Hey everybody,

When I had just decided for myself that a belief in the Christian god was utterly unfounded (i.e. I went theist), I still was against abortion legalization because I thought it to be murder. Even after I went full atheist/agnostic, my position on abortion didn't change initially until I was able to arrive at a consistent view at why it is not murder.

What I don't like about the progressive arguments for abortion legalization is that they frame it as an issue of women's rights. Specifically, they say that only the pregnant woman should decide upon the fate of the baby, and that it is not society's role to impose legal or moral judgement on her. Some go as far as to say that making abortion illegal is a sexist act. I think this argument is inconsistent and incomplete. In the next couple paragraphs, I will refer to this argument as "the feminist argument", but please note that this is just notation and I mean to imply no connotation to the word "feminist" other than it is concerned with the rights of women.

It's incomplete because the only way to not make the act the moral equivalent of murder is to assume that the baby is not a sentient human being. That is, you have to make an unstated assumption (that most people against abortion do not make, and hence the issue) to make the feminist argument work. Now, if the assumption is not true (say, for the sake of argument), then the feminist argument is inconsistent, because it reduces to justifying certain forms of murder against specific sentient human beings. In my opinion, this makes the feminist argument illegitimate. If, on the other hand, the assumption is true (which I will later argue it is), then I believe the feminist argument is not needed at all as part of justifying abortion, since the assumption is a good enough reason to justify it.

The feminist argument is also inconsistent even if you disregard its incompleteness because morally, it should have no relevance that only women can grow babies inside them. That is simply a natural, not moral, fact. If because of these natural facts, women have to carry more moral burdens, then that is not the fault of humanity, or anybody's fault really. It is not a show of male oppression either. Consider the following: If the sex roles were switched but the general gender roles were not (meaning, women would behave like men and viceversa), do you honestly believe that abortion would suddenly be accepted solely because it now hinders the "male" gender?

To me, the only factor to consider in abortion legalization is whether the growing object is a sentient being or not. If it is a sentient being, the action is murder and there's no way around it. If it's not, then destroying the object is at the very least not morally inconsistent with the rest of actions our society usually takes part in (for example, meat eating, use of animals in research, etc.). I would go even further though, and say that there's nothing morally wrong with ending the little human baby's life at all (granted, if it's due to the mother's will).

There is no arguing that the object is a human animal in development. What I'm concerned about is its ability to think (and I may even add "feel" actually, if I were more animal-rights friendly, but we can leave that for later). Until the animal develops a brain, there is no thought or sentience that can be attributed to the animal. Because of this, there is no moral concern to me about killing the animal. This applies even once it has a beating heart. Now, I'm not a doctor, so I don't know at what point in the baby's life it starts to grow a nervous system and a brain. But I would say that once its brain is there, that should be a red line; after that, people can refer to abortion as "murder".

Now, I can completely understand the dilemma that a lot of religious people have about this topic. To them, the property of "soul" is attached to the object at the moment of conception. If this were true (which to them it is), then abortion should rightfully be considered murder. But like with a lot of religious arguments, their assumptions aren't accurate, hence their conclusions may not be correct at all. One can at least say that their heart is in the right place here. I'm not so sure one could say the same about some people advocating the feminist argument, who (SOME of them) don't seem to care at all about the murder aspect of abortion, but instead about the rights of women to carry out the act irrespective of the baby's sentience status.

Discuss?

Sentience, or at least the ability to feel pain, is a major consideration, as is viability. I'm pro-choice, with no reservations, up to that point. When that point occurs is up for debate, so I'm not as adamantly opposed to time limits as some are. Up to that point abortion should be freely available, on demand with no strings attached. However, once you've passed some point in time it should be restricted to cases where the mother's health is at stake. Personally I'm fine with 20 weeks, that's almost 5 months. If you haven't decided whether or not you want the kid by that point then you probably have no business having a child to start with.

sentient
ˈsɛnʃ(ə)nt/
adjective
adjective: sentient

1.
able to perceive or feel things.

I don't think early stage foetuses fall into that position. Not without a nervous system.

Lentes wrote:To them, the property of "soul" is attached to the object at the moment of conception.

So what happens when, after conception, the cells get split in two and identical twins (or more) are formed? Is the soul split in two?
Or what happens if two fertilised eggs merge together forming one person who has two sets of genetic material within them (chimerism)? Does that person have two souls?

The notion is absurd.

@laklak: By viability, do you mean ability to live if born? If so, that seems very difficult to pin down.

I completely agree with you laklak. Time limits make perfect sense. When the mother's health is at risk in late pregnancy, the considerations are more subtle. Killing the baby would be an act of murder, but allowing the woman to die (which in a lot of cases also means the kid goes) would also be morally reprehensible if something can be done about it. At that point, an utilitarian approach to the problem quickly gives that the woman's life is far more important than the baby's, since not only does the woman have far more experiences, but also other sentient beings have many more experiences with her and about her, so she matters to a lot more people.

Animavore wrote:

sentient
ˈsɛnʃ(ə)nt/
adjective
adjective: sentient

1.
able to perceive or feel things.

I don't think early stage foetuses fall into that position. Not without a nervous system.

Lentes wrote:To them, the property of "soul" is attached to the object at the moment of conception.

So what happens when, after conception, the cells get split in two and identical twins (or more) are formed? Is the soul split in two?
Or what happens if two fertilised eggs merge together forming one person who has two sets of genetic material within them (chimerism)? Does that person have two souls?

The notion is absurd.

About the sentience part; that's exactly my point. Thank you.

About the souls part; I wasn't trying to defend their position haha I also believe the notion to be absurd and demonstrably incoherent (the situations you mentioned are great examples). I guess the key thing I want to get across is to switch the debate from a women's rights viewpoint to a sentience viewpoint. If many more people understood that killing little fetuses has no rational basis to be considered murder, then many more people would agree with legalizing abortion. As I said before, I was never convinced (and would never be convinced) by women's rights arguments if I still considered the whole thing to be an act of murder.

I'd rather have more aborted fetuses than shitty parents who don't want to take care of their children, children who by all statistical measures become a burden on society. Call me a heartless bastard if you will, but I think it's far more heartless to insist on a life of suffering for a child and their parent(s) because of some arbitrarily decided time limit.

I will grant to you that a fetus is a person and as a person has a right to life.

Now point to me any person that has a right to the full use of another person's body as a means of life support. We do not require parents to donate blood or kidneys to their dying children, nor do we harvest the organs of condemned prisoners to save thousands of lives a year.

Why should that person growing inside a woman's uterus have more rights than its mother or any other person?

SafeAsMilk wrote:I'd rather have more aborted fetuses than shitty parents who don't want to take care of their children, children who by all statistical measures become a burden on society. Call me a heartless bastard if you will, but I think it's far more heartless to insist on a life of suffering for a child and their parent(s) because of some arbitrarily decided time limit.

See, your position is not necessarily immoral; it takes a very utilitarian approach. As I understand you, you seem to be saying that even if abortion were truly the murder of a sentient being (it's not though), abortion should still be legal for other economic and social considerations. However, that touches on debates of the needs of individuals versus the needs of society, and ultimately I will disagree with you, because I believe that in this specific case, the sentient (for the sake of argument) individual's life should take precedence over the selfish needs of others.

Lentes wrote:

SafeAsMilk wrote:I'd rather have more aborted fetuses than shitty parents who don't want to take care of their children, children who by all statistical measures become a burden on society. Call me a heartless bastard if you will, but I think it's far more heartless to insist on a life of suffering for a child and their parent(s) because of some arbitrarily decided time limit.

See, your position is not necessarily immoral; it takes a very utilitarian approach. As I understand you, you seem to be saying that even if abortion were truly the murder of a sentient being (it's not though), abortion should still be legal for other economic and social considerations. However, that touches on debates of the needs of individuals versus the needs of society, and ultimately I will disagree with you, because I believe that in this specific case, the sentient (for the sake of argument) individual's life should take precedence over the selfish needs of others.

I think my position holds greater consideration for the child's life. You're worried about something being called murder, I'm worried about a child living a shitty life with parents that don't love or care about them who will likely end up miserable, uneducated, poor and little more than a crime statistic. You can leave the suffering of the parents out of the equation if you like. I stand for quality of life, not quantity. There's enough human beings on this Earth already that the last thing we need is to force people to have children they don't want.

scott1328 wrote:I will grant to you that a fetus is a person and as a person has a right to life.

Now point to me any person that has a right to the full use of another person's body as a means of life support. We do not require parents to donate blood or kidneys to their dying children, nor do we harvest the organs of condemned prisoners to save thousands of lives a year.

Why should that person growing inside a woman's uterus have more rights than its mother or any other person?

I suppose conjoined twins sharing a single organ might be a similar example. Is an unborn child really violating its mother's rights, though?

scott1328 wrote:I will grant to you that a fetus is a person and as a person has a right to life.

Now point to me any person that has a right to the full use of another person's body as a means of life support. We do not require parents to donate blood or kidneys to their dying children, nor do we harvest the organs of condemned prisoners to save thousands of lives a year.

Why should that person growing inside a woman's uterus have more rights than its mother or any other person?

I'll take this on, but let's keep it clear that my arguments here will be purely hypothetical. A fetus is not a sentient being, hence it shouldn't have any rights.

Supposing that it were a sentient being though,

Just like the previous comment, you take an utilitarian approach, but you consider a different value here: the right of a person to do as that person wishes with its body. You would seem to be claiming that this right takes precedence over the right to life of a person, when the life of this person depends exclusively on the body of its mother. I would say that your argument sounds compelling if all rights were "created equal". I don't think that human rights are all equally important, and that, since sentience is the most important property of a sentient being (whether that being considers it that way or not), then the right to sentience (i.e. life) is by far more important than other rights.

Now, I'm not Kantian. There are no absolutes. Of course, it depends on the specific case which moral consideration takes precedence. When you mentioned organ harvesting of condemned prisoners (assuming you meant condemned to death penalty), it should be a NO BRAINER to harvest their organs even without their consent; I see absolutely nothing wrong with that. About the parents giving organs/blood to dying children assuming they were compatible, the life of the child does not depend exclusively on their parents being the donors, so it's not the same dilemma as the abortion one. Somebody else could help the kid too.

So as a final thought, I would say ruling abortion illegal/immoral if the kid were truly sentient would have to be done a case-by-case basis. I don't think a single blanket can cover the considerations that would have to be made in balancing the rights of the kid, the rights of the mother, the economic and social considerations, etc.

backmarker wrote:@laklak: By viability, do you mean ability to live if born? If so, that seems very difficult to pin down.

Yeah, and you're correct, it's very difficult to pin down short of inducing labor and seeing if it breathes on it's own.

laklak wrote:

backmarker wrote:@laklak: By viability, do you mean ability to live if born? If so, that seems very difficult to pin down.

Yeah, and you're correct, it's very difficult to pin down short of inducing labor and seeing if it breathes on it's own.

Not to mention available technology, whether or not the mother is poor or rich, etc.

SafeAsMilk wrote:
I think my position holds greater consideration for the child's life. You're worried about something being called murder, I'm worried about a child living a shitty life with parents that don't love or care about them who will likely end up miserable, uneducated, poor and little more than a crime statistic. You can leave the suffering of the parents out of the equation if you like. I stand for quality of life, not quantity. There's enough human beings on this Earth already that the last thing we need is to force people to have children they don't want.

Thanks for expanding your point of view.

See, I will not contest the fact that those children can likely end up as you say.

But, they don't have to. They can overcome their sad situations, they can make a great life out of the shell that they were supposed to have. Because of these considerations for the individual's freedom, I would think twice about passing a blanket resolution that would allow people to dispose of individuals. However, nothing is black and white, and the problem would best be settled in specific cases only.

Lentes wrote:

scott1328 wrote:I will grant to you that a fetus is a person and as a person has a right to life.

Now point to me any person that has a right to the full use of another person's body as a means of life support. We do not require parents to donate blood or kidneys to their dying children, nor do we harvest the organs of condemned prisoners to save thousands of lives a year.

Why should that person growing inside a woman's uterus have more rights than its mother or any other person?

I'll take this on, but let's keep it clear that my arguments here will be purely hypothetical. A fetus is not a sentient being, hence it shouldn't have any rights.

Supposing that it were a sentient being though,

Just like the previous comment, you take an utilitarian approach, but you consider a different value here: the right of a person to do as that person wishes with its body. You would seem to be claiming that this right takes precedence over the right to life of a person, when the life of this person depends exclusively on the body of its mother. I would say that your argument sounds compelling if all rights were "created equal". I don't think that human rights are all equally important, and that, since sentience is the most important property of a sentient being (whether that being considers it that way or not), then the right to sentience (i.e. life) is by far more important than other rights.

Now, I'm not Kantian. There are no absolutes. Of course, it depends on the specific case which moral consideration takes precedence. When you mentioned organ harvesting of condemned prisoners (assuming you meant condemned to death penalty), it should be a NO BRAINER to harvest their organs even without their consent; I see absolutely nothing wrong with that. About the parents giving organs/blood to dying children assuming they were compatible, the life of the child does not depend exclusively on their parents being the donors, so it's not the same dilemma as the abortion one. Somebody else could help the kid too.

So as a final thought, I would say ruling abortion illegal/immoral if the kid were truly sentient would have to be done a case-by-case basis. I don't think a single blanket can cover the considerations that would have to be made in balancing the rights of the kid, the rights of the mother, the economic and social considerations, etc.

I am at work and cannot comment at length. Please define what you mean by "sentient." Perhaps you meant "sapient"

What you want to do is try to come up with a framework for deciding when killing is and isn't ok and then apply it to abortion.

I tried to do something like that here.

I should warn you it involves concluding that infanticide is probably ok some of the time. Purplerat seemed to agree, in case you think concluding that makes me some kind of lunatic.

scott1328 wrote:

I am at work and cannot comment at length. Please define what you mean by "sentient." Perhaps you meant "sapient"

I mean sentient as in: able to perceive/feel. So no, not necessarily sapient. I guess I should have expanded my arguments upon a little to explicitly state that when I mention "fetuses", you should read: "fetuses before they have a nervous system/brain".

Panderos wrote:
I should warn you it involves concluding that infanticide is probably ok some of the time. Purplerat seemed to agree, in case you think concluding that makes me some kind of lunatic.

How does at least one other person agreeing with you prevent us from just concluding you're both lunatics?

Panderos wrote:What you want to do is try to come up with a framework for deciding when killing is and isn't ok and then apply it to abortion.

I tried to do something like that here.

I should warn you it involves concluding that infanticide is probably ok some of the time. Purplerat seemed to agree, in case you think concluding that makes me some kind of lunatic.

Thanks for your input; however I believe the reasoning that you use to discard certain propositions (your (1) and (2)) is invalid, because those things do matter. Also, (3) is by itself the most important thing; I strongly reject your conclusion that deprivation of life experiences is not a bad thing. Otherwise, there is no sense in proceeding any further with any moral discussion. I do think your conclusion that it's not a bad thing is insane actually haha so it would seem as Animavore suggested, that both of you are lunatics for arriving at that hahaha.