Abortion: can a mother hurt the embryo?

[Kenny]

Yes, you did. Do you think that you can do better? Can you make a rational argument for your beliefs?

toe pick.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Yes, many deaths occur naturally. So what? This fact gives us the license to kill?

"Kill" is the wrong word to use. It is not a life yet. A life would continue independent of the host. And you need not think of it as "killing". If you want to claim that it is a life it is just an eviction.

 

[Kenny]

Independence would be one.

a baby isn't independent... toe pick.

 

[Subduction Zone]

toe pic.

No, you have to write something for you to do a toe pic.

Okay, you may have a point there. Almost every single post of yours is a toe pic of some sort or another.

 

[Kenny]

No, you have to write something for you to do a toe pic.

Okay, you may have a point there. Almost every single post of yours is a toe pic of some sort or another.

LOL... nice backstroke... toe pick

 

[Subduction Zone]

a baby isn't independent... toe pick.

Actually it is. It can get milk from anyone that will give it some. But yes, you did another toe pic by advocating for slavery.

 

[Subduction Zone]

LOL... nice backstroke... toe pick

Dude! You don't have to tell us every time that you have made an embarrassing mistake. Now you are sounding like a small child that yells "Poo Poo!" every time that he comes out of the bathroom.

 

[Kenny]

Dude! You don't have to tell us every time that you have made an embarrassing mistake. Now you are sounding like a small child that yells "Poo Poo!" every time that he comes out of the bathroom.

LOL... that's the usual answer after a..... you got it.... toe pick

 

[Subduction Zone]

LOL... that's the usual answer after a..... you got it.... toe pick

Okay, I graciously accept your concession. Drop a line if you want a serious discussion. There may be a way to argue against abortion. You sadly have come unarmed to the discussion.

 

[PearlSeeker]

I had written, "And there's another example of the problem with ideas like personhood. The relevant distinction between the two [prematurely born fetus and an unborn fetus] for the pro-choicer is not that one is a person and the other not."

It doesn't matter to me whether you call the fetus a person or anything else. Its legal status might change, but not the moral status of aborting it. The point is that nothing that you call the fetus makes aborting it unethical. Call it a person. OK, then apparently it is moral to abort presentient persons. Call it a baby. OK, then it is moral to abort presentient babies. Call it a human being. OK, then it is moral to abort human beings. I think you get the point.

What makes the procedure immoral to me is sentience in the fetus, and that's true for non-persons as well. And non-humans. And all other sentient creatures. Was it on this thread that I mentioned that it is moral to throw a chicken egg with a presentient chick embryo in it into a hot frying pan, but not a sentient chicken? Likewise with human beings. Being human changes nothing. Calling a human fetus a person changes nothing, just as calling a chicken or a corporation a person changes nothing morally, just legally. Aborting a chicken embryo granted legal protection from becoming an omelet makes the act illegal, not immoral.

Likewise, whether a fetus is granted rights is a legal matter. You can grant those same rights to the chicken embryo in the egg if you like, but that doesn't change the moral judgment regarding aborting it at all, just the legal consequences of acting on those moral judgments.

For me, the entire question revolves around whether aborting presentient fetuses is immoral, and if not, who gets to decide if the pregnancy comes to term. All of the rest of these considerations regarding nomenclature aren't relevant to me.

Nor are they relevant to the anti-choice crowd despite their willingness to deploy them. You won't find them changing their positions based in what a fetus is called, either. Pass a law saying that fetuses are not persons and are not entitled to the protections of people, and they will ignore that and continue to call the procedure immoral.

I understand that these are probably not your values, and my telling you that they are mine doesn't change your view on abortion. Please recognize that the reverse is true as well. The values of the anti-choice movement are not my values, and nothing changes however many times they repeat that they are their values. Yes, many people find abortion unacceptable. What the rest are telling them is that is not how they feel, and repeating how much one disapproves of abortion gets no more response than to not have one if that's how you feel.

Thanks for you explanation. I see you have a point.

What matters to you is sentience. Why is it moral to prevent/deprive someone from sentient experience before it even begins and not moral to end sentient experience of the same being?

BTW. the fetus is sentient.

 

[PearlSeeker]

"Kill" is the wrong word to use. It is not a life yet. A life would continue independent of the host. And you need not think of it as "killing". If you want to claim that it is a life it is just an eviction.

Are you saying if you pull someone out of the incubator you don't kill?

 

[Willamena]

Abortion: can a mother hurt the embryo?

1 Let’s start with something uncontroversial that everybody should agree with, you can hurt your own body if you want, your body your choice, if you decide you want to mutilate your fingers, cut your legs or cut your pennies because you feel like a woman, you should have the right to do it … this is not even a hypothetical example, many people descide to hurt themselves and even mutilate their body simply because they feel pleasure by doing so

2 so if the fetus / embryo is part of the mothers body, she should have the right to hurt (but not kill ) the fetus, for example if the fetus is a boy and the mother wanted a girl, she should have the legal right to cut the fetus’s pennies , or perhaps just for fun she should have the right to cut the fetus´s legs simply because she likes the idea of having a child that will always be dependent on her.

It´s horrible but it´s her body and her choice, so she should be legally protected by the law if she decides to do any of that stuff.

3 Or another way to see it, is if the mother has the right to kill the embryo, then mutilating it´s body (and not kill it) should also be ok.

So it seems to be that if you are “pro choice” you should also be in favor of women hurting and mutilating the fetus/embryo

So ether

A) Bite the bullet and grant this right to the mothers (hopping that few if any woman would do it)

B) Provide and argument that would justify abortion and at the same time justify not hurting the embryo, in other words explain why is it ok to kill it and not ok to hurt it.

1. No one has the "right" to hurt themselves. That's not a right, and certainly not a guarantee.

2. Learn to use commas. And apostrophes.

 

[Daemon Sophic]

Are you saying if you pull someone out of the incubator you don't kill?

If you are referring to a newborn, then anyone can place a newborn into any incubator.. But more to the point, an 18 week gestational age fetus is NOT sentient, regardless of what you stated earlier.
You were mistaken, unless you can prove sentience in the first 5 months.

When is the Capacity for Sentience Acquired During Human Fetal Development?

A more pertinent question would be. A young man is horribly injured in a car crash. His brain is extensively damaged, and after multiple weeks he lies in a hospital bed, hooked up to multiple machines as his only way to cling to “life”. Furthermore, the EEG (brainwave detector) detects nothing. Flatline.
Is it moral to turn off his life-support machinery?

 

[PearlSeeker]

Person is not a biological or genetic term, so . . . no. It is not since that is a nonsensical statement.

Yes it is. Biologically/genetically a person is an individual organism consisting of living cells with human DNA (carrying genetic instructions for development of general and individual human features).

 

[Subduction Zone]

Are you saying if you pull someone out of the incubator you don't kill?

Bad analogy. A person is not an incubator.

But, are you saying that if you go to the store and forget to lock your door and when you come home someone has moved in. Now you can't kick him out for nine months and you have to feed him too.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Yes it is. Biologically/genetically a person is an individual organism consisting of living cells with human DNA (carrying genetic instructions for development of general and individual human features).

Nope. Once again "person" is not a biological term. When you repeat an error it is still an error.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Thanks for you explanation. I see you have a point.

What matters to you is sentience. Why is it moral to prevent/deprive someone from sentient experience before it even begins and not moral to end sentient experience of the same being?

BTW. the fetus is sentient.

Citation needed.

 

[PearlSeeker]

Bad analogy. A person is not an incubator.

But, are you saying that if you go to the store and forget to lock your door and when you come home someone has moved in. Now you can't kick him out for nine months and you have to feed him too.

The question was not if a person is incubator. It was about the word "to kill". So it is killing if you prematurely disconnect someone from an incubator.

Bad example. A preborn doesn't move in by itself. A better example would be that you come home and see that someone has left a baby in a basket in your house. The baby is starving and it's freezing cold outside.

 

[Sheldon]

Actually, it shows your bias and the denying of reality.

Hardly, how is using clinically and medically correct biological terms biased, as opposed to the incorrect and emotive rhetoric your posts use.

Let's give it a test... how many people did you hear saying... "My fetus of six months is doing fine, kicking my side every now and then" vs "My baby of six months is doing fine kicking my side every now and then".

Metaphor, have you never called a woman baby, or heard someone do so? Are you saying that adult women are literally babies? That's a very poor argument, especially as a rebuttal to biological evidence. It also ignores context again, as your example is nothing to do with abortion, but rather a woman that is expecting to take the pregnancy to term and give birth.

If my estimation is correct, it is you that is not having a rational argument but rather an argument adnauseam.

Open goal there then, as your estimation is manifestly wrong.

 

[Sheldon]

And if you were sharing blood directly, the person needing your blood would still be a free will person.

Well said!!!

Not really, as that's only one factor, are they also topologically connected, do they share a metabolism and immune system, are they insentient etc etc...again a poor argument.

Also you wouldn't be fine with me using your blood to preserve someone else's life against your will, so a doubly poor analogy.