Should An Atheist Be Pro Life?

[mymistake]

 

You are approaching this from the idea of justice and fairness for the fetus when really that is irrelevant.

 

Why?

 

Because there is no god for the fetus to grow up and worship.  The fetus does not need to have a destiny.  Have you by any chance seen the old Michel J. Fox movie "Back to the Future"?  If so an analogy would help.  Marty would like his parents to get together because otherwise he wouldn't exist later.  But his parents are under no obligation to get together because people in tha possible future do not have any rights.

 

The idea of justice for the foetus is valid if it is a person.

 

Let's see that.

 

On what basis would you say that it is not a person?

 

I don't think I have ever said a fetus is not a person.  I woul'd have to look at it if I had.  Perhaps it was an accident.

 

There is a hint that you might argue lack of personhood from lack of self-awareness...  (correct me if I'm wrong) :

 

Not just that they lack self-awareness but they also lack the ability to have self-awareness.  But also they are imposing on another person.  It's not just the 9+ months of pregnancy but also all the years it will take for them to become productive.

[Ro-bear]

 

 

 

Comparing a fetus to a passenger on a plane is ridiculous. The pilot knows what he has committed himself to.  He willingly took on this passenger and has a social contract to fulfill.  The woman having sex did not consent to taking on a passenger.  It's more like a stowaway on a plane: possible, but not desirable.  Maybe even not safe.

 

Maybe not the best analogy but then again I'm not sure yours is quite right either

 

 

Unless you are implying that it's o.k to push the stowaway off the plane (while flying) because there was no consent to them being there.

No, mine is not quite right, because a stowaway, no matter how unwelcome, is a person.

 

So do you consider a fetus at any time a 'person' in the womb'?

 

If not, then can I take it you are o.k with abortions up until labour? 

No, and yes, respectively, if by "O.K. with" you mean I would not support laws against.

 

The earlier the abortion, the more "O.K." I am with it.  The more like a person a fetus becomes, the less comfortable I am with the procedure.  That said, I do not have a problem even with the infanticide of seriously defective newborns as practiced by some cultures.  But it does not seem particularly necessary for our own, so I would not advocate our adopting it.

[Raul]

In what sense can you say a baby is a person?

 It's a member of our species. In the same sense of the word fetus is a person. Or do you define the word "person" in some other way?

[SquareOne]

I mean a legal person, who has, or should have, same protection under the law as an adult.

[mymistake]

Well that is not the term I prefer but others have already covered this.  To summarize her argument: do you want to live in a world where many women die and those who survive illegal abortions go to prison for years?  Do you want to live in a world where the police must conduct an investigation for every stillborn baby?  And again the women get arrested if there is evidence that they didn't take proper precautions.  I know you live on the other side of the pond but here the over-crowding in the prisons means that other criminals will be released early to make room for the dozens of million women we would put in jail for murdering their embryo.  The new rules will tie the doctor's hands resulting in more women dying from pregnancy.  There are other details as well but you get the picture.

[SquareOne]

mymistake, really, I have the picture

 

You ask what I want.

 

I want to live in a world where the law is rational and consistent.  I do not feel that British abortion law is rational and consistent, for reasons I have already given.

 

At the same time, I have never said that women who have illegal abortions should go to prison, and I do not hold such a position.  So perhaps the picture you paint is not necessarily one which reflects a practical outworking of my views.

[Vigile]

I want to live in a world where the law is rational and consistent.

 

Very loaded words.  The letter of the law has caused as much suffering in this world as just about anything else I can think of.  The real world is messy.  I love rationality and do my damnedest to be rational, honest with myself and intellectually honest.  I'm sure I fail, but it's not for lack of effort.  But Emerson said it best, 'A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.'

 

I can appreciate the fact that you seem to be approaching this from a position of empathy, but what you are missing is the massive quantifiable suffering your position would bring to this world as well as the hubris involved in the idea that you know what's best for a woman and her fetus. 

[SquareOne]

My position would cause suffering?

 

I haven't suggested any practical measures that I would take as a result of my position. So that's quite a leap.

 

I will grant you that the methods of some pro lifers might cause suffering. But don't automatically conflate me with them please.

[Vigile]

Yes, a pro life position that equates a fetus with person hood status would cause suffering.  Massive suffering should it find its way into law.  If you aren't suggesting any legal change, then how empty your position. 

[SquareOne]

Yes, a pro life position that equates a fetus with person hood status would case suffering. 

 

Why?

 

 

 

If you aren't suggesting any legal change, then how empty your position. 

 

Arguably quite empty.

 

But I am not in the habit of suggesting solutions if I do not have a solution.

[Ro-bear]

 

I want to live in a world where the law is rational and consistent.

 

Very loaded words.  The letter of the law has caused as much suffering in this world as just about anything else I can think of.  The real world is messy.  I love rationality and do my damnedest to be rational, honest with myself and intellectually honest.  I'm sure I fail, but it's not for lack of effort.  But Emerson said it best, 'A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.'

 

I can appreciate the fact that you seem to be approaching this from a position of empathy, but what you are missing is the massive quantifiable suffering your position would bring to this world as well as the hubris involved in the idea that you know what's best for a woman and her fetus. 

Emerson is hard to resist in contexts like this issue.

[Kurari]

 

A 14 year old cannot grant consent.  How could an embryo that doesn't even understand that it exists be able to enter into a contract?  Before it develops a working brain it is almost an inanimate object.  Dogs cannot grant consent regardless of age.  Cats cannot grant consent.  Do you ask your pets for their permission before you get them spayed?  If you own a cow would you ask it permission before you sell its milk?  Do you ask your car for permission before you give it the cheap grade of gas?

 

Comparing things that have the power to understand consent with things that lack this ability is false.

 

Let me just clarify -- we were assuming that a fetus is a person and that the mother had consented to it using her body and then decided to withdraw that consent. There are persons who lack the power to understand consent -- people in comas, for instance. So, valid comparisons are available. Hope that helps. Like I said, I don't have much else to add and have much to mull over. 

 

Ok, that's what I thought you meant, so I did understand that correctly. 

 

In the legal sense and the personal sense, I think the concept of "consent" has to be two people who can fully understand the topic. I can't negotiate with anybody who is unconscious, cannot understand my language, or is sufficiently mentally disabled enough that they do not understand what it is I am consenting to. 

 

But more importantly, in this case, the embryo doesn't even exist at the time the "request" is made. There is literally nobody there to make a request of me to use my body for 9 months for their personal development. 

 

So I really can only consent to sex and not to pregnancy. 

[Akheia]

SquareOne, I do appreciate your consistently polite tone. And as to your assessment of abortion as necessary, yes, it is absolutely necessary. But I do not agree that it is an injustice. It is not an injustice that I get to decide who clambers up inside of my body, for how long, and under what circumstances!

 

My questions (and the answers I'd give):

 

* What is the "pro-life" (meaning really "forced-birth") platform really trying to achieve?

Answer: NOT saving precious widdle baybeez. Their methods are precisely how you DON'T save precious widdle baybeez. Oddly, their platform has nothing to do with actually lowering abortion rates, but concentrates more on making sex as scary as possible so women will stop having it. How do I know this? Because "well, just stop slutting it up!" tends to be the first thing forced-birth leaders say, and their platforms usually deny women adequate education and healthcare options, as well as slashing funding to help kids who are already here. As George Carlin said so eloquently, people against abortion tend to only care about you till you're born--and after that, you're fucked!

 

* Who are the main groups behind the forced-birth platform?

Answer: um, HELLO, fundie and right-wing conservative groups (which largely overlap). And where are they getting most of their funding? From church groups and church think tanks. Follow the money, my dear...

 

* Why does your subjective opinion of a fetus' personhood, utterly unsupported by biology as you have admitted, trump my subjective opinion of a fetus' personhood?

Answer: Because you--naturally--value your opinion over mine and because you just got out of a religion that focuses on making subjective opinions the king of the hill. By wild coincidence, yours happens to not involve any sort of personal risk to you and perpetuates male privilege and position. Of course you're not going to like the idea of letting go of an opinion that fits that frame.

 

* Why do you seem so strangely uncomfortable with the idea of a woman having bodily autonomy and consent?

Answer: ... not going to say a word here because I don't know you well enough, but I really want you to think about it. Our ex-religion does not deal with consent well, especially as touching a woman's body. Christianity could be said to be a religion of slaves, glorifying submission and ownership--especially if you happen to be so unfortunate as to be born with a vagina. There are plenty of fundies who barely even recognize the idea of date rape and spousal abuse, let alone a woman's right not to be owned or enslaved bodily by another.

 

* Do you seriously not grasp that consent to sex does not in any way imply consent to anything else?

Answer: Gosh I hope I've just misread your replies. It's been a couple pages.

 

Did you not notice the mega-huge post I made a few pages back about exactly what negative repercussions to women would occur if your grand plan to seize ownership of women's bodies was made into law? Vigile made an oblique reference to it, but you didn't say much. I know it was long and some of the entries overlapped a teeny bit, but why don't you go look at it?

I'll even expand on it a bit here:

* Therapeutic abortions become harder to get, killing women (as in Ireland) and fetuses alike (as in Colorado this past week).

* Sex becomes even more stigmatized. Women who are sexually active become even more demonized.

* Contraception becomes harder to get (since forced-birth platforms usually limit access to this aid)

* Women's clinics that don't even provide abortions, but do provide services to low-income and at-risk women, get penalized (might not be a big deal with the NHS thingie you've got, but in the US, it's a huge-ass deal).

* Aid to families gets slashed, because lowering welfare assistance to at-risk kids is as much a part of forced-birthers' platforms as denying women abortions, as Michigan demonstrated recently.

* Tighter enmeshment of church and state, since without churches pushing the platform, it literally would not exist: the entire forced-birth movement began some 30 years ago when the RCC wanted to unite with Protestant churches to get conservatives elected more often, but Protestants didn't deny women the right to an abortion. Well, that fuckin' changed fast when the Protestants saw the benefits of such an unholy union. A politician (I want to say Nixon) gave a speech referencing the right to life, and the response was HUGE--and the avalanche began.

* Forced-birth clinics already lie consistently and regularly to women about what a zygote/fetus/blastocyst looks like, about (non-existent) links between abortion and cancer, and about "abortion regret syndrome" (which does not exist). Do you suppose if abortion is criminalized, they'll just chill out and start giving women accurate information?

* Women will start dying from illegal abortions again, because as much as you seem a fairly logical person, you cannot logic yourself into a fetus that gets more rights than a living, breathing, walking person gets, and women know it. We will do whatever the hell we must, take any risks we must, run any dangerous gauntlet we must, to maintain control over our own bodies. Yes, it's that important to us. It is the slave's right to rebel. Maybe next time the little parasite'll learn to fuckin' ASK before beginning to warp our bodies and rob us of the very calcium in our bones to make its frame.

* Let's not forget that forced-birthers don't know the difference between RU-486 and morning-after pills (which absolutely positively do not abort, but only prevent ovulation, such as oral birth control does now), which is causing a brouhaha here with the Affordable Care Act as it demands insurance companies cover morning-after pills, which are indispensable in preventing pregnancy in the first place. How many pregnancies do you suppose have been prevented by using this medication, a medication that forced-birthers want eliminated?

* Do we really need to wonder why the states in my country that are the most against abortion also tend to be the highest in religiosity, but also in transmission of sexually transmitted diseases? Do you wonder where they rank in terms of domestic violence and child abuse? And do we need to wonder why an abusive man tampering with a his partner's birth control to force her to become pregnant is a tactic that shows up in an astonishing THREE OUT OF FOUR abuse cases?

* And as Paul Ryan and that dipshit from the Midwest are busy demonstrating, the forced-birth movement is Team Rape: take a look at the recent laws they've been pushing and tell me they don't make your blood run ice-cold. One would give rapists the ability to sue their victims to force them not to abort babies conceived in their attacks; the other would prosecute rape victims who tried to abort because it would be tampering with evidence. I'm not fucking kidding.

 

Team Rape. Fundies. Hospital murders of innocent women and wanted fetuses. Young people who don't know the first thing about their own bodies. Women who can't access affordable, reliable, easily obtainable contraception. Science-deniers who refuse to give women morning-after pills because ZOMG THERE'S A TINY PINK-FROCKED BABY IN THERE YOU WHORE! Right-wing Christian politicians and pundits calling sexually active women "sluts" and blaming women who want "whore pills" for electing non-forced-birthers (but weirdly not blaming the fundie conservative men in their ranks who have been revealed to be fucking around like bunnies and forcing their mistresses and wives to get abortions--look up Scott Desjarlais).

 

THAT is who is in your bed, SquareOne, if you really regard abortion as some huge injustice. THAT is why abortion is necessary and why it is far more just than the alternative. If your focus really is lowering abortion rates, if you truly value life, then you need to know that the pro-choice platform has saved countless more babies than all the forced-birth laws and froth-mouthed sermons ever have, and has the nice side effect of affirming rather than undermining women's rights to own their own bodies and refuse its direct use by others.

 

Life's not always an easy yes or no question. I'd rather nobody ever get pregnant involuntarily, but as long as women do, we're going to need safe, accessible access to abortion to save their lives and maintain a free, secular society that we want to see lurching, even as unsteadily as it does, toward equality and fairness for all.

[Vigile]

Why?

 

I and others have explained this. But the first 5-10 minutes of this will reexplain it in detail if you'd like: http://billmoyers.com/segment/jessica-gonzalez-rojas-and-lynn-paltrow-on-abortion-rights-activism/

[SquareOne]

Akeitha, do you actually want me to answer those questions?

 

Vigile, the point is, you are automatically conflating my discomfort with the ethical and legal legitimacy of the 24 week rule into presumed forms of activism.  I've never said that women who have abortions should be put in prison, for example.  In fact, the only thing I have said in this thread is that they should have access to free medical care.

[Vigile]

If the fetus is truly a legal person, then it should be given the rights of a person and hence, killing it should be a criminal offense or at minimum should be banned.  If it's not a legal person and there are legitimate reasons for abortion, then why the moral hand-wringing over the issue?  As I see it, the moral hand-wringing legitimately lies with the protection of the mother with whom it can be shown is vulnerable to qualitative and quantitative harm when others interfere with what is a private and personal decision on her part. Opinions of third parties are neither welcome or needed as this is not a societal issue regardless of the desire for some members of society to make it so.  

 

You pretend now you have no real position as I think you realize you can't justify one, but it is clear from your comments throughout this thread that you have a position on this subject that stands morally opposed to a woman's decision to abort her fetus.  If not, then why all the comments and challenges to our positions on the matter?

 

Don't be a slippery debater.  It's unbecoming. 

[SquareOne]

 

 

If the fetus is truly a legal person, then it should be given the rights of a person and hence, killing it should be a criminal offense or at minimum should be banned. 

 

Well, I have not said that it is definitely a legal person.  I have questioned whether there is a valid reason why it should not be considered a legal person.  Only Ravenstar has given a logical answer, but I do not find it satisfactory, despite its logical consistency.

 

At any rate, criminal offences do not necessarily warrant prison sentences, or even prosecution.  For example, in Britain it is illegal to assist somebody to commit suicide.  Some people have helped relatives to go to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland and receive euthanasia there.  This is technically a crime in Britain.  However, the Crown Prosecution Service has never prosecuted anyone who has helped someone go abroad to receive euthanasia.  The CPS has said that it is not be in the public interest to do so.

 

Now, obviously that is not a completely like-for-like situation.  And I am not suggesting that this approach should necessarily be applied to abortion.  I bring it up to illustrate that sometimes the law and prosecution are not quite so black and white.

 

 

 

You pretend now you have no real position as I think you realize you can't justify one, but it is clear from your comments throughout this thread that you have a position on this subject that stands morally opposed to a woman's decision to abort her fetus.  If not, then why all the comments and challenges to our positions on the matter?

 

My position is that I want a more consistent, logical and intellectually sound law, in all areas of law.

 

I am not opposed to abortion per se. I do believe there are certain circumstances where it is unquestionably acceptable, to have an abortion (i.e. risk to mother's life).  What I am opposed to is illogical laws where such exceptions are not necessarily applicable.  I said that in the Original Post.

 

Why comments and challenges to your positions?  Because when I read a flawed argument I call it out as being flawed.  That's not to say that I believe I have the perfect answer myself.

 

By parallel, we would both point out the logical fallacy in the argument of a Christian who argues that there is definitely a God.  That's not to say we know the truth ourselves.

[Vigile]

 

 

 

My position is that I want a more consistent, logical and intellectually sound law, in all areas of law..

 

Ok, so let's back up a bit.  What does that look like?

[SquareOne]

I really don't know.

 

That's rather why I started the thread!  To see if anyone else had any thoughts.

[Vigile]

I really don't know.

 

That's rather why I started the thread!  To see if anyone else had any thoughts.

 

I think you need to lay out your reasons why you think the current situation/law is inconsistent.  If you've alluded to this it's really not clear. 

 

If you feel it is inconsistent based on a premise we reject, perhaps you are just wrong about the premise.

[mymistake]

To me it looks like there is just one guy being inconsistent and illogical.  His assessments are consistently wrong.

[SquareOne]

Vigile I did that in the first post, my friend.

 

I assume you're referring to me MM.  Please may you demonstrate where I have been inconsistent and illogical, and wrong in my assessments?

[Ravenstar]

Okay.. 'personhood' is a ridiculous argument. Corporations are legal persons too... do they deserve the same rights as a human being?

 

I don't think so. Legal personhood has nothing to do with actual humanity.

 

What about encephaletic fetuses? Embryos? Zygotes? What about the fertilized cell before implantation? Hell.. where do we stop? Sperm? Ovum? Stem cells? Eukyrotic cells? (potential human, in 4 billion years of evolution - better put away that hand sanitizer) Human DNA itself?

 

Surely the human who is actually alive, breathing and is living life has more 'rights' than a potential, yes?

 

I would hope that as we grow as a species we see that quality of life has more meaning than quantity... and reality means more than probabilities.

[mymistake]

I'm not going to go through 350 posts plus the several pages from the other thread.  They stand on their own just fine.  I could spend hours compiling it just to wind up again being called an "ostracising jerk" and "a total jackass" for my efforts. 

[Vigile]

Let's examine it then:

 

 

I would call myself pro-life.

 

This is because I do not accept the moral legitimacy of the State sanctioning abortion.

 

This is because I believe that all laws should be founded on a rational, non-arbitrary justifications.

 

Doesn't follow.  This (bolded) is a statement of opinion not backed up by any facts.

 

 

And, I do not believe that current state-sanctioned abortion law is
entirely founded upon rational, non-arbitrary justifications.

For me the starting point is that human life should be protected.  We
are cosmic miracles: unlikely blessings from what appears to be a cold
and unconscious universe.

 

In one breath you opine that current laws are based on arbitrary, irrational justifications and in the next breath you make an irrational, arbitrary justification for your position.  "Cosmic miracles: unlikely blessings" is an entirely subjective opinion based on nothing that looks like rational thought. 

 

 

it is the preciousness of life itself that we should seek to preserve.

 

And again.  Subjective.  Moreover, since you've made this statement, you have been shown numerous times how such a position can't be arrived at without massive penalties to an objectively sentient being. 

 

 

When a state creates an abortion law, it draw an arbitrary line:

 

Finally, we arrive at something that is somewhat accurate.  24 weeks is borderline arbitrary.  It is a number that has been arrived at via the pressures between opponents and proponents, much like the equilibrium price of a stock is arrived at based on the pressures between buyers and sellers, with some input by science. 

 

 

The alleged justification for this cut-off point, is that after 24 weeks
a foetus may survive outside its mothers womb, if born prematurely.

 

Justifications are created by the debate itself. Were all sides of the debate willing to accept the premise that the rights of a sentient being at the mercy of a non sentient being massively trumps said non sentient being that necessarily puts the sentient being at its mercy, then no one would even broach this topic.  The at best fallout from an unfortunate situation driven largely by the overtly religious community sticking its nose into the private decisions of an autonomous individual.  The justification is in no way central to the debate and can be ignored without damaging the position of those who would consider themselves pro choice.

 

 

Indeed, up until the age of at least two years old (and I am being
generous there), it is not thinkable that a human being could survive
unaided without external care.

 

Once born, or at some point close to birth, an infant can become dependent on society to take care of it's needs, but no longer is solely dependent on one particular individual.  At that point, society is no longer precariously demanding a service of one single member.  The distinction here is important and entirely quantifiable (rational isn't necessarily the most appropriate term here).

 

 

For me, as long as the cut-off point for abortion is arbitrary, then the entire law is arbitrary, and unjustifiable.

 

You have not made your case for this claim.  In fact, the crux of this claim largely rests on the irrational premise that life, for lack of better words is simply in and of itself is sacred and a miracle. Accepting this premise necessarily requires measurable harm to lives that can contemplate harm.  IMO, that then equates to a moral failing even if it's not one easily apparent to many who take a simple, knee-jerk approach to this subject.