Libertarianism is inherently pro-choice

[Brian Peacock]

Well, if they're going to say that a foetus has the independence and autonomy of personhood beyond the body of the woman in which it resides, and on which it depends, then they might as well give personhood to a tunour.

[Sean Hayden]

Or a wart...

[pErvinalia]

Every wart is sacred!

[Forty Two]

Well, if they're going to say that a foetus has the independence and autonomy of personhood beyond the body of the woman in which it resides, and on which it depends, then they might as well give personhood to a tunour.

Surely there is some nuance extant here, isn't there? I mean, in civilized countries, abortions are generally restricted after 20-odd weeks, no? The UK has restrictions on abortion after that time, and there are, of course, provisions to allow them when two doctors agree that there is a significant need/risk as defined in the law and sound medical judgment, right? I mean, a 30 weeker is not treated like a tumor, is it? A 30 weeker is not a 3-4 weeker or an 8 weeker, right? Isn't there a difference? Or, are premature babies born at 30 weeks considered equivalent to tumors? I'm pro-choice, but I have family members who were born premature. They didn't look like tumors when I saw them in the NICU.

[Brian Peacock]

Which countries routinely abort at 30 weeks or more? Pretty much everyone accepts a cut off point. So...?

[Forty Two]

Which countries routinely abort at 30 weeks or more? Pretty much everyone accepts a cut off point. So...?

That's my point. Having a cut off point doesn't mean the thing is a tumor and then not a tumor, even though it's still a fetus at 30 weeks, unless it's born.

[Sean Hayden]

--wart is Ayn Rand's word... sorry Seth

[Brian Peacock]

Which countries routinely abort at 30 weeks or more? Pretty much everyone accepts a cut off point. So...?

That's my point. Having a cut off point doesn't mean the thing is a tumor and then not a tumor, even though it's still a fetus at 30 weeks, unless it's born.

That's a nice point - it just doesn't have anything to do with the post you initially quoted. Is a foetus an entity to which we can, should, or must ascribe or grant personhood; or something with an equivalent status independent of the body within which it resides, and upon which it depends?

[Brian Peacock]

Some posts split into new topic : Obligations to the State.

[Brian Peacock]

[Forty Two]

Which countries routinely abort at 30 weeks or more? Pretty much everyone accepts a cut off point. So...?

That's my point. Having a cut off point doesn't mean the thing is a tumor and then not a tumor, even though it's still a fetus at 30 weeks, unless it's born.

That's a nice point - it just doesn't have anything to do with the post you initially quoted. Is a foetus an entity to which we can, should, or must ascribe or grant personhood; or something with an equivalent status independent of the body within which it resides, and upon which it depends?

And, my point was directed to that, and amounts to "it depends." It depends on how far along the fetus is. At 30 weeks, yes, and after about 20 weeks, I would think that it has some equivalent status independent of the body within which it resides. It's not a tumor or an appendix.

I think it has to be a practical, pragmatic policy judgment. Obviously, we can't prohibit women from getting abortions early on, and in fact, if one is going to have an abortion, then that's when the medical decision should be made. Abortions are less risky at that time, and the embryo or other term for developing human entity is less developed.

I suspect most people who identify as prochoice and prolife have SOME middle ground position. If only those groups could speak in less absolutist terms, there would be a chance at a reasonable resolution. I've heard pro-lifers declare abortion to be murder, in very stark terms, but then when faced with various scenarios -- what if the developing fetus is discovered to be brain dead? What if it has some horrid developmental disorder that will mean it suffers a short and painful life? What if there is an issue and the mother's life is seriously threatened? What if it's a product of a rape? Etc. Almost all pro-lifers will acknowledge that some situations mean that abortion is the least bad alternative. Yet, they won't call themselves pro-choice to that extent. Same goes for a lot of pro-choicers - they won't acknowledge nuance. It's all "woman's body no matter what - she does whatever she wants whenever she wants with her own body!" and stuff like that -- then when someone says "well what about a 30+ week fetus" it's not that there is some exception to their prochoice stance, it's that such abortions occur so infrequently that they aren't to be considered in the analysis.

[Feck]

" If only those groups could speak in less absolutist terms,"

[pErvinalia]

Which countries routinely abort at 30 weeks or more? Pretty much everyone accepts a cut off point. So...?

That's my point. Having a cut off point doesn't mean the thing is a tumor and then not a tumor, even though it's still a fetus at 30 weeks, unless it's born.

That's a nice point - it just doesn't have anything to do with the post you initially quoted.

This is another example of your weird comprehension. You equated a foetus to a tumour by way of an analogy. If that was an accurate analogy then there wouldn't be any qualms with aborting it right up to the moment it exited the woman's body. That's the point 42 was making.

Is a foetus an entity to which we can, should, or must ascribe or grant personhood; or something with an equivalent status independent of the body within which it resides, and upon which it depends?

We do essentially grant it personhood somewhere between 25-30 weeks. If you wouldn't grant it like this, what terms would you use to describe a 35 week old viable foetus?

[Hermit]

We do essentially grant it personhood somewhere between 25-30 weeks.

And we do so by arbitrarily choosing some criterion. A foetus ceases to be a foetus when we say it becomes a person. Any alleged objectivity about it a chimera.

[Brian Peacock]

Which countries routinely abort at 30 weeks or more? Pretty much everyone accepts a cut off point. So...?

That's my point. Having a cut off point doesn't mean the thing is a tumor and then not a tumor, even though it's still a fetus at 30 weeks, unless it's born.

That's a nice point - it just doesn't have anything to do with the post you initially quoted. Is a foetus an entity to which we can, should, or must ascribe or grant personhood; or something with an equivalent status independent of the body within which it resides, and upon which it depends?

And, my point was directed to that, and amounts to "it depends." It depends on how far along the fetus is. At 30 weeks, yes, and after about 20 weeks, I would think that it has some equivalent status independent of the body within which it resides. It's not a tumor or an appendix.

I think it has to be a practical, pragmatic policy judgment. Obviously, we can't prohibit women from getting abortions early on, and in fact, if one is going to have an abortion, then that's when the medical decision should be made. Abortions are less risky at that time, and the embryo or other term for developing human entity is less developed.

I suspect most people who identify as prochoice and prolife have SOME middle ground position. If only those groups could speak in less absolutist terms, there would be a chance at a reasonable resolution. I've heard pro-lifers declare abortion to be murder, in very stark terms, but then when faced with various scenarios -- what if the developing fetus is discovered to be brain dead? What if it has some horrid developmental disorder that will mean it suffers a short and painful life? What if there is an issue and the mother's life is seriously threatened? What if it's a product of a rape? Etc. Almost all pro-lifers will acknowledge that some situations mean that abortion is the least bad alternative. Yet, they won't call themselves pro-choice to that extent. Same goes for a lot of pro-choicers - they won't acknowledge nuance. It's all "woman's body no matter what - she does whatever she wants whenever she wants with her own body!" and stuff like that -- then when someone says "well what about a 30+ week fetus" it's not that there is some exception to their prochoice stance, it's that such abortions occur so infrequently that they aren't to be considered in the analysis.

OK. So we seem to agree, at least for the sake of argument, that a foetus is not a person, but only up to a point. After some point the foetus is, to all intents and purposes, a kind of person, but before that point the foetus cannot be said to have any kind of independent status beyond the body of the woman in which it resides and upon which it depends.

I accept that in pragmatic, scientific, and/or legal terms there is be a greyish boundary, and what that cut-off point is, could be, or should be, is an area of some discussion and dispute. Nonetheless, and again to all intents and purposes, choices about abortion before that point are choices that individual women are, or at least should be, free to make about their own bodies.

(Just to be clear, I didn't say that a foetus is a tumour. What I said was that if one is going to grant personhood to something which has no independent existence, and moreover which is incapable of existing independently, and which might amount to nothing more than a clump of undifferentiated cells, then one might as well grant personhood to a tumour.)

Those who stand four-square against abortion are not so subtle in their definitions or their qualifications. While you or I might accept that abortion before the cut-off point is within the realms of the individual choice of women, and that abortion around and/or after that point is conditional on other factors in which the rights and health of women are balanced against the rights and health of the unborn, those who support the so-called 'pro-life' stance declare a single eukaryotic cell an independent person which individual women have no legitimate right to exercise any choice over. Or, as I put it earlier, those who stand against abortion on any grounds disavow the idea that women have dominion over their own bodies.

Looping back to my previous point, Libertarians who stand against abortion are not Libertarians in any meaningful sense, for in invoking a kind of paternalistic authoritarianism over women's bodies they stand firmly against the foundational Libertarian principles of maximising personal freedom, autonomy, and self-ownership.