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Abortion Dilemma
Struggling with two seemingly unsavory positions

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Abortion Dilemma

Apathy Kills
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Posted 08/24/09 - 04:30 PM: Subject: Abortion Dilemma	#1
I have recently been pondering the particular positions of the "abortion debate" and have come up with frustration as well as bewilderment. My struggle has to do with a few arguments from both sides of the debate which I can't really address completely. So, I look forward to receiving responses from others in the attempt to alleviate my uneasiness. My contemplation up to this point has lead me to believe that any side, any position, or conclusion in the abortion issue cannot escape unscathed morally speaking - they all bear a mark of imperfection so to speak. When I was deliberating on the pro-abortion position, I mulled over an argument which essentially maintains that abortion is a shirking of legitimate responsibility. Excluding situations of rape, the woman participated in an action which she knew may possibly result in pregnancy. To escape responsibility, through abortion, is a reprehensible action. Abortion, then, amounts to a "form of birth control" in which people are not held culpable to their actions. I have problems addressing this argument from a pro-choice perspective. When I deliberated on the anti-abortion position, I came across a few objections to it which I had trouble answering from that perspective. The first involves the seemingly higher emphasis on the fetus/baby than the woman. Why does it seem like anti-abortion advocates, more so than not, treat women purely as a receptacle or breeder in respect to their defense of the fetus' rights as opposed to the woman's rights. How can they make a legitimate case for the fetus/baby's potential life against a woman's actual life. Potentiality does not equal actuality. I would greatly appreciate everyone's comments.
"Here the ways of men part: if you wish to strive for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe; if you wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire..." Nietzsche

Ikrark
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Posted 08/24/09 - 06:48 PM:	#2
To me, the whole abortion debate seems almost like a non-issue. Since when have we interfered with peoples' actions regarding self-defense and "good" choice? I'm not a woman, but childbirth, from what I have seen and heard, is extremely painful. Are we really going to invade someone's private life because we think they are "murdering" their potential child? Yes, the woman knew sex could get her pregnant. Should we use that against her, and say she is shirking her duties? Do we say the robber deserved it, when he knew that robbing a house could get him shot and killed? How often are CEOs convicted for pulling out of their companies and causing them to crash? That seems like a great shirking of duty to me. Is our society simply so vengeful that we say "Well, she knew sex might impregnate her, so now she has to go through a long and painful process to have a kid she doesn't even really want, at least not in the beginning"? We aren't allowing a woman to take a knife to her child when she decides she doesn't want it anymore. We're allowing her to make an important decision. A decision that would shake the very foundations of her life. It's a slippery slope down the path of controlling peoples' decisions so we can "safeguard" lives, potential or not.

swstephe
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Posted 08/24/09 - 06:52 PM:	#3
Apathy Kills wrote: When I was deliberating on the pro-abortion position, I mulled over an argument which essentially maintains that abortion is a shirking of legitimate responsibility. Excluding situations of rape, the woman participated in an action which she knew may possibly result in pregnancy. To escape responsibility, through abortion, is a reprehensible action. Abortion, then, amounts to a "form of birth control" in which people are not held culpable to their actions. I have problems addressing this argument from a pro-choice perspective. To be consistent, we should refuse treatment to people who are dying of lung cancer or cirrhosis of the liver due to smoking and drinking because they are shirking the later consequences of their actions. Include those with diabetes and heart disease due to poor diet and exercise. Also, those who refused to study in school so they could earn enough income to afford adequate health care. How about those people who were foolish enough to buy a house near a factory or nuclear power plant that might possibly pollute their environment? How about refusing treatment to people in high risk jobs? Soldiers, firemen and factory workers, for example. They should suffer because they knew there was a possibility of being severely injured in the first place. A lot of these kinds of positions narrow the argument to very specific situations. The woman does not always have full control over the situation, (depending on what method is being used), but bears the full consequences. Not every method is 100% foolproof, and probably the vast majority of cases were simply due to a certain method not working in that instance. I've said before that both sides of the argument could come to a unanimous agreement to simply improve birth control to the point where abortions were unnecessary except in the extreme cases usually cited. Apathy Kills wrote: When I deliberated on the anti-abortion position, I came across a few objections to it which I had trouble answering from that perspective. The first involves the seemingly higher emphasis on the fetus/baby than the woman. Why does it seem like anti-abortion advocates, more so than not, treat women purely as a receptacle or breeder in respect to their defense of the fetus' rights as opposed to the woman's rights. How can they make a legitimate case for the fetus/baby's potential life against a woman's actual life. Potentiality does not equal actuality. I've seen the "breeder" idea before, too. Racism is very unpopular, but misogyny is well supported by so many. I think there is a deep sexual-psychological aspect. The ultimate submission of women as being inferior to the progeny of the father, (who is rarely even mentioned). A reduction of the state of being human to nothing more than breeding animals. It isn't just life versus life. Each life directly affects the other. There is also the aspect of quality of life. The anti-abortion position is subconciously advocating poverty and broken families, as well as a return to back-alley illegal abortions on the presumption of understanding the impact of the situation at all times.
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ManiacJack
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Posted 08/24/09 - 07:00 PM:	#4
Abortion is bad. That abortion is outlawed does not mean, however, that no abortions can take place. It means that such a procedure should not be for conventional use. Take, for example, the killing of people. It is illegal. However, the death penalty exists. There is a difference between an individual making a choice on life, and society making that choice. If there is an instance of rape, or need of abortion because of some health issue- WHY NOT? If there is not such a circumstance- WHY?
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Apathy Kills
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Posted 08/24/09 - 07:40 PM:	#5
Ikrark wrote: Is our society simply so vengeful that we say "Well, she knew sex might impregnate her, so now she has to go through a long and painful process to have a kid she doesn't even really want, at least not in the beginning"? Much of what you have said is what I thought as well, like this question for instance. However, couldn't the anti-abortionist accuse you of appeal to emotion for this [in bold]? Of course the pro-choicer could accuse the opposition of downplaying the process - but it seems that we are just as culpable in "up-playing" it. I think I will have to respectfully disagree with swstephe and say that I can't see any reconciliation or definitely any "unanimous agreement" between these two polarized positions. swstephe wrote: Not every method is 100% foolproof... simply improve birth control to the point where abortions were unnecessary except in the extreme cases usually cited. That's the catch, however - one can improve birth control methods to such a point that there would literally be no more such accidents where contraception is concerned BUT where human imperfection is concerned, you know that fools are a dime a dozen. Unless they put something in the air, there's no stoppin' the fools of the world screwing things up... literally as well as figuratively. To be consistent, we should refuse treatment to people who are dying of lung cancer or cirrhosis of the liver due to smoking and drinking because they are shirking the later consequences of their actions. Include those with diabetes and heart disease due to poor diet and exercise. Also, those who refused to study in school so they could earn enough income to afford adequate health care. How about those people who were foolish enough to buy a house near a factory or nuclear power plant that might possibly pollute their environment? How about refusing treatment to people in high risk jobs? Soldiers, firemen and factory workers, for example. They should suffer because they knew there was a possibility of being severely injured in the first place. I think I am getting what you are trying to tell me, but could you please elaborate further so that I can make sure I have extracted your reasoning correctly. What's to keep the opposition from dismissing your examples as false analogies or equivocation?
"Here the ways of men part: if you wish to strive for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe; if you wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire..." Nietzsche

180 Proof
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Posted 08/24/09 - 10:28 PM:	#6
@ Apathy Kills -- I don't see a "dilemma" here. A non-person (e.g. nonviable -- prior to 22 weeks -- foetus) is of no more moral concern than an appendix, and since over 98% of abortions in the U.S. occur at 21 weeks or earlier, in practice what's at issue is a medical procedure* (like an appendectomy) and not the moral hazard of administrative homicide (like capital punishment or euthanasia or warfare). Furthermore, even if abortion is used by many as a method of birth control, persons are almost never killed in the process. I simply don't understand your (or anyone's -- especially those who, out of religious conviction, dogmatically posit "souls" signifying that ovum-sperm fusions, or blastocysts, are "persons") qualms. *The statistic above is taken from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18030283, a CDC white paper titled "Abortion surveillance -- United States 2004" Edited by 180 Proof on 08/24/09 - 10:34 PM. Reason: Hmmm ...
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BitterCrank
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Posted 08/24/09 - 10:29 PM:	#7
Abortion has been conflated with a lot of other issues, which makes it such a potent issue. For instance, the question of lively tissue and personhood has been merged and then folded into the abortion issue. Pro-choice people have not done a very good job with this, in my opinion. Unquestionably "life" begins at conception, but "life" is a far cry from personhood. That a fertilized egg is suddenly a person is a sectarian religious issue. Not all Christians believe it, not all Catholics believe it. Some religions hold that a fetus is not a person until it is born alive. The "no personhood until one is born alive" solves the problem of miscarriages, dead fetuses, and very premature births. It also solves one of the primary objections to abortion: one is killing a person. No, one is not killing a person during an abortion. One is preventing a life from coming into existence in an abortion, but so is one preventing a life when one uses contraception or when one masturbates. Of course, that is why the Church is against birth control--it prevents life from beginning. But again, this is not belief on par with more fundamental beliefs such as the assertion that Jesus was crucified by Pontius Pilot. Obviously another issue is control of women's fertility. Who should have this control? Well, clearly the Catholic Church has decided that it has dominion over women's bodies--but this is again sectarian. Not all Christian churches claim this power over women's bodies.
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Posted 08/25/09 - 01:32 AM:	#8
I think by now, we should know that no one can "win" this debate, whether it's pro-life or pro-choice. Because of a few technical problems in the formatting of the claims on each side. The pro-lifers advocate the rights of the living organism inside, the pro-choicers advocate the right of the mother to choose whether to keep or not to keep the living organism inside. Each one can make a compelling argument on the side they advocate. But, let us look at the Guttmacher Institute for their findings, complete with stats and researches, on why women get to have an unwanted pregnancy in the first place (the overwhelming reason is the failure of the birth control users to consistently and correctly use the birth control method despite the available education and access to these birth control methods). No one wants an abortion, if they could help it. If the world can perfectly function without women getting pregnant unwantedly, no one would have an abortion. But there it is, unwanted pregnancies. There was a time when infanticide was practiced almost regularly, somewhere around the world. You know how it works....a woman gives birth, and next to her bed is a bucket full of water, etc. The recent polls show that for the first time in years, more people are against abortion. (Gallup)

Benkei
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Posted 08/25/09 - 03:55 AM:	#9
180 Proof wrote: @ Apathy Kills -- I don't see a "dilemma" here. A non-person (e.g. nonviable -- prior to 22 weeks -- foetus) is of no more moral concern than an appendix, and since over 98% of abortions in the U.S. occur at 21 weeks or earlier, in practice what's at issue is a medical procedure* (like an appendectomy) and not the moral hazard of administrative homicide (like capital punishment or euthanasia or warfare). Furthermore, even if abortion is used by many as a method of birth control, persons are almost never killed in the process. I simply don't understand your (or anyone's -- especially those who, out of religious conviction, dogmatically posit "souls" signifying that ovum-sperm fusions, or blastocysts, are "persons") qualms. Why would it have to be a matter of personhood? Whether I should destroy a "thing" or not is still of moral concern, especially in light of what we know what it can become. We think it's morally relevant to conserve trees and ethically treat animals. Also "non-persons". Abortion is a very serious issue that deeply affects women that have undergone it or are about to (I supported one friend through it and she's quite sure she couldn't go through the same ordeal again, even if she got pregnant unwanted again). It is a serious and moral question regardless of the qualification of the foetus as a person or not and I think defining it either way does not eliminate or emphasise that moral dimension.
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Yahadreas
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Posted 08/25/09 - 05:10 AM:	#10
Benkei wrote: Why would it have to be a matter of personhood? Because non-people aren't real people. Morality deals with acceptable and unacceptable behaviour between people. Cutting down trees isn't a moral issue; at least, not a moral issue about trees. It's a moral issue about us (when it affects us). We don't argue against the cutting down of trees because it's bad for trees. At least, most people don't. The issue of abortion, similarly, is a moral issue when it affects people. If not having an abortion will lead to the mother's death then we allow it, because it affects her, a person, in a very negative way. If not having an abortion will lead to the mother having an (unwanted) difficult life then we (should) allow it, because it affects her, a person. We only think of the baby "counting" because we (mistakenly) imagine ourselves to be the baby, and wouldn't want ourselves to be aborted. Which would be like thinking ourselves to be the tree, and thus "empathising" with it and seeking to prevent people from cutting it (us) down.
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