No more circumcision in SF?

[sirkickyass]

(My biggest issue is with "recreational abortion" as a form of birth control when a couple choose not to use any kind of birth control, and then afterward just figure they can kill the baby because it is so inconvenient that their choice to have sex actually had the intended consequence of the act.)

This is an intellectually dishonest boogeyman. Abortion is not pleasant for the woman either. There is no evidence beyond the anecdotal that "recreational abortion" is a real problem.

If anyone cares: I think everyone here is engaging in moral arguments. That's fine. I'm not in a good position to tell someone they should have a different system of morality (as screwed up as I may think there's may be). My support for rights to choose is based entirely in practicality and it comes down to a few quick bullet points:

1. Making abortion illegal doesn't stop abortion; it just makes it less safe, more expensive, and significantly class triggered.

2. There are significant secondary social effects that are highly costly to society as a whole that result from the elimination of abortion rights.

3. Referring to procreation as the sole reason to have sex is contrary to all human experience and certainly denies the existence of entire industries.

 

[sirkickyass]

That's a horrible analogy. A child doesn't just wander into a womb. The mother had SOMETHING to do with it, don't you think? (Again, let's say like LoganGrad did that cases such as rape are a different situation.)

If a fetus is a baby, why does it matter whether it's a rape case? Is that baby less of a person because its father did something horrible?

I think if you're going to acknowledge that there's an exception for rape then you've already acknowledged that the mother has some prior right that has to be opted out of in some way before a fetus can take residence in her body. Now we're just discussing what constitutes an effective opt-out, but that means on some fundamental level you have to agree with the premise that a fetus and a human being are NOT the same thing.

 

[colton]

1. Making abortion illegal doesn't stop abortion; it just makes it less safe, more expensive, and significantly class triggered.

2. There are significant secondary social effects that are highly costly to society as a whole that result from the elimination of abortion rights.

3. Referring to procreation as the sole reason to have sex is contrary to all human experience and certainly denies the existence of entire industries.

Maybe you're not specifically referring to LogGrad's viewpoint (which as I mentioned above I largely share), but if so there are a couple of straw men there.

1 and 2) LogGrad didn't talk about making all abortions illegal or eliminating all abortion rights. At most, he's talking about making abortions illegal where the woman was a willing participant in the sexual intercourse. And I suspect he would also make an exception for cases where the woman's life is in serious danger due to the pregnancy.

3) Where did anyone say procreation is the sole reason? That's not LogGrad's nor my view. And yet, can you deny that it's a very foreseeable possible unintended consequence? Does not the very nature of the act guarantee that possibility, as LogGrad said in his post which I quoted above?

 

[Bronco70]

How in the hell did this thread turn into an abortion debate?

 

[colton]

If a fetus is a baby...

That's an awfully big IF. It's not my view that a fetus is equivalent to a baby, nor necessarily deserves the same protections as a baby. However, that doesn't mean the fetus deserves NO protections.

What's your view--does a fetus deserve any protections? For example, if a guy beats on an 8 month pregnant woman and terminates the pregnancy, should his penalty just depend on the damage to the mother? Or should he receive a stiffer penalty due to the loss of life (or whatever word you prefer) of the fetus?

 

[sirkickyass]

Maybe you're not specifically referring to LogGrad's viewpoint

I wasn't.

1 and 2) LogGrad didn't talk about making all abortions illegal or eliminating all abortion rights. At most, he's talking about making abortions illegal where the woman was a willing participant in the sexual intercourse. And I suspect he would also make an exception for cases where the woman's life is in serious danger due to the pregnancy.

I regard that as a distinction without a functional difference. This is a coded way of saying "I oppose abortion rights except in approximately 4% of situations where abortions currently occur." That's advocating for the elimination of abortion rights without saying it outright.

That is totally non-responsive to the two issues you're responding to: making abortions illegal just makes abortions less safe and there are significant negative social effects (poverty, crime, etc) that result from the ban.

3) Where did anyone say procreation is the sole reason? That's not LogGrad's nor my view. And yet, can you deny that it's a very foreseeable possible unintended consequence? Does not the very nature of the act guarantee that possibility, as LogGrad said in his post which I quoted above?

In that post LG writes, "afterward just figure they can kill the baby because it is so inconvenient that their choice to have sex actually had the intended consequence of the act." My point is that in the vast majority of sexual encounters that IS NOT "the intended consequence of the act."

 

[sirkickyass]

That's an awfully big IF. It's not my view that a fetus is equivalent to a baby, nor necessarily deserves the same protections as a baby. However, that doesn't mean the fetus deserves NO protections.

Lets come at this another way so you don't focus on six words and ignore the rest: any rights that a fetus has are premised on the fact that because the fetus is a human being in gestation that it takes on some characteristics of being human itself. Why is a rapist's fetus less human than a non-rapist's fetus? What is it about the fetus itself that is made less human and therefore has fewer rights that the father was a rapist?

There's no reasonable answer to that question that doesn't acknowledge primacy of the mother in some fashion.

Rape exceptions are intellectually bankrupt and are only repeated pro forma by pro-lifers because they know it's politically unacceptable to take their position to its logical conclusion.

What's your view--does a fetus deserve any protections? For example, if a guy beats on an 8 month pregnant woman and terminates the pregnancy, should his penalty just depend on the damage to the mother? Or should he receive a stiffer penalty due to the loss of life (or whatever word you prefer) of the fetus?

For a number of reasons, I believe in a viability analysis modified by what I call "functional viability" to account for greater abilities to deliver premature births although at significantly higher risks of disability or chronic complications.

 

[PearlWatson]

If a fetus is a baby, why does it matter whether it's a rape case? Is that baby less of a person because its father did something horrible?

I think if you're going to acknowledge that there's an exception for rape then you've already acknowledged that the mother has some prior right that has to be opted out of in some way before a fetus can take residence in her body. Now we're just discussing what constitutes an effective opt-out, but that means on some fundamental level you have to agree with the premise that a fetus and a human being are NOT the same thing.

Yeah, she has a right to choose whether to have sex or not. If that choice is taken away then abortion is justified (early in pregnancy).

 

[sirkickyass]

Yeah, she has a right to choose whether to have sex or not. If that choice is taken away then abortion is justified (early in pregnancy).

Why does that choice affect the humanity of the fetus? Why does it diminish the fetus' "right to life?"

 

[colton]

I regard that as a distinction without a functional difference. This is a coded way of saying "I oppose abortion rights except in approximately 4% of situations where abortions currently occur." That's advocating for the elimination of abortion rights without saying it outright.

That is totally non-responsive to the two issues you're responding to: making abortions illegal just makes abortions less safe and there are significant negative social effects (poverty, crime, etc) that result from the ban.

Is the protection of the weak and innocent not enough of a positive social effect to counterbalance the possible negative social effects that may result?

Put another way, and obviously taking the argument to an extreme, if killing all of the redheads in the country had a positive social impact for some reason (less crime by Irish mafia? ;-) ), then would that somehow counter-balance the significant negatives involved due to the killing of innocents? I guess I'm kind of thinking of the famous short story, The Lottery, here.

Maybe killing is too strong an example, since I've already admitted I don't consider fetuses to be on quite the same level as babies and therefore I don't consider abortion to be murder. But scale down the punishment of the innocents appropriately, and I think my analogy still works.

In that post LG writes, "afterward just figure they can kill the baby because it is so inconvenient that their choice to have sex actually had the intended consequence of the act." My point is that in the vast majority of sexual encounters that IS NOT "the intended consequence of the act."

I think he was talking about the evolutionary/biological intended consequence, not necessarily the couple's intended consequence.

 

[PearlWatson]

In that post LG writes, "afterward just figure they can kill the baby because it is so inconvenient that their choice to have sex actually had the intended consequence of the act." My point is that in the vast majority of sexual encounters that IS NOT "the intended consequence of the act."

I think he meant the natural consequences of the act.

 

[PearlWatson]

Why does that choice affect the humanity of the fetus? Why does it diminish the fetus' "right to life?"

It doesn't. It justifies the destruction of the life. In the same way a person is justified for killing another person in self defense.