belong to the women and they should deal with it and do any operations, deal with the guilt etc. Mens brains are different. We don't have the cognitve resources to deal with the issue in question.

I agree.
I don't mean no offense to Men but I'm actually kind of disgusted that its Men who are incapable of having children and are predominently led by religious views (In most countries, you'll find this) that decided upon abortion laws, and most of the time no Woman get a say. I honestly think that Woman should be given the choice upon legalisation as Woman are the one's who get pregnant, might decide to have an abortion and go through with it. Why should Men decide when they'll never have an abortion themselves?

[Thea]

I'm still waiting for the information on distribution of resources, wealth, and control of wealth, and what that information might suggest about what's actually going on and how to fix it.

An equitable distribution of resources, wealth, and control of wealth will not create sustainability. The facts of the matter are quite simple: We are using up resources faster than we discover replenishment for them. Redistribute as much as you like (and I doubt that is even feasible, given the number of libertarians and undemocratic rulers and their cronies that are in control). It won't change this sorry state. In conjunction with population growth, it can only worsen.

As for the Monty Python ditty I quoted, are you trying to tell me that the use of the word semen instead of foetus is of any import in regard to where you are coming from? Excuse me for being flippant with you. With nine out of the total of your ten posts confined to this thread, you strike me as a single-minded crusader rather than a bona fide forum member, and given the rash of non-sequiturs, evasions and plain waffle emanating from your keyboard I do find it difficult to take you seriously.

Funny, the thing that stung the most about this was the part about "single minded crusader." I'll get to that in a minute. Insofar as waffles and non sequitors go, who knows if you are right? That may be an honest observation on your part, or it may be simply an attempt to derail me and score points for yourself. It is difficult even for ME to tell, since on the one hand I usually avoid forums like this because it's always a group of folks each with his or her own specialized agenda, each being valid but yet taken collectively, is a handful to handle, and as such, since I also write elsewhere more in depth (which takes up most of my time for such things), I find myself doing exactly what I accused you of doing, which is cherry picking--not because I wish to foment a particular single minded perspective (although the stuff I pick to talk about will be influenced, certainly, by my own agenda), but because there's a huge amount to be said, yet the way this is set up, it's difficult to say it all in one spot and have it make sense. And yet, on the other hand, I have something you don't, which is that I have access to everything I think, and vice versa. On forums like these, folks just have to trust that there is always more to say, eh? Good reminder, and I thank you for that.

As for single minded crusader. First, of course, I'm not single minded. I just have not figured out, again, how to be thorough here and do so quickly. It is apparent to me that this is a complex issue under discussion here. In fact, that's kinda been my underlying point, granted according to you, I have not been successful in making that point. So, lemme try again here:

Taking your point of entry as an example, whereas I grant you that in terms of pure numbers, population has a direct and significant impact on resources, it occurs to me that solving the PROBLEM of population probably will not happen simply by telling people to stop caring about being mothers, being pregnant, or to consider that up to a certain indefinite point, a child is not a child but a clump of inert (at least metaphysically) cells, etc.; that abortion itself is definitely not a good answer because it doesn't do anything about why people are (accidentally?) getting pregnant to begin with, never mind does it all by itself raise questions about how an entire planet full of diverse cultures and value systems contributes to the problem of resources and the distribution of same, either independently or as a collection of interacting diverse cultures, nor anything about how to answer those questions. Abortion (pardon me for being a little redundant here) is a reactive solution to a wide range of problems, including population, but does not solve any of the situations that lead to arriving at having to consider abortion as an option in any of those range of problems.

In other words, and in my opinion I freely admit, abortion is what you do when everything else has gone wrong. It is my suggestion that we can reduce the incidence of a need to consider abortion as a solution by working on the circumstances that lead to being backed into a corner such that abortion is now on the table as the primary solution, or put another way, as common practice.

To get a little bit more specific, you tell me: how terrifying is it to set a precedent for deciding when a human being is a human being, and when he/she is not? In the hands of people who are well-educated and possessed of a strong integrity, we'd probably do okay with this. This seems theoretically possible, at least. But the reality is most of the dominant agenda we live with in today's world does NOT have the safety and comfort of human beings as its focal point or anchor (which includes a disregard for environment and resources), and is indeed focused on promoting ignorance and fear--granted from an opportunistic stance rather than a conspiratorial stance, possibly, but the effect is the same (if you're playing with a gun and you accidentally shoot someone in the head, they're just as dead as if you had pointed the gun at them on purpose, right?). Instead, the focal point/anchor seems to be money, status, and power. Comprehensive, long range plans for human survival are not in existence, and indeed it could be argued that such are not considered important, except insofar as it is expedient to place the burden of it on the shoulders of individuals (in this case, women), not only right now in the present, but down the road. "Apres moi, le deluge" seems to be the operational point of view in general.

Check out the Katrina debacle, for instance. What the heck was THAT? What does that indicate about the structure of our communities and government? About our general attitude in terms of its real effect? About the disparity between ideals and actual practice?

And perhaps slightly less terrifying, but still worrisome, can you accurately predict what might happen down the road if you (try to) teach people that having children is a bad thing? What specifically does that entail? I'm not saying don't do this, I'm saying be extremely careful HOW you do it. Who decides for whom, and on what basis? It seems to me entirely within the realm of possibility, granted one level to the absurd, that we could do this so well that we end up with the opposite problem in the future: we don't have enough people to sustain ourselves. And this begs entirely the question of what is a human being worth? Do we have intrinsic value? Or is our value to be determined only relative to external factors? What quality of life will be provided for, since changing how people think about having children has wide impact, starting with self-identity and moving almost simultaneously into what is a family and then on out into the larger community, since human beings are more than just physical creatures, meaning that our existence entails intellectual, emotional, and spiritual aspects in addition to pure physical needs? Where does our responsibility to ourselves and each other lie?

Am I a crusader? Absolutely. But my crusade, which is not limited to the abortion issue, is this: Let us be extremely careful what we ask for. People's lives are at stake, now and in the future. A strong and comprehensive understanding of what we're dealing with--ourselves--is critical to our success.

Of course, there is more to say, and certainly I have not said all that I see and think. Still, I'm guessing this is enough for a single comment on a forum. Have at it.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I say legalize retro-active abortions! 90 trimester or sooner, of course.

[Feck]

I am not party to a specialized agenda

I very very rarely ever make comment about abortion , but on the subject of our continued survival on this planet (or anywhere else ) I doubt we will ,I don't think I even want us to.
I think humanism is skating perilously on thin ice covering 'The Sanctity of human life' and the misguided arrogance of that .

[jcmmanuel]

(something went wrong with this post)

[Cunt]

YES Feck! I think the best way this has been described (to me) is that, in the argument about where life begins, it began billions of years ago.

[jcmmanuel]

(Geez, I got repeated posts here, either this forum is buggy or I am)

[Cunt]

This debate should belong to the women and they should deal with it and do any operations, deal with the guilt etc. Mens brains are different. We don't have the cognitve resources to deal with the issue in question.

I agree.
I don't mean no offense to Men but I'm actually kind of disgusted that its Men who are incapable of having children and are predominently led by religious views (In most countries, you'll find this) that decided upon abortion laws, and most of the time no Woman get a say. I honestly think that Woman should be given the choice upon legalisation as Woman are the one's who get pregnant, might decide to have an abortion and go through with it. Why should Men decide when they'll never have an abortion themselves?

zmonstersz, I slightly disagree. I think that my position has been a good one, and I think it shows that I DO understand.

I would help you access abortion services and hide it from everyone, including redunderthebed. I am fairly confident you won't need that sort of help, but I have offered (and followed through) before. I think it is the best contribution men can make. (this includes the possibility that an angry parent/lover/sibling might take a swing at me for their lack of understanding - hasn't happened, but it's a distinct possibility)