A secular debate about abortion

[Coito ergo sum]

Pharyngulated :-


You want a man inside you, it's up to you to deal with the mess left behind. I won't bitch at you if you have an abortion, but you don't get to demand ANYTHING from me, certainly not child support. If you don't like the mess, don't invite me to the party.

How's that for fair?

It's a marvel of twisted logic, and really had me wondering if Seth was a virgin.

I have to agree, though, that his demands are fair, as long as it's not his fault that he's having vaginal intercourse, and as long as he was honest and specific in his expectations with his partner before hand. Who would then, of course, refuse to have sex with him, ever.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011 ... sogyny.php[/quote]

The thing that's weird about his argument is that he demands full humanity for a zygote, but does not even consider the born child to be human enough to have its own rights. It's not the mother's right to child support. It's the child's right. It's the child's right to support from the parents. Using Seth's logic, if a mother and father of a 12 year old child agree to divorce, and agree that the father will pay zero child support, the child will have no right to that support. Obviously, parents can't do that. There won't be a problem if the custodial parent has no problem supporting the child - there's nobody to complain really - but, if the custodial parent becomes unable to support the child and applies for governmental aid, the government will ask about amounts received in child support and if that amount is zero they will act on behalf of the child and go after the support.

And the pharyngula comment above hits right on another main problem with Seth's argument. Seth is talking about a father's non-responsibility for support being the default position, whereby UNLESS the parties speak up and contract to make him liable, then he isn't. There's no real reason to adopt that as the default position, though. It's just as rational to suggest that since the parties haven't agreed on anything that both parents are responsible for their progeny. If a contract is made to the contrary, then the parties can follow the terms of that contract, except that neither party has the right to contract on behalf of a child (who Seth acknowledges is a separate human being).

[Warren Dew]

SETH! You're giving us bad PR!

Any publicity that mentions your name is good publicity.

[hadespussercats]

Aside from the disturbing nature of tacit contracts as a concept, I have no problem with this point of view.

Mostly I was pointing out that there are implied contracts for most things, society somewhat arbitrarily decides what those contracts are, and that we already have one for this case. I wasn't really disagreeing with you.

Personally I don't think I'd have a problem with Seth's implied contract either, as I understand it, and changing to his form would basically just involve changing the law to say that abortions are illegal except with permission of the father as well as the mother or in cases of rape. In this case, the onus would be on the woman to get a different contract before sex if she wanted to be able to abort unilaterally - for example, getting the man's permission to abort before letting him in. I think our current system is more workable, but I don't have a big problem either way, since all that's required to change the terms is an agreement beforehand. This would still be a far cry from banning abortion, of course.

Nor would the man necessarily have the right to compel performance. Depending on how the law was written and interpreted, the woman's getting an abortion without the father's permission might only give the man the right to sue for damages.

What the amount of such damages might be brings up your earlier statement:

As for men who want children but can't find a woman who wants to bear them for him, well, as I've mentioned before in this thread, there's a good reason for medical science to look into male pregnancy. Until the day such a thing becomes feasible, well, sorry Seth, but as you say, that's just the breaks of biology.

Men can hire an egg donor, use in vitro fertilization, and hire a pregnancy surrogate. In the U.S. the total cost is probably around $30,000-$50,000 at the moment.

Re your last point-- What you say is true, so long as a man can find and/or afford those resources.

And I suppose if we wanted to switch to a contract system of reproductive policy, any contract to which both parties freely agreed would be acceptable-- but to avoid abuse, they'd have to be written. Implied or tacit contracts are too muddy from a legal standpoint to be enforced well.

There are ways to run society that don't involve said contracts, but do involve legal rights and duties, that I find preferable, generally.

[hadespussercats]

Pharyngulated :-


You want a man inside you, it's up to you to deal with the mess left behind. I won't bitch at you if you have an abortion, but you don't get to demand ANYTHING from me, certainly not child support. If you don't like the mess, don't invite me to the party.

How's that for fair?

It's a marvel of twisted logic, and really had me wondering if Seth was a virgin.

I have to agree, though, that his demands are fair, as long as it's not his fault that he's having vaginal intercourse, and as long as he was honest and specific in his expectations with his partner before hand. Who would then, of course, refuse to have sex with him, ever.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011 ... sogyny.php

The thing that's weird about his argument is that he demands full humanity for a zygote, but does not even consider the born child to be human enough to have its own rights. It's not the mother's right to child support. It's the child's right. It's the child's right to support from the parents. Using Seth's logic, if a mother and father of a 12 year old child agree to divorce, and agree that the father will pay zero child support, the child will have no right to that support. Obviously, parents can't do that. There won't be a problem if the custodial parent has no problem supporting the child - there's nobody to complain really - but, if the custodial parent becomes unable to support the child and applies for governmental aid, the government will ask about amounts received in child support and if that amount is zero they will act on behalf of the child and go after the support.

And the pharyngula comment above hits right on another main problem with Seth's argument. Seth is talking about a father's non-responsibility for support being the default position, whereby UNLESS the parties speak up and contract to make him liable, then he isn't. There's no real reason to adopt that as the default position, though. It's just as rational to suggest that since the parties haven't agreed on anything that both parents are responsible for their progeny. If a contract is made to the contrary, then the parties can follow the terms of that contract, except that neither party has the right to contract on behalf of a child (who Seth acknowledges is a separate human being).

Absolutely. But when I wondered why the rights of an unborn human are so important to him, while the rights of a human after it's born don't seem to figure into his policy at all, he didn't have much to say. I don't think he even understood what I was getting at.

Which is part of why it's hard even to discuss these issues with him.

[lordpasternack]

Coito - his arguments make PERFECT sense when you see past his weak mouthings about grappling for equality and some fair middle road -and note that they actually just amount to punishing the fucking sluts, while absolving the poor men who just can't help themselves. Abortions are just get-outs from responsibility. Ducking child support money isn't, if you're male. (I was raised by my father, as I mentioned earlier in the thread. It would have been my mother being hounded for child support, if she had any money to give us.)

Abortion should be illegal, and men shouldn't need to take responsibility. Just the sluts.

[Coito ergo sum]

Aside from the disturbing nature of tacit contracts as a concept, I have no problem with this point of view.

Mostly I was pointing out that there are implied contracts for most things, society somewhat arbitrarily decides what those contracts are, and that we already have one for this case. I wasn't really disagreeing with you.

Actually, it has nothing at all to do with "contracts," whether express or implied. What this is is the right of a child to support from its biological parents. It's not a contract or an implied contract. It's a legal obligation under common law and statutory law. For example, in New York, Family Court Act 413 and Domestic Relations Law 240-1b impose a legal obligation of both parents to support their biological children.

Personally I don't think I'd have a problem with Seth's implied contract either, as I understand it, and changing to his form would basically just involve changing the law to say that abortions are illegal except with permission of the father as well as the mother or in cases of rape. In this case, the onus would be on the woman to get a different contract before sex if she wanted to be able to abort unilaterally - for example, getting the man's permission to abort before letting him in. I think our current system is more workable, but I don't have a big problem either way, since all that's required to change the terms is an agreement beforehand. This would still be a far cry from banning abortion, of course.

A statute requiring the mother to have a baby she doesn't want unless the father consented seems to violate the Constitution. First, the right of privacy, if we acknowledge one exists, and Second, the right to not be an indentured servant or be subjected to peonage or slavery.

[hadespussercats]

Aside from the disturbing nature of tacit contracts as a concept, I have no problem with this point of view.

Mostly I was pointing out that there are implied contracts for most things, society somewhat arbitrarily decides what those contracts are, and that we already have one for this case. I wasn't really disagreeing with you.

Actually, it has nothing at all to do with "contracts," whether express or implied. What this is is the right of a child to support from its biological parents. It's not a contract or an implied contract. It's a legal obligation under common law and statutory law. For example, in New York, Family Court Act 413 and Domestic Relations Law 240-1b impose a legal obligation of both parents to support their biological children.

Personally I don't think I'd have a problem with Seth's implied contract either, as I understand it, and changing to his form would basically just involve changing the law to say that abortions are illegal except with permission of the father as well as the mother or in cases of rape. In this case, the onus would be on the woman to get a different contract before sex if she wanted to be able to abort unilaterally - for example, getting the man's permission to abort before letting him in. I think our current system is more workable, but I don't have a big problem either way, since all that's required to change the terms is an agreement beforehand. This would still be a far cry from banning abortion, of course.

A statute requiring the mother to have a baby she doesn't want unless the father consented seems to violate the Constitution. First, the right of privacy, if we acknowledge one exists, and Second, the right to not be an indentured servant or be subjected to peonage or slavery.

Well put. And I hope my partial quote comment doesn't give rise to the notion that I don't think children have the right to parental support.

[Coito ergo sum]

Coito - his arguments make PERFECT sense when you see past his weak mouthings about grappling for equality and some fair middle road -and note that they actually just amount to punishing the fucking sluts, while absolving the poor men who just can't help themselves. Abortions are just get-outs from responsibility. Ducking child support money isn't, if you're male. (I was raised by my father, as I mentioned earlier in the thread. It would have been my mother being hounded for child support, if she had any money to give us.)

Abortion should be illegal, and men shouldn't need to take responsibility. Just the sluts.

See, but I like sluts....they're usually the ones who have the "not getting pregnant" bit down pat.

[hadespussercats]

Yeah. I've totally failed on that front...

[Coito ergo sum]

It's not sophistry of course to claim that brainless, non-sentient, microscopic bundles of cells are in fact "human beings"…

His idea that the unborn is a human being immediately upon formation of a zygote from the gametes is something extraordinarily new in terms of western thought. In the 13th century (800 years ago) St. Thomas Aquinas, whose teachings are still considered by many to be a cornerstone of Catholic doctrine (I stress that not to allege that Seth is Catholic, but to point out that this is coming from one of the greatest Catholic thinkers of all time- Catholicism not being particularly friendly to abortion). The question was: at what point does a foetus become a person with a soul? Aquinas challenged the previously held Aristotelian view that the soul entered the foetus "forty days after conception for a male and eighty to ninety days for a female." He held that the "rational soul" enters the foetus of either sex upon quickening, the time when the foetus first moves within a woman's body. Quickening generally occurs in the beginning of the fourth month of pregnancy.

So, Aquinas, 800 years ago did not hold that human beingness began at conception or sooner, and the previously held view for about 1400 years under Aristotelian thinking let you abort for at least 40 days, if not three months (for females, of course).

The quickening occurs in the fourth month, giving women 3 full months to eject the foetus even under St. Thomas Aquinas' view! Aquinas's assumption was adopted by European common law courts and was brought to colonial America by British common law, thus forbidding abortion after quickening.

Seth's idea that everybody just knows that abortion is the killing of a human being from zygote on just doesn't make sense historically. He may claim that modern medicine warrants changing the historical view, but the reality is that except for a few decades in some places in the 20th century, abortion was generally not something that was punishable if it happened in the first three months.

[Coito ergo sum]

The problem is that the sides are so polarized and entrenched that the pro-abortion contingent won't accept anything less than absolute abortion autonomy, and the anti-abortion contingent won't accept any abortion whatsoever.

The thing is, I can't really think of a place where abortion is unlimited.

I come down firmly in the middle, generally drawing the line at the stage where the fetus is capable of experiencing pain. Medical science is not certain when this occurs, but sufficient research into the matter would resolve this question.

The other potential limit point is fetal viability outside the womb, which is pretty much where the line is drawn today in many places. This limit can shift as medical technology advances its ability to keep preemies alive. When science develops artificial wombs that provide safe gestation of a fetus at any given stage of development, abortion after that time should be illegal, but at the same time, if a woman is denied an abortion in favor of removal of the fetus to an artificial womb, the State then becomes responsible and the "parent" of that child.

That's not workable, since that would make the state a repository for all unwanted zygotes, and require a State run department for millions of children. If a mother wants an abortion it would be incumbent on "the State" to care for and raise it? How many? 10 million? 30 million? There are about 20 abortions per 1000 women aged 15 to 44 in the United States per year. That's a fuckload of babies for "The State" to raise.

The one canard that I continue to vigorously argue against is the specious notion that a fetus is not a "human being." This is scientific nonsense. Science has thoroughly established that a new, living human being comes into being at the formation of the zygote, and it remains a genetically-unique living human being at ever stage of development thereafter.

Science has in no way established that. It's established that the zygote is human, but it has not established that the zygote is a "human being." Nobody ever even alleged that a zygote is inhuman or subhuman. It's human. So is your thumb and your ball sack. That doesn't make them "human beings."

Whether, and at what point in fetal development this living human being is endowed or imbued with civil rights and and protections thereby becomes a "person" is a POLITICAL and MORAL question, not a question of science.

That's the same question because determining whether something is a "human being" is not a question of science but is a question of morality and law, just as "person" is a legal and moral issue. Whether your big toe is human is a scientific question. Whether it is a human being or a person in and of itself is the moral and legal question.

It's always a human being. There is absolutely no question about that, and arguments to the contrary are only intended to derail the debate about when rights attach by dehumanizing the fetus as if it were a lump of cancer cells or a cyst. That's an intellectually bankrupt and irrational argument.

It's human. It's not a human being. There is certainly nothing but question about that, and in fact since a zygote shares more in common with skin cells than human beings, it makes more sense to call them human zygotes and not human beings.

[Feck]

Is this thread safe to look in yet ?

[Coito ergo sum]

Is this thread safe to look in yet ?

Yes - you'll have to decide whether Seth's theory has survived. My view is that Seth has simply ignored key criticisms of his theory and refused to address them.

[Bella Fortuna]

Is this thread safe to look in yet ?

No!


Upon reflection, perhaps not the best smiley to use in this thread...

[charlou]

Seems Seth played Devil's Advocate? Either way, a rather interesting discussion ensued. A good read.