False Abortion Presumptions

Discussion in 'Abortion' started by MegadethFan, Feb 18, 2012.

  1. MegadethFan

    MegadethFan Well-Known Member

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    In the abortion debate, there are a number of significant assumptions made on the part of lifers and advocates of choice.

    Here are some of the most fundamental flawed premises that many arguments are based on that I believe should be challenged and where possible, diffused:


    1. That a fetus is not a human being.
    This is an argument used by some advocates of choice, but it is a fallacy. Clearly a zygote is a human being, that is, a member of the species of homo-sapiens. This fact does not change after birth. It is true however, that in stressing the "being" or the idea of "personhood" that there is a difference. But it must be said that this is an argument of personhood - not that a fetus is not a human being. It falls on the responsibility of pro-choice people to use the term personhood rather than 'human being' to avoid confusion. The fact remains that a fetus is a human being before and after birth. But it is not a person, in the line of the idea of personhood (of a self-conscious and aware being).


    2. That life begins at an arbitrary moment.
    This is an argument used by some pro-choice people, and its totally nonsensical. Clearly the fetus is alive as much in the womb as after. On what grounds can it be said a human is not alive at the moment before birth?


    3. Human life is untouchable.
    The lifer position rests on this syllogism:
    It is wrong to kill an innocent human being.
    A human fetus is an innocent human being.
    Therefore it is wrong to kill a human fetus.
    But, why is it wrong to kill an innocent human being? This is something lifers fail to explain or rationalize.


    4. Humans are all the same, with equal liberty.
    This is a fallacy that sits underneath the lifer position as an underlying theme. Its the idea that all humans are equal to an entitlement that bestows a right to live. This nonsense, however. A fetus does not value its existence like a young baby and humans of older age do. This is what renders the lifer position invalid. We owe nothing to beings that dont even comprehend, let alone value, their existence, which includes a fetus.
     
  2. Blasphemer

    Blasphemer Well-Known Member

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    Great summary. Time is very often wasted with arguing these fallacies. Everyone on this forum should take care to avoid them, assuming they want serious debate, and did not just come here to troll.
     
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  3. diamond lil

    diamond lil Well-Known Member

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    I don't use any of those arguments.

    Mine is simply that until a human entity exits the womb and becomes a person, it's the property of the woman concerned.

    edit: It becomes a person once the cord is cut and it is fully separated from its mother. That's why cutting the cord is considered a very symbolic moment by many people.
     
  4. dadoalex

    dadoalex Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Wrong.

    There is no scientist that defines a fetus as a human. The phrase is "human fetus" just as in "human kidney" or "human liver" and all of them identify a part of the human body.

    A human fetus is not a human being until and unless it is able to survive outside the womb.

    Agreeing to agree on definitions is a good thing. Starting with definitions that immediately tilt the discussion is not.
     
  5. MegadethFan

    MegadethFan Well-Known Member

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    Why is it her property, or more accurately, how and why does the concept of property make the fetus "owned" by the mother?

    How so?

    But that doesn't make it logical or rational. What's so special about being detached from your mother literally?
     
  6. MegadethFan

    MegadethFan Well-Known Member

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    I said the term human being should be applied in the sense of the fetus being part of the species of humans. It is a being that is human, thus a human being.

    Could you give a medical source for that?

    I wasnt trying to tilt it.
     
  7. Blasphemer

    Blasphemer Well-Known Member

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    Are you implying you would be OK with killing newborn children, as long as they are still attached to the mother with umbilical cord?
     
  8. MegadethFan

    MegadethFan Well-Known Member

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    No what he thinks is that a mother can carve her new born up slowly as long as the umbilical cord is attached. Its her property after all. She can mutilate it any way she wants by his logic.
     
  9. diamond lil

    diamond lil Well-Known Member

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    It's inside her body.


    because that's what happens, isn't it?



    Of course it makes it logical and rational.

    It can be cuddled, kissed, smacked, thrown across the room, smelt, seen, heard, examined, help up by one leg, moved from room to room and so on and so forth.

    Just as you and I could be.
     
  10. diamond lil

    diamond lil Well-Known Member

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    Yes I would. Why not? There would have to be something desperately wrong with it and the woman for that to happen.

    It's not very likely though, is it? If something is wrong then the foetus is killed before being delivered, not afterwards.
     
  11. diamond lil

    diamond lil Well-Known Member

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    How would she manage that?

    Let's have a bit of realism, here. This hysterical rhetoric is stupid.

    edit: I'm a woman.

    I've given birth four times and I can tell you there was absolutely no chance of me having the strength to carve up my dinner before the cord was cut, let alone a baby.
     
  12. Wildjoker5

    Wildjoker5 Well-Known Member

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    If it is ok to kill arbitrarily, can I just kill who I want without any repercussions? If it is not ok to kill someone that has wronged me, why can something like a fetus be killed when it has done nothing at all to anyone? The laws say we can't kill other humans without a trial or except ing self defense, none of that applies to a fetus.


    So you are part of the crowd that says we can kill children up to the age of coherence (usually age 2)? Or even the mentally retarded, just cause they don't have a full grasp on the meaning of being alive totally? And they say libertarians are heartless.
     
  13. Wildjoker5

    Wildjoker5 Well-Known Member

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    Are babies really separated from their mothers after the cord is cut? What about the feedings? Are they separated really? There are many of the "me generation" that are still not separated from their mothers.
     
  14. diamond lil

    diamond lil Well-Known Member

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    Yes. They are instantly taken away so they can be examined and weighed.
    Then all being well, they are wrapped in a soft blanket and given back to their mother.

    What about the feedings?


    Oh, they are definitely separated.
     
  15. MegadethFan

    MegadethFan Well-Known Member

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    No.

    Because it has no interest in being alive.

    Correct.

    No age of self-awareness (several months).

    No, if they cant comprehend their own existence, then it would be ok.

    Why have a heart for something that has no heart for itself?
     
  16. MegadethFan

    MegadethFan Well-Known Member

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    LOL I wasn't meaning my words literally, rather figuratively - according to the premise I was exploring, the mother can do anything to the baby until the umbilical cord is detached.
     
  17. Blasphemer

    Blasphemer Well-Known Member

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    So we cannot prosecute such mother for murder then, but the moment the umbilical cord is cut, we suddenly can since the fetus magically turns into a person, which is literally a fraction of a second, and no qualitative changes in the baby happened?
    Thats completely illogical and immoral, like the whole definition of personhood based on biological independency.

    Pro-choice extremists who think people should have a right to kill newborns as long as they are attached to the mother are equally, if not even more disgusting than pro-life extremists who think a zygote is a person, IMHO.

    As long as there is sentience, it is undeniably a person. All other factors, such as biological dependence/independence or location are completely irrelevant in such case.

    Late term abortion (and the whole third trimester abortion) should be banned. The only exception is saving life or health of the mother, which should be based on the decision of a doctor, NOT the mother.
     
  18. diamond lil

    diamond lil Well-Known Member

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    Yes, that's right.


    You only think it's immoral.

    That's your opinion.

    It's your opinion because you haven't thought about it properly.


    Well, not in mine.


    Nope. they're the whole crux of the matter.

    Will you stop stating your opinion as fact.

    I don't do that.

    That is a disgusting point of view.
     
  19. Blasphemer

    Blasphemer Well-Known Member

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    Why do you think newborns are not self-aware? We cant really test that. There are some experimental approaches like the famous mirror test, but those have too many flaws and potential false negatives to be conclusive and useful.
     
  20. Flintc

    Flintc New Member

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    Never have been able to understand the problem here. Abortion is a straightforward social tradeoff, between the value of human life on one side, and the value of individual liberty on the other. Which is more important? Beats me. We willingly die (and send people to die) to defend individual liberty, so in that sense liberty trumps life. But we also deprive people of liberty, and sometimes even life, for killing others. So in that sense, life trumps liberty. There is no black and white formula; it's a matter of weighing these competing values within a social context.

    Personally, I fall on the liberty side of this debate. My phillosphy is, I won't tell you what to do or force you do what I think is right for me, and I expect the same consideration from you. The most insidious threat to our liberties is the sense, all too human, that whatever is not mandatory should be prohibited. We often find it uncomfortable to permit people to behave in a wide variety of ways - it makes them unpredictable. It's also very human to have a personal conviction so strong that making that conviction mandatory upon others who do not share it seems "reasonable." And it's for both of these reasons that "the price of liberty is eternal vigilence." Those who wish to force their preferences onto YOU, always do so with the very best intentions. And we know what's paved with those.

    I treasure the freedom to be wrong. My freedom to be wrong, and yours also.
     
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  21. Blasphemer

    Blasphemer Well-Known Member

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    Not more disgusting than supporting or defending the killing of newborn children.
     
  22. diamond lil

    diamond lil Well-Known Member

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    It is far more disgusting.

    You want to take away a woman's right to be a person and turn her into an incubator. A thing.

    I believe there may be a good reason why doctors would kill a foetus, even during labour.
     
  23. Blasphemer

    Blasphemer Well-Known Member

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    Turning woman into an incubator wont take away her personhood, which is based on the presence of mind, not external liberty.
    It temporarily restricts her liberty, but for a good cause - saving another person with mind. Nothing wrong with that.
    If she really did not want the child, she had a lot of time for abortion in the first 5 months of pregnancy when the fetus does not have a mind.

    Yes, as I have said, if there is a good medical reason (saving life or health of the mother), then abortion should be always allowed. Its not really important whether the baby is a person or not then, since you are allowed to kill even adult persons when you do it to save yourself from health threats they pose.
     
  24. diamond lil

    diamond lil Well-Known Member

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    I have no idea what you mean when you talk about mind. It has absolutely nothing to do with whether a human entity is a person or not.

    It never will, either, because it doesn't make sense.
     
  25. Flintc

    Flintc New Member

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    Problem is, what if she disagrees with you? Whose opinion about her decisions should matter more, yours or hers?

    Correct, nothing wrong with it. But beware of the temptation to take what looks like there's nothing wrong with it, and making it mandatory on everyone. Others may disagree with you, and you would not like THEM forcing THEIR opinions on you, would you?

    And taking advantage of that timing would have had many advantages. One might then wonder why this opportunity was not taken, and perhaps there are reasons sufficiently compelling for those we (hopefully) allow to MAKE such decisions. After all, it's their body, not yours.

    At any rate, the goal here is something socially workable. Which means the ultimate appeal isn't really to religion, or to liberty, but rather to the pragmatic goal of minimizing social conflict and potential damage. If we discover that some social policy is being roundly violated and ignored, then we have a bad policy, whatever the nominal justifications.

    We allow for these things because if we prohibited them, we would do nothing to alter what people do. Kind of like the war on drugs - despite wholesale imprisonment and exorbitantly expensive law enforcement, consumption of illegal drugs hasn't budged, remaining as common as it ever was. We have (hopefully) learned, if only by trial and many errors, that prohibiting something people will do regardless invariably makes a bad situation worse. The best social solution is to recognize this and attempt to manage the conditions so as to minimize the fallout.

    The worst possible "solution" is to create a social environment where sex and contraception are discouraged, then outlaw the very results that are being facilitated. And yet, perversely, there are some "social conservatives" who think their religious faith requires them to ice up the sidewalks while making it illegal to fall down!
     

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