Abortion

[leibowde84]

My only question to this is: if genetically it will form into a human being, it will have life, and there's no reason to prevent or terminate it, aside from the grounds that said mother was irresponsible and partook in an act (which could easily be construed as strict liability mind you), why condone the behavior?

I think pooping is gross, but who is really going to litigate that? It's nutty, right? So how does the natural order of having a child under the proper circumstances fall under a scenario where litigation is even necessary, and in fact, upheld in favor of the mother?

Who speaks for the child?

My point is that, no matter whether it is an adult, child, or fetus, no one has the right to use your body against your will. Imho, the legality is all that matters. How else can anyone hope to stop abortions from happening? Obviously convincing hasn't helped too much. And, you added in another strong man there, as something being permitted by law is in no way an endorsement of said behavior. The supreme decided to protect the right of the mother to bodily autonomy.

 

[leibowde84]

My point is you know better. There's a reason why you do. So if what they do is murder, why be indifferent to the plight of the people over there, so much so you'd strongly imply that, since murder is illegal here and we (usually) enforce it, it's fine for bodily autonomy.

What about those guys who lost their heads? Not American, not your problem?

You tell me the point. You're the one arguing for the indefensible.

Man you love straw men arguments. I haven't claimed any of those things. Why would you think you know my opinions on the events you mentioned? I'm expecting some pretty obvious points, as you accused me of things that are so absurd they crossed the border into offensiveness.

 

[catch22]

My point is that, no matter whether it is an adult, child, or fetus, no one has the right to use your body against your will. Imho, the legality is all that matters. How else can anyone hope to stop abortions from happening? Obviously convincing hasn't helped too much. And, you added in another strong man there, as something being permitted by law is in no way an endorsement of said behavior. The supreme decided to protect the right of the mother to bodily autonomy.

Incoming lawsuits against new born children who demand breast milk? Infants who deprive their parents of sleep? Toddlers that test their parent's sanity? Is that not relying on the parent's body for well being?

Then you are obligated to defend and protect the mother who smokes, drinks, and does meth while pregnant -- despite the affect on the child. If it ends in death for the baby, what's the difference between that and abortion? Is it justified killing, or murder? Neither? How about a mother who smokes and their newborn baby dies from SIDS?

You're in the position to ideologically and legally protect the parent who allows their child to die because it's their right to not give blood that might save their child's life. Their blood, their decision. Their child, who cares? That's legally just fine, you're right there -- but do you support it? Remember the murders of ISIS in this, there's a reason I asked you those questions.

So then you legally do nothing because of bodily autonomy, but would you socially condemn the behavior? If you don't condemn it, do you encourage it?

Don't answer any of this. I don't care about your answers. My only goal is for you to consider the breadth of your view. It's seems logically fair and well, but it's an illusion -- regardless of it is written as law or not.

Straw men? Heh. Okay. I'm trying to figure out your position while asking you questions. Asking questions and you answering them is a straw man fallacy. Got it.

 

[Cephus]

It's not illegal. Your concept of legality spans only your limited scope of protections. Ultimately, it doesn't matter anyway, because someone can or won't do something, again, it's out of your control. Put down your drink and think about it for a while. Rape and forced killing happen all the time, and there's no repercussions. People can condemn it all they want or demand action, but whether it happens or not is totally case dependent. People get raped and killed all the time against their will, with no justice.

No, it spans the law. The only things that matter legally are things that are actually legal. You can't walk into a courtroom and say that you had the right to stone your disobedient kids at the edge of town because the Bible says so. A Muslim can't go into court and say they're immune to civil law because they only believe in Sharia law. Civil law isn't set up to protect anyone, it codifies societal standards and punishes the guilty. You seem to have some very unrealistic standards.

So how does bodily autonomy help anyone?

It's the basis of a lot of civil law, it determines what someone can and cannot legally do to you against your will.

If you want to be specific for an example in the United States, how about second hand smoke? You disallow smokers to smoke when their urge requires it. We cannot tell someone what they can put it or take out of their bodies, so it's their bodily autonomy to smoke.

Because what they do affects other people's bodily autonomy. Nobody is saying they can't smoke if they want, they can only do so when and where it doesn't affect others. It doesn't matter if it causes cancer or not, the majority of people in many places voted for such bans to take place, therefore those places banned public smoking. Welcome to democracy.

 

[Cephus]

The title of the thread is "Abortion" not "US Law" concerning abortion, or bodily autonomy. Also, because something is a law, it does not necessarily make it a morally superior position.

Nor does it make it a morally inferior position. Morality is subjective. If you don't like abortion, by all means, don't have one.

 

[OurCreed]

I agree, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't strive for perfection while understanding that we won't ever achieve it.

Perfection and freedom are two different things. Having freedom does not necessarily mean one gains perfection.

Maybe the only way to gain perfection is to limit our freedom.

 

[OurCreed]

Sure. I'd like the same rights and boundaries regardless of gender, please. If men do not have to be concerned about outside agencies telling them that their reproductive health, their own hormones, their own testicles, their own prostate glands, their own penises, should be always taken into consideration when pro-creating and "protecting the sanctity of life"...then women should be free from the same concerns regarding our reproductive health.

Otherwise, please consider the monstrous idea of males having compulsory vasectomies upon the age of puberty, and then have their vasectomies reversed once they can legitmately prove they can financially support offspring until the age of adulthood. These outside agencies will also have the freedom to determine if a man must submit his reproductive system to vasectomies at any time he is considered too unethical or immoral in his sexual decisions for his own life.

Now, does this sound horrid, outrageous, unrealistic, and unapplicable? Let that sink in for a minute in regards to the kind of moralizing and control outside agencies prefer to have over female reproductive systems....and consider that our society is accustomed to this horrid kind of moralization and control.

Rights for both men and women should be as equal as possible. But as far as physiology is concerned, the male and female have different bodies, so some rights are going to differ on the physical aspect. So we should not only focus on equality, we also need to focus on justice, and both are not the same.

I'm not sure I quite understand what you are talking about beyond that, of moralization and control that the society has been accustomed to. May I get some more clearer info on that? I'd appreciate it.

 

[OurCreed]

So, your opposition to abortion is because we do not know when the soul develops and therefore it is a crime to prevent a soulless body from acquiring a soul?



This entails logically that either things like pigs do not have life or they have a soul.



Universal law?

Ciao

- viole

If you read the entire conversation, I never was giving my own perspectives. This has nothing to do with me.

 

[catch22]

No, it spans the law. The only things that matter legally are things that are actually legal. You can't walk into a courtroom and say that you had the right to stone your disobedient kids at the edge of town because the Bible says so. A Muslim can't go into court and say they're immune to civil law because they only believe in Sharia law. Civil law isn't set up to protect anyone, it codifies societal standards and punishes the guilty. You seem to have some very unrealistic standards.



It's the basis of a lot of civil law, it determines what someone can and cannot legally do to you against your will.



Because what they do affects other people's bodily autonomy. Nobody is saying they can't smoke if they want, they can only do so when and where it doesn't affect others. It doesn't matter if it causes cancer or not, the majority of people in many places voted for such bans to take place, therefore those places banned public smoking. Welcome to democracy.

Except on sovereign tribal land, where the bans don't apply.

If it doesn't have health effects, why does anyone get to determine how and where one can partake in their own bodily autonomy? My point is, there's restrictions on it in some variety, how autonomous are you if it's autonomous only to a point?

 

[columbus]

Rights for both men and women should be as equal as possible. But as far as physiology is concerned, the male and female have different bodies, so some rights are going to differ on the physical aspect. So we should not only focus on equality, we also need to focus on justice, and both are not the same.

Exactly. The ability women have to gestate, and the inability of men, is not a bronze age plot by patriarchal sexists. It is basic biology.
So just as men are expected to provide support and protection, whether or not they intended to beget, women are expected to provide gestation. Ideally this is a consensual partnership that goes far beyond the minimum responsibility. But the minimum is still the minimum.
Tom

 

[Marisa]

Mr. Walsh does an excellent job of showing why bodily autonomy isn't really relevant. Once you have made a Choice that involves others, without consent, you have some responsibility like it or not.

So none of the "forced organ donation" hypotheticals are useful. They all imply a situation being inflicted on a non consenting donor. That is not the case in elective abortions. If the pregnancy is by force we call it rape and that's a different ballgame.

When a pregnant woman wants an abortion which you would deny her, do you think she's sill a "consenting donor"? I'd imagine if you asked them they'd have some rather choice words for you. Speaking of "lying" that's been going on in this thread, where does assuming you know the feelings of everyone potentially involved in this circumstance fall on your scale of righteous indignation? Do you feel like you need to wig out on yourself now for being dishonest?

AusfahrtIf there were any other circumstances where someone could choose something that might result in someone else being put in the desperate position of an unborn child I doubt that such a level of personal autonomy would be an issue at all. But pregnancy is a unique situation in many ways.
Tom

The fact that you having little demonstrable understanding of just what it is that bodily autonomy states doesn't mean that none of us can understand it, nor that we don't have a social definition of this term that has been working for us for decades.

 

[Marisa]

Exactly. The ability women have to gestate, and the inability of men, is not a bronze age plot by patriarchal sexists. It is basic biology.

So just as men are expected to provide support and protection, whether or not they intended to beget, women are expected to provide gestation. Ideally this is a consensual partnership that goes far beyond the minimum responsibility. But the minimum is still the minimum.
Tom

And there it is folks. Basic biology may not be a bronze age plot by patriarchal sexists, but the notion that women's purpose in society is to breed most assuredly is. Misogyny = 1, Women's Bodily Autonomy = 0, and it's misogyny for the win!

 

[Marisa]

Perfection and freedom are two different things. Having freedom does not necessarily mean one gains perfection.

Maybe the only way to gain perfection is to limit our freedom.

I'm not really sure you understand what I meant. No state of perfection exists within nature. But when we strive for it nonetheless, we are striving to make our society as equitable as it can be. Part of that means there doesn't come a time when we tell any individual or sector of society that "some" people can have 100% bodily autonomy 100% of the time, but you only get 75% bodily autonomy 50% of the time. Striving for perfection means we don't classify one's rights based on their gender or what we feel their "function" is. We measure every person by the same stick, and find them all equally possessed of basic rights. BASIC rights. Not special rights.

 

[catch22]

And there it is folks. Basic biology may not be a bronze age plot by patriarchal sexists, but the notion that women's purpose in society is to breed most assuredly is. Misogyny = 1, Women's Bodily Autonomy = 0, and it's misogyny for the win!

It's misogyny to point out that women gestate children?

The heck?

 

[OurCreed]

I'm not really sure you understand what I meant. No state of perfection exists within nature. But when we strive for it nonetheless, we are striving to make our society as equitable as it can be. Part of that means there doesn't come a time when we tell any individual or sector of society that "some" people can have 100% bodily autonomy 100% of the time, but you only get 75% bodily autonomy 50% of the time. Striving for perfection means we don't classify one's rights based on their gender or what we feel their "function" is. We measure every person by the same stick, and find them all equally possessed of basic rights. BASIC rights. Not special rights.

"Striving for perfection means we don't classify one's rights based on their gender or what we feel their "function" is. We measure every person by the same stick, and find them all equally possessed of basic rights. BASIC rights. Not special rights."

Basic rights are basic rights, but special rights exist no matter what. Both genders are not 100% identical.

 

[Marisa]

"Striving for perfection means we don't classify one's rights based on their gender or what we feel their "function" is. We measure every person by the same stick, and find them all equally possessed of basic rights. BASIC rights. Not special rights."

Basic rights are basic rights, but special rights exist no matter what. Both genders are not 100% identical.

No, but we have decided that they are 100% equal. We've been on that path for some time now.

 

[Cephus]

Except on sovereign tribal land, where the bans don't apply.

If it doesn't have health effects, why does anyone get to determine how and where one can partake in their own bodily autonomy? My point is, there's restrictions on it in some variety, how autonomous are you if it's autonomous only to a point?

Do you live on tribal land? Neither do I. Therefore, what I said applies.

 

[MysticSang'ha]

Rights for both men and women should be as equal as possible. But as far as physiology is concerned, the male and female have different bodies, so some rights are going to differ on the physical aspect. So we should not only focus on equality, we also need to focus on justice, and both are not the same.

I'm not sure I quite understand what you are talking about beyond that, of moralization and control that the society has been accustomed to. May I get some more clearer info on that? I'd appreciate it.

Your insistence on how women should not have equal protections for our bodies that men do is part and parcel of the sexist roots of pro-life rhetoric.

This is the kind of moralization that I refer to. And I disagree with these morals. Nobody should keep me from deciding the state of my uterus and reproductive system but me. I stand by that and I do so unapologetically.

 

[MysticSang'ha]

It's misogyny to point out that women gestate children?

The heck?

No.

It's misogynist to say that because women gestate that women should not ethically have the same level of bodily autonomy that men have. The argument for unequal rights is what makes it sexist. Throwing in the moralizing about how women need to take responsibility for sexual decisions by gestating against their will is what makes it wholeheartedly misogynist.

But hey, we've been called supporters of genocide and mass murder. So if y'all think we should be cool with that, y'all should be able to take being called sexist.

 

[McBell]

Untrue. It's natural order. A baby belongs in their mother's womb, it is not imposing on her; it's literally what happens. By having sex and becoming impregnated, she entered into a natural order event. Kind of like when you eat, then take a dump?

What the hell does this "natural order" crap have to do with legality?
Oh yeah, absolutely nothing.

Care to try again?

The baby is supposed to be there after having sex that leads to conception. A fetus is genetically distinct from its mother. Killing it goes to the examples above, where killing is legal, depending on the law of the land in which one resides.

The choice the mother had was to not have sex that leads to conception. If you want to talk about rape and forced pregnancy, then we'd back to my previous points, I guess.

EDIT: spelling

Nic little sermon.
To bad it has nothing to do with the question of legality it is in response to.