The “consequences” you’re glossing over here include rape (both forcible and statutory), fetuses who would die at childbirth anyways, who endanger the lives of their mothers, and so forth. There’s no single group of people who seek out abortions, and virtually nobody wants one in the abstract: they’re a means for preserving bodily autonomy and a necessary consequence of our legal respect for said autonomy.
I literally have a friend-of-a-friend right now being denied an abortion for a fetus with severe Anencephaly. There’s a group thread trying to figure out where she can travel to in order to terminate.
These fucking monsters want her to carry this non viable fetus for 5 more months to deliver a guaranteed stillborn baby with 0 chance of survival. Can you even imagine the trauma that would inflict on the mother? The number of people who are going to ask about her pregnancy? The severe health impacts she’s going to face because pregnancies are extremely taxing on the body? The most ignorant among us are making laws based on their uniformed feelings and it’s going to cause serious harm to a lot of people.
As I said in another comment: that’s simply not your decision to make. You’re neither qualified nor entitled to their private life; the fact that the particulars revealed to you in this instance meet your standard does not mean anything.
And no, our laws are not based on that fundamental principle. The US legal system is built on the English system, which emphasizes autonomy in the forms of property, self-legislation, and all of those other things that actually appear in our foundational documents.
I’ll say it: the mother’s rights trump those of the fetus when they conflict.
If we accept the right of bodily autonomy then the fetus has no right to the mother’s blood and sustenance.
If the state denies pregnant women bodily autonomy then it must assume the responsibility to care for them. Stats that ban abortion should cover all costs of pregnancy, at minimum.
Do you deem yourself, or anyone else for that matter, qualified and entitled to the private circumstances that separate those two groups? Does that sound like a reasonable thing for the government to task itself with ascertaining?
And no, it’s not 1%. It’s closer to 10% in self-reporting figures[1], which don’t include the obvious problem of shame associated with rape and one’s own inability to healthily deliver a baby.
> You are left with the 99%: mostly a lazy and horrible way to do contraception
Did you read Justice Thomas' concurrence? This court has contraceptives in its sight as well. I'm sure it's going to be a few, harmless steps towards theocracy?
If animals do it in nature, and humans do it with dangerous methods when denied access to safe methods, it's going to be with us until the end of time, regardless of law.
Let's face it, this is just another drug war. An opportunity for Republicans to deny Americans personal autonomy and liberty. A justification for state aggression against your neighbors and friends. Wake up.
Monkeys also engage in cannibalism, sometimes even of their own dead young, and lions regularly commit infanticide. Appeals to nature are not compelling in the slightest when it comes to morality.
My inference from nature supported a non-moral point, namely "[abortion is] going to be with us until the end of time, regardless of law."
As for my moral argument, I invite you to read about the history of abortion, the history of abolition, and/or the history of America's war on drugs. I expect you will find abolition the easiest example to grok, since it's no longer a political issue. Note the moral arguments for abolition still stand, and yet it's no longer law.
You've got to understand, anti abortion people believe it is murder. This is akin to asking them "why do you care if some random person gets shot in south side Chicago?" It just isn't a line of discussion that makes any sense.
I am not 100% anti abortion, but I think it’s a bad thing.
The law said that at one day after birth if you kill a baby it’s murder but one day before it’s fine, do as you please it’s ’her choice’.
I think we are too far gone in that direction, a fetus still something, a human life in formation, damn you would face legal consequence if you mistreated a dog.
It doesn't seem like you've considered the possibility that a fetus with no consciousness being terminated may be more humane than forcing it into the hell of being raised by parents that don't want it or can't provide for it. More people should accept that what's going on inside someone else's body is none of their business.
The person you're responding to specifically said "one day before birth", I don't think you can find someone who credibly argues that a fetus at that stage is not a conscious human being. Whoever you're disagreeing with you're not responding to them.
Ok, well if he's only considering "one day before birth" scenarios he's gone reductio ad absurdum on the whole issue and he's also fighting a roughly nonexistent boogeyman. His own personal strawman, if you will.
It’s just a way to show that a fetus is still something. With pure materialist mindset we would say that it’s progressively closer to being a human as we get close to birth.
I find it strange that we get from zero value before birth to full human live once born and try to disregard the baby before birth.
I think we have to do a conscience examination, are we blind to something because it’s more convenient for us?
> I find it strange that we get from zero value before birth to full human live once born and try to disregard the baby before birth.
Do we though? Abortions statistics would show that progressively fewer abortions are performed the later the pregnancy, with 99% occurring before 21 weeks.
I think the person you’re replying to agrees with you; they were trying to intentionally be absurd. The only problem: a fetus is not a child, and this entire rhetorical strategy requires us to ignore that fact.
A fetus not a child, but concluding that it deserves no protection isn’t a foregone conclusion.
I mean people who injure a pregnant woman and it results in fetal death are criminally charged. So in that case we do consider it worthy of protection under the law.
Fetal death in those cases corresponds (or ought to correspond) to a projection of the actual victim’s wishes: harm to the fetus is exactly coextensive with harm to the pregnant person’s future plans for it.
That’s one of many sufficient conditions. Another is fetal viability, which is exactly why Roe allowed states to enact restrictions on late-term abortions.
Overall, we’re only having these conversations because a fetus has two simultaneous qualities: it bears visual resemblance to a human being, and it has the future potential to be a human being. We don’t concern ourselves nearly as much with sperm (no visual resemblance) or cakes shaped like babies (no future potential). Together, they deserve concern, but not overriding concern; that is reserved for the sole person in the equation.
But if I give birth to a 26 week premature baby, then kill it. That’s murder, but if I do while still in the womb I didn’t kill anything because the mother didn’t want it?
The logic fails, it literally the exact same life you’re ending. The difference is only the location and whether someone wants it.
What you’re identifying falls under viability as mentioned above, as well as basic independent self-regulation.
They’re not the same life, because they’re two different things: one is a premature newborn that we know can survive outside of a continuing pregnancy, and the other is a fetus that might survive. Unless you propose that we make all pregnant people deliver the moment their doctor believes that the fetus is viable (that seems like a bad state of affairs?), the two will remain different.
That makes no sense. A 26 week old premature baby that is born is still at a high risk of death. We don't know if it will survive. Yet we give it the full protection of any human being, but if one hour ago it was in the womb, we don't.
Murder is a holistic concept; it admits no possibility of fractionality. Ask yourself: what does it mean to do 60% of a murder?
Philosophers have, and will continue, to debate the sufficient conditions for humanity. But a conceptus meets none of them, nor does anything that is not independently viable.
I honestly don't care. 20 murders happened on the other side of the planet while I typed this comment. I think it's sad, but it doesn't affect my life in any material way.
Yes because it directly affects both my wife and my daughter. If either one chose to get an abortion I'd be very sad, but that's not a good reason to make something illegal.
