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[Arizona] says, you're pregnant for up to two weeks before you're pregnant.

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  • Sir LandsharkSir Landshark resting shark face Registered User regular
    Hacksaw wrote: »
    It's a ridiculous hypothetical, as are most of the ones encircling this whole debate.

    So you've figured it out then? The exact moment when a fetus/child gains inalienable human rights?

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  • AManFromEarthAManFromEarth Let's get to twerk! The King in the SwampRegistered User regular
    Hacksaw wrote: »
    It's a ridiculous hypothetical, as are most of the ones encircling this whole debate.

    So you've figured it out then? The exact moment when a fetus/child gains inalienable human rights?

    Currently that would be at birth. I would argue that its at viability.

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  • Sir LandsharkSir Landshark resting shark face Registered User regular
    Hacksaw wrote: »
    It's a ridiculous hypothetical, as are most of the ones encircling this whole debate.

    So you've figured it out then? The exact moment when a fetus/child gains inalienable human rights?

    Currently that would be at birth. I would argue that its at viability.

    I agree that viability seems a reasonable place to draw a distinction. Of course, modern science continues to move that line. I'd type more but it's getting late.

    Please consider the environment before printing this post.
  • AManFromEarthAManFromEarth Let's get to twerk! The King in the SwampRegistered User regular
    edited April 2012
    Hacksaw wrote: »
    It's a ridiculous hypothetical, as are most of the ones encircling this whole debate.

    So you've figured it out then? The exact moment when a fetus/child gains inalienable human rights?

    Currently that would be at birth. I would argue that its at viability.

    I agree that viability seems a reasonable place to draw a distinction. Of course, modern science continues to move that line. I'd type more but it's getting late.

    If we could remove fetuses and place them in artificial wombs or in people who want to have kids but can't, abortion would become a dead issue.

    That would be a beautiful day.

    AManFromEarth on
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  • HacksawHacksaw J. Duggan Esq. Wrestler at LawRegistered User regular
    Hacksaw wrote: »
    It's a ridiculous hypothetical, as are most of the ones encircling this whole debate.

    So you've figured it out then? The exact moment when a fetus/child gains inalienable human rights?

    When they turn 18. Before that they basically have no rights.

  • Josh5890Josh5890 ChicagoRegistered User regular
    Want a solution to all of this legislation mess? Just ban abortion completely. It makes the most sense.

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  • Mild ConfusionMild Confusion Smash All Things Registered User regular
    Not sure if serious...

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  • SyphonBlueSyphonBlue The studying beaver That beaver sure loves studying!Registered User regular
    In a world where abortion is outlawed, only outlaws get abortions.

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  • HacksawHacksaw J. Duggan Esq. Wrestler at LawRegistered User regular
    Josh5890 wrote: »
    Want a solution to all of this legislation mess? Just ban abortion completely. It makes the most sense.

    No, it doesn't.

  • DarkPrimusDarkPrimus Registered User regular
    edited April 2012
    Josh5890 wrote: »
    Want a solution to all of this legislation mess? Just ban abortion completely. It makes the most sense.

    What sort of sense does this make the most of, exactly?

    DarkPrimus on
  • psyck0psyck0 Registered User regular
    Hacksaw wrote: »
    It's a ridiculous hypothetical, as are most of the ones encircling this whole debate.

    So you've figured it out then? The exact moment when a fetus/child gains inalienable human rights?

    Currently that would be at birth. I would argue that its at viability.

    That would be pretty terrible. It would mean that women lost the rights over their bodies after around 24 weeks, and would also set them up for all sorts of stupid murder charges if they do anything risky that harms their fetus. Birth is where it should be.

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  • AManFromEarthAManFromEarth Let's get to twerk! The King in the SwampRegistered User regular
    psyck0 wrote: »
    Hacksaw wrote: »
    It's a ridiculous hypothetical, as are most of the ones encircling this whole debate.

    So you've figured it out then? The exact moment when a fetus/child gains inalienable human rights?

    Currently that would be at birth. I would argue that its at viability.

    That would be pretty terrible. It would mean that women lost the rights over their bodies after around 24 weeks, and would also set them up for all sorts of stupid murder charges if they do anything risky that harms their fetus. Birth is where it should be.

    Third trimester abortions are already illegal unless there's an absolute necessity for it. I am proposing no change to that.

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  • mythagomythago Registered User regular
    Except that the most famous defense of abortion by far is the violinist thought experiment, which precisely justifies abortion in cases of rape regardless of the personhood of the unborn baby. Which means this post is either an embarrassment, because you don't understand the violinist argument, or it's shamefully intellectually dishonest.

    Suggest you go back and actually read that defense, and also suggest that you not confuse "most famous" with "logically airtight". The author herself admits the thought experiment gets wobbly when we get away from the kidnapping analogy.

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  • mythagomythago Registered User regular
    Apothe0sis wrote: »
    As for the "inconvenience" of pregnancy, I was gathering some choice quotes about his from the thread. The sheer range and magnitude of manifestly negative effects that pregnancy can and does have on a woman's life is incalculable. In these discussions there is a focus on health and pregnancy, and even then, only such a narrow part thereof - the direct and immediate mortal consequences while hugely significant are only the tip of the iceberg. There are so many other effects on things as important as career and financial matters not to mention a whole range of things that would scarcely occur to any of us who haven't been pregnant.

    And here we go agreeing again.

    It never ceases to amaze me how many people who will never, ever be pregnant are more than happy to insist other people do it. I had (comparatively) easy pregnancies and labor, but I had friends who experienced everything from life-threatening pre-eclampsia to liver failure to complications requiring "we're going to C-section her RIGHT NOW so we don't lose them both". Any silly goose who chooses to characterize the process as a mere inconvenience? I wouldn't piss down their throat if their heart were on fire.

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  • EuphoriacEuphoriac Registered User regular
    edited April 2012
    Hacksaw wrote: »
    It's a ridiculous hypothetical, as are most of the ones encircling this whole debate.

    So you've figured it out then? The exact moment when a fetus/child gains inalienable human rights?

    Currently that would be at birth. I would argue that its at viability.

    I agree that viability seems a reasonable place to draw a distinction. Of course, modern science continues to move that line. I'd type more but it's getting late.

    If we could remove fetuses and place them in artificial wombs or in people who want to have kids but can't, abortion would become a dead issue.

    That would be a beautiful day.

    Heh, dead issue...
    mythago wrote: »
    Apothe0sis wrote: »
    As for the "inconvenience" of pregnancy, I was gathering some choice quotes about his from the thread. The sheer range and magnitude of manifestly negative effects that pregnancy can and does have on a woman's life is incalculable. In these discussions there is a focus on health and pregnancy, and even then, only such a narrow part thereof - the direct and immediate mortal consequences while hugely significant are only the tip of the iceberg. There are so many other effects on things as important as career and financial matters not to mention a whole range of things that would scarcely occur to any of us who haven't been pregnant.

    And here we go agreeing again.

    It never ceases to amaze me how many people who will never, ever be pregnant are more than happy to insist other people do it. I had (comparatively) easy pregnancies and labor, but I had friends who experienced everything from life-threatening pre-eclampsia to liver failure to complications requiring "we're going to C-section her RIGHT NOW so we don't lose them both". Any silly goose who chooses to characterize the process as a mere inconvenience? I wouldn't piss down their throat if their heart were on fire.

    I don't think the possibility of having complications during pregnancy should be grounds for having an abortion. I assume you mean mothers who have had a history of problems? Is it even possible to pre-diagnose the certainty of pre-eclampsia on a first-time pregnancy?

    Euphoriac on
  • mythagomythago Registered User regular
    Euphoriac wrote: »
    I don't think the possibility of having complications during pregnancy should be grounds for having an abortion. I assume you mean mothers who have had a history of problems? Is it even possible to pre-diagnose the certainty of pre-eclampsia on a first-time pregnancy?

    You assume wrong. You also miss the point, which is that calling pregnancy and labor an "inconvenience" is either grossly ignorant or flat-out lying. An "inconvenience" is having to drive to the next grocery store because this one is out of milk, or breaking a fingernail, or being out of quarters for the parking meter. Pre-eclampsia and vaginal fistulae are not "inconveniences".

    Ta-Nehisi Coates put it much better than I could.

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  • psyck0psyck0 Registered User regular
    edited April 2012
    psyck0 wrote: »
    Hacksaw wrote: »
    It's a ridiculous hypothetical, as are most of the ones encircling this whole debate.

    So you've figured it out then? The exact moment when a fetus/child gains inalienable human rights?

    Currently that would be at birth. I would argue that its at viability.

    That would be pretty terrible. It would mean that women lost the rights over their bodies after around 24 weeks, and would also set them up for all sorts of stupid murder charges if they do anything risky that harms their fetus. Birth is where it should be.

    Third trimester abortions are already illegal unless there's an absolute necessity for it. I am proposing no change to that.

    Sure, in your country. They aren't here, and they shouldn't be. I think a woman's right to her own body is absolute. However, it's a rather unimportant point, since abortion in the 3rd trimester would essentially be induced labour or c-section, delivering a viable fetus for someone else to care for. The gap after viability but before abortion = delivery is the important window, where the woman should be able to abort via lethal means.

    Also, virtually no one wants a late abortion for non-medical reasons.
    Hacksaw wrote: »
    It's a ridiculous hypothetical, as are most of the ones encircling this whole debate.

    So you've figured it out then? The exact moment when a fetus/child gains inalienable human rights?

    Currently that would be at birth. I would argue that its at viability.

    I agree that viability seems a reasonable place to draw a distinction. Of course, modern science continues to move that line. I'd type more but it's getting late.

    If we could remove fetuses and place them in artificial wombs or in people who want to have kids but can't, abortion would become a dead issue.

    That would be a beautiful day.

    And the woman would just have to suffer through the ridiculously invasive major surgery? Or are you handwaving that away in your thought?

    psyck0 on
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  • AManFromEarthAManFromEarth Let's get to twerk! The King in the SwampRegistered User regular
    psyck0 wrote: »
    psyck0 wrote: »
    Hacksaw wrote: »
    It's a ridiculous hypothetical, as are most of the ones encircling this whole debate.

    So you've figured it out then? The exact moment when a fetus/child gains inalienable human rights?

    Currently that would be at birth. I would argue that its at viability.

    That would be pretty terrible. It would mean that women lost the rights over their bodies after around 24 weeks, and would also set them up for all sorts of stupid murder charges if they do anything risky that harms their fetus. Birth is where it should be.

    Third trimester abortions are already illegal unless there's an absolute necessity for it. I am proposing no change to that.

    Sure, in your country. They aren't here, and they shouldn't be. I think a woman's right to her own body is absolute. However, it's a rather unimportant point, since abortion in the 3rd trimester would essentially be induced labour or c-section, delivering a viable fetus for someone else to care for. The gap after viability but before abortion = delivery is the important window, where the woman should be able to abort via lethal means.

    Also, virtually no one wants a late abortion for non-medical reasons.
    Hacksaw wrote: »
    It's a ridiculous hypothetical, as are most of the ones encircling this whole debate.

    So you've figured it out then? The exact moment when a fetus/child gains inalienable human rights?

    Currently that would be at birth. I would argue that its at viability.

    I agree that viability seems a reasonable place to draw a distinction. Of course, modern science continues to move that line. I'd type more but it's getting late.

    If we could remove fetuses and place them in artificial wombs or in people who want to have kids but can't, abortion would become a dead issue.

    That would be a beautiful day.

    And the woman would just have to suffer through the ridiculously invasive major surgery? Or are you handwaving that away in your thought?

    Are you just out to pick a fight?

    My point with the first quote is that its already legal to get a third trimester abortion in the instances that people would want one.

    The second thing, the idea is that the procedure wouldn't be any more invasive than an abortion. Or do you know specifics of this completely made up and unrealistic procedure I postulated about that I don't?

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  • MentalExerciseMentalExercise Indefenestrable Registered User regular
    mythago wrote: »
    Except that the most famous defense of abortion by far is the violinist thought experiment, which precisely justifies abortion in cases of rape regardless of the personhood of the unborn baby. Which means this post is either an embarrassment, because you don't understand the violinist argument, or it's shamefully intellectually dishonest.

    Suggest you go back and actually read that defense, and also suggest that you not confuse "most famous" with "logically airtight". The author herself admits the thought experiment gets wobbly when we get away from the kidnapping analogy.

    ... which makes it an effective argument in defense of abortion in cases of rape, even if one has a moral objection to them in other cases. Which is what the author is unsatisfied with, as she is writing in general defense of abortion.

    You are literally emphasizing the exact thing that makes the experiment do what I'm saying it does. It is a flawed defense of abortion in the general because it is only an effective defense of abortion in cases of rape.

    I'm not sure what else there is to say here. I don't know any way to make this more clear.

    "More fish for Kunta!"

    --LeVar Burton
  • _J__J_ Pedant Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    Josh5890 wrote: »
    Want a solution to all of this legislation mess? Just ban abortion completely. It makes the most sense.

    Alternatively, we could legalize all abortions.

    I'm not sure why abortion is problematic. We aren't running low on people.

  • MrMisterMrMister Jesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered User regular
    Hacksaw wrote: »
    It's a ridiculous hypothetical, as are most of the ones encircling this whole debate.

    Is it really any more absurd a hypothetical than a physics problem which involves perfectly elastic springs or frictionless ramps? The point of thought experiments is not to represent ordinary situations as we typically run into them, but rather, to try to abstract and idealize away certain confounding variables. It's not an objection to Thompson that we rarely kidnap violinists (or that there are no such things as people-spores, to pick one of her later examples), any more than it's an objection to my high school physics teacher that there are no frictionless ramps.

  • MrMisterMrMister Jesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered User regular
    mythago wrote: »
    This is the era of internet intellectuals, mostly dudes, who excel at analogizing easily accessible facts to buttress their points. It's a good skill to have, and one I employ myself. But it isn't wisdom.

    As a philosopher, I object to the characterization of wisdom as anything other than being quick with clever analogies (I am only half-kidding).

  • mythagomythago Registered User regular
    ... which makes it an effective argument in defense of abortion in cases of rape, even if one has a moral objection to them in other cases. Which is what the author is unsatisfied with, as she is writing in general defense of abortion.

    You are literally emphasizing the exact thing that makes the experiment do what I'm saying it does. It is a flawed defense of abortion in the general because it is only an effective defense of abortion in cases of rape.

    I'm not sure what else there is to say here. I don't know any way to make this more clear.

    I really don't understand what point you think you're making. That the 'violinist' thought-experiment is flawed? No argument here. That one could make an extremely flawed abstract argument in which abortion is OK if the woman was literally forced to become pregnant? Sure. But the discussion that upset you was about how abortion-is-evil-except-for-rape is not principled, unless the principle in question is "the woman chose to have sex" - which, uh, is kind of the point of people promoting the violinist argument, right? (Or, when the principle is purely realpolitik.)

    I suspect where you are getting tripped up there is that you overlooked Apothe0sis' point, to which I was responding: that the principle 'abortion is wrong because it ends a potential life' is incompatible with 'abortion is acceptable if the potential life was created by rape'.

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  • mythagomythago Registered User regular
    MrMister wrote: »
    The point of thought experiments is not to represent ordinary situations as we typically run into them, but rather, to try to abstract and idealize away certain confounding variables. It's not an objection to Thompson that we rarely kidnap violinists (or that there are no such things as people-spores, to pick one of her later examples), any more than it's an objection to my high school physics teacher that there are no frictionless ramps.

    The problem is when abstracting those confounding variables renders the thought-experiment ludicrous and useless, or when it prevents the thought-experiment from having any application to the real world. As well, thought-experiments have a predictable tendency to run on rails, in order to lead towards forced choices that the presenter of the experiment prefers.

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  • psyck0psyck0 Registered User regular

    Are you just out to pick a fight?
    No, and that's why I tried to phrase my question nicely.
    The second thing, the idea is that the procedure wouldn't be any more invasive than an abortion. Or do you know specifics of this completely made up and unrealistic procedure I postulated about that I don't?

    There's no way you could recover a fetus aborted in the current methods to implant into another woman. I can't conceive of a non-surgical method of abortion where the fetus could be recovered and implanted in another person.

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  • MentalExerciseMentalExercise Indefenestrable Registered User regular
    edited April 2012
    mythago wrote: »
    ... which makes it an effective argument in defense of abortion in cases of rape, even if one has a moral objection to them in other cases. Which is what the author is unsatisfied with, as she is writing in general defense of abortion.

    You are literally emphasizing the exact thing that makes the experiment do what I'm saying it does. It is a flawed defense of abortion in the general because it is only an effective defense of abortion in cases of rape.

    I'm not sure what else there is to say here. I don't know any way to make this more clear.

    I really don't understand what point you think you're making. That the 'violinist' thought-experiment is flawed? No argument here. That one could make an extremely flawed abstract argument in which abortion is OK if the woman was literally forced to become pregnant? Sure. But the discussion that upset you was about how abortion-is-evil-except-for-rape is not principled, unless the principle in question is "the woman chose to have sex" - which, uh, is kind of the point of people promoting the violinist argument, right? (Or, when the principle is purely realpolitik.)

    I suspect where you are getting tripped up there is that you overlooked Apothe0sis' point, to which I was responding: that the principle 'abortion is wrong because it ends a potential life' is incompatible with 'abortion is acceptable if the potential life was created by rape'.

    Yeah, you're definitely not understanding.

    The point of the violinist experiment is that it concedes the humanity of the unborn baby (via the violinist), but concludes that the mother's right to freedom supersedes the baby's right to life anyway.

    As already discussed, the experiment is only properly analogous to cases of rape.

    This means that similarly; you could have a principled objection to abortion based on the personhood of the developing baby, and yet still beleive that in cases of rape the mother's right to freedom supersedes the unborn baby's right to life, and she should be able to get an abortion.

    A principled objection to abortion, with a rape exception, with absolutely no relationship to slut-shaming, tied up with a neat little bow.

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  • Mild ConfusionMild Confusion Smash All Things Registered User regular
    I don't know, aborting a baby that is viable (outside of the incest, rape, life of mother/baby) seems unnecessarily cruel to me. Before I see no moral issue with it if the woman chooses to not have the baby, but it it's a normal pregnancy and the baby is far enough along to survive. Just seems wrong to me.

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  • psyck0psyck0 Registered User regular
    I really don't understand how rape is different from consensual sex in determining whether abortion is moral or not, except because it allows for slut-shaming. In both cases, the baby is unwanted. In one, it was forced on the woman by threat of physical violence; in the other, because of failed contraception or poor planning. Unless you think of pregnancy as a punishment for doing a dumb thing (and if you do, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU) forcing a woman to carry the baby to term is equivalent in my eyes. The baby is equally a person who has done nothing wrong (or, if you understand how embryology and development works, a non-sentient mass of cells that bears no resemblence to a person) in both cases. The baby has been involuntarily forced on the woman in both cases; one just happens to be more violent.

    It really comes down to this: do you believe women should pay for their "mistake" by being forced to have the baby, or not? The baby is identical, so all that matters is what the woman did. Would you as a man accept having the violinist hooked up to you if you had sex and something went wrong? It's still slut shaming. Anti-abortion always carries an element of punishing the woman. It's intrinsically linked by the fact that YOU are dictating what someone ELSE can do with their own bodies. That's punishment.

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  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    I used to think that couples should shoulder the burden of their decisions and if pregnancy occurred while having sex, even if you took precautions, it was a thing and should be carried to term. I'm not sure when I changed my mind on this.

    I realize as an adult though that birthing and carrying the child is the least stressful thing overall to happen, there is so much more you have to deal with there that needs to be included in the decision making. Least of all it shouldn't be boiled down to "oh carry the baby and give birth to it and give it up."

    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • Sir LandsharkSir Landshark resting shark face Registered User regular
    psyck0 wrote: »
    I really don't understand how rape is different from consensual sex in determining whether abortion is moral or not, except because it allows for slut-shaming. In both cases, the baby is unwanted. In one, it was forced on the woman by threat of physical violence; in the other, because of failed contraception or poor planning. Unless you think of pregnancy as a punishment for doing a dumb thing (and if you do, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU) forcing a woman to carry the baby to term is equivalent in my eyes. The baby is equally a person who has done nothing wrong (or, if you understand how embryology and development works, a non-sentient mass of cells that bears no resemblence to a person) in both cases. The baby has been involuntarily forced on the woman in both cases; one just happens to be more violent.

    It really comes down to this: do you believe women should pay for their "mistake" by being forced to have the baby, or not? The baby is identical, so all that matters is what the woman did. Would you as a man accept having the violinist hooked up to you if you had sex and something went wrong? It's still slut shaming. Anti-abortion always carries an element of punishing the woman. It's intrinsically linked by the fact that YOU are dictating what someone ELSE can do with their own bodies. That's punishment.

    I apologize if I am misreading your statement, but do you really think that a 40-week fetus/baby is a "non-sentient mass of cells that bears no resemblence to a person"?

    20-24 weeks is ample time to determine whether you want an abortion or not. I'll grant that in certain areas of the US there could be access issues that make even a 4 month (allowing 4-8 weeks to determine pregnancy) time frame difficult, but in any country with UHC this should be more than reasonable. After that point I personally find abortion immoral except in cases where the health of the mother is in jeopardy. Rape or no rape.

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  • MentalExerciseMentalExercise Indefenestrable Registered User regular
    psyck0 wrote: »
    I really don't understand how rape is different from consensual sex in determining whether abortion is moral or not, except because it allows for slut-shaming. In both cases, the baby is unwanted. In one, it was forced on the woman by threat of physical violence; in the other, because of failed contraception or poor planning. Unless you think of pregnancy as a punishment for doing a dumb thing (and if you do, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU) forcing a woman to carry the baby to term is equivalent in my eyes. The baby is equally a person who has done nothing wrong (or, if you understand how embryology and development works, a non-sentient mass of cells that bears no resemblence to a person) in both cases. The baby has been involuntarily forced on the woman in both cases; one just happens to be more violent.

    It really comes down to this: do you believe women should pay for their "mistake" by being forced to have the baby, or not? The baby is identical, so all that matters is what the woman did. Would you as a man accept having the violinist hooked up to you if you had sex and something went wrong? It's still slut shaming. Anti-abortion always carries an element of punishing the woman. It's intrinsically linked by the fact that YOU are dictating what someone ELSE can do with their own bodies. That's punishment.

    I... It's... Around and round we go I guess.

    Alright, I guess we need to start from scratch here.

    The violinist thought experiment:

    The "famous violinist" thought experiment asks a person to consider the ethics of a scenario where they wake to find themselves in a hospital serving as life support to a famous violinist. The person is asked to consider that they were not consulted prior to this arrangement, but that if they detach from the violinist he will die. Thomson wrote, "If you stay in the hospital bed, connected to the violinist, he will be totally cured in nine months. You are unlikely to suffer harm. No one else can save him. Do you have an obligation to stay connected?"

    The common conclusion being, "No, no one can force such a situation on you and you have no moral obligation to be a human dialysis machine against your will."

    It is only analogous to rape though because, had you volunteered, and then simply changed your mind, most people would say, "It's too late, disconnecting now and letting the violinist die is tantamount to murder."

    Your postulation is that something like failed birth control is essentially the same situation.

    Except you still have voluntarily engaged in behavior that could result in being attached to the violinist; ie that may lead to pregnancy.

    And we can modify the experiment to account for it.

    Say you see a news story about a famous violinist with failing kidneys, but if someone agrees to be his human dialysis machine for nine months, his life will be saved. However after being hooked up, to unhook before that nine months is up would kill the violinist. Further, the story talks about the amazing rush of volunteers, 10,000 people already, and they'll be picking one at random. So, being a trendy type you decide to volunteer along with many of your friends, never really thinking you could possibly be chosen. And as a little extra insurance, you even slip a fifty to the guy that files the paperwork, asking him to 'lose' yours. And then a few days later; Bam, you wake up in that hospital room, already attached to the violinist.

    And now I would say you objections to your situation would fall on deaf ears. Even though you never thought it would be you. Even though you took extra precautions so it wouldn't be you, and they failed for some inexplicable reason. Not that there is no sympathy for you. Not that staying attached to the violinist is some sort of punishment for you. Simply that the act of volunteering for this situation makes moot your claims of freedom over his right to life.

    Now, my point has never been that anyone must accept this reasoning. Merely that it is perfectly non-absurdist; that one could accept this reasoning with a rational mind and have a moral objection to abortion, while still maintaining a rape exception, all without having any interest in slut shaming.

    Which should be astonishingly non-controversial.

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  • Premier kakosPremier kakos Registered User, ClubPA regular
    Hacksaw wrote: »
    It's a ridiculous hypothetical, as are most of the ones encircling this whole debate.

    So you've figured it out then? The exact moment when a fetus/child gains inalienable human rights?

    Currently that would be at birth. I would argue that its at viability.

    I agree that viability seems a reasonable place to draw a distinction. Of course, modern science continues to move that line. I'd type more but it's getting late.

    If we could remove fetuses and place them in artificial wombs or in people who want to have kids but can't, abortion would become a dead issue.

    That would be a beautiful day.

    Yes, because orphanages are completely empty because that multitudinous group of people who want to have kids but can't is sooooo large that we need to produce even more ways for these people to get children.

  • MrMisterMrMister Jesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered User regular
    mythago wrote: »
    MrMister wrote: »
    The point of thought experiments is not to represent ordinary situations as we typically run into them, but rather, to try to abstract and idealize away certain confounding variables. It's not an objection to Thompson that we rarely kidnap violinists (or that there are no such things as people-spores, to pick one of her later examples), any more than it's an objection to my high school physics teacher that there are no frictionless ramps.

    The problem is when abstracting those confounding variables renders the thought-experiment ludicrous and useless, or when it prevents the thought-experiment from having any application to the real world. As well, thought-experiments have a predictable tendency to run on rails, in order to lead towards forced choices that the presenter of the experiment prefers.

    The idea of a frictionless ramp is ludicrous, too, but we find that idealization quite useful in understanding the mechanics of the physical world. Even though all the actual ramps we encounter have a non-zero μ, we nonetheless are convinced that there are separate forces at work, and understanding some of them better requires we imagine the case where others are not operative. This is quite parallel to ethics, where we think that many scenarios involve multiple different factors, only some of which are morally salient, and we want to separate them out so that we can see which are important and which are not.

    Perhaps an even better example is the classic experiment wherein one drops both a feather and a rock in a vacuum tube, and observes that they fall at the same rate. Of course, we rarely encounter vacuums. But seeing what would happen in a vacuum nonetheless helps us understand what is going on in the ordinary situations we do run into.

    As far as I can see, there are three ways to resist the use of a particular thought experiment in ethics:

    First, one might have a theory of ethics where the analogy to physics is radically inadequate. For instance, particularists in ethics think that there are no general ethical principles that are analogous to physical laws, and hence, there is nothing we learn by screening off confounding factors. They tend to lean on the idea that ethics is not a matter of rules, but rather of sensitive judgment to perfectly individual and incommensurable cases. I think this picture is insane, but it would at least give a principled reason to reject thought experiments.

    Second, one might think that the way that the particular thought experiment abstracts from the situation is actually crucially flawed: I am thinking, for instance, of Einstein's "clock in a box" attempted refutation of QM. But if this is one's objection to a particular thought experiment, one should be ready to explain what the problem is, and that problem better not just be 'it's weird.' The problem with the clock in the box was not that it would be hard to build, or that we rarely run into them in nature, but rather that the very setup wound up incoherent.

    Third and finally, one might object that the intuitions elicited by thought experiments are unreliable--empirical results seem to show that they vary significantly depending on the order in which choices are presented, for instance. This, I think, is the most serious objection, and it is one you hint at with your closing line, and it raises complicated issues that would require lengthy treatment. I am not sure, for instance, how to respond to it without giving a complete survey of how intuitions are employed in philosophy generally. So instead, I'll just note that this objection to thought experiments itself relies on pretty heavy and controversial theoretical assumptions, and those would need to be defended were it to really be offered as a rationale against some particular one.

    tl;dr: there are a variety of reasons to reject thought experiments like that of the violinist, but none of the good ones are 'it's weird and never normally happens!'

  • Sir LandsharkSir Landshark resting shark face Registered User regular
    Hacksaw wrote: »
    It's a ridiculous hypothetical, as are most of the ones encircling this whole debate.

    So you've figured it out then? The exact moment when a fetus/child gains inalienable human rights?

    Currently that would be at birth. I would argue that its at viability.

    I agree that viability seems a reasonable place to draw a distinction. Of course, modern science continues to move that line. I'd type more but it's getting late.

    If we could remove fetuses and place them in artificial wombs or in people who want to have kids but can't, abortion would become a dead issue.

    That would be a beautiful day.

    Yes, because orphanages are completely empty because that multitudinous group of people who want to have kids but can't is sooooo large that we need to produce even more ways for these people to get children.

    There is a long wait time for adoption of healthy infants, including people more than willing to pay the full cost of all prenatal, delivery and postnatal care. People are much more hesitant to adopt an older child who may already have severe emotional and/or psychological issues.

    Please consider the environment before printing this post.
  • AManFromEarthAManFromEarth Let's get to twerk! The King in the SwampRegistered User regular
    edited April 2012
    Yeah, maybe this makes me an out of touch Republican who hates women, but if you wait until you're in your eighth month to decide you don't want to have a kid, that seems like sketchy territory to me. At that point the fetus is viable, more and more as medical technology advances. And as pointed out, the majority of abortions needed in this case are for medical reasons which are already legal. I have a hard time believing that non medically necessary abortions would be common enough to warrant discussion at this stage of pregnancy, but maybe I have too much faith in humanity.

    I guess if a woman somehow went into a coma and woke up two weeks before giving birth maybe that's a different story.

    @psyck0 what's your cut off? Should abortion be legal up to and maybe even including labor? At what point, for you, does the child's well being come into it? If a child could survive outside of the womb should the mother have the right to terminate the pregnancy in all cases?

    AManFromEarth on
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  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    From everything I've heard the wait is unnaturally long for children mostly because of background checks. If there is indeed a wait for "fresh babies" then that's different and I'm unaware of the statistics behind that.

    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • Sir LandsharkSir Landshark resting shark face Registered User regular
    edited April 2012
    bowen wrote: »
    From everything I've heard the wait is unnaturally long for children mostly because of background checks. If there is indeed a wait for "fresh babies" then that's different and I'm unaware of the statistics behind that.

    I'll try and dig something up. My wife and I plan to adopt so we've done a good amount of research. If I recall correctly, we were looking at $15-20k as a minimum cost.

    EDIT: Not the greatest but I need to get back to work:

    http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-05-18-mother_N.htm

    "The economy has made them take a second look at adoption," says Scott Mars of American Adoptions, a private agency in Overland Park, Kan. In the past year, he's seen a 10% to 12% increase in women inquiring about placing a child for adoption and a 7% to 10% increase in actual placements, as strong demand for healthy infants continues to outstrip the supply.

    Sir Landshark on
    Please consider the environment before printing this post.
  • AManFromEarthAManFromEarth Let's get to twerk! The King in the SwampRegistered User regular
    Hacksaw wrote: »
    It's a ridiculous hypothetical, as are most of the ones encircling this whole debate.

    So you've figured it out then? The exact moment when a fetus/child gains inalienable human rights?

    Currently that would be at birth. I would argue that its at viability.

    I agree that viability seems a reasonable place to draw a distinction. Of course, modern science continues to move that line. I'd type more but it's getting late.

    If we could remove fetuses and place them in artificial wombs or in people who want to have kids but can't, abortion would become a dead issue.

    That would be a beautiful day.

    Yes, because orphanages are completely empty because that multitudinous group of people who want to have kids but can't is sooooo large that we need to produce even more ways for these people to get children.

    What a useful and well represented response.

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  • MrMisterMrMister Jesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered User regular
    psyck0 wrote: »
    It really comes down to this: do you believe women should pay for their "mistake" by being forced to have the baby, or not? The baby is identical, so all that matters is what the woman did. Would you as a man accept having the violinist hooked up to you if you had sex and something went wrong? It's still slut shaming. Anti-abortion always carries an element of punishing the woman. It's intrinsically linked by the fact that YOU are dictating what someone ELSE can do with their own bodies. That's punishment.

    I am as liberal as they come, and I also think that we should think of abortions in roughly the same way as we think of haircuts: the discarding of unwanted or inconvenient biological matter. But I confess that I find this 'anti-slut-shaming' line of pro-choice argument infuriating. We very often make legal and social distinctions based on reasonably foreseeable consequences. Suppose I leave a dangerous trap on my property; in many states I am liable for people who injure themselves wandering into it. In those cases I owe them compensation for damages. And we differentiate this case from that of cripples who just happen to exist in the world. I do not, in general, owe compensation to people who just happen to have been damaged--even if, as you say above, the person is identical in either case. Does this amount to 'trap-builder-shaming?' And who cares if it does? Again: we often force people to pay for their mistakes. Doing so does not misogyny make.

  • DecomposeyDecomposey Registered User regular
    But this violinist crap... it's basically saying that by having sex, you are agreeing to have a baby. Which is false. It's like saying by having sex, you are agreeing to getting Syphlilis and having your brain slowly melt. It's not an agreed on action, its something shitty that happens to people sometimes for following their natural instincts. You get an STD, you treat it. Should we stop treating STDs as well, as in many cases they are just as welcome to a woman as a pregnancy would be? Except in cases of rape or incest of course, they get to be treated for their STDs because... something something something.

    A woman who got pregnant after a night of wild drunken sex with an entire college football team is in exactly the same boat as a woman who was raped by her evil father, as far a unwanted pregnancy is concerned. Neither of them chose to get pregnant. Neither of them wants the child. Both have jsut as much right to abort.

    Oh, some may say, but the first chose to engange in risky activity and thus is to blame for getting pregnant! Those people, whether they want to admit it or not, are participating in slut shaming. Bad girl do bad, bad girl be punished now. She is to BLAME. It's her FAULT. Stone the witc...er.. make her carry to term.

    Before following any advice, opinions, or thoughts I may have expressed in the above post, be warned: I found Keven Costners "Waterworld" to be a very entertaining film.
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