I just googled GitHub and the top results were ads for circleci and gitlab. Buying ads for competitors keywords is extremely normal. Gitlab would love to dissuade me from using GitHub, just as a crisis pregnancy center would love to dissuade me from getting an abortion.
If you google GitHub you’re probably looking for source control. GitLab offers source control.
If you google “abortion providers” you’re looking to get an abortion. The ads you see are specifically for people who want to look like abortion providers but actually seek to stop you from getting one and don’t provide any abortion services at all.
It’s like googling GitHub and the top result being a religious group that considers source control to be an abomination, disguising themselves until you’ve paid for an account when they can inundate you with propaganda.
People searching for GitHub are more likely to use git and therefore are gitlab’s target audience.
People searching for abortions are more likely to get an abortion and thus the target audience for anti-abortion orgs.
It seems logical from an advertising perspective even though you may not agree with it.
As a pregnant woman deciding what I do with my pregnancy, this isn’t even a bad ad as the info is probably something I’m interested in. Sometimes I know exactly what I want. Sometimes I’m researching options.
> the info is probably something I’m interested in
So if you were a pregnant woman you’d agree that these ads are bad because they deliberately misrepresent themselves. If you’re researching what to do with your pregnancy you’d surely want your search results to be accurate?
> As a pregnant woman deciding what I do with my pregnancy
For what it’s worth I’m pretty sure someone googling “abortion center near me” has decided what to do with their pregnancy anyway.
> For what it’s worth I’m pretty sure someone googling “abortion center near me” has decided what to do with their pregnancy anyway.
I think it’s hard to speak for everyone in such a way and everyone is different. Personally, I’ve googled this exact thing and hadn’t made up my mind yet.
This is a hard problem to google to solve, but they do make one off exceptions for banned types of ad buys. Off the top of my head, they voluntarily add restrictions for who can advertise for drug names. Not sure how they decide, but I suppose some abortion rights advocacy group could write a letter asking google to limit who can advertise related to abortion.
Although I could see this being a Supreme Court case if the anti-abortion folks are willing to pursue.
It would be all totally fine if the pro-life totally not abortion clinics didn’t masquerade as abortion clinics. There is no problem with presenting people with option, but there is a problem with misrepresenting what the options are.
The screenshots in the article show pro-life clinic that is advertising itself as “abortion pill”. Google literally had to implement the “provides abortions” and “does not provide abortions” tags because the results are otherwise indistinguishable.
I totally respect people’s right to choose.I can understand the stance that life is precious. I am not against the ads for pro life clinics, because pregnancy can be scary and it can be a way to find some resources and support.
However it doesn’t feel right that pro life clinics try to trick you into it.
The situation is more similar to Googling "nearest emergency room" and getting results for Christian Science Churches, where they don't believe that physical maladies are real.
The point is that Google is effectively denying medical care.
1. When you say "desirable" here you're speaking relatively. Abortion isn't intrinsically something that the vast majority of women want, what they want is to not be pregnant for one reason or another.
2. Many, many people have middle-of-the-road opinions about abortion. Nudging them into carrying the human to term and giving it up for adoption isn't akin to selling fake services, it's more akin to organ donation.
Go to r/RegretfulParents and read about some of the stories of women who wanted abortions and were manipulated by these places at a vulnerable time in their life. It’s pretty horrifying.
Most of these places won’t help a lick once the baby is actually born.
Yes. It's a pro-birth movement, not life. Life lasts a long time and that's expensive and "something she should have thought about before having kids" or some such gymnastics. These same folks will gladly spit on a child because their parents are poor or talk about it like it's some kind of lesson they deserve.
Well I can't speak for these places since I've never worked for them or used them, but that being said, giving up a child for adoption is very, very easy. Even fire halls take children, no questions asked.
I understand that there are regretful parents, but keep in mind these things:
1. These very parents were given the gift of making it to adulthood to make a choice they regret, something that unborn children do not get to make.
2. Adults regret many things and the choice for carrying a baby to term while adoption is such a viable option is far from the top of the list of things that someone regrets in life. It is much more likely for someone to regret getting married than for them to regret giving birth.
3. Ethics truly do matter. It is not what someone does when the manager of the bank is standing over them and they check their balance with their debit card that matters. It is what they do when the ATM erroneously displays a much higher balance in the middle of the night in a dark and seedy bar that counts. In the same way, resisting the dehumanizing characterization of unborn humans matters most in societies where this is common place enough for these decisions to carry weight, and there are many example from history that highlight the same type of moral dilemmas. It seems strange standing in the present and being confronted with a challenge that we may very well be "the bad guys" but the same was true of slavers and many other horrible types of people.
1. You think adoption is the answer? Well, how many children have you adopted?
2. In the US, there are currently 60,000 children 2-years or younger in foster care. Based on that, I’d say putting a child up for adoption isn’t all that easy.
3. There are many reasons a person does not want to carry a fetus to term. Maybe they are a rape or incest victim? Maybe they don’t want to their body to permanently changed by pregnancy? Maybe they don’t want to risk death during childbirth? Or maybe maybe it’s none of our fucking business why they want to have an abortion.
GP "got it in one." This is SEO 101. Just because you don't like how it worked out doesn't mean the system broke. It's working exactly as designed.
More and more of us hate it, for ALL the reasons that it doesn't take us to exactly what WE think it ought to show us. Like having several ads at the top, and then the next several links leading us to YouTube videos asking us to "like and subscribe" for more source control "content."
This entire thread is now devoted to how much censorship, ethics, and literal mind reading we need to program AI with to make it work in our new, evolved, and COMPLETELY overly-sensitized society.
If these anti-abortion ads were honest about what they are I’d agree with you. But they aren’t, they’re deliberately portraying themselves as something they are not in order to ensnare their target market.
Google makes value judgements about search results all the time. PageRank has always been a value judgement. Spam filtering is a value judgment. Any result, ad or not, portraying itself as something other than what it is? That’s a bad search result and Google would be a better search engine if it didn’t have them.
What do you mean "nope?" You're implying that PageRank makes MORAL judgements about the content, and you know it doesn't. It CAN'T. All it can know are metrics like incoming links and traffic. You're using "value judgement" here in a completely wrong way. Your definition of "value" and Google's are very different. And, honestly, I'm flummoxed why this is so confusing.
You're the one injecting morals into the debate. At no point am I making a moral argument.
I'm saying that PageRank is just one of many value judgements Google makes. Google is not impartial. Not all incoming links are equal, Google makes a value judgement about which domains are more valuable than others. Google also makes value judgements about what is and isn't spam, which includes results that try to game the system by appearing to be something they are not. This is the latter. These are anti-abortion activists attempting to look like abortion centers, something they are not.
If it helps you remove the moral angle here: let's say I place an ad against the search term "cars for sale" with an ad saying "great value cars available to buy here!" and when you click you end up on a page that sells bikes. Is that a good search result? No, it is not. Is that likely to satisfy a user searching for a car? No, it is not. By the rules Google themselves outline they would remove my ad:
> We don’t allow ads or destinations that deceive users by excluding relevant product information or providing misleading information about products, services, or businesses.
You're so focused on trying to push a contrarian view that you're losing sight of the fact that Google is a business, and it serves their business interests to give users relevant results.
I don't know how I could any clearer than "Google has an interest in providing relevant results to users". If you're still not getting it then you might need to look inwards.
And I have absolutely no idea how Google is supposed to do that in this context without making a human decision, based on morals, and then you accuse me of injecting morality into the discussion. How can you not see how confusing this is?
I'm looking inside, and I just see that you're talking out of both sides of your mouth.
I do not understand why you keep going back to morals here. Google's ad policy is very, very clear:
> We don’t allow ads or destinations that deceive users by excluding relevant product information or providing misleading information about products, services, or businesses.
These anti-abortion activist ads provide misleading information about the products and/or services they provide. No moral judgement required: they are misleading ads.
And I can't understand how you keep trying to say that this doesn't involve morals. FTFA, only 38% of these "centers" do not provide any sort of abortion services at all. Fine. Throw them out. But what about the other 60%? They apparently do perform abortions. Do they just get a pass at that point?
What if they do so only in the cases of "the life of the mother," and try to talk people out of it in every other circumstance? Do they still qualify to win auctions on those keywords? The article itself makes it very clear that this whole decision tree is problematic and requires human pruning. Once you start down this road of vetting whether a clinic is offering abortions or not, there's going to be a bunch of grey-area cases that need to be decided, and those decisions are implicitly moral in the general case.
The nature of the search question itself is moral to start out with. Should "abortions near me" return results including "crisis centers" -- if it's really a "health care" or "pro-choice" question -- or is that search really code for "where can I get a DNC for the least money and hassle?" There are morals involved in every part of this topic.
Fair. It’s valid to present options. The problem here is not that pro life orgs show up as ads in abortion searches.
It is quite a bit shit that pro life organizations advertise themselves as abortion clinics. You can see it in the screenshot in the article, the ad is talking about abortion pill, no mention of pro life whatsoever. It is literally indistinguishable from actual abortion clinics, and it is by design.
Why do we need to trick women into it? Why do you have to wait weeks for your appointment with a fake abortion clinic only to find out hours into your appointment that they will actually not provide an abortion?
Third trimester abortions are extremely rare (less than 1%) and are overwhelmingly performed for medical reasons, not because of personal choice. There aren't tons of women carrying babies around in their bodies for six months then spontaneously deciding they don't want it after all, it's always been a disingenuous talking point.
This conversation is about ethics. Google has no ethical obligation to help GitHub outcompete Gitlab; but it does have an ethical obligation to prevent anti-abortion centers from using Google services to trick young women into a lifetime of difficulty and poverty by misrepresenting themselves as medical providers.
And what is more, we have an ethical obligations as Google's users and customers to force Google to behave ethically, since massive international corporations never will do so on their own.
Abortion is a complex and controversial issue. Google does not have an obligation to only show pro-choice material when searching abortion, because that would be a form of censorship and bias that would violate its own principles of neutrality and diversity. I am not persuaded by your argument that these search results will harm users.
Google does not have an obligation to only show pro-choice material when searching abortion
Your twisted words here aren't helping your argument. In this situation someone is looking for healthcare options and they are being shown options for scam services that have no intention to ever provide any healthcare.
Just as if someone was searching for prescription medication and it directed them to sites that sold what appeared to be medication and instead were just sugar pills made to look like real medication.
Boy, talk about the pot calling the kettle black. You twisting the definition of "healthcare" to only mean abortion is just as bad. "Healthcare" to a teen on the fence might mean EXACTLY looking for an agency that can help them deliver and give the baby up for adoption.
Nice attempt at intimidation - and I hope you enjoyed scrolling through years of my comments hoping to find something to sling since you can't address my actual arguments - but there's a reason people don't use alt accounts when voicing their support for abortion rights, because, again, the overwhelming majority of people are in favor of them.
"Healthcare" to a teen on the fence might mean EXACTLY looking for an agency that can help them deliver and give the baby up for adoption.
Are you arguing that clinics don't provide services that help women deliver babies or guide them through adoption? That's ridiculous. My two children are proof that doctors aren't going around fighting against women giving birth.
Are you arguing that search results for "how do I put my baby up for adoption" should lead to "abortion" clinics getting the top results, purely from either an English-language or PageRank metrics point of view?
I am pretty sure there would be a fair bit of outrage if woman searching for prenatal adoption services were directed to abortion clinics adverting as prenatal adoption centers that then stear people towards the "options" of abortion.
The main point is false representation; which Google if they value their relationship with their users .. they do have an obligation to carry advertising towards some degree of truth in representation of product or service being offered.
> I am pretty sure there would be a fair bit of outrage if woman searching for prenatal adoption services were directed to abortion clinics adverting as prenatal adoption centers that then stear people towards the "options" of abortion.
Well yes, because you're supposed to steer people away from killing, not towards it. After all, it's a good thing for searches about suicide to return results about treating depression, but it'd be horrible if searches about treating depression returned results about how to commit suicide.
> The main point is false representation; which Google if they value their relationship with their users .. they do have an obligation to carry advertising towards some degree of truth in representation of product or service being offered.
Continuing with my above example, is it false representation for Google to give you anti-suicide results for searches about suicide? Should they have to be truthful by only giving you results with instructions?
Your writing the words down does not make it so. It isn't particularly complex, and it isn't particularly controversial in the United States, even among Republicans; people want abortion rights and fringe groups want to deprive them of it.
Edit: also, I can't believe you baited me into arguing about whether abortion should be allowed or not.
Just in case you aren't actually familiar with these "crisis pregnancy centers" and how they work, this is about physical buildings that literally masquerade as abortion centers who are ready to help people get their needed abortions, and instead string them along until it's legally or medically too late.
Of course people who believe abortion is problematic should be allowed to freely say so. That is not the activity that these frauds are engaged in.
I’d hardly call extremist right-wing Christians a ‘fringe group’, as much as I think most people wish they were...
‘Terrorist group’? Sure. Spot on. ‘Fringe’? Sadly not at all.
Look at the ongoing trans genocide as another example as to how big and how powerful these truly hate-filled people are.
EDIT: saw a disgusting uneducated dead comment below here saying it’s offensive to call the very real trans genocide a ‘genocide’ to others because I guess they’ve either done no research or are more likely just transphobic.
It’s sad to see even in usually amazing communities like this; that the denial of the trans genocide continues.
We can’t begin to fix a problem, before we acknowledge the problem exists, and this isn’t a deniable or debatable issue - it’s happening. Let’s not be ignorant hateful cretins by denying it. Please.
Abortion is a complex and controversial issue for one religion and one political party. If every religion or political party’s “complexities” need to affect MY google searches at that point it will likely need to look like some castrated caricature of a page trying to answer the actual question I asked.
That's how human rights get violated and start getting worse for the people who are impacted, by calling it "controversial", wanting to be "neutral". It's typically people who have no skin in the game that call it that way and will never lose anything by debating it.
> but it does have an ethical obligation to prevent anti-abortion centers from using Google services to trick young women into a lifetime of difficulty and poverty by misrepresenting themselves as medical providers.
"Ethical" and "moral" are often used interchangeably because they mostly mean the same thing. Have you ever stopped to consider that your moral code may be wrong, that what you consider "good" is actually evil and vice versa?
"Compared to women who deliver, those who miscarry or have TOP face significantly elevated rates of psychiatric disorders, substance use, suicidal behaviors, sleep disorders, post-traumatic stress disorders, a decline in general health, and elevated rates of recourse to medical treatments in general, most of which have been observed within the first through ten years following the pregnancy loss."
"Among a sample of women seeking counseling for post-abortion distress, 64% felt “forced by outside circumstance” to have an abortion and 83% indicated they would have carried to term if significant others in their lives had encouraged delivery"
Planned Parenthood tried arguing in court that they shouldn't have to disclose the statistically significant risk of increased suicide to women seeking an abortion, or any of the other risks. It's almost like they have their own agenda that goes against what is best for their patients. It's also almost like what they are doing isn't really health care!
And all of this isn't even taking into account the moral and ethical claim that the unborn child has the human right to life. Do not be so confident that your sense of morality and ethics is correct, and that therefore one of the most powerful information companies in the world should direct its resources towards your chosen ideology or religion. Free spech doesn't exist so bad people can say evil things; it exists because what is good and what is bad is hard enough to figure out that everyone needs to be able to speak their mind and discuss the issues at hand so that we can reach the best consensus.
I’ve actually thought it was weird Google was allowed to advertise competitors for keyword searches. Like how is Google not leveraging GitHub’s brand to sell ads to competitors in this case?
It's the digital equivalent of a protection racket. I hope we eventually address this as part of anti-trust regulations because it's been a money sink for every company I've ever worked at.
As a counter, abortion seems to show up more strongly when searching for anti-abortion. That may be appropriate - and its fine to point out possible bias but I think the article is perhaps not really researching this in an impartial way.
The difference there is no deception in suicide prevention.
As you can see in the screenshots in the article, the anti-abortion clinics do pose as abortion clinics, instead of providing the person with facts.
Google had to make an extra label for this saying “provides abortion” and “does not provide abortions” because it is impossible to tell.
I would have no problem with pro life sites showing up that are open about it. When you google “how to kill yourself”, the suicide hotline does not hide behind “5 easy steps to killing yourself”
Don’t abortion clinics do the same thing? Planned Parenthood isn’t called Planned Unparenthood. The whole abortion industry is based on euphemisms like your use of “choice” to avoid describing what’s really taking place.
Planned Parenthood isn't in the "abortion industry." The vast majority of its work is supplying birth control, STD testing, cancer screening, and a bunch of general health care for women and poor families. They're the ones that happen to have expertise working with adoption agencies, not pregnancy crisis centers.
Almost half of Planned Parenthood's funding comes from the government via Medicaid and due to the Hyde Act, none of it can even be used for abortions. Most of the rest of their funding is literally for family planning. It's in the name!
Next time you or a partner need some sort of reproductive services, whether that's condoms, an STD test, or prenatal vitamins, you can go to Planned Parenthood and get it for free nationwide. The only reason to go to your GP and use your insurance is its faster and the results go directly to your doctor.
Yes. Proponents of abortion (a neutral term) use terms that minimize the actions they are taking to deceive and lessen the guilt of what they are doing.
* terminating the life of a fetus isn't "infanticide" it's a "choice"
* an abortion clinic isn't "an execution center" it's "a medical center"
* people who are against abortion aren't "pro-life" they're "anti-choice"
* abortion isn't "child murder" it's "healthcare"
They do this to normalize their actions. If they spent one second contemplating what they are doing from a neutral point of view it would be terrifying. A la "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream".
Wow, it's incredible just how much you're warping language.
> terminating the life of a fetus isn't "infanticide" it's a "choice"
To make abortion sound worse, you redefine infanticide. Encyclopedia Britannica says: "infanticide, the killing of the newborn" - notice how being born is a necessary precondition?
> an abortion clinic isn't "an execution center" it's "a medical center"
Yes, just like any other place that does healthcare.
> people who are against abortion aren't "pro-life" they're "anti-choice"
Yes, you want to take people's choice away.
> abortion isn't "child murder" it's "healthcare"
Yes, because the child develops during pregnancy, it's not there from the moment of conception. Makes it pretty difficult to murder a child if there is no child yet.
But that's what you have to do to make your arguments work - there is no logical basis, so you have to warp everything around you to hopefully find some way to manipulate those around you.
Abortion clinics allow people to choose when to be parents...plan it out, so to speak.
Anti-choice entities actively lie in order to take this choice away.
Abortion is not killing, abortion is healthcare. Yes, I realize one's set of values will create disagreement on this, I'm not trying to build consensus here, but can't let such a statement about "killing" go uncommented on.
A fetus is a human organism (this is the consensus among biologists, including pro-choice ones). Induced abortion is killing. You can make arguments as to why this is justified, but that doesn’t change that it is taking a life.
This paper asks the wrong questions. Yes, a fertizilized egg is "alive" in the same way sperm is "alive". The paper essentially uses the question of when the development of a human begins to argue:
1. Anything living is wrong to kill.
2. Human embryos and early fetuses are living
3. Therefore, human embryos shouldn't be "killed"
#1 is clearly wrong, #2 is a misdirect, #3 leads to the author's desired conclusion as a result. That paper based on the presumption that "opponents" argue that fetuses are not biologically living organisms. Fertilized eggs and embryos are living human organisms certainly, but it's not a person yet. Is an egg a chicken? Is a seed a tree? Is a caterpillar a butterfly? Is a collection of human cells with the potential to become a human, human? I believe "no" to all of the above. Potential for development into a more complex living organism is not the same as being that other organism.
It can be both, just like assisted suicide. Not sure how this has any effect on my argument. Advertising for an assisted suicide clinic, no matter your views on assisted suicide, is not the same as advertising for a sucide hotline. I think this is a fair comparison.
I'm generally pro-choice but this reckless disingenuity employed by abortion advocates is appalling. An abortion is not as routine as having a skin tag removed. It is a serious, life-changing decision that ought to come with an appropriate level of counselling, reflection, and consideration.
The comment you’ve replied to didn’t compare it to getting a skin tag removed, they called it healthcare. Healthcare covers all sort of procedures, with various levels of moral weight attached.
Regardless, it is up to the patient how much counseling, reflection, and consideration they feel they need. If you get an abortion you ought to have the right to seek counseling before or after if you want, it is up to you.
I'm generally pro-choice but this reckless disingenuity employed by abortion advocates is appalling.
What exactly do you find "reckless disingenuity" about referring to an abortion as healthcare? Nothing about that signals recklessness. Healthcare can refer to "skin tag removal" as you mentioned, it can also refer to cancer treatments, emergency surgery, etc.
You're arguing against a straw man, like so many conservatives, who think people like me view abortion as skin tag removal. It is a major healthcare decision, it has major consequences, it's not trivial. Be appalled at thine own reckless interpretations.
You're trying to push your morality on everyone. It's fine if you consider abortion to be murder, but the majority doesn't. Google for anti-abortion stuff all you like! But don't make it show up on unrelated searches, if you don't also want the opposite to happen.
And China and India and Muslim countries. An absolutist aversion to abortion is a rather uniquely Christian position and the issue is not so hot outside of majority Christian countries and can be largely considered a peculiarly Christian matter. The second most negative view is probably in Buddhism (which, at least according to Wikipedia, also believes the foetus to be some form of a living human). Other religions may frown upon abortion and forbid it in some situations, but they still don't consider the foetus to be a person.
"Classical Hindu texts are strongly opposed to abortion:
one text compares abortion to the killing of a priest
another text considers abortion a worse sin than killing one's parents
another text says that a woman who aborts her child will lose her caste"
I didn't talk about opposing abortion, but about the absolutist view that considers abortion the killing of a person. For example, in Judaism abortion is forbidden in many cases, but not because it is considered killing a person (nor is it a worse offence than, say, lighting a match on the Sabbath). When Islam forbids abortion, it does not forbid it because the foetus is considered a person (until four months, at least). The absolutist position that a foetus is a person since conception or soon thereafter and therefore abortion is forbidden because it is akin to murder is a largely Christian belief (maybe Buddhist, too).
BTW, abortion is legal in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Sudan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan in more situations than it is in some American states.
Why do you keep using that word? Having a position isn't absolutist. Additionally, this is also the biological view on abortion (moral judgments on such acts as killing aside).
> BTW, abortion is legal in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Sudan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan in more situations than it is in some American states.
Abortion is more legal in America than Europe as a whole, as well. What does this signify? Absolutely nothing.
> When Islam forbids abortion, it does not forbid it because the foetus is considered a person (until four months, at least).
Sure, if you discount the Shia, Malikis, Ibadis, etc. And the rest are tend to be very prohibitive even before that point.
There's nothing peculiarly Christian about the Christian conception of life. Of the four major religions in terms of population, three share it, as do significant chunks of the fourth.
The portion of the population living under an abortion ban of under 10-12 weeks is around 5% in Europe (due to Poland) and closer to 15% in the US. These Americans live under legal restrictions that are otherwise almost entirely confined to Africa, South America, and Poland:
While Texas abortion law is stricter than Saudi Arabia's, it is still more lenient than Iran's or Madagascar's.
> Additionally, this is also the biological view on abortion
It is certainly not. A foetus is a living thing, but so is lettuce; or a tumour. Biology has no view on when the foetus becomes a person, i.e. a being with the same moral value as that of an actual live human. That is purely a question of spiritual faith.
Biology can tell us, however, when a foetus is a thing that can experience pain. The common view is at 24 weeks, but some think it could be as early as 12 weeks. But again, a mouse also feels pain and yet not considered a person.
> Sure, if you discount the Shia, Malikis, Ibadis, etc. And the rest are tend to be very prohibitive even before that point.
Again, prohibitive does not mean forbidden because it is murder. Islam forbids consuming alcohol and Judaism forbids tattoos or lighting a fire on Saturday -- to a stronger degree than they forbid abortion, BTW -- but they don't forbid these things, or abortion, because they are the same as or similar to murder.
> There's nothing peculiarly Christian about the Christian conception of life.
There certainly is. It is primarily Christianity that forbids abortion because of the belief that the foetus is a person at or close to conception. It's because of that the the issue takes on a particular vehemence where Christianity is popular.
> I call the position that abortion is forbidden because the foetus is a person and therefore abortion is akin to murder absolutist.
I know. It just has no relation to the actual meaning of absolutist.
> The portion of the population living under an abortion ban of under 10-12 weeks is around 5% in Europe (due to Poland) and closer to 15% in the US. These Americans live under legal restrictions that are otherwise almost entirely confined to Africa, South America, and Poland:
The geographically European portion of Russia alone accounts for around 15% of the continent's people, and Russia draws the line at 12 weeks. The next-most populous country, Germany, accounting for around another 10%, has not legalized abortion whatsoever, except in extenuating circumstances. Italy, accounting for another 8%, also draws the line at 12 weeks. If we play with the arbitrary 12-week line you've drawn, and raise it to, say, 14, we pull in France, Spain, and others.
> It is certainly not. A foetus is a living thing, but so is lettuce; or a tumour. Biology has no view on when the foetus becomes a person, i.e. a being with the same moral value as that of an actual live human. That is purely a question of spiritual faith.
This is kind of an interesting line of thinking. It stands to reason, then, that if we're talking about western countries nurtured by Platonic, Aristotelian, and Christian philosophical and religious traditions, it makes sense to preserve the notion of life that follows from them, the one that you're arguing against for some reason.
Pain is irrelevant to the question of humanity.
> Again, prohibitive does not mean forbidden because it is murder. Islam forbids consuming alcohol and Judaism forbids tattoos or lighting a fire on Saturday -- to a stronger degree than they forbid abortion, BTW -- but they don't forbid these things, or abortion, because they are the same as or similar to murder.
The Malikis, for instance, believe that a fetus is ensouled at the moment of conception. What's more, I think it's hard to make the argument that most peoples consider a fetus as something totally unrelated to human life. Maybe an inferior or developing case, but still worthy of respect, which is what I've seen more often than the laissez-faire attitude towards them that you ascribe to Judaism (which I am ignorant on, so I won't speak there). Is it possible that you're projecting your own cultural background on to others?
> There certainly is. It is primarily Christianity that forbids abortion because of the belief that the foetus is a person at or close to conception. It's because of that the the issue takes on a particular vehemence where Christianity is popular.
Again, three of the four biggest religions, together accounting for a simple majority of the global population, are in agreement. Additionally, another 15% or are irreligious, the majority of whom are likely from a cultural background founded on those religions.
> If we play with the arbitrary 12-week line you've drawn
The situation in the US is generally worse, and is a humanitarian situation that is concerning for us in Europe.
If you've ever been pregnant or known someone who has been, there's a huge difference between week 6 and week 12. 1 in 3 people only know they're pregnant after 6 weeks. That difference alone means that before 12 weeks you almost definitely know you're pregnant, but at 6 weeks you have a high chance of not even knowing.
> it makes sense to preserve the notion of life that follows from them, the one that you're arguing against for some reason.
I'm arguing against the peculiarly Christian definition of human life. Debates over Christianity are a defining feature of Western culture.
> Pain is irrelevant to the question of humanity.
I agree. It's mostly a question of how Christian you are (or influenced by Christianity).
> The Malikis, for instance, believe that a fetus is ensouled at the moment of conception
That may be the case, but I didn't say that the belief that a foetus is a person is solely Christian, just largely Christian (and, possibly, Buddhist).
> I think it's hard to make the argument that most peoples consider a fetus as something totally unrelated to human life
I didn't say it's totally unrelated to human life. Intentionally maiming one's finger, say, is also related to human life, but an observant Jew who would neither condone abortion nor self mutilation without good reason would still find it strange to think of a foetus or a finger as a baby.
> are in agreement
They are not in agreement that a foetus is a person at all. That is the only point I've been trying to make. And it is the religious belief that a foetus is a person that raises the temperature of that particular debate in majority Christian countries, even compared to other countries with traditions that may forbid abortion for reasons other than "fetal personhood"
> Is it possible that you're projecting your own cultural background on to others?
> there's a huge difference between week 6 and week 12. 1 in 3 people only know they're pregnant after 6 weeks. That difference alone means that before 12 weeks you almost definitely know you're pregnant, but at 6 weeks you have a high chance of not even knowing.
So now the line is 6 weeks? How many states does that apply to? Again, keep in mind that the most populous country in Western Europe restricts abortion completely.
> I'm arguing against the peculiarly Christian definition of human life. Debates over Christianity are a defining feature of Western culture.
It has been repeatedly demonstrated that this isn't particularly Christian. I'm not a Christian and agree with it, along with many others[1]. I'd go so far as to argue that the fetal personhood meme in Europe has less to do with psalm 139 than the cultural and philosophical traditions that Christianity inherited when grafted onto European civilization, in which there was already a notion of fetal personhood.
We know that in European antiquity abortion was uncommon; birth and then infanticide was preferred as safer for the mother, and both were seen as much the same thing. If we look at Rome, for example, abortion rights were commonly viewed as intrinsically granted by a father's right to kill his children. There were popular thinkers philosophical movements like stoicism that did draw such a distinction, of course, and their number included no less than Aristotle himself, up to a certain point in the pregnancy. We also have the works of Soranus of Ephesus which explain that many physicians would refuse to perform abortions on the basis that harming a child conflicted with the Hippocratic Oath. Soranus placed himself squarely in the "other camp", hardly extreme pro-choicers, but emphasizing that abortion should be performed by trained physicians in extenuating circumstances. The "safe, legal, and rare" of antiquity. This is, by the way, my own view as well.
What we see, historically, around the world is a general "devaluing" of human life as such compared with today. Practices like exposure were common. The infirm and the elderly could be killed much as children could. And this was reasonable. I put "devaluing" in quotes, because it was more an acceptance that sometimes individual lives had to be traded for the collective good. Those who consumed resources without contributing to their production could be fatal when times were hard. We can see coping mechanisms towards infanticide in stories about changelings and such. And I think that the "unpersoning" of the fetus is a similar coping mechanism. It's a way for those who are pushed into such circumstances to move on.
> They are not in agreement that a foetus is a person at all.
They are. This has been demonstrated for Christianity, Buddhism, and Hinduism, as well as sects of Islam. Your own insistence that they don't observe fetal personhood whatsoever is just as much an assertion of fact, and thus far hasn't been backed up.
> the most populous country in Western Europe restricts abortion completely.
Depending on how you define Western Europe, the most populous country is either Germany or the UK. Both offer abortion for practically any reason within 12 or 24 weeks, respectively, and for health reasons even later. BTW, the cost is covered by the state or statutory insurance (depending on need) in both countries.
> How many states does that apply to?
Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Wisconsin and quite a few others. About 15% of Americans.
> And I think that the "unpersoning" of the fetus is a similar coping mechanism.
I respect other people's spiritual beliefs, but you need to understand that as someone who grew up in a Jewish home, the thought that a foetus is a person sounds as foreign to me as the thought of a tree as an ancestral spirit or of a communion wafer transmuting into the body of Jesus. I know there are people who actually believe such things because of long traditions, but it's impossible for me to believe in them.
> Depending on how you define Western Europe, the most populous country is either Germany or the UK. Both offer abortion for practically any reason within 12 or 24 weeks, respectively, and for health reasons even later. BTW, the cost is covered by the state or statutory insurance (depending on need) in both countries.
I mean Germany, where abortion is illegal at all times by default. Exceptions are another thing, but if we’re talking about actual line-in-the-sand “abortion is now illegal at this point” then Germany draws that line at zero weeks. And accounts for a little over 10% of Europe’s population. Then there’s Poland and others which I’m sure can make up the difference.
The line that's drawn is that abortions are regularly performed in Germany up to 12 weeks for pretty much any reason, and later for health reasons. Yes, the way that law is stated is weird, but that is what it means in practice. As the WHO summarises it for non-Germans, "Abortion is legally permissible in Germany on request up to 12 weeks, and thereafter in certain circumstances."
There’s a funny, widespread phenomenon of people invoking cultural relativity and Christian particularism specifically on issues with the most cross-cultural consensus.
If the fake abortion centers advertised with a similar, up front, "why you shouldn't" message, it wouldn't be unethical. Their current practice is fraudulent.
Local humanist support groups or recommended atheist reading perhaps. Maybe a link to neutral questionnaire where you can figure how many (if any) and which gods would be suitable for you, before committing to any specific religion.
There's probably some elder god more in line with your ethics you overlooked after all.
I'm "pro-life" too and don't want to control ppl's bodies. I think that, from an evolutionary stand view, everyone is pro life :)
You comparison is completely bogus. Someone suic1dal is in need of help and support. Women who choose to have an ab0rtion is (not always) completely conscious of their choice when they get to the poine of looking for a clinic on Google.
The same could be said for anti-vaxx websites appearing first when searching for vaccine information, and creationist websites appearing first when searching for information on natural history. Even if you don't think that the opinion of the respective professional/experts should be boosted over the opinion of people who are primarily not relevant professionals/experts, surely prioritising the the view of the overwhelming majority would be a more reasonable natural stance.
I feel like the bigger issue here is that just having this in your search history can get you arrested in several states now, and how OK everyone seems to be with that.
Americans were more outraged at losing the ability to dine out for two years under COVID than they were with losing an inalienable right forever.
Some people seem more concerned about this than the fact that Googling "abortion clinic near me" will also ensure that your identifying info gets onto certain lists where you probably don't want it to be in today's political climate.
I guess they could try to convince the woman not to have an abortion, provide vitamins and adoption help? The customer is ready to abort, so presumably less likely than average to be ready for parenthood, so you can think of plenty of resources to give them (fwiw, I’m not defending the idea of anti-abortion clinics, the concept of which I find pretty odious, but just saying it is easy to imagine the sorts of services they ought to supply).
It’s basically volunteer counseling for expectant mothers who are in trouble. They usually provide a free ultrasound, parenting education, and help finding community resources for financial issues and for adoption. They are anti-abortion because they will not refer to an abortion clinic.
Since Roe was repealed, red states are driving abortion clinics out of business and blue states are driving these centers out of business.
Just tried it here in the UK. I got three clinics which are sponsored but seem to have an authoritative "provides abortions" against them, then the NHS, then Wikipedia.
For example, if I google "best doctor near me", and then go to all of the top 10 and present the same symptoms, how often will the recommendations given be the same?
Or "Best furniture restorer" - how many will advise the same treatment to preserve my old wooden table?
If we had some objective measure of the differences between expert opinions, we could perhaps start to use maths and statistics to make consensus models of all the experts in a field.
Maybe NPR is well-intended here...but stuff like "calling on legislators to ban misleading advertising" is about as realistic as calling on Donald Trump to endorse Bernie Sanders. Google's obvious for-profit strategy is to talk up their half-hearted Whack-a-Mole efforts, while raking in the ad revenue.
Giving the story a second skim... There's plenty of talk about the difficulties of getting accurate information and an actual abortion. Plenty of links to edgy pro-life material. But zero mention of any other search engine, which might give less-skewed results to a woman facing a difficult choice. And near-zero mention of web sites where such a woman might directly turn for accurate information.
Conclusion: NPR is anti-choice, but trying to hide that fact.
> facilities that use various tactics to dissuade or delay pregnant people from getting an abortion.
These "tactics" include the heinous acts of providing emotional support, helping give mother's in need access to local resources, providing food and clothing, and more despicable alternatives to the ending of a child's life.
Your argument contain assumption that we are talking about child.
Whole abortion debate comes down to defining what and when we can call fetus a human.Nobody wants to kill childrens.
What you are doing is emotional blackmail.
I know that 1 hour or 1 day after conception there is no child yet. 10 weeks later we have human with already developed central nervous system.
It all comes down to defining when a group of cells became human.
IMHO calling 1 day group of cells human is a lie. The same apply to 10 week fetus - it is human and calling it otherwise is a lie.
What I would expect to get scientific help there to pinpoint that transition moment.
A unique member of the human species exists from the moment of conception.
Also, even if you disagree with my position that all humans have a right to life that still doesn't make a crisis pregnancy center which offers alternatives to abortion a bad thing, they're giving resources to help people not feel pressured to make an irreversible medical decision.
...crisis pregnancy center which offers alternatives to abortion a bad thing, they're giving resources to help people not feel pressured to make an irreversible medical decision.
It's laughable the dishonesty here. Anti-abortion businesses are precisely about pressuring people to make irreversible medical decisions. That's literally their modus operandi.
If "anti-abortion businesses" are about "pressuring people..." by merely providing an alternative to ending the life of an innocent human being then by implication "abortion businesses" would be about pressuring women to end the life. Of course I know you'd contest that, but that's because of an inconsistency. Even if you disagree with the pro-life view that all humans have a right to life, which is what supporting abortion necessarily implies, you still cannot reasonably say that providing mothers with support is a bad thing.
If "anti-abortion businesses" are about "pressuring people..." by merely providing an alternative to ending the life of an innocent human being then by implication "abortion businesses" would be about pressuring women to end the life.
That's not implied at all. That's what you want it to imply because your stance requires that this be true.
But these are "clinics that provide abortion" as well as other reproductive healthcare. I am curious how many places exist solely to provide abortion and nothing else? I can't imagine it's very many, if any at all. So, already your equivalence falls apart, as there isn't an equivalent to these anti-abortion businesses.
Secondly, these clinics are about providing options, just like if you are concerned about treatments for any other issues, from the serious to the minor. My doctor may provide recommendations, but they aren't going to pressure me into something unless they think it's critical to my health. And you do have situations like ectopic pregnancies where an "abortion" would be pushed hard because it's a non-viable pregnancy and it could easily kill the woman in question if nothing was done. Because again, it's about healthcare.
Attacks on pregnancy centers are part of the reason I sometimes refer to "pro-choice" as pro-abortion. When offering alternatives to abortion get demonized you have to wonder what this is all really about.
I never said that "abortion is never demonized." Abortion is rightly attacked by "anti-abortion groups". There is a lack of symmetry: the usual pro-abortion marketing is that they're "pro-choice" but then they attack services that are dedicated to providing resources for one of those choices.
When offering alternatives to abortion get demonized you have to wonder what this is all really about.
What is the anti-abortion crowd really about then if they are demonizing abortion?
There is a lack of symmetry: the usual pro-abortion marketing is that they're "pro-choice" but then they attack services that are dedicated to providing resources for one of those choices.
There isn't a lack of symmetry, you just fail to understand the issue. Almost no one (I'm using this term in case you point to a single person that has said otherwise) is "pro-abortion" in the sense that almost no one actually wants abortions to happen. What they want is that the option is available to woman who feel it's something they need to consider. That's it.
Anti-abortion groups are about removing choice. Just as if there was a "anti-cancer-treatment" group that was out there fighting against treatment for cancer because they felt like "cancer is life just like anything else" and thought it was "killing living beings" when you treated it.
