Another Abortion Debate!

[Inquartata]

Anton?

I thought you had passed away!

[Lucifer]

Anton?

I thought you had passed away!

(mentioning that I"m not a member of the church of satan to get past the minimum post filter)

[jBirch]

What nonsense, of course I don't.

To me there's a VAST difference between terminating a foetus and killing a born, grown child. Or a grownup. Or any person or animal who has already been given birth to. (These are the key words in my argument.)


Anna puts her words much better than I can argument in english, but basically her arguments are mine.

Ok. So you and Anna seem to be converging on a basic ethical distinction here, that a baby is a parasite until it's born. And "being born" means exiting the mother's body alive.

Being able to make a rational decision about whether you wish to live or die is irrelevant to the ethical distinction. Which is why I asked about the 2 year old.

So why ban 3rd trimester abortions then? If a woman wants to take the risk, why can't she? So long as the foetus exits her body dead, she can do whatever she wants with it, right? Give it to research. Put it in a jar in the refrigerator. Throw it at passer's by. Whatever.

And the outgrowth from this argument is that if you beat a pregnant mother and she loses her baby, you've committed assault, but not murder. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with killing the foetus mere moments before birth.

James.

[Lucifer]

I think the comparison you're looking for is the person who's on life support and in a coma. At that point, someone else has their power of attorney and decides whether or not they live. Some of us agree that if there's any hope at all, the person should be kept alive, and if there's any way to know that the person wants to be kept alive at all costs, it should be done (provided there's some hope, still).

So a baby in the third trimester is in the same position. It's a viable life form at that point, just waiting for birth. The difference between the person in a coma and the baby in the third trimester is that we *know* the baby will come out and have a life, we dont' know the person in a coma will. So it's sensible to me that the baby in the third trimester has reached a point where, while it doesn't have any rights yet, it has still reached a point where it should finish the process and be born. (I wouldn't object to giving the kid his rights at that point, except for the grey area in where he might be able to threaten his mother's life)

[lindajdunn]

I was assuming it would be accidental. But it could be treated the same as any other accidental death and investigated as such.

James.

Not necessarily.

About thirty years ago, I had a procedure which discovered that my body failed to produce something not-remembered which helped sustain a pregnancy with the result that I often thought I was LATE and didn't realize that I'd been miscarrying very early in the pregnancy. The instruction, then, was to go to the doctor when I was even a day late and have both a pregnancy test and an injection.

There are no laws requiring women with this deficiency to go to the doctor's office and have a pregnancy test and an injection and if she fails to do so, she will miscarry so early that no one will be able to prove she was pregnant (unless, of course, she took an in-home pregnancy test before deciding not to have the injection).

My divorce paperwork was prepared and waiting when I was a day late. In Indiana, one could not obtain a divorce while pregnant so I had good reasons for considering whether or not to have that injection.

[jBirch]

Which I have absolutely no problem with. Congratulations, by the way, and best wishes, and I'm glad that you and your wife are both happy about the situation and looking forward to having a baby. We're not talking about random, unprovoked abortions, though. This seems a classic case of being "personally pro-life", but I think it should still leave room for being "generally pro-choice"- you won't do it (or your wife won't), but you don't take the right away from others.

Thanks. It comes down to the state making an ethical distinction in the case of determining when a foetus has an individual right to life. Personally, I'm having trouble buying the logic that a foetus is nothing until it is born. And that is a recent personal development which makes me question my initial reasoning around being pro-choice.

The crux of the pro-life argument boils down to a different distinction between when rights are conferred on a foetus. I used to make a vast ethical distinction between being alive in the womb and being alive outside the womb. The experience of pregnancy has me thinking that the thing inside there is a human being. Maybe it's really, really, really wee. But it is a human being.

I'm not saying that the fetus has gradually conferred rights. It's dangerous for the mother to perform late-term abortions, and I would hope that our society would provide people with the information and resources they need to be able to decide whether or not to have a baby earlier in their pregnancy than, say, the last trimester.

But ethically, that makes no matter. If the foetus is nothing until it is born, then only moments AFTER it is born does it have a right to life.

About the other "points" in a pregnancy (viability, unassisted viablity, conception) I'm just pointing out that there are a number of markers that one could use.

Yeah, but you and I know how fuzzy those points are. Even more importantly, as technology improves to the point where a fertilised egg can be brought to term completely outside the womb of a biological human being, the distinction between "viable" and "not viable" becomes indistinguishable.

Even worse, if we take the definition that "existance outside the mother's womb" is the definition of "being born" and that "being born" conferrs rights to life, then the fertilized egg can now exist "outside the womb". Which means that our working definition of "being born" equates ethically to a fertilised egg having a right to life.

And before we go too far down THAT road, let's not forget about the case where the newborn requires substantial technological support to "live" separate from the mother.

Yes, I am. Because this proposed "right" of the fetus Does actually impose on the rights of the mother. Yes, "right" in general should exist in conjuction. In this case, that is impossible, and so I think that the fetus does not have "rights" in this sense.

You lost me here. I was saying that I don't think the mother's convenience is more important then the foetus' life. I agree that there is a whole class of circumstances under which the mother's rights trump the foetus'. And that should the foetus' actions threaten those rights, then there is nothing wrong with killing it.

The ethical question I'm struggling with is the argument surrounding the mother's right to choose, without any restrictions whatsoever, if the foetus is to die or not. That, to me, projects the belief that the foetus has NO rights (since the right to life is the right to which all other rights are subservient) until it is "born".

James.

[jBirch]

Not necessarily.

About thirty years ago, I had a procedure which discovered that my body failed to produce something not-remembered which helped sustain a pregnancy with the result that I often thought I was LATE and didn't realize that I'd been miscarrying very early in the pregnancy. The instruction, then, was to go to the doctor when I was even a day late and have both a pregnancy test and an injection.

There are no laws requiring women with this deficiency to go to the doctor's office and have a pregnancy test and an injection and if she fails to do so, she will miscarry so early that no one will be able to prove she was pregnant (unless, of course, she took an in-home pregnancy test before deciding not to have the injection).

My divorce paperwork was prepared and waiting when I was a day late. In Indiana, one could not obtain a divorce while pregnant so I had good reasons for considering whether or not to have that injection.

You're asserting homicidal negligence here, right? That if a mother does nothing and the baby dies, that "doing nothing" is what caused the death and therefor murder, depending upon our definition of "life".

Good question.

James.

[lindajdunn]

You're asserting homicidal negligence here, right? That if a mother does nothing and the baby dies, that "doing nothing" is what caused the death and therefor murder, depending upon our definition of "life".

Good question.

James.

Yes. There was a rather famous case about this which I think was in Utah last year or so wherein a woman refused to undergo surgery and one of her twins died.

There are times during SOME pregnancies when doing nothing will lead to the death of the fetus. Sometimes, it's ignorance that leads the woman to take no action, sometimes it's lack of accessible health care, and sometimes it's done with full knowledge that she's letting it happen.

A few will say it was God's will. Others will call it homicidal negligence.

I don't think we'll have a good solution for this until we have uterine replicators so the fetus can develop outside a woman's body.