Lobowolf Posted August 9, 2009 Report Share Posted August 9, 2009 But since you don't seem at all disuaded, I'd be curious to know if you could provide an outline of the objective criteria according to which people should be forcefully sterilised (or forced to abort). What are the objective criteria according to which people shouldn't be forcefully sterilised (or forced to abort)? Or enslaved? Or raped or murdered? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
helene_t Posted August 9, 2009 Report Share Posted August 9, 2009 Lobo, you misunderstood. "Objective criteria" doesn't refer to a case for some general policy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NickRW Posted August 9, 2009 Report Share Posted August 9, 2009 FWIW, I think that abortion on the grounds of (genuine) risk to the mothers health is always OK. Other cases are extraordinarily distasteful - but making them illegal is difficult as you can always make a case for including or not including some other type of case - where do you draw the line - there seems to be no easy answer. Nick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrTodd13 Posted August 9, 2009 Report Share Posted August 9, 2009 Lately, I've been finding these types of questions rather pointless. It is like asking someone for a suggestion of where to go to dinner but not telling them what kind of food you like. Unless you are going to provide a basis on which to make this value judgment then what you are going to get is each person using their own determination of the ultimate good. Why would you value anyone's opinion on right or wrong if it were based on an ultimate good with which you disagreed? All such ultimate goods must be accepted on faith. There is no way of objectively determining the ultimate good. So, if two people share the same ultimate good they can talk about the logical ramifications of that belief. If people don't share the same ultimate good then going beyond that point and arguing the ramifications of those beliefs will only lead to frustration. In some cases there may be coincidental agreement on right or wrong but unless you have agreement on the ultimate good you'll never get complete agreement. Moreover, if people don't agree on the same ultimate good then how can there be an argument about that. Person A tells person B they should stop believing one thing for no reason and start believing something else for no reason. Person B says the inverse. It is impossible to provide a reason for switching the ultimate good because ultimate goods must be axiomatic. Some people's "ultimate good" is provided by revelation (again faith) from a transcendent being. I suspect most people's ultimate good is some vague notion of maximizing human happiness. This ultimate good is so vague (and comparing one person's happiness to another so impossible) that very few logical truths can be derived from it. I think right or wrong opinions based on this ultimate good often boil down to mere personal gut reaction with zero underlying basis. So, one way to look at these morality questions is that you are asking people what they believe without any reason (axioms) and then asking them to draw conclusions from the ultimate good and in many cases doing so logically is impossible. Add on top of that that people hold logically inconsistent opinions simultaneously and I wonder what the point is. If I accepted a completely rational outlook on life then my answer would be that right and wrong don't exist. If I accepted on faith that human happiness is the ultimate good then right and wrong boils down to a democratic vote with each person voting on the basis of what makes them happy. (It may make them happy that women have choice or make them happy that life is maintained or make them happy that the sex ratio stays nearly equal...what makes them happy has no inherent meaningful basis...it is just cultural). If I accepted on faith that the Bible is God's instructional manual for life then I'd say that murder is wrong and so the question becomes when is abortion murder, the sex of the baby would be irrelevant. If I accepted on faith that all human interaction should be voluntary then from that I can derive that murder is wrong the question would again default to when is abortion murder. Again, the sex of the child would be irrelevant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Codo Posted August 10, 2009 Report Share Posted August 10, 2009 I think it is a horrible idea to allow gender specific abortions. 1. This will lead to an even more man dominated world then it is now, because there will be much more sons then daughters. 2. Where will it stop? All blue eyed and blonde? 1,80 and above? Not much fat? IQ? 3. Who are we to decide which life is worth living? I myself do not like abortions at all. I have no idea when life starts. Is it after the birth? Is it after 3 month of pregnancy (an accepted compromisse in Germany)? Is it in the moment when the sperm reaches the egg cell? Who should have the power to define the moment where life starts? But when life starts lets say after 60 days after the sex, it must be murder to kill any foetus which is older then 60 days. When life starts right in the first moment, any abortion is murder.... My son suffers from cystic fibrosis’. When he was born, his future seems to be about 15 years of life, full of pain, harm and hospitals. The medicine improved dramatically. His life is much better and much longer then expected. He is 16 and still has some twenty years, more likely even more. And as far as I can tell his life is worth living. But when he was born they talked about screening for CF and abortion of kids who suffer this Illness.If we had made the abortion, we had killed him before he was born. This had been a very bad idea. People who kill a foetus because of a genetic damage had killed my son and f.e. Beethoven and others. Sorry, I really dislike their position. It is not to us to decide which life is worth living and which is not. There may be exceptions, but if you have ever talked to parents who decided to get their baby despite the fact that the life of their kid will be just some minutes or some days, you may change your position. So, I would very much prefer to make the hurdle for an abortion very high (around the lines of very specific illnesses, rape, risk for the mother, teen-age parents etc). Of course, if you can convince me that life begins at day xyz, any abortion before this day should be legal. But how can you convince me that your definition (or the one from my government or from the church) is correct? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matmat Posted August 10, 2009 Report Share Posted August 10, 2009 just to throw a little more fuel on the fire.... I don't think a woman should have to give a reason at all for the first trimester (or some other predetermined time period). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gerben42 Posted August 13, 2009 Report Share Posted August 13, 2009 My son suffers from cystic fibrosis’. When he was born, his future seems to be about 15 years of life, full of pain, harm and hospitals. The medicine improved dramatically. His life is much better and much longer then expected. He is 16 and still has some twenty years, more likely even more. And as far as I can tell his life is worth living. But when he was born they talked about screening for CF and abortion of kids who suffer this Illness. I think this must have been a very hard time for you and your wife, and I think it was a very brave decision to have the baby and one can only applaud such braveness on your side. The point here is that it was your decision and yours only, and not that of the state, who should not either force you to have the baby or force you to abort the pregnancy. Either way sounds pretty horrible to me. I myself do not like abortions at all. I have no idea when life starts. Is it after the birth? Is it after 3 month of pregnancy (an accepted compromise in Germany)? Is it in the moment when the sperm reaches the egg cell? I am happy with this compromise, it is not up to the government to judge over us. If you believe in some God, perhaps (s)he will judge you for your decision. What is true for everyone is that your direct environment will judge over you too. I cannot imagine the women in the opening post having many friends left after this story... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
helene_t Posted August 13, 2009 Report Share Posted August 13, 2009 Of course, if you can convince me that life begins at day xyz, any abortion before this day should be legal. But how can you convince me that your definition (or the one from my government or from the church) is correct? Well a definition is just a definition, it is not correct or incorrect. Anyway, a fetus is of course alive. So are the egg and sperm cells before gestation. So are bacteria. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Codo Posted August 17, 2009 Report Share Posted August 17, 2009 Of course, if you can convince me that life begins at day xyz, any abortion before this day should be legal. But how can you convince me that your definition (or the one from my government or from the church) is correct? Well a definition is just a definition, it is not correct or incorrect. Anyway, a fetus is of course alive. So are the egg and sperm cells before gestation. So are bacteria. But this is crux Helene, We decide that is a allowed to kill bacteria.Most of us allow to kill animals. We decide not to kill human life. (With some expections in selfdefence or in some states as a penalty). But who defines human life? When is the beginning, when is the end? Both dates are very arguable and I am quite happy that nobody asks me to be the judge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenberg Posted August 17, 2009 Report Share Posted August 17, 2009 just to throw a little more fuel on the fire.... I don't think a woman should have to give a reason at all for the first trimester (or some other predetermined time period). This is pretty much my view also. The conflict between society's right/obligation to intervene and the right of individuals to make a choice is never more difficult than in the case of potential or real children. It seems right to me for the responsibility to evolve. Adults are free to use birth control (probably everyone on the forum agrees, but agreement is not universal). In the early stage of a pregnancy, the woman should be, I think, the one with total decision making power. Boyfriends have no rights here. Husbands are a trickier issue but I see it as a marital dispute if they disagree. The woman gets to choose the course of action on keeping the pregnancy, after which the husband can choose his course of action on whether to stay married. Later in the pregnancy, society and most definitely husbands acquire a greater right to impose some conditions. This shift continues after birth. Parents have a lot of rights about how the child will be raised, but not total control. The child must be educated. Schools may require vaccinations. Religious objections to health care are a particularly thorny issue but I think I am in favor of intervention in at least some situations. Some arbitrariness in deciding who gets to decide what is unavoidable. My instinct is to butt out unless a clear case can be made that society must intervene. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
helene_t Posted August 17, 2009 Report Share Posted August 17, 2009 We decide not to kill human life. I am sure you and many others see it that way. But to me, it is not canonical that it is wrong to kill humans. Morality is based on concrete scenarios. It would be wrong to kill Alice (in her present condition). It would be wrong to kill Bob. Etc. So a pattern emerges - Alice and Bob are both Humans so there seems to be a general rule that it is wrong to kill humans. But it does not follow from that rule that it is always wrong to kill any human. It is the other way round - the rule follows from the particular cases. Why is it wrong to kill Alice? Or Bob? To me, it is because if we did not offer them guarantee that killing them would not be condoned, they would live in constant fear. It would be bad for them, and it would be bad for society as the fear would impair their ability to function as members of society. Also, if they got killed their loved ones would miss them. Do similar arguments apply to fetuses? Only to a tiny extent. I think the father and maybe other family members can feel emotionally attached to a fetus, especially in late stage of pregnancy and/or if some information about it has been obtained through scanning. This is not to say that I consider abortion unproblematic. I know several examples of women who had been put on pressure to have an abortion while they wanted to have the baby. I wish people would realize that to some women/couples, abortion means killing their own baby so their desire to have the baby should be supported no matter how "irrational" it may appear to others. Fortunately, I think almost everyone understands that. I was just brought up in the militantly pro-abortion 1970's and have therefore become somewhat allergic to pro-abortionists. To me, first principles of morality include stuff like "people* should not live in fear" and a lot of other principles. These may be just as arbitrary as "one should not kill humans". Fair enough. But I don't think it is good reasoning first to introduce a rule which depends on the vague term "human", and then make its scope dependent on the definition which is later to come: Is a fetus a human? Is a half brain dead person who has lost all cognition but is still able to control heart and lungs a human? Are chimps human? Those are just semantic issues. But whether it is morally acceptable to kill a fetus, is a real issue. It does not depend on semantics. *This also begs the question what "people" (humans?) means, of course. In this context, it may be any entity capable of feeling fear, i.e. probably extending to many animals although we can't know that for sure. But that's another discussion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Codo Posted August 17, 2009 Report Share Posted August 17, 2009 Helene, I play a little devils advocate here. If I undersood you right, you claim that it could be ok to kill someone under certain circumstances besides punishment, wars and selfdefence.Your criteria had been that the being has no fear and that nobody will really miss it and that there is major reason benefit for someone else. This idea works quite well as long as the being is just a fetus and the birth may bring big harm to the mother. But it surely does not work for human beings. There had been parents who let there babies starving till they died. Due to your logic this is no major crime, because the life for the parents was better without the baby and they did not miss it later. I doubt that the babies feared death, they did not even know death till they died. So, your idea does surely not work for humans. Which brings us back to the point: What is a human being? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
helene_t Posted August 17, 2009 Report Share Posted August 17, 2009 Yes, I don't personally think there is much difference between a mother killing her baby a couple of months before birth, or a couple of months after. Of course the later it happens the bigger the chance that someone other than the parents feel emotional ties to the baby, and presumably the later it happens the more pain or fear the baby could feel (other things being equal) but in any case it is a gray scale. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lobowolf Posted August 18, 2009 Report Share Posted August 18, 2009 Yes, I don't personally think there is much difference between a mother killing her baby a couple of months before birth, or a couple of months after. This is one of those cases where I have to admit, I'm more surprised by the lack of response to a post than I am by any given response to numerous other posts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike777 Posted August 18, 2009 Report Share Posted August 18, 2009 With all this talk about trying to lower the long term cost of health care I think people forget that abortion and assisted suicide are two very cost effective ways to reduce long term health care costs. Women can do what they want with their own bodies and if we do not impose our moral beliefs on others there are lots of ways to reduce long term costs. The Swiss and parts of Europe and China are way ahead of everyone else in this respect. btw as for Helene's comment I am not quite sure at what age a fetus becomes a baby. I assume it is legal to abort a fetus but not a baby. I assume once it becomes a baby then the next step is at what age is assisted suicide legal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoAnneM Posted August 18, 2009 Report Share Posted August 18, 2009 Fetuses are being saved at pretty early stages now, as early as 27 weeks, or earlier, but 27 weeks is one I heard about recently. I have a lot of mixed emotions about abortions. I personally would never have had one or hope that none of my relatives would be faced with that decision, but who knows, maybe they have. I believe in pro-choice, but only in the first tri-mester. I also believe in adoption and my heart goes out to all the women who cannot have children, and who do not get children because of decisions made to abort. On the other hand it is so much easier to allow a teenager to abort ruin their high school experience. Juno was an excellent movie which explored this subject. The lowest of the low would be someone who would abort because of gender. That embryo/fetus that they are flushing out in favor of the opposite sex might have been the most loving wonderful child for them, and it has failed the sex test so it dies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onoway Posted August 19, 2009 Report Share Posted August 19, 2009 [ I also believe in adoption and my heart goes out to all the women who cannot have children, and who do not get children because of decisions made to abort.] There are thousands of children to adopt, but most people want children who look like they might be their natural children; many are very reluctant to adopt a child from an asian or african country if they themselves are caucasion. In a way this is understandable, but it certainly is not the truth that there are no children. My nephew and his wife adopted from Russia; friends of my daughter adopted two sisters from Ethiopia. It isn't exactly easy and it is expensive; most countries now seem to try to check up on the prospective parents to some degree, and good adoption agencies will have the kids checked so the parents won't have unpleasant surprises when they get them home such as finding the child has some sort of degenerative disease. Bribery is apparently alive and well in many scenarios. But it most certainly can be done. As far as that goes, there are undoubtedly children in North America who are not "perfect" who are destined to spend a major portion of their lives in a series of foster homes or institutions because few people will consider adopting a "flawed" or older child. I find it difficult to imagine that someone who truly wishes to be a parent cannot find a child. They just may not find the child of their dreams..and many natural parents don't find them either :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonottawa Posted August 20, 2009 Report Share Posted August 20, 2009 I'm adamantly opposed to allowing men to have abortions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Winstonm Posted August 20, 2009 Report Share Posted August 20, 2009 I am adamantly opposed to abortions of any kind - without an adequate supply of collateral to damage, wars would be no fun whatsoever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike777 Posted August 20, 2009 Report Share Posted August 20, 2009 Now that men have babies I guess this should be legal for them also. "It's My Right to Have Kid, Pregnant Man Tells Oprah" http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=4581943&page=1 Just wait until we have artificial wombs down at the corner store. The UK has created artificial sperm. http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/...tists_crea.html "Scientists say they have managed for the first time to create artificial sperm cells, a development that the popular press has seized upon as a sign that sterile men -- and even women -- may be able to fertilize eggs in the future." "Scientists have developed an artificial womb that allows embryos to grow outside the body" http://www.nwotruth.com/scientists-have-de...tside-the-body/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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