There are three canonical papers on the ethics of abortion that tend to get taught in intro classes: Thomson's A Defense of Abortion, Tooley's Abortion and Infanticide, and Marquis's Why Abortion is Immoral.
Tooley argues that what rights do is protect your ability to get what you desire (I have a right to my car--no one can take my car away from me against my will). But, he argues, this entails that to have a right to something, you must be able to desire it. And he argues that babies in the womb are too cognitively unsophisticated to desire that they keep living. As it turns out, so are babies outside the womb. On this basis, he argues for the permissibility of abortion and infanticide. That his position supports infanticide is one kind of weakness, although he embraces it. A more serious weakness is that there are people who either do not or cannot desire to continue living at some given point in time--people who are seriously depressed, people who are asleep, people who are in a coma, people with traumatic brain injuries, etc.--yet who nonetheless seem to have rights against being killed. Tooley exempts these groups from his analysis, but his doing so is unprincipled, and his need to resort to unprincipled exceptions casts doubt on his arguments.
Marquis argues that what makes killing wrong--like, killing any regular adult--is that it deprives that person of their valuable future. This does better than Tooley with those exceptions; even if someone is presently unable to desire anything because they are, say, asleep, so long as they are soon to wake up, Marquis's theory still gives them a right to life on the basis of that valuable future they will go on to have. Marquis then argues that human children have a valuable future from the moment of conception, so, if taking away a valuable future is what makes killing wrong, then killing them is wrong from the moment of conception. Notably, he does not appeal to any religious premises in making this argument. The most serious difficulty for Marquis is that it is not clear why conception matters in this way. He argues that conception is the origin of the biological organism, but this can be doubted on multiple grounds (some say it is the egg instead, others say the organism emerges only after spontaneous twinning becomes impossible, others, like myself, think that these questions are arbitrary and lack objective answers). But if Marquis cannot explain why conception matters, his argument apparently targets not only abortion, but also contraception and abstinence, and these are widely considered to be unacceptable implications.
Thomson argues, through a series of analogies, that even if freshly-conceived fetuses were to have the full moral standing of a grown adult, abortion would still be permissible on the grounds of the mother's autonomy. This is the source of the violinist example, where you are supposed to imagine you have been kidnapped and hooked up to someone who needs to share your kidneys for nine months or he will die. She says: obviously, you can unhook yourself, even if this causes his death. And he is a full grown man, who is definitely a full moral agent! If you can do it to him, surely you can do it to a fetus. Often people's knowledge and/or recollection of this paper ends there. But this is just one analogy, and, as the fact that it starts with a kidnapping suggests, this analogy is only intended to apply to abortions of pregnancies due to rape.
The analogy that she gives for pregnancy due to contraceptive failure is substantially weirder and much less persuasive. She says: imagine that there were spores drifting about on the air that, when they land in upholstery, grow into human beings. You buy screens for your windows to keep these spores out, but your screens fail, as they sometimes do, and you wind up with a person growing in your carpet. Surely, she says, you can kill it, rather than having to cede it a room in your house for nine months. And, she says, this is true even if you could have avoided having a spore grow in your carpet by instead keeping a house with no windows, or all bare floors (because who can be expected to live like that?) This hypothetical is supposed to be analogous to contraceptive failure, with screens being analogous to contraception and having windows and upholstery being analogous to being sexually active. In my view, this scenario is underdescribed and hard to imagine, but to the extent that I can imagine it, I find Thomson's claims about it to be deeply wrong. If we are stipulating that these people-plants growing in your carpet have full moral rights, analogously to a full-grown human adult, the claim that it is permissible to commit to killing one every now and then for the sake of fresh air and soft floors is morally insane.
Aside from the weakness of that central example, there are other reasons for 2022 liberals to be unsatisfied with basing their understanding of abortion on Thomson's arguments. Here are just two. First, she has nothing to say in defense of people who don't take precautions--that there were (fallible) screens on the windows was supposed to be an important part of the argument. Second, she is clearly presupposing a libertarian theory of duties to aid. For instance, in another example she imagines that she is terminally ill and there is a man in the room with her who could walk over and touch her forehead, and that his doing so would instantly cure her. Yet she maintains that even if it were easy as that, she would have no right to his touch and he could not be forced to do it. Of course, if you think no one can so much as be forced to walk across a room to save another person's life, you're highly unlikely to think anyone can be forced to carry a pregnancy to term to save a life. But the antecedent is an uncomfortable one for most pro-choice liberals. I am more inclined to think that nothing could be more obvious than that it is ok to force someone to walk across a room to save another person's life.
My own view is probably closest to Tooley's: I think that fetuses are not the sorts of things that have rights or interests and there is consequently no strong reason to care about whether they're destroyed. So, I think abortions are great and should be available on every streetcorner. That being said, I would not feel the same way if I thought the fetus mattered morally, as I am not inclined to Thomson-style libertarianism. In my experience, there's a lot of triumphalism surrounding Thomson's paper among educated liberal readers: they treat it as having put the abortion issue to rest. This stance, in my view, dramatically exaggerates both the scope and strength of her arguments, which were never offered as applying to all abortions and are sometimes questionable even with respect to the cases they do apply to.
Thanks for this summary. This may just be confirming my skepticism that morality or ethics has much to offer in guiding the law on abortion in a modern society. There is no satisfactory explanation for at what point a being in development earns the privilege or the rights (whatever they are, natural or synthetic), of adult people in a modern society. There is no ethical or scientific basis for 18 years old being the age of majority that unlocks many rights associated with adulthood, for example. And it is only recent neuroscience that has led to the recognition that the death penalty, as another example, of minor offenders is constitutionally unjust because juvenile brains are, well, fucked up. But a line has to be drawn somewhere. Religion, ethics, and/or philosophy can't tell us where that line should be drawn in any satisfactory manner. That's not to say they should be disregarded, but they cannot be relied upon to form the sole basis for determining when and if a fetus is morally equivalent to a human baby, or a human juvenile, or a human adult.
I am, unsurprisingly, more optimistic about the contribution that morality and ethics can make to guiding law on abortion. Thinking through the implications of views like Tooley's, Marquis's, and Thomsons--or more up-to-date and sophisticated accounts from people like McMahan--clarifies the relationship between various ideas and helps identify what's at issue in various choices. That being said, I do agree that as a practical matter what guides the law is 99% politics, and that moral philosophers are very limited in their ability to affect the course of politics. Nor does it help that their contributions, such as they are, are often complex and conditional, and almost never of the form "Thompson proved that Roe v Wade was correctly decided." While contributions like that would be great, they are not frequently on offer.
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HakkekageSpace Whore Academysumma cum laudeRegistered Userregular
There are three canonical papers on the ethics of abortion that tend to get taught in intro classes: Thomson's A Defense of Abortion, Tooley's Abortion and Infanticide, and Marquis's Why Abortion is Immoral.
Tooley argues that what rights do is protect your ability to get what you desire (I have a right to my car--no one can take my car away from me against my will). But, he argues, this entails that to have a right to something, you must be able to desire it. And he argues that babies in the womb are too cognitively unsophisticated to desire that they keep living. As it turns out, so are babies outside the womb. On this basis, he argues for the permissibility of abortion and infanticide. That his position supports infanticide is one kind of weakness, although he embraces it. A more serious weakness is that there are people who either do not or cannot desire to continue living at some given point in time--people who are seriously depressed, people who are asleep, people who are in a coma, people with traumatic brain injuries, etc.--yet who nonetheless seem to have rights against being killed. Tooley exempts these groups from his analysis, but his doing so is unprincipled, and his need to resort to unprincipled exceptions casts doubt on his arguments.
Marquis argues that what makes killing wrong--like, killing any regular adult--is that it deprives that person of their valuable future. This does better than Tooley with those exceptions; even if someone is presently unable to desire anything because they are, say, asleep, so long as they are soon to wake up, Marquis's theory still gives them a right to life on the basis of that valuable future they will go on to have. Marquis then argues that human children have a valuable future from the moment of conception, so, if taking away a valuable future is what makes killing wrong, then killing them is wrong from the moment of conception. Notably, he does not appeal to any religious premises in making this argument. The most serious difficulty for Marquis is that it is not clear why conception matters in this way. He argues that conception is the origin of the biological organism, but this can be doubted on multiple grounds (some say it is the egg instead, others say the organism emerges only after spontaneous twinning becomes impossible, others, like myself, think that these questions are arbitrary and lack objective answers). But if Marquis cannot explain why conception matters, his argument apparently targets not only abortion, but also contraception and abstinence, and these are widely considered to be unacceptable implications.
Thomson argues, through a series of analogies, that even if freshly-conceived fetuses were to have the full moral standing of a grown adult, abortion would still be permissible on the grounds of the mother's autonomy. This is the source of the violinist example, where you are supposed to imagine you have been kidnapped and hooked up to someone who needs to share your kidneys for nine months or he will die. She says: obviously, you can unhook yourself, even if this causes his death. And he is a full grown man, who is definitely a full moral agent! If you can do it to him, surely you can do it to a fetus. Often people's knowledge and/or recollection of this paper ends there. But this is just one analogy, and, as the fact that it starts with a kidnapping suggests, this analogy is only intended to apply to abortions of pregnancies due to rape.
The analogy that she gives for pregnancy due to contraceptive failure is substantially weirder and much less persuasive. She says: imagine that there were spores drifting about on the air that, when they land in upholstery, grow into human beings. You buy screens for your windows to keep these spores out, but your screens fail, as they sometimes do, and you wind up with a person growing in your carpet. Surely, she says, you can kill it, rather than having to cede it a room in your house for nine months. And, she says, this is true even if you could have avoided having a spore grow in your carpet by instead keeping a house with no windows, or all bare floors (because who can be expected to live like that?) This hypothetical is supposed to be analogous to contraceptive failure, with screens being analogous to contraception and having windows and upholstery being analogous to being sexually active. In my view, this scenario is underdescribed and hard to imagine, but to the extent that I can imagine it, I find Thomson's claims about it to be deeply wrong. If we are stipulating that these people-plants growing in your carpet have full moral rights, analogously to a full-grown human adult, the claim that it is permissible to commit to killing one every now and then for the sake of fresh air and soft floors is morally insane.
Aside from the weakness of that central example, there are other reasons for 2022 liberals to be unsatisfied with basing their understanding of abortion on Thomson's arguments. Here are just two. First, she has nothing to say in defense of people who don't take precautions--that there were (fallible) screens on the windows was supposed to be an important part of the argument. Second, she is clearly presupposing a libertarian theory of duties to aid. For instance, in another example she imagines that she is terminally ill and there is a man in the room with her who could walk over and touch her forehead, and that his doing so would instantly cure her. Yet she maintains that even if it were easy as that, she would have no right to his touch and he could not be forced to do it. Of course, if you think no one can so much as be forced to walk across a room to save another person's life, you're highly unlikely to think anyone can be forced to carry a pregnancy to term to save a life. But the antecedent is an uncomfortable one for most pro-choice liberals. I am more inclined to think that nothing could be more obvious than that it is ok to force someone to walk across a room to save another person's life.
My own view is probably closest to Tooley's: I think that fetuses are not the sorts of things that have rights or interests and there is consequently no strong reason to care about whether they're destroyed. So, I think abortions are great and should be available on every streetcorner. That being said, I would not feel the same way if I thought the fetus mattered morally, as I am not inclined to Thomson-style libertarianism. In my experience, there's a lot of triumphalism surrounding Thomson's paper among educated liberal readers: they treat it as having put the abortion issue to rest. This stance, in my view, dramatically exaggerates both the scope and strength of her arguments, which were never offered as applying to all abortions and are sometimes questionable even with respect to the cases they do apply to.
Thanks for this summary. This may just be confirming my skepticism that morality or ethics has much to offer in guiding the law on abortion in a modern society. There is no satisfactory explanation for at what point a being in development earns the privilege or the rights (whatever they are, natural or synthetic), of adult people in a modern society. There is no ethical or scientific basis for 18 years old being the age of majority that unlocks many rights associated with adulthood, for example. And it is only recent neuroscience that has led to the recognition that the death penalty, as another example, of minor offenders is constitutionally unjust because juvenile brains are, well, fucked up. But a line has to be drawn somewhere. Religion, ethics, and/or philosophy can't tell us where that line should be drawn in any satisfactory manner. That's not to say they should be disregarded, but they cannot be relied upon to form the sole basis for determining when and if a fetus is morally equivalent to a human baby, or a human juvenile, or a human adult.
I am, unsurprisingly, more optimistic about the contribution that morality and ethics can make to guiding law on abortion. Thinking through the implications of views like Tooley's, Marquis's, and Thomsons--or more up-to-date and sophisticated accounts from people like McMahan--clarifies the relationship between various ideas and helps identify what's at issue in various choices. That being said, I do agree that as a practical matter what guides the law is 99% politics, and that moral philosophers are very limited in their ability to affect the course of politics. Nor does it help that their contributions, such as they are, are often complex and conditional, and almost never of the form "Thompson proved that Roe v Wade was correctly decided." While contributions like that would be great, they are not frequently on offer.
I'm not saying there is no value to the intellectual exploration of the ethical underpinnings of what law and society elects to promote, permit, or prohibit, or that there are no contributions to the development of the law. What I mean in this case is not "It's just politics, bub," but rather, the very conditionality of the moral choices at issue only inform the law to the extent that they clarify that categorical restrictions are a poor fit with the range of ethical concerns in this area.
The weakness you explained in Marquis' thinking is illustrative of the issue. If a line must be drawn -- and it must, or we'll all just be maximal nihilists -- does ethical philosophy offer a lens for even somewhat locating that line? That Marquis believes a worthy life begins at conception is just as arbitrary as any other point in natal development. And, the weakness in Tooley's thinking per your summary is that by locating the essential feature of a life to which certain rights attach in whether or not the life can have desires that the right protects, Tooley acknowledges that this principle must also implicate newborns. Certainly there is broad agreement that the death of a one-hour old baby is a great tragedy and loss of valuable life, and the law rightly recognizes that the loss may be compensated in, for example, wrongful death claims.
So, IMO, the fact that there is an innumerable kaleidoscope of ethical quandaries without clear answers that resolve for and against abortion as a moral/ethical act (or amoral/unethical) instructs the law to not attempt to resolve the issue by one justification over another. The intentional homicide/manslaughter framework that we rely on to punish adults who cause losses of life with culpable states of mind cannot and does not map onto the act of killing a fetus until at some point in the pregnancy when, clearly, it does.
The more relevant moral issue that philosophy can shed light on, in my view, is normative. What is the social good that the law should maximize? Minimizing loss of life? Whose life? Maximizing individual choice? Balancing the observable interest of the host mother against the unobservable interest of a developing fetus? On this view, it doesn't matter whether the fetus is an ethical nullity such as in Tooley's view, because on an academic level that frame does not explain or account for the effect on others anticipating, and in most cases desiring, the fetus to live even if the fetus itself is cognitively incapable of desiring that for itself (like willing parents).
I think a great prophylactic against the moral panic of the unthinkable horror of humanity is stark exposure to the unthinkable horror of humanity, which you can get wherever true suffering is found. I'm reminded of a chapter in House of God where the main character takes his girlfriend to the GI ward and glibly acts as a body horror tour guide until his senior tells him off for showing the uninitiated the more gruesome parts of his profession. I suppose that most of have something in our lives that can relate in some way.
It's been a long time since I've seen any political leader immerse themselves in the putrescent muck wedged in the dark corners of humanity and wallow in it until they gain the supranormal resilience and perspective this imbues. We mythologize this kind of leadership: someone who isn't afraid to get their hands dirty, who makes extreme sacrifices commensurate with their extreme good fortune that enabled them to lead in the first place, who is fundamentally altered by surviving the experience: President Zelenskyy comes to mind.
That's what we need more of in America, leaders who have seen and experienced things that most people can't handle. People whose decisions we trust because we cannot fully grasp the nature of what they are judging. People with a resume of suffering, especially elective suffering, where they had a choice to tap out but didn't. I don't think it's too impossible to hope for such a person to campaign against those who lead by ignorance.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I think a great prophylactic against the moral panic of the unthinkable horror of humanity is stark exposure to the unthinkable horror of humanity, which you can get wherever true suffering is found. I'm reminded of a chapter in House of God where the main character takes his girlfriend to the GI ward and glibly acts as a body horror tour guide until his senior tells him off for showing the uninitiated the more gruesome parts of his profession. I suppose that most of have something in our lives that can relate in some way.
It's been a long time since I've seen any political leader immerse themselves in the putrescent muck wedged in the dark corners of humanity and wallow in it until they gain the supranormal resilience and perspective this imbues. We mythologize this kind of leadership: someone who isn't afraid to get their hands dirty, who makes extreme sacrifices commensurate with their extreme good fortune that enabled them to lead in the first place, who is fundamentally altered by surviving the experience: President Zelenskyy comes to mind.
That's what we need more of in America, leaders who have seen and experienced things that most people can't handle. People whose decisions we trust because we cannot fully grasp the nature of what they are judging. People with a resume of suffering, especially elective suffering, where they had a choice to tap out but didn't. I don't think it's too impossible to hope for such a person to campaign against those who lead by ignorance.
There is danger there too. See, pretty much most of human history where rulers/leaders WERE essentially immune to the horrors, and thus didn't value life as greatly. Zelensky's are rare. Much rarer than a Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin, etc.
I think that’s been pretty well known in anthropology for a long time, that infanticide is and always has been ridiculously common especially in situations where resources were limited and existence threatened - wars, famines, etc. Disturbing as fuck though.
I think that’s been pretty well known in anthropology for a long time, that infanticide is and always has been ridiculously common especially in situations where resources were limited and existence threatened - wars, famines, etc. Disturbing as fuck though.
I guess I don't find it disturbing, just... sort of obvious-in-retrospect once you think about it? I assume being disturbed is an innate reaction that some people have and I don't, and that in itself is kinda fascinating.
I think that’s been pretty well known in anthropology for a long time, that infanticide is and always has been ridiculously common especially in situations where resources were limited and existence threatened - wars, famines, etc. Disturbing as fuck though.
I guess I don't find it disturbing, just... sort of obvious-in-retrospect once you think about it? I assume being disturbed is an innate reaction that some people have and I don't, and that in itself is kinda fascinating.
I think at least the prediction that "seventy five percent of all SIDS cases are actually homicides" is kinda fucked up.
The sight of blood or death can be disturbing, but you adapt
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
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cptruggedI think it has something to do with free will.Registered Userregular
Marquis argues that what makes killing wrong--like, killing any regular adult--is that it deprives that person of their valuable future. This does better than Tooley with those exceptions; even if someone is presently unable to desire anything because they are, say, asleep, so long as they are soon to wake up, Marquis's theory still gives them a right to life on the basis of that valuable future they will go on to have. Marquis then argues that human children have a valuable future from the moment of conception, so, if taking away a valuable future is what makes killing wrong, then killing them is wrong from the moment of conception. Notably, he does not appeal to any religious premises in making this argument. The most serious difficulty for Marquis is that it is not clear why conception matters in this way. He argues that conception is the origin of the biological organism, but this can be doubted on multiple grounds (some say it is the egg instead, others say the organism emerges only after spontaneous twinning becomes impossible, others, like myself, think that these questions are arbitrary and lack objective answers). But if Marquis cannot explain why conception matters, his argument apparently targets not only abortion, but also contraception and abstinence, and these are widely considered to be unacceptable implications.
Wow, I'd never heard this put into words like this before. This was always my argument against abortion. This and the rampant hypocrisy about how we treat fetus' on both sides of the argument. I always hear it based on religion, never a philosophy basis like this. Neat to see that better minds that I though that at some point.
I think that’s been pretty well known in anthropology for a long time, that infanticide is and always has been ridiculously common especially in situations where resources were limited and existence threatened - wars, famines, etc. Disturbing as fuck though.
I guess I don't find it disturbing, just... sort of obvious-in-retrospect once you think about it? I assume being disturbed is an innate reaction that some people have and I don't, and that in itself is kinda fascinating.
I think at least the prediction that "seventy five percent of all SIDS cases are actually homicides" is kinda fucked up.
I found the write-up fascinating, but I’d really want to see a lot more data on the variables they highlighted before I gave that particular point full faith. The book (and article) are fairly old, and SIDS-attributed deaths have declined significantly since the 90s, and somewhat less significantly since the mid-00s.
Not saying it’s incorrect, just that later data raises some questions that assertion, at least.
I think that’s been pretty well known in anthropology for a long time, that infanticide is and always has been ridiculously common especially in situations where resources were limited and existence threatened - wars, famines, etc. Disturbing as fuck though.
I guess I don't find it disturbing, just... sort of obvious-in-retrospect once you think about it? I assume being disturbed is an innate reaction that some people have and I don't, and that in itself is kinda fascinating.
I think at least the prediction that "seventy five percent of all SIDS cases are actually homicides" is kinda fucked up.
I found the write-up fascinating, but I’d really want to see a lot more data on the variables they highlighted before I gave that particular point full faith. The book (and article) are fairly old, and SIDS-attributed deaths have declined significantly since the 90s, and somewhat less significantly since the mid-00s.
Not saying it’s incorrect, just that later data raises some questions that assertion, at least.
Oh yeah, I'm not prepared to take it at fact value. But it struck me as the only assertion there that would qualify as disturbing.
Marquis argues that what makes killing wrong--like, killing any regular adult--is that it deprives that person of their valuable future. This does better than Tooley with those exceptions; even if someone is presently unable to desire anything because they are, say, asleep, so long as they are soon to wake up, Marquis's theory still gives them a right to life on the basis of that valuable future they will go on to have. Marquis then argues that human children have a valuable future from the moment of conception, so, if taking away a valuable future is what makes killing wrong, then killing them is wrong from the moment of conception. Notably, he does not appeal to any religious premises in making this argument. The most serious difficulty for Marquis is that it is not clear why conception matters in this way. He argues that conception is the origin of the biological organism, but this can be doubted on multiple grounds (some say it is the egg instead, others say the organism emerges only after spontaneous twinning becomes impossible, others, like myself, think that these questions are arbitrary and lack objective answers). But if Marquis cannot explain why conception matters, his argument apparently targets not only abortion, but also contraception and abstinence, and these are widely considered to be unacceptable implications.
Wow, I'd never heard this put into words like this before. This was always my argument against abortion. This and the rampant hypocrisy about how we treat fetus' on both sides of the argument. I always hear it based on religion, never a philosophy basis like this. Neat to see that better minds that I though that at some point.
If depriving a person of their valuable future is the moral basis for being against abortion, then that person should be all for quality education, free healthcare, paid paternity and maternity leave, etc., etc.
Marquis argues that what makes killing wrong--like, killing any regular adult--is that it deprives that person of their valuable future. This does better than Tooley with those exceptions; even if someone is presently unable to desire anything because they are, say, asleep, so long as they are soon to wake up, Marquis's theory still gives them a right to life on the basis of that valuable future they will go on to have. Marquis then argues that human children have a valuable future from the moment of conception, so, if taking away a valuable future is what makes killing wrong, then killing them is wrong from the moment of conception. Notably, he does not appeal to any religious premises in making this argument. The most serious difficulty for Marquis is that it is not clear why conception matters in this way. He argues that conception is the origin of the biological organism, but this can be doubted on multiple grounds (some say it is the egg instead, others say the organism emerges only after spontaneous twinning becomes impossible, others, like myself, think that these questions are arbitrary and lack objective answers). But if Marquis cannot explain why conception matters, his argument apparently targets not only abortion, but also contraception and abstinence, and these are widely considered to be unacceptable implications.
Wow, I'd never heard this put into words like this before. This was always my argument against abortion. This and the rampant hypocrisy about how we treat fetus' on both sides of the argument. I always hear it based on religion, never a philosophy basis like this. Neat to see that better minds that I though that at some point.
If depriving a person of their valuable future is the moral basis for being against abortion, then that person should be all for quality education, free healthcare, paid paternity and maternity leave, etc., etc.
It's also indistiguishable from preventing fertilizarion.
Marquis argues that what makes killing wrong--like, killing any regular adult--is that it deprives that person of their valuable future. This does better than Tooley with those exceptions; even if someone is presently unable to desire anything because they are, say, asleep, so long as they are soon to wake up, Marquis's theory still gives them a right to life on the basis of that valuable future they will go on to have. Marquis then argues that human children have a valuable future from the moment of conception, so, if taking away a valuable future is what makes killing wrong, then killing them is wrong from the moment of conception. Notably, he does not appeal to any religious premises in making this argument. The most serious difficulty for Marquis is that it is not clear why conception matters in this way. He argues that conception is the origin of the biological organism, but this can be doubted on multiple grounds (some say it is the egg instead, others say the organism emerges only after spontaneous twinning becomes impossible, others, like myself, think that these questions are arbitrary and lack objective answers). But if Marquis cannot explain why conception matters, his argument apparently targets not only abortion, but also contraception and abstinence, and these are widely considered to be unacceptable implications.
Wow, I'd never heard this put into words like this before. This was always my argument against abortion. This and the rampant hypocrisy about how we treat fetus' on both sides of the argument. I always hear it based on religion, never a philosophy basis like this. Neat to see that better minds that I though that at some point.
If depriving a person of their valuable future is the moral basis for being against abortion, then that person should be all for quality education, free healthcare, paid paternity and maternity leave, etc., etc.
It's also indistiguishable from preventing fertilizarion.
Marquis argues that what makes killing wrong--like, killing any regular adult--is that it deprives that person of their valuable future. This does better than Tooley with those exceptions; even if someone is presently unable to desire anything because they are, say, asleep, so long as they are soon to wake up, Marquis's theory still gives them a right to life on the basis of that valuable future they will go on to have. Marquis then argues that human children have a valuable future from the moment of conception, so, if taking away a valuable future is what makes killing wrong, then killing them is wrong from the moment of conception. Notably, he does not appeal to any religious premises in making this argument. The most serious difficulty for Marquis is that it is not clear why conception matters in this way. He argues that conception is the origin of the biological organism, but this can be doubted on multiple grounds (some say it is the egg instead, others say the organism emerges only after spontaneous twinning becomes impossible, others, like myself, think that these questions are arbitrary and lack objective answers). But if Marquis cannot explain why conception matters, his argument apparently targets not only abortion, but also contraception and abstinence, and these are widely considered to be unacceptable implications.
Wow, I'd never heard this put into words like this before. This was always my argument against abortion. This and the rampant hypocrisy about how we treat fetus' on both sides of the argument. I always hear it based on religion, never a philosophy basis like this. Neat to see that better minds that I though that at some point.
If depriving a person of their valuable future is the moral basis for being against abortion, then that person should be all for quality education, free healthcare, paid paternity and maternity leave, etc., etc.
It's also indistiguishable from preventing fertilizarion.
Marquis argues that what makes killing wrong--like, killing any regular adult--is that it deprives that person of their valuable future. This does better than Tooley with those exceptions; even if someone is presently unable to desire anything because they are, say, asleep, so long as they are soon to wake up, Marquis's theory still gives them a right to life on the basis of that valuable future they will go on to have. Marquis then argues that human children have a valuable future from the moment of conception, so, if taking away a valuable future is what makes killing wrong, then killing them is wrong from the moment of conception. Notably, he does not appeal to any religious premises in making this argument. The most serious difficulty for Marquis is that it is not clear why conception matters in this way. He argues that conception is the origin of the biological organism, but this can be doubted on multiple grounds (some say it is the egg instead, others say the organism emerges only after spontaneous twinning becomes impossible, others, like myself, think that these questions are arbitrary and lack objective answers). But if Marquis cannot explain why conception matters, his argument apparently targets not only abortion, but also contraception and abstinence, and these are widely considered to be unacceptable implications.
Wow, I'd never heard this put into words like this before. This was always my argument against abortion. This and the rampant hypocrisy about how we treat fetus' on both sides of the argument. I always hear it based on religion, never a philosophy basis like this. Neat to see that better minds that I though that at some point.
If depriving a person of their valuable future is the moral basis for being against abortion, then that person should be all for quality education, free healthcare, paid paternity and maternity leave, etc., etc.
It's also indistiguishable from preventing fertilizarion.
Also breaks down somewhat in light of the fact that at least 50% of fertilized eggs don't result in a successful pregnancy, much less a baby. Most of the time, the parent never even knows they conceived. Maybe they notice their period was a little late that month; but most people's periods aren't like clockwork anyway.
The actual percentage is assumed to be higher, because 50% only represents the failures we know about.
If you were to math it out, you'd find the inflection point where the probability of this entity becoming a human with a valuable life is certain enough that an abortion would reduce the absolute probability of a rich human life by a large number.
You'd have to time it out after biological bottlenecks during the reproductive cycle that would take first place by a mile in "this is why what's happening won't likely result in a full life human"
Paladin on
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Marquis argues that what makes killing wrong--like, killing any regular adult--is that it deprives that person of their valuable future. This does better than Tooley with those exceptions; even if someone is presently unable to desire anything because they are, say, asleep, so long as they are soon to wake up, Marquis's theory still gives them a right to life on the basis of that valuable future they will go on to have. Marquis then argues that human children have a valuable future from the moment of conception, so, if taking away a valuable future is what makes killing wrong, then killing them is wrong from the moment of conception. Notably, he does not appeal to any religious premises in making this argument. The most serious difficulty for Marquis is that it is not clear why conception matters in this way. He argues that conception is the origin of the biological organism, but this can be doubted on multiple grounds (some say it is the egg instead, others say the organism emerges only after spontaneous twinning becomes impossible, others, like myself, think that these questions are arbitrary and lack objective answers). But if Marquis cannot explain why conception matters, his argument apparently targets not only abortion, but also contraception and abstinence, and these are widely considered to be unacceptable implications.
Wow, I'd never heard this put into words like this before. This was always my argument against abortion. This and the rampant hypocrisy about how we treat fetus' on both sides of the argument. I always hear it based on religion, never a philosophy basis like this. Neat to see that better minds that I though that at some point.
If depriving a person of their valuable future is the moral basis for being against abortion, then that person should be all for quality education, free healthcare, paid paternity and maternity leave, etc., etc.
It's also indistiguishable from preventing fertilizarion.
Also breaks down somewhat in light of the fact that at least 50% of fertilized eggs don't result in a successful pregnancy, much less a baby. Most of the time, the parent never even knows they conceived. Maybe they notice their period was a little late that month; but most people's periods aren't like clockwork anyway.
The actual percentage is assumed to be higher, because 50% only represents the failures we know about.
And everyone should be 100% clear on this, the VAST majority of those eggs would probably have been just fine, and the uterus absolutely could have given them a chance. But the uterus doesn't give a shit about morals. It's here for the best of the best only and throws everything it thinks has even a hint of a defect out. The body continues to do this up until a few months in. The uterus is 100% pro abortion.
tbloxham on
"That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
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cptruggedI think it has something to do with free will.Registered Userregular
It's been 25 years since I had any kind of religion. But it really did always confuse me why the pro life movement at the time never tried to appeal to a more secular demographic by appealing to something other than religious fervor. I mean, it's still no reason to make laws limiting abortion. Science says open abortion laws are simply better for society on the whole. But no nuanced discussion even happens period. It's all so black and white.
The individual question “at what point is it ethical for this individual person to have an abortion” is probably not a question that is ever best going to be answered by a catch-all law.
I mean hell, who am I to say that some of those mothers mentioned above who left infants to die of exposure because they knew they would starve to death if left alive were really wrong? I’m not in that situation, and I know that would be a hard as hell choice to have to make.
Not that I’m saying infanticide should be legal but part of a modern society is that we should have a sufficient safety net that we should be comfortable saying “we are absolutely confident that you will never have to have a child starve to death due to lack of resources , so we are making infanticide illegal because we are guaranteeing as a society you will never have to kill your newborn because you couldn’t keep it alive and don’t want to watch it starve”.
The individual question “at what point is it ethical for this individual person to have an abortion” is probably not a question that is ever best going to be answered by a catch-all law.
I mean hell, who am I to say that some of those mothers mentioned above who left infants to die of exposure because they knew they would starve to death if left alive were really wrong? I’m not in that situation, and I know that would be a hard as hell choice to have to make.
A distinction has to be made so pick some threshold. Right now it's live birth by default
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
It's been 25 years since I had any kind of religion. But it really did always confuse me why the pro life movement at the time never tried to appeal to a more secular demographic by appealing to something other than religious fervor. I mean, it's still no reason to make laws limiting abortion. Science says open abortion laws are simply better for society on the whole. But no nuanced discussion even happens period. It's all so black and white.
Because it's not about abortion and never has been. It's about controlling women in general and especially their sex lives.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
It's been 25 years since I had any kind of religion. But it really did always confuse me why the pro life movement at the time never tried to appeal to a more secular demographic by appealing to something other than religious fervor. I mean, it's still no reason to make laws limiting abortion. Science says open abortion laws are simply better for society on the whole. But no nuanced discussion even happens period. It's all so black and white.
Because it's not about abortion and never has been. It's about controlling women in general and especially their sex lives.
"Having a child is punishment for being an immoral whore. She should have kept her legs closed."
two breaths later.
"I hooked up with this girl this weekend but she made me wear a condom, what the fuck man."
It's literally all because these people are threatened by women having autonomy.
I hope every one of them gets Necrotizing Fasciitis on their genitals.
Especially you Joe Manchin.
Edit: Manchin bemoaning the fact the bill didn't have carve outs and protections for religious and personal freedom to not participate in a pregnancy termination is so worn out. Entire hospital systems that get federal funding don't do any birth control (catholic hospital systems for example) and if you don't want to be in an abortion in the OR you can literally just say so. It's been that way since hospitals have existed. It's fucking infuriating.
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MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
Danielle Campoamor is a journalist who has written extensively on abortion for many different outlets and so has the statistics.
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
Which is why, to me, this Jane's Revenge group (if it's real, which is seems it is) is sympathetic. Abortion providers have been targeted by bombs, guns, arson, acid attacks, and general abuse and terror for decades. So now when a group fights back and throws a Molotov or three at an anti-abortion group, all I can really say is..
I am an anesthesia provider and I've provided care for probably hundreds of abortions.
I've met pro lifers on the way into work and frankly, I don't think you'll ever get a nuanced discussion of abortion with any of them because they believe we're murdering children in the clinic. That's not something you can reason with. Blame their indoctrination on any hundred causes, but the result is the same. They're all heroes trying to protect children.
Honestly, I'm curious if the Religious Right will eventually turn its crosshairs on limiting divorce should they have their way regarding abortion. Going by the New Testament, divorce is only ever permitted if a person's spouse commits adultery or in the case of a non-Christian spouse leaving a Christian spouse. Notice that spousal abuse is not mentioned, which leads to interpretations like this:
The Bible never commands divorce, even in the case of abuse. The Bible specifies two acceptable reasons for divorce: abandonment of a Christian by an unbelieving spouse (1 Corinthians 7:15) and adultery (Matthew 5:32). Since the Bible does not list abuse as an acceptable reason for divorce, we are careful to limit our advice to separation.
Honestly, I'm curious if the Religious Right will eventually turn its crosshairs on limiting divorce should they have their way regarding abortion. Going by the New Testament, divorce is only ever permitted if a person's spouse commits adultery or in the case of a non-Christian spouse leaving a Christian spouse. Notice that spousal abuse is not mentioned, which leads to interpretations like this:
The Bible never commands divorce, even in the case of abuse. The Bible specifies two acceptable reasons for divorce: abandonment of a Christian by an unbelieving spouse (1 Corinthians 7:15) and adultery (Matthew 5:32). Since the Bible does not list abuse as an acceptable reason for divorce, we are careful to limit our advice to separation.
Every sane interpretation of that considers abuse to be a form of unfaithfulness. The abuser has broken their vows; the victim has no obligation to stay.
Honestly, I'm curious if the Religious Right will eventually turn its crosshairs on limiting divorce should they have their way regarding abortion. Going by the New Testament, divorce is only ever permitted if a person's spouse commits adultery or in the case of a non-Christian spouse leaving a Christian spouse. Notice that spousal abuse is not mentioned, which leads to interpretations like this:
The Bible never commands divorce, even in the case of abuse. The Bible specifies two acceptable reasons for divorce: abandonment of a Christian by an unbelieving spouse (1 Corinthians 7:15) and adultery (Matthew 5:32). Since the Bible does not list abuse as an acceptable reason for divorce, we are careful to limit our advice to separation.
Every sane interpretation of that considers abuse to be a form of unfaithfulness. The abuser has broken their vows; the victim has no obligation to stay.
The italicized is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. I regret to inform you…….(y’all know the rest).
Honestly, I'm curious if the Religious Right will eventually turn its crosshairs on limiting divorce should they have their way regarding abortion. Going by the New Testament, divorce is only ever permitted if a person's spouse commits adultery or in the case of a non-Christian spouse leaving a Christian spouse. Notice that spousal abuse is not mentioned, which leads to interpretations like this:
The Bible never commands divorce, even in the case of abuse. The Bible specifies two acceptable reasons for divorce: abandonment of a Christian by an unbelieving spouse (1 Corinthians 7:15) and adultery (Matthew 5:32). Since the Bible does not list abuse as an acceptable reason for divorce, we are careful to limit our advice to separation.
Every sane interpretation of that considers abuse to be a form of unfaithfulness. The abuser has broken their vows; the victim has no obligation to stay.
The italicized is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. I regret to inform you…….(y’all know the rest).
Also there is an absolute ton of people who would be onboard with banning it: the legions of men who are convinced women are going to take all their money, the actual abusers who wants this to happen, and the idiots who will go "but I'm happily married...". And endless "thinkpieces" on how the best environment for children is two parents....
Honestly, I'm curious if the Religious Right will eventually turn its crosshairs on limiting divorce should they have their way regarding abortion. Going by the New Testament, divorce is only ever permitted if a person's spouse commits adultery or in the case of a non-Christian spouse leaving a Christian spouse. Notice that spousal abuse is not mentioned, which leads to interpretations like this:
The Bible never commands divorce, even in the case of abuse. The Bible specifies two acceptable reasons for divorce: abandonment of a Christian by an unbelieving spouse (1 Corinthians 7:15) and adultery (Matthew 5:32). Since the Bible does not list abuse as an acceptable reason for divorce, we are careful to limit our advice to separation.
Every sane interpretation of that considers abuse to be a form of unfaithfulness. The abuser has broken their vows; the victim has no obligation to stay.
The italicized is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. I regret to inform you…….(y’all know the rest).
I know. Believe me, I know. But I maintain that any religious leader who counsels an abuse victim to stay with their abuser because God wills it is no better than an abuser themselves.
Honestly, I'm curious if the Religious Right will eventually turn its crosshairs on limiting divorce should they have their way regarding abortion. Going by the New Testament, divorce is only ever permitted if a person's spouse commits adultery or in the case of a non-Christian spouse leaving a Christian spouse. Notice that spousal abuse is not mentioned, which leads to interpretations like this:
The Bible never commands divorce, even in the case of abuse. The Bible specifies two acceptable reasons for divorce: abandonment of a Christian by an unbelieving spouse (1 Corinthians 7:15) and adultery (Matthew 5:32). Since the Bible does not list abuse as an acceptable reason for divorce, we are careful to limit our advice to separation.
Every sane interpretation of that considers abuse to be a form of unfaithfulness. The abuser has broken their vows; the victim has no obligation to stay.
The italicized is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. I regret to inform you…….(y’all know the rest).
Also there is an absolute ton of people who would be onboard with banning it: the legions of men who are convinced women are going to take all their money, the actual abusers who wants this to happen, and the idiots who will go "but I'm happily married...". And endless "thinkpieces" on how the best environment for children is two parents....
The funny thing is that usually when someone loses a shit ton or all of their money in a divorce, it's the not the spouse taking it all. It's the fact that our nation's shitty puritan heritage and the religious right have landed us into a setup where divorce lawyers and courts are incentivized to make divorces into an affair that bleeds money out of the two getting divorced and into the pockets of a bunch of shitty lawyers and judges.
Honestly, I'm curious if the Religious Right will eventually turn its crosshairs on limiting divorce should they have their way regarding abortion. Going by the New Testament, divorce is only ever permitted if a person's spouse commits adultery or in the case of a non-Christian spouse leaving a Christian spouse. Notice that spousal abuse is not mentioned, which leads to interpretations like this:
The Bible never commands divorce, even in the case of abuse. The Bible specifies two acceptable reasons for divorce: abandonment of a Christian by an unbelieving spouse (1 Corinthians 7:15) and adultery (Matthew 5:32). Since the Bible does not list abuse as an acceptable reason for divorce, we are careful to limit our advice to separation.
Every sane interpretation of that considers abuse to be a form of unfaithfulness. The abuser has broken their vows; the victim has no obligation to stay.
The italicized is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. I regret to inform you…….(y’all know the rest).
I know. Believe me, I know. But I maintain that any religious leader who counsels an abuse victim to stay with their abuser because God wills it is no better than an abuser themselves.
I am incandescently angry about it.
Ah dang, whoops, the Southern Baptist Convention has a secret database of known abusers in the Church, the purpose of which is knowing where to shuffle them around in order to protect them
“If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, then the man who lay with her shall give to the father of the young woman fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he has violated her. He may not divorce her all his days."
An earlier verse in Exodus 22 at least states that the father may choose not to give up his daughter, though in the end the daughter's wishes are irrelevant.
The Christian apologetics website Got Questions addresses Deuteronomy 22:28-29 thusly:
In that culture, virginity was highly prized. It would have been very difficult for a woman who was not a virgin, and especially a woman who had been raped, to find a man to marry her. So Deuteronomy 22:28-29 could be viewed as merciful to the woman, who, because of the rape, would be considered unmarriageable. In that culture, a woman without a husband would have a very difficult time providing for herself. Unmarried women often had no choice but to sell themselves into slavery or prostitution just to survive. This is why the passage leaves marriage to the discretion of the father, because every situation is different, and it is better to be flexible than have a blanket rule.
Dueteronomy 22 also states that if a woman is found on her wedding night to not be a virgin after previously having led her betrothed to believe she was one that she must be stoned to death in front of her father's house.
Now, while it is true that John 8 in the New Testament has Jesus spare a woman accused of adultery (another capital punishment), the Old Testament verse commanding that those involved in adultery be put to death (good old Deuteronomy 22) specifies that both the married woman and the man are to be stoned, and that there should also be a witness who would cast the first stone. So Jesus isn't saying that no one should be stoned anymore (not here, at least), but that the conditions for execution according to the Law of Moses were not met. There's also the matter that people today disagree on whether the story of the adulteress was even originally in John and if it should be included in the Bible; defenders claim that it was perhaps removed by someone who feared that Jesus' perceived soft-on-adultery stance would make other women think they could get away with adultery.
Just so I don't spend this entire post quoting Dueteronomy 22 or NT verses citing it, I'll end things with a quote from Leviticus.
“If a priest’s daughter defiles herself by becoming a prostitute, she also defiles her father’s holiness, and she must be burned to death."
Stuff like this has always been a big problem for not only me, but a great number of people throughout the millenia who couldn't reconcile the generally good advice given by Jesus on how to treat others with the more brutal entries in the Old Testatment, especially since Jesus is supposed to be part of the same entity that inspired the Old Testament.
Honestly, I'm curious if the Religious Right will eventually turn its crosshairs on limiting divorce should they have their way regarding abortion. Going by the New Testament, divorce is only ever permitted if a person's spouse commits adultery or in the case of a non-Christian spouse leaving a Christian spouse. Notice that spousal abuse is not mentioned, which leads to interpretations like this:
The Bible never commands divorce, even in the case of abuse. The Bible specifies two acceptable reasons for divorce: abandonment of a Christian by an unbelieving spouse (1 Corinthians 7:15) and adultery (Matthew 5:32). Since the Bible does not list abuse as an acceptable reason for divorce, we are careful to limit our advice to separation.
Every sane interpretation of that considers abuse to be a form of unfaithfulness. The abuser has broken their vows; the victim has no obligation to stay.
This is a very narrow reading, a common view is that Paul is providing an example of something that would constitute an offense comparable to adultery that would justify a divorce, and 1 Corinthians is not meant to be an exhaustive list of those things.
Also note Paul was against sex and marriage In general, and if you read the entirety of 1 Corinthians its pretty clear that his attitude was basically “its not great to be married or have sex, but if you gotta do what you gotta do get married and do it with your wife”
Basically the same as how it is mentioned in his letters that communion should be taken with wine but if someone has a “weak constitution” (IE gets drunk easily - probably a reference to alcoholism) a non-alcoholic substitute can be used instead.
I'm always loathe to use the bible to support much of anything. The sheer number of times it's been translated or new versions have come out is.. eye opening. My ex believed in the inviobility of the bible itself, despite the fact she had 3 bibles in 2 different languages that were all just a bit different, and that didn't include the fact that none of them were in any of the more "ancient" biblical languages. Word of God my rear end.
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I am, unsurprisingly, more optimistic about the contribution that morality and ethics can make to guiding law on abortion. Thinking through the implications of views like Tooley's, Marquis's, and Thomsons--or more up-to-date and sophisticated accounts from people like McMahan--clarifies the relationship between various ideas and helps identify what's at issue in various choices. That being said, I do agree that as a practical matter what guides the law is 99% politics, and that moral philosophers are very limited in their ability to affect the course of politics. Nor does it help that their contributions, such as they are, are often complex and conditional, and almost never of the form "Thompson proved that Roe v Wade was correctly decided." While contributions like that would be great, they are not frequently on offer.
I'm not saying there is no value to the intellectual exploration of the ethical underpinnings of what law and society elects to promote, permit, or prohibit, or that there are no contributions to the development of the law. What I mean in this case is not "It's just politics, bub," but rather, the very conditionality of the moral choices at issue only inform the law to the extent that they clarify that categorical restrictions are a poor fit with the range of ethical concerns in this area.
The weakness you explained in Marquis' thinking is illustrative of the issue. If a line must be drawn -- and it must, or we'll all just be maximal nihilists -- does ethical philosophy offer a lens for even somewhat locating that line? That Marquis believes a worthy life begins at conception is just as arbitrary as any other point in natal development. And, the weakness in Tooley's thinking per your summary is that by locating the essential feature of a life to which certain rights attach in whether or not the life can have desires that the right protects, Tooley acknowledges that this principle must also implicate newborns. Certainly there is broad agreement that the death of a one-hour old baby is a great tragedy and loss of valuable life, and the law rightly recognizes that the loss may be compensated in, for example, wrongful death claims.
So, IMO, the fact that there is an innumerable kaleidoscope of ethical quandaries without clear answers that resolve for and against abortion as a moral/ethical act (or amoral/unethical) instructs the law to not attempt to resolve the issue by one justification over another. The intentional homicide/manslaughter framework that we rely on to punish adults who cause losses of life with culpable states of mind cannot and does not map onto the act of killing a fetus until at some point in the pregnancy when, clearly, it does.
The more relevant moral issue that philosophy can shed light on, in my view, is normative. What is the social good that the law should maximize? Minimizing loss of life? Whose life? Maximizing individual choice? Balancing the observable interest of the host mother against the unobservable interest of a developing fetus? On this view, it doesn't matter whether the fetus is an ethical nullity such as in Tooley's view, because on an academic level that frame does not explain or account for the effect on others anticipating, and in most cases desiring, the fetus to live even if the fetus itself is cognitively incapable of desiring that for itself (like willing parents).
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edit: tag typo
I think a great prophylactic against the moral panic of the unthinkable horror of humanity is stark exposure to the unthinkable horror of humanity, which you can get wherever true suffering is found. I'm reminded of a chapter in House of God where the main character takes his girlfriend to the GI ward and glibly acts as a body horror tour guide until his senior tells him off for showing the uninitiated the more gruesome parts of his profession. I suppose that most of have something in our lives that can relate in some way.
It's been a long time since I've seen any political leader immerse themselves in the putrescent muck wedged in the dark corners of humanity and wallow in it until they gain the supranormal resilience and perspective this imbues. We mythologize this kind of leadership: someone who isn't afraid to get their hands dirty, who makes extreme sacrifices commensurate with their extreme good fortune that enabled them to lead in the first place, who is fundamentally altered by surviving the experience: President Zelenskyy comes to mind.
That's what we need more of in America, leaders who have seen and experienced things that most people can't handle. People whose decisions we trust because we cannot fully grasp the nature of what they are judging. People with a resume of suffering, especially elective suffering, where they had a choice to tap out but didn't. I don't think it's too impossible to hope for such a person to campaign against those who lead by ignorance.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
There is danger there too. See, pretty much most of human history where rulers/leaders WERE essentially immune to the horrors, and thus didn't value life as greatly. Zelensky's are rare. Much rarer than a Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin, etc.
I think that’s been pretty well known in anthropology for a long time, that infanticide is and always has been ridiculously common especially in situations where resources were limited and existence threatened - wars, famines, etc. Disturbing as fuck though.
I guess I don't find it disturbing, just... sort of obvious-in-retrospect once you think about it? I assume being disturbed is an innate reaction that some people have and I don't, and that in itself is kinda fascinating.
I think at least the prediction that "seventy five percent of all SIDS cases are actually homicides" is kinda fucked up.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Wow, I'd never heard this put into words like this before. This was always my argument against abortion. This and the rampant hypocrisy about how we treat fetus' on both sides of the argument. I always hear it based on religion, never a philosophy basis like this. Neat to see that better minds that I though that at some point.
I found the write-up fascinating, but I’d really want to see a lot more data on the variables they highlighted before I gave that particular point full faith. The book (and article) are fairly old, and SIDS-attributed deaths have declined significantly since the 90s, and somewhat less significantly since the mid-00s.
Not saying it’s incorrect, just that later data raises some questions that assertion, at least.
Oh yeah, I'm not prepared to take it at fact value. But it struck me as the only assertion there that would qualify as disturbing.
If depriving a person of their valuable future is the moral basis for being against abortion, then that person should be all for quality education, free healthcare, paid paternity and maternity leave, etc., etc.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
It's also indistiguishable from preventing fertilizarion.
Or just not having sex.
Agreed, that was the point i was trying to make.
Also breaks down somewhat in light of the fact that at least 50% of fertilized eggs don't result in a successful pregnancy, much less a baby. Most of the time, the parent never even knows they conceived. Maybe they notice their period was a little late that month; but most people's periods aren't like clockwork anyway.
The actual percentage is assumed to be higher, because 50% only represents the failures we know about.
You'd have to time it out after biological bottlenecks during the reproductive cycle that would take first place by a mile in "this is why what's happening won't likely result in a full life human"
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
And everyone should be 100% clear on this, the VAST majority of those eggs would probably have been just fine, and the uterus absolutely could have given them a chance. But the uterus doesn't give a shit about morals. It's here for the best of the best only and throws everything it thinks has even a hint of a defect out. The body continues to do this up until a few months in. The uterus is 100% pro abortion.
I mean hell, who am I to say that some of those mothers mentioned above who left infants to die of exposure because they knew they would starve to death if left alive were really wrong? I’m not in that situation, and I know that would be a hard as hell choice to have to make.
Not that I’m saying infanticide should be legal but part of a modern society is that we should have a sufficient safety net that we should be comfortable saying “we are absolutely confident that you will never have to have a child starve to death due to lack of resources , so we are making infanticide illegal because we are guaranteeing as a society you will never have to kill your newborn because you couldn’t keep it alive and don’t want to watch it starve”.
A distinction has to be made so pick some threshold. Right now it's live birth by default
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Because it's not about abortion and never has been. It's about controlling women in general and especially their sex lives.
"Having a child is punishment for being an immoral whore. She should have kept her legs closed."
two breaths later.
"I hooked up with this girl this weekend but she made me wear a condom, what the fuck man."
It's literally all because these people are threatened by women having autonomy.
I hope every one of them gets Necrotizing Fasciitis on their genitals.
Especially you Joe Manchin.
Edit: Manchin bemoaning the fact the bill didn't have carve outs and protections for religious and personal freedom to not participate in a pregnancy termination is so worn out. Entire hospital systems that get federal funding don't do any birth control (catholic hospital systems for example) and if you don't want to be in an abortion in the OR you can literally just say so. It's been that way since hospitals have existed. It's fucking infuriating.
Danielle Campoamor is a journalist who has written extensively on abortion for many different outlets and so has the statistics.
lol
Lmao
I've met pro lifers on the way into work and frankly, I don't think you'll ever get a nuanced discussion of abortion with any of them because they believe we're murdering children in the clinic. That's not something you can reason with. Blame their indoctrination on any hundred causes, but the result is the same. They're all heroes trying to protect children.
Source
Every sane interpretation of that considers abuse to be a form of unfaithfulness. The abuser has broken their vows; the victim has no obligation to stay.
The italicized is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. I regret to inform you…….(y’all know the rest).
Also there is an absolute ton of people who would be onboard with banning it: the legions of men who are convinced women are going to take all their money, the actual abusers who wants this to happen, and the idiots who will go "but I'm happily married...". And endless "thinkpieces" on how the best environment for children is two parents....
I know. Believe me, I know. But I maintain that any religious leader who counsels an abuse victim to stay with their abuser because God wills it is no better than an abuser themselves.
I am incandescently angry about it.
The funny thing is that usually when someone loses a shit ton or all of their money in a divorce, it's the not the spouse taking it all. It's the fact that our nation's shitty puritan heritage and the religious right have landed us into a setup where divorce lawyers and courts are incentivized to make divorces into an affair that bleeds money out of the two getting divorced and into the pockets of a bunch of shitty lawyers and judges.
Ah dang, whoops, the Southern Baptist Convention has a secret database of known abusers in the Church, the purpose of which is knowing where to shuffle them around in order to protect them
Oopsie poopsie
An earlier verse in Exodus 22 at least states that the father may choose not to give up his daughter, though in the end the daughter's wishes are irrelevant.
The Christian apologetics website Got Questions addresses Deuteronomy 22:28-29 thusly:
Dueteronomy 22 also states that if a woman is found on her wedding night to not be a virgin after previously having led her betrothed to believe she was one that she must be stoned to death in front of her father's house.
Now, while it is true that John 8 in the New Testament has Jesus spare a woman accused of adultery (another capital punishment), the Old Testament verse commanding that those involved in adultery be put to death (good old Deuteronomy 22) specifies that both the married woman and the man are to be stoned, and that there should also be a witness who would cast the first stone. So Jesus isn't saying that no one should be stoned anymore (not here, at least), but that the conditions for execution according to the Law of Moses were not met. There's also the matter that people today disagree on whether the story of the adulteress was even originally in John and if it should be included in the Bible; defenders claim that it was perhaps removed by someone who feared that Jesus' perceived soft-on-adultery stance would make other women think they could get away with adultery.
Just so I don't spend this entire post quoting Dueteronomy 22 or NT verses citing it, I'll end things with a quote from Leviticus.
Stuff like this has always been a big problem for not only me, but a great number of people throughout the millenia who couldn't reconcile the generally good advice given by Jesus on how to treat others with the more brutal entries in the Old Testatment, especially since Jesus is supposed to be part of the same entity that inspired the Old Testament.
This is a very narrow reading, a common view is that Paul is providing an example of something that would constitute an offense comparable to adultery that would justify a divorce, and 1 Corinthians is not meant to be an exhaustive list of those things.
Also note Paul was against sex and marriage In general, and if you read the entirety of 1 Corinthians its pretty clear that his attitude was basically “its not great to be married or have sex, but if you gotta do what you gotta do get married and do it with your wife”
Basically the same as how it is mentioned in his letters that communion should be taken with wine but if someone has a “weak constitution” (IE gets drunk easily - probably a reference to alcoholism) a non-alcoholic substitute can be used instead.
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