A secular debate about abortion

[Seth]

Women forced to be "gestational professionals," eh, Seth?

No, women voluntarily agreeing to become gestational professionals.

You should read A Handmaid's Tale. You'd love it-- a handbook for your proposed social order.

Haven't read the book, but I've seen the movie. Quite good, but having nothing whatever to do with what I propose, which does not require any woman to have sex with anyone, ever.

I don't see why women should be forced into nine months of indentured servitude for what is now, thanks to the wonders of modern science and forward-thinking society, an avoidable aspect of personal biology.

I don't see why they shouldn't be required to accept the consequences of their voluntary actions. I'm a firm believer in personal responsbility and acceptance of the consequences of one's decisions. Abortion on demand is merely a convenient way to avoid the consequences of bad sexual decision making at the expense of the live of a living human being. I'm not at all certain that a woman's convenience and desire to escape from her poor judgment outweighs the life of a human being.

Like gravity, some decisions have life-changing consequences, and people ought to be encouraged by the law to be careful, prudent and make good decisions, not encouraged to make rash, selfish hedonistic decisions that affect others negatively.

I'll have to echo Lordpasternack here and ask you why choosing to have an abortion isn't taking responsibility for sexual behavior? In many cases, choosing to have an abortion is far more responsible than having a child one doesn't want or can't support. Not to mention, in an aspect of this issue you assiduously avoid, the responsible decision to avoid unnecessary physical risk. Carrying a pregnancy to term is not easy, and it can be life-threatening.

Jumping off a cliff without a parachute can be life-threatening. So what? The consequences of doing so are dictated by gravity. Does it hurt when you do that? Yes? Then don't do that. Yes, having an abortion certainly can be considered to be taking responsibility for one's sexual behavior, and as I've said, it's not a problem if all the interested parties are consulted and have their say before irrevocable, fatal decisions are made. The essence of the pro-abortion argument is, of course, that a zygote or a fetus is not a "human being" or is not a "person," and therefore no consideration is to be given to the potential of the fetus. But my argument does not depend as much on the "personhood" of the fetus as it does upon the rights of the father, who has a legal interest in the products of conception because he's contributed half the genetic material involved, by invitation. He has a reasonable expectation that society will support his rights and that they will will be respected as regards the future of the fetus, whether that be in the interests of gestation or in the interests of termination. That's fundamental fairness and equity.

The hypocrisy of the law as it stands now is that the man has absolutely no rights at all when it comes to the fetus, and is burdened with the responsibility of providing support for the child if the woman asserts her right to gestate the child.

I see that as a fundamental inequity in the law that must be rectified. The law is supposed to protect everyone's rights equally.

**-- and to clarify an earlier point, I was indicating that the fetus very well could be considered a human being. But whether it's human or not is aside from the point of whether or not a woman is obliged to sacrifice her health, time, financial and psychological well-being, or possibly even her life, simply to keep that other human being alive.

And you'll note if you read carefully that I never stated nor inferred that because a zygote is a "human being" that this fact endows the zygote with any legal rights whatsoever. I merely point out a biological fact, and people go ballistic because so much of the pro-abortion rhetoric depends upon dehumanizing the fetus in order to justify terminating it.

I'm not necessarily opposed to terminating fetuses, I have no religious beliefs in that regard, but I think that society should squarely face the issue and acknowledge that abortion terminates a human life. Society may be able to justify doing so, but not by evading the debate by falsely trying to characterize a fetus as something other than, or less than, a living human being.

I see this common evasion as intellectual weakness and a failure in rationality. If we are to be fully rational we must face the difficult questions unflinchingly and directly and make our decisions based on sound knowledge and understanding, not political rhetoric and evasions.

[Gallstones]

If we reject all religious arguments against abortion, the only criterion we are left with is the personhood or consciousness of the fetus when determining whether or not abortion is justified.

I'm going to address this particular claim, because I believe it to be false.

There is an aspect of the decision that is related neither to the biological development of the fetus nor religious beliefs, and that is contract law.

Briefly, the contract law argument holds that so long as the sex act is consensual, both parties to the act ratify a contractual obligation through their consent. Because sexual activity between fertile males and females has the natural, expected and ordinary consequence of some probability of pregnancy for any given sex act, public policy can support enforcement of an implied contract between the two parties should pregnancy occur.

In addition, once a new human life has begun, which occurs at the instant that the male chromosomes and female chromosomes align along the spindle apparatus, thereby forming the zygote, which is universally acknowledged as the first cell of a new, unique living organism, in this case a human being, there is then a third party to the contract; the zygote, which ordinarily develops into an adult human being.

Because the zygote is "incompetent" and unable to articulate it's wishes or act to protect itself, a fourth party to the contract appears in the form of the State, acting as guardian ad litem on behalf of the sygote during its gestation.

This contract theory fulfills the legal principles of equity when it comes to protection of the legal interests of all parties, who are given due consideration by neutral authority (the court) in the event of disputes, such as the termination of the child.

Now, there will be instant objection that the woman has claimed absolute control of her reproductive system and must be allowed to exercise complete sovereignty over it, right up to the very moment of birth. However, this presumption is false because it presumes that a) there is only one party involved in decision making about the products of conception; and b) that there is no legal duty or obligation created when the woman consents to have semen injected into her womb by inviting a man to ejaculate inside her.

I believe that both premises are false.

Women have claimed, and achieved, sovereign control of their wombs. The law grants them the absolute right to determine when, how and whether a man injects semen insider her womb. Gone are the days when women could be forced to have sex or forced to bear children against their will. This is a good thing. They have the complete freedom to invite semen injection or refuse it.

But with freedom comes responsibility. Now that women have gained legal sovereignty over their wombs, they also have gained legal responsibility for operating their reproductive organs properly, and both legal and moral responsibility for what occurs inside their wombs, from the implantation of semen to the birth of a child. Because they have responsibility, they can be held legally accountable when they operate their reproductive organs in ways that create legal interests and rights in other parties to the actions.

That being the case, women can, through voluntary participation in the sex act, subordinate their absolute sovereignty over their wombs by ratifying a contract based on their actions. They can forfeit the absolute right to do whatever they want with the products of conception by entering into either explicit or implict contractual obligations that may bind them to specific performance, such as responsible gestation of the fetus through delivery, and may also bind them to consultation and approval of the other parties to the contract before actions detrimental to the rights of those other parties are taken.

Therefore, in summary, women who have consensual sex with a man assume and consent to the known risks of pregnancy, including the known risks of pregnancy even when using birth control, and absent the consent of the other parties to the contract formed by that consensual act to termination of a pregnancy, both the father and the State have a right to intervene in any decisions regarding the welfare of the zygote/fetus, including preventing termination of the pregnancy and compelling specific performance of gestation through birth.

This proposal is contraceptive in a way because it puts me out of the mood altogether.

I don't like this world your persona is painting.

[Warren Dew]

Actually, it has nothing at all to do with "contracts," whether express or implied.

It's civil law, which is all about contractual obligations. When you go into a store and buy something, there's a contract, though neither you nor the store owner sign anything. There's law governing what the implied warranty is, whether you can return it, etc. It's not a written contract, but it works the same way - you do something, you incur an obligation.

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.

Statutes requiring an underage mother to have a baby she doesn't want unless the mother's parents consent, on the other hand, are currently constitutional. Personally, I don't think that situation is very consistent, so I don't think the constitutional line is very clear.

If there's only a financial penalty for violation, though, as I suggested later in my post, that's pretty clearly constitutional. You might want to read my entire post before responding next time.

[Seth]

A zygote that will develop into a human is no more a human than a zygote that will develop into a chicken is a chicken.

Well, if it comes from a human egg and human sperm, it's not a chicken and will never be a chicken. It is human and will continue to be human for its entire life cycle, so your assertion is nonsense. The zygote contains human DNA. It does not contain chicken or rabbit DNA. It will always contain human DNA, and as it develops, under ordinary circumstances, it will become an adult human being. It will never develop to be a chicken, or a turtle. The primary definition for "being" is "the quality or state of having existence." A human zygote has achieved the quality or state of "being," and therefore it is a "human being" through the use of simple logic and a dictionary.

What you're basing your argument on is the notion that to be a "human being" the organism has to somehow be "complete" in order to qualify. A zygote, which is a single cell, in your inferred argument, is not a "human being" because it's single-celled. But you fail to state how many cells are required for the existence of a "human being." Two. Two hundred? Two hundred million?

What's your objective, scientifically robust metric for when a developing fetus becomes a "human being?" Not a "person" in the law, but a "human being."

[lordpasternack]

Seth - how about this? If a male wants to keep an embryo/foetus that a woman doesn't - the woman gets to remove it from her body, still "living" and the male can then go about nurturing the being till his heart's content… And if the woman wants to take a pregnancy to term that the man expressly doesn't, he should be allowed to wash his hands of responsibility while the woman also has the capacity to.

The net results aren't equal. The biology, the ethics, the consequences for either party aren't equal in virtually any scenario you want to erect here. If we were an egg-laying species, or if all individuals had some kind of womb, and we could transfer embryos from one party to another via some mechanism similar to copulation, and embryos simply gravitated towards the wombs of the parents who would want them - then things would be different...

[Gallstones]

Sorry Seth, but the difference between a contract to fuck and a contract to have kids is huge. In anybody's eyes.

Well, nature is a bitch sometimes. When you fuck with a fertile member of the opposite sex, having a kid is a known risk. If you don't want to take that risk, don't fuck, or get sterilized.

I see no reason why society should not hold women accountable to at least as great a degree as they hold men accountable if the woman decides unilaterally to KEEP the child, which imposes on the man, who may have just been interested in a quick fuck, with an 18-24 year burden of parental support. If we treat both parties equally under the law, according to your implication, a man should be able to FORCE a woman to terminate a pregnancy if he doesn't want to support the kid.

So, if men can be forced to specific performance because they ignored the risks of pregnancy, then why should women be immune to the same burden, hm?

Care to address that particular sexist radical feminist hypocrisy?

If I understand it, your premise is this: When you fuck with a fertile member of the opposite sex, having a kid is a known risk. If you don't want to take that risk, don't fuck, or get sterilized.

Then the man is also taking a risk that is known--conception of a child with a woman he probably would never choose as a genetic complement to the offspring he does intend--and that she may, if an unintended conception occurs, make unilateral decisions about.

If the man does not want to assume that risk then he better be celibate or get sterilized.

This particular either-or is one of those false dichotomy things. At least one other option comes to mind--a person could be less indiscriminate when choosing partners, even if they are only fuck buddies. Before one presses forward with all the risked entailed in your contract scenario, one could mitigate one's better fortune by having some idea what a potential partner thinks, wants, or is likely to do before "taunting the contract" so to speak.

[Hermit]

A zygote that will develop into a human is no more a human than a zygote that will develop into a chicken is a chicken.

Well, if it comes from a human egg and human sperm, it's not a chicken and will never be a chicken. It is human and will continue to be human for its entire life cycle, so your assertion is nonsense. The zygote contains human DNA. It does not contain chicken or rabbit DNA. It will always contain human DNA, and as it develops, under ordinary circumstances, it will become an adult human being. It will never develop to be a chicken, or a turtle. The primary definition for "being" is "the quality or state of having existence." A human zygote has achieved the quality or state of "being," and therefore it is a "human being" through the use of simple logic and a dictionary.

What you're basing your argument on is the notion that to be a "human being" the organism has to somehow be "complete" in order to qualify. A zygote, which is a single cell, in your inferred argument, is not a "human being" because it's single-celled. But you fail to state how many cells are required for the existence of a "human being." Two. Two hundred? Two hundred million?

What's your objective, scientifically robust metric for when a developing fetus becomes a "human being?" Not a "person" in the law, but a "human being."

There is no objective scientifically robust metric for anything involving moral judgments. I have said that before. I have also mentioned earlier, that this applies to your opinions no less so than mine, but you seem to be resolutely intent on ignoring that aspect. The only reason I can think of for your evasion is that you'll have to admit that I am right, and would therefore have to concede something. Going by the posts you have contributed at the RDF, I expect that will never happen. I expect you to simply keep ignoring points for which you cannot see a possible reply which is plausible and refute the assertion that something might be amiss with your stance.

I am, however, the eternal optimist at heart, and ask you for the third time: In light of your repeated (and correct) mention that my opinions lack objective standards, what makes you think that your ideas are based on a better foundation? If your ideas are better for reasons other than objective standards, on the other hand, why do you keep bothering to point out the lack of objective standards?

[Warren Dew]

If I were to give him the benefit of the doubt that it was indeed some little charade he was playing, and not his true colours - I can happily say that I DO find it just as obnoxious when feminists say with glee that men should just keep it in their pants if they don't want parental responsibility that bad, as when "masculists" say women should just keep their legs shut for the same reason.

Since I'm not a woman, I'll make no judgement on the statement about women, but I find it perfectly reasonable to say that men should just keep it in their pants if they don't want parental responsibility.

Nor do I agree that divorce law favors women. When my parents divorced, my mother clearly got the raw end of the deal. Each case is different, and the real injustice is that financially, the people who don't get divorced get screwed with higher taxes than the ones that do get divorced.

[Warren Dew]

And as we see in current legal interpretations there IS a common law implied contract of specific performance that burdens both parents to support THE CHILD. The child has not made a contract, the parents have not necessarily orally or in writing agreed to support the child, and yet it is universally true that the courts enforce that contractual liability that is created when a child is born. This is an implied contract acknowledged by all civilized societies, and it proves my point that such contracts DO exist.

I don't think this is correct. Some states in the U.S. have a law that permits parents drop a child off with the state, with no obligation for child support. I don't think that excludes those states from being civilized.

In fact, given the reality in the U.S. where it's easy to place the vast majority of children for adoption, I think this is actually the most civilized way of handling it. Parents who don't want to take care of a child don't have to. The children are placed with adoptive parents that actually want them, and are probably willing to pay for the administrative costs of transferring the child, so the taxpayer doesn't have to. It's a win win all around.

Now, I'm not sure about the details of how this works if the parents disagree. However, I don't see a problem with a system where either parent can decide they don't want to provide support for the child, and the other parent has the choice of whether to support the child completely or turn it over to the state.

[Gallstones]

...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.

Well, I wrote that a few pages back, but now I've seen the light. I thought this was an unfortunate permanent inequality in biology - particularly indeed when a female wants to be a biological parent and the male doesn't. We had argued previously in other threads about the possibility of males abdicating parental responsibility for a pregnancy during the usual abortion limit time. I also thought that the scenario of the male wanting the pregnancy that the female doesn't would be permanently tricky at least until synthetic wombs are developed, and males can nurture their foetuses to viability with their own effort and resources…

But no! The solution is far simpler and more straightforward and cretinous and downright obnoxious than that! Men should just damn well have equal say in the use of the bodies of women they've spunked in! Women should be compelled to abort if the male doesn't want fatherhood, or at any rate should have their uteruses commissioned to give continuous unflagging support to the embryo/foetus, and should go through the ordeal of labour and birth, all at the male's behest.

Well, you could just get a dildo and forgo all the problems.

No tip-toeing around a complex biological inequity,

It's not a biological inequity, it's biology. Women have babies. Fact of life. Get over it. As a fact of life, it should factor in to all decisions on how a woman operates her sex organs. Women have lots and lots of options available to them, beginning with chastity and ending with lesbianism. If you want cock, however, the real deal, with spunk and everything, then you take your chances with the natural order of things. You can reduce your risks in any number of ways, all of which have calculable odds of failure. So in the end you agree to take a known risk if you voluntarily choose to have sex with a fertile man.

and looking to find some of the best or least worst solutions to avoid encroaching on the rights of either party

Let's see, women want to be allowed to have cock whenever they please, without being held responsible for any consequences whatsoever. They get to say who, when and how, and they get to use whatever contraceptive method they like, and can insist that the man do so as well. But if all that fails, or the woman is imprudent and doesn't use anything, and gets pregnant, she also wants unlimited and absolute access to abortion, right up until the feet and body are outside the womb, but the head remains inside, at which point the abortionist sticks a pair of scissors into the infants brain and kills it, then delivers the dead baby. And the woman will often demand that the man pay for at least part of the abortion. And if the man wants to keep the child, he's told to fuck off because it's "her body."

At the same time, if the woman decides to keep the baby and raise it, she also gets to demand 18 to 24 years worth of child support from the man, without his consent or agreement.

So whose rights, exactly, are being encroached upon right now. It sure as fuck isn't the woman's.

- it really is just as easy as that! We can come up with all this high-sounding legalish contracty stuff to rationalise it and everything. And if we just march in, without reading the thread, and fill a long enough post with such drivel - people will be too busy gasping and facepalming and needing a cup of tea and a lie down by the time they've finished reading the post, that they probably won't even bother to respond and we have clearly squashed them with our mighty intellect and won the debate. Result!

Didn't need to read the thread, I was posing a unique aspect of the debate. If you don't want to debate, then bugger off.

Actually, it still doesn't sound quite like gender equality. I think biological fathers should be forced alongside the women they spunked inside to undergo procedures equivalent in pain and complications potential to either abortion, pregnancy or birth. I mean if the male gets his contractual right to forceably commission a female to produce a biological heir, or insist that she doesn't - it's only right that we obligate him to share properly in the experience.

It's her womb, and she invited him in. She didn't have to, but she did, for her own personal pleasure. If she doesn't know how to operate her womb properly, perhaps she should avoid inviting men into it.

But, if you want to hear my REAL argument, it's that since women have been liberated, and have attained sovereign control over their wombs, the correct social response is to put ALL the responsibility for what happens inside it on the woman, and the woman ONLY. Men, we are now free to find 'em, feel em', fuck em' and forget 'em. If they invite you into their pussy, it's now THEIR problem to deal with the semen. Consider it a housewarming gift.

That's the TRUE price of sexual freedom, ladies. 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?

Fair is unattainable in your example. It isn't fair to anyone.

I doubt that many would be willing to settle for things as in your last example--another either-or---where there is no connection with any partner, ever. Another aspect of how nature can be shit is that humans are oriented towards bonding. Many, even in the world you create with your contract, will end up bonding. None of the problems that your contract would allegedly solve, would be solved in the case of bonding. Because bonding creates those problems.

[lordpasternack]

I don't find it reasonable, and I think men should be allowed to tell women, where abortion is freely available and an option to them - that they want to lay full responsibility for the fate of the pregnancy and any resultant child at the door of the woman. If a woman consciously, actively chooses to keep a pregnancy that she knows the other party doesn't want, that is her choice and a choice for which she should be held accountable for, in my view. Men who register their lack of willingness to become parents at least before a specific cut-off date should be deemed legally equivalent to donors to sperm banks, in my view.

Even there, though, and even if you disagree with that proposition - it's not the potential truth value of the statement, but the obnoxiousness of the tone with which it's said that I find disagreeable. Feminists will object to anything that rings remotely like "punish the sluts" - but some of them are quite happy to whistle tunes that are tantamount to "punish the playas".

[Warren Dew]

I don't find it reasonable, and I think men should be allowed to tell women, where abortion is freely available and an option to them - that they want to lay full responsibility for the fate of the pregnancy and any resultant child at the door of the woman.

As I pointed out to Coito, men can already do that, though it would require a carefully worded contract, assuming you mean that men ought to be able to do that with the agreement of the woman and not just unilaterally.

I do agree that a more neutral wording would be better - perhaps, "if you aren't ready to take on the parental responsibility of helping to support a child, you shouldn't put yourself in a position where you risk fathering a child."

[Seth]

Sorry Seth, but the difference between a contract to fuck and a contract to have kids is huge. In anybody's eyes.

Well, nature is a bitch sometimes. When you fuck with a fertile member of the opposite sex, having a kid is a known risk. If you don't want to take that risk, don't fuck, or get sterilized.

I see no reason why society should not hold women accountable to at least as great a degree as they hold men accountable if the woman decides unilaterally to KEEP the child, which imposes on the man, who may have just been interested in a quick fuck, with an 18-24 year burden of parental support. If we treat both parties equally under the law, according to your implication, a man should be able to FORCE a woman to terminate a pregnancy if he doesn't want to support the kid.

So, if men can be forced to specific performance because they ignored the risks of pregnancy, then why should women be immune to the same burden, hm?

Care to address that particular sexist radical feminist hypocrisy?

If I understand it, your premise is this: When you fuck with a fertile member of the opposite sex, having a kid is a known risk. If you don't want to take that risk, don't fuck, or get sterilized.

Then the man is also taking a risk that is known--conception of a child with a woman he probably would never choose as a genetic complement to the offspring he does intend--and that she may, if an unintended conception occurs, make unilateral decisions about.

If the man does not want to assume that risk then he better be celibate or get sterilized.

This particular either-or is one of those false dichotomy things. At least one other option comes to mind--a person could be less indiscriminate when choosing partners, even if they are only fuck buddies. Before one presses forward with all the risked entailed in your contract scenario, one could mitigate one's better fortune by having some idea what a potential partner thinks, wants, or is likely to do before "taunting the contract" so to speak.

He doesn't have a uterus, so it's not his problem. He's not able to control a woman's uterus any more (good thing), and since she's in complete control, why shouldn't she be responsible for contraception too? That's what reproductive liberty for women means, you see. I don't see why a woman should be able to claim sovereignty of her womb but still impose some duty on the man to accommodate her reproductive risk-taking.

If women want to impose some liability on men they invite in, then they have to be willing to surrender some of their sovereignty, otherwise it's an unfair burden on the man. After all, they are not compelled to let a man in any longer. But current feminist dogma, not to mention the law, gives the man no rights whatsoever to the products of conception, and therefore he should be absolved of all responsibility for allowing or prohibiting conception.

It's just plain fundamental fairness, and it's not men's fault that it's women who have the babies.

[lordpasternack]

Warren, I can't help but feel that you're cherry-picking certain bits of my posts a bit too much without addressing the wider spirit of my argument. Or maybe you're failing to see my full argument?

I think it should be a legal statute that men can go to some official place or other and wash their hands clean of responsibility for a pregnancy in a way that reduces them to the legal equivalent of donors to sperm banks - part of the deal being that the respective females are consulted and have the choice to terminate or continue and accept full responsibility. Donors to sperm banks clearly put themselves in situations that are likely to give rise to biological parenthood - but are carefully removed from both the rights and responsibilities of actual nurturing parenthood.

[Seth]

I don't find it reasonable, and I think men should be allowed to tell women, where abortion is freely available and an option to them - that they want to lay full responsibility for the fate of the pregnancy and any resultant child at the door of the woman. If a woman consciously, actively chooses to keep a pregnancy that she knows the other party doesn't want, that is her choice and a choice for which she should be held accountable for, in my view. Men who register their lack of willingness to become parents at least before a specific cut-off date should be deemed legally equivalent to donors to sperm banks, in my view.

That's a pretty reasonable viewpoint. Requires a massive state bureaucracy to keep lists of "registered non-parents" though. Much simpler to make it a standing legal presumption that the male does NOT consent to procreation unless it's specifically stipulated that he DOES consent, such as by getting married or otherwise ratifying a contract to that effect, including an oral contract, although those are often difficult to prove.

Even there, though, and even if you disagree with that proposition - it's not the potential truth value of the statement, but the obnoxiousness of the tone with which it's said that I find disagreeable.

Got your attention though, didn't it? And a lovely and enjoyable discussion has been the result. Chalk one up for my methodology.