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abortion morally acceptable ?

Odin
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Posted 11/03/09 - 03:37 PM:	#101
Postmodern Beatnik wrote: The function of your toes is to make you better at certain physical activities like running, balancing, and climbing, so that you have a better chance of surviving, so that you have a better chance of reproducing and propagating the human species. Excellent. Given your functional account of ethics, then, may I presume that you find it immoral to use your toes to scratch the back of your leg should it itch? After all, that's not their purpose. Or, if you need a case where the act is contrary to the supposed function, is it immoral for an actor to use his toes to accomplish a stage fall, since toes are meant to keep one balanced?[/quote] It is not immoral, because 1.) your toes aren't moral agents 2.) It's not devastating to their purpose to do so and 3.) Its within their purpose because the itch on your leg happens to aid your survival and awareness of your surroundings, thereby again leading back to the fundamental purpose of species propagation. Having an abortion is not inconsistent with having a child at a later date or having already had a child at an earlier date. If everyone had an abortion, there would simply be more abortions. If everyone became infertile, life would die out. We have evolved to not like this possibility, so we'd probably be distressed and seek to reverse it. If nothing else, the pain it would cause to all those who want to be parents would prompt many to look into what happened. But it doesn't follow that there's anything wrong with abortion. But your ignoring why that pain would arise in the first place. The pain of it happening would be our motivating factor in preventing it but the reason the idea of it is painful is because of the rationality behind experiencing pain in the first place. Again, pain aids survival which aids reproduction which entails the propagation of life. Now here's an anti-Kantian point: what if no one wanted to be a farmer? We'd all die. Does that mean we should all be farmers? But wait! What if everyone was a farmer? We'd all die. Without carpenters, clothiers, and doctors, the human race wouldn't last long at all. Perhaps that is a point against Kant, I'm not well-versed enough in Kant to know how they would respond to it. Suffice it to say that there are many, many problems with Kant's philosophy this being the least of it. Although I do believe that Categorical Imperative is meant to be applied to some action that you will make, not an action that you won't make. I may be wrong there though. Cuthbert once made a brilliant reply to this sort of sophistry: Somewhere in my ancestry is a child born due to an act of rape. Ergo, the argument above requires me to affirm that act of rape. Ergo, I must affirm all acts of rape (or at least all acts of rape that result in conception). Nicely made point but not quite analogous. You would have to will that the past happened in a way that lead to your existence. That doesn't mean you must will rape (even if that is how it happened). There is a possible world where your existence would have happened in a fashion that involved no rape at all. You can quite easily will that the past happened in that way and still will your existence. The one thing that you cannot will, if you will your existence, is that your parents decided to get an abortion. It is impossible that you could exist and that your parents had a successful abortion while you were a fetus. And even if I granted that first point, that you have to will rape, that particular maxim doesn't need to be universalized, because it is taken back a few steps before it becomes universal. If rape was the only way the human species was propagated, then indeed you would have to will that it happen. But your argument is a bit like saying if I was conceived in the missionary position, then it would lead me to conclude that I must always have sex with my wife (or whoever) in the missionary position and to do otherwise would be to will that I never have existed. Nonsense, of course, I'm quite sure Kant supporters would accuse you of overspecifying the maxim. Although I agree with you overall, Kant is wrong for other reasons, but there are some notable points worth discussing in his philosophy. Not at all. An infant can be cared for by many people. Adoption, wet nurses, and nannies all attest to this fact. You didn't explain how this makes a baby outside the womb more independent than one inside. Natural functions take care of a child when it is in the mother, when it is outside it becomes subject to the will of other humans without the protection of the mother's body. I think we could have a good debate as to which is more "dependent." The thing is, abortion came along a very, very long time ago. We have written evidence of abortion going back to around 3000 BCE, physical evidence of it going back even farther, and no one can say how long it was part of pre-literate human society. For most of history, abortions were performed by the pregnant woman herself or a midwife. I'm not sure that I see this as relevant. Murder has also been happening for a very, very long time. And yet we've outlawed it.

TeenPhilosopher
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Posted 11/13/09 - 07:21 AM:	#102
Fetuses inside the womb are, as I look at it, sleeping. While they can apparently hear the world outside, they do not have any method of contacting, understanding or accepting the sources of these noises. So, this baby is sitting here, listening to Life FM, barely concious inside the same square half-feet of space it is in every day. This baby is not doing anything. The way I look at it, this is the standard behaviour of a parasitical creature. I know the baby did not ask for its first stage in life to be a parasitical one, but it is, in simple terms, a gigantic tick.
If you're impressed by anything I wrote, maybe you'll be more impressed by the fact that I am 14 years old. If you find something I wrote childish, there's your explanation.

Paintspot
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Posted 11/13/09 - 09:59 AM:	#103
For me, abortion is absolutely wrong. Under no circumstances would I have one. There are various reasons for this decision and if anyone is interested in any angle of why I am against abortion then ask me. I cannot simply explain in one foul swoop. It requires specific questions. If I dont know the answer I will say so, if I do, I will try to help. I would like to add that I do not judge others on this issue as I have known people very close to me who have made the decision to terminate their childs' life and as the saying goes, "There but for the Grace of God, go I", but I am absolutely Pro-Life for myself even though I still have much to learn.

psychotick
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1 of 3 people found this post helpful Posted 11/13/09 - 11:41 AM:	#104
Hi, Here's my two cents worth as a man and a non fundamentalist Christian. Of course abortion is immoral. Killing someone is always wrong / immoral if you can avoid it, and this could be avoided. Having said that it is also immoral to force a woman to bring a baby to term when that may cause her risk of illness, psychological distress (esp if the unborn child is the product of incest or rape). Causing someone to suffer is always wrong / immoral if you can avoid it. Then there's the issue of the child itself. If born will it be born into a world where it is not wanted, where it may suffer from birth defects eg Downs Syndrome which will drastically affect the quality of its life, where it may be taken away from a mother unfit to care for it and thrown into social welfare, where it may grow up to find it was the product of rape. By bringing the child into the world you may be causing it to suffer needlessly, and again this would be wrong / immoral if you can avoid it. Add to that the question of a planet unable to care for extra mouths, a social welfare system unable to provide fully, or a family unable to cope with the simple expense of an extra mouth to feed or with the lack of attention to other kids when a newborn dominates the parent's time. Again causing others to suffer by bringing an extra baby into the world is immoral / wrong if it can be avoided. Abortion is immoral, of that there can be no doubt, but in deciding on whether it should be allowed legally, or whether its right or wrong in any particular case, we're actually forced to balance immoralities, choosing the lessor evil. So we throw in some science and claim that the unborn child is unaware at least during the first trimester, to ease our consciences and help with the decision making, and then we argue about side issues like the woman's right to decide or religious cammandments, and in the end a decision is made. I think the best way to think of this entire issue is as a human tragedy, from start to finish. We should not have women getting pregnant at all until they and their partners are ready for it, we should not have unborn children being conceived with genetic defects, we shoul not have women's lives being endangered by pregnancy, we should not have a society that cannot care for all its children properly, we should not have rape or incest or other evils. Unfortunately we do. We're human. We're not perfect. And until we can somehow achieve perfection, we will find ourselves forever in this and many other terrible dilemmas. We must choose, and often the choice we must make is the one that is the least immoral, the least wrong. Cheers.

Postmodern Beatnik
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Posted 11/16/09 - 12:31 PM:	#105
Odin wrote: Postmodern Beatnik wrote: Given your functional account of ethics, then, may I presume that you find it immoral to use your toes to scratch the back of your leg should it itch? After all, that's not their purpose. Or, if you need a case where the act is contrary to the supposed function, is it immoral for an actor to use his toes to accomplish a stage fall, since toes are meant to keep one balanced? It is not immoral, because 1.) your toes aren't moral agents... This is relevant how? My hands aren't any more or less of moral agents than my toes, but I'm guessing you wouldn't say it's okay for them to punch a woman in the stomach and cause an abortion. Odin wrote: 2.) It's not devastating to their purpose to do so... It's directly contrary to the purpose you ascribe to them. What more could you want? The only thing I can think of that would be "purposively worse" is if the act prevented them from fulfilling their purpose in the future. But just as tripping over your toes does not necessarily prevent them from being used to help you balance in the future, having non-procreative sex does not necessarily prevent you from procreating in the future. And for that matter, having an abortion does not necessarily prevent you from carrying a pregnancy to term in the future. Odin wrote: and 3.) Its within their purpose because the itch on your leg happens to aid your survival and awareness of your surroundings, thereby again leading back to the fundamental purpose of species propagation. And there's the rub: you don't really care about the putative purposes of our parts (e.g., toes) or behaviors (e.g., sex). Your ethical theory is based on what you take to be an overarching purpose of life: species propagation. Problematically for you, however, abortion may be a necessary part of a successful propagation strategy for some people. As such, you cannot be categorically against it. Moreover, the abortion of a conceptus that would have eventually turned into a perfectly normal child can also be a necessary part of a successful propagation strategy for some people, so it seems you can't even limit it only to cases of rape, incest, or deformation. Odin wrote: But your ignoring why that pain would arise in the first place. The pain of it happening would be our motivating factor in preventing it but the reason the idea of it is painful is because of the rationality behind experiencing pain in the first place. Again, pain aids survival which aids reproduction which entails the propagation of life. I'm not ignoring anything. I'm pointing out that facts such as "we evolved feature x for reason y" is wholly unrelated to questions of morality. Evolving to dislike something does not mean that it has some sort of objective badness about it. Odin wrote: Perhaps that is a point against Kant, I'm not well-versed enough in Kant to know how they would respond to it. Suffice it to say that there are many, many problems with Kant's philosophy this being the least of it. You seem to be confused as to why everyone is discussing you with Kant. Attempts to distance yourself from him notwithstanding, you apparently threw your lot in with Kant when you asked "what if everyone who had a child had an abortion, or if everyone became infertile?" Odin wrote: Although I do believe that Categorical Imperative is meant to be applied to some action that you will make, not an action that you won't make. I may be wrong there though. According to Kant, it is wrong to let your talents go to waste. That seems to be an omission (i.e., "an action that you won't make"), so the Categorical Imperative must apply both to actions and omissions. This makes much more sense to me than the alternative, so I'll have to give points to Kant in this regard. Odin wrote: Nicely made point but not quite analogous. You would have to will that the past happened in a way that lead to your existence. That doesn't mean you must will rape (even if that is how it happened). There is a possible world where your existence would have happened in a fashion that involved no rape at all. I'm not sure there is. Particular human beings are thermodynamic miracles, which may vitiate our modal intuitions here. Odin wrote: The one thing that you cannot will, if you will your existence, is that your parents decided to get an abortion. It is impossible that you could exist and that your parents had a successful abortion while you were a fetus. So why should I will my existence? I'm happy to exist now, but it never would have come up if I had been aborted. Consider my non-existent, but possible, younger brother. If he were born, you seem to think he would have to will his existence and that he could not will that our mother got an abortion. This is supposed to somehow be a point against abortion. But as it stands, my potential younger brother doesn't exist. Moreover, no act of abortion was needed to ensure this. What moral standing does he have, then? Should my mother have done everything possible to birth him? What about the alternative possible brother (or sister!) that would have been born if she had been impregnated a day before? Or a day after? It seems that all of these potential siblings have the same moral standing as one another and the same moral standing as an aborted conceptus -- none. (Of course, I'm a metaethical nihilist, so no one has moral status as far as I'm concerned. But the point is that my moral position is not needed to reach the conclusion that all of these non-people have no moral standing.) Odin wrote: And even if I granted that first point, that you have to will rape, that particular maxim doesn't need to be universalized, because it is taken back a few steps before it becomes universal. If rape was the only way the human species was propagated, then indeed you would have to will that it happen. But your argument is a bit like saying if I was conceived in the missionary position, then it would lead me to conclude that I must always have sex with my wife (or whoever) in the missionary position and to do otherwise would be to will that I never have existed. Nonsense, of course, I'm quite sure Kant supporters would accuse you of overspecifying the maxim. Well, this takes us into a perennial issue regarding whether or not Kantians can adequately specify the level at which we must make categorical imperatives. So while a Kantian might make that objection, he'd be stepping into a minefield to do so. As for your point about sexual positions, however, you'll note that it has no bearing on my argument. If your conclusion really does follow, so much the worse for the position I'm arguing against. And if it doesn't follow, then the scenario is disanalogous. It's sort of a win-win for me. Odin wrote: Although I agree with you overall, Kant is wrong for other reasons, but there are some notable points worth discussing in his philosophy. As non-Kantian as I can be at times, you'll never see me say that Kant's philosophy is not worth discussing. Odin wrote: You didn't explain how this makes a baby outside the womb more independent than one inside. Let's say I can only survive by feeding off of a particular type of cooked food. If only one chef can make that food, I am more dependent than if two chefs can make it. A fetus is dependent upon one "chef": it's host mother. An infant can receive its nutrition from any number of "chefs." As such, the infant is less dependent. Odin wrote: Natural functions take care of a child when it is in the mother, when it is outside it becomes subject to the will of other humans without the protection of the mother's body. I think we could have a good debate as to which is more "dependent." It seems pretty clear-cut to me. After all, natural functions do just as much work inside the womb as outside: just as an infant has natural feeding and digesting reflexes that can only operate when food is presented, a fetus naturally processes only what is provided to it via the host. And inside the womb, the fetus is still dependent upon the will of various human beings: again, the mother must be willing to eat food and stay safe; and others must be willing to not harm the mother and provide what she needs in one way or another (since the mother will not be able to do all the hunting, farming, harvesting, sewing, et cetera for herself throughout the entire pregnancy). Odin wrote: I'm not sure that I see this as relevant. Murder has also been happening for a very, very long time. And yet we've outlawed it. Non sequitur. You made the following comment: Odin wrote: Secondly, not even the mother had access to the fetus either, until abortion came along. And abortion was an invention of society and not of the mother. For a mother to have an abortion she has to involve society as well, by going to an abortion clinic or hiring a doctor. My point was that it was historically inaccurate, or at least overstated. Here it is again in small steps: (1) That women didn't have access to the fetus until abortion came along is a point of dubious value since abortion has been around for so long. (2) Women have been looking for ways to abort there own pregnancies since time immemorial, and many of the innovations along the way were for personal use. As such, it is just plain false that abortion was an invention of society rather than the mother. (3) A woman can have an abortion without hiring a doctor or going to a clinic (midwives who made house calls did abortions for much of history), and women can given themselves abortions. So it is also false that a doctor, a clinic, or societal involvement in general is necessary.
"The key to being a good manager is keeping the people who hate me away from those who are still undecided." --Casey Stengel

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