Elective surgery is banned unless... it is for abortion

[Revoltingest]

Nobody is pro-abortion.

I am.
It's a choice, but one I favor.
(Over-population, & all.)

 

[Dan From Smithville]

The perceived flaw in that particular argument revolves around time, not me, in that whatever outcome becomes the final position after all disagreements are surrendered, in the end, will be the truly natural position.

In the meantime, I struggle with abortion not being a product of love... Therefore it's not "positive"... So I don't know how it can be resolved until abortion is proven to be an act of love and positivity.

...But I don't debate micro-concepts (personal experiences). I let other people do that, and I watch. I'm a 'big picture' guy.

Time? Time has nothing to with whether something is natural or not, positive or negative or not. Russia lasted a long time, therefore communism is natural and positive. See where your logic takes us. Let's move to the Roman Empire that lasted even longer.

Clearly, if you like something, it is natural. If you do not like it, it is unnatural. I think most here will agree that is the real conclusion you are not saying.

 

[Cooky]

Nobody is pro-abortion. What we are is pro-choice, and the choice referred to is the mother's. We are no in favor of the choice being the church's. The moral question for me is not whether terminating an early-term pregnancy is immoral, but whether it should be illegal, that is, who decides if this pregnancy goes to term - the pregnant woman or the church.

To rephrase that, do I prefer that women be empowered to choose, or do I think that the church should use the state to enforce its desire to make her an incubator against her will. This is akin to whether I think she should be a citizen or a subject.

But that isn't the same as being pro-abortion. I have no opinion on whether any woman contemplating an abortion should have one or not. That's not pro-abortion. That's pro-choice.

And what term do you suppose is the opposite of pro-choice. It's not pro-life, which is the opposite of anti-life. People that oppose legal abortion are against the idea of a woman having a choice. They are anti-choice, a term people don't generally want to be called, since it sounds like anti-freedom.

But isn't that what it is?

To borrow from the pen of the poet (with modification), freedom's just another word for something else to choose.



And in somebody else's view, recriminalizing abortion would be an intrusion on life.

I think that you would be well served to note that what you are saying in essence is that you would impose your moral preferences on others, something not being done to you at this time. Nobody is forcing abortion on you and your family, but you would force them to have an unwanted baby.

If you consider that fair, perhaps you would be willing to have them impose their moral preferences on you? Maybe they don't consider your church a moral institution, want you to stop going there, and would like to criminalize church-going to use the power of the state to enforce their religious opinions on you.

I think that if you can conceive of this issue in this way, you can transcend the idea of either of you imposing his moral values on the other and choose freedom and autonomy for you both.



I'm guessing that you two had a strong moral sense and work ethic, and probably had emotional and financial support to allow you to eventually earn a good living.

But how about if you are a poor, pregnant teenager with no expectation of their being a man around to help support and raise the baby, who will need to devote herself entirely to supporting herself and the baby with whatever unskilled work she can get, never having that chance to prepare herself for a professional career? She has much less chance to follow your path than you did even if she is willing to work hard, because that work will be waiting tables, serving fast food, or worse, prostitution or selling drugs as a young mother.

Let her have an abortion if she wants one, and help her pay for it and an education if necessary.



Please think about that. There may come a time when the world is overpopulated such that it is necessary to impose population control. There may be a moral issue in the future concerning whether women are allowed to have that second or third baby, and how to handle those with one pregnancy too many. They may decide the opposite of what you did - their choice may be to deny your right (more likely your great grand-daughter's) to not have an abortion.

If that's OK with you, then you needn't reconsider your position. If it's not, perhaps you should.



No she didn't. She prefers to make decisions that will affect large numbers of people with information about those people and how those changes will affect them using studies that look at large numbers of people. The results are statistics. Caring about and using statistics to good effect is not denying one's conscience. It's the opposite.



I think I can help you with this natural quandary. Others have asked you for a clear definition of natural, and if you gave one, I missed it.

They have also told you why natural and not natural are irrelevant to moral decisions however you define them unless you define them like you have - what you like and find morally acceptable, and what you disapprove of. That's not a useful way to use the word natural.

The commonest application of the word natural is to processes that occur without intention or design. Thus satellites orbiting earth that were not put there (the moon) are natural satellites, whereas those used in GPS systems are artificial satellites.

When we saw a face on Mars, the question was whether it was a natural formation or some artifice.

When we detected pulsars sending hyper-regular signals toward earth, the question was whether that was due to a natural phenomenon or a sign of extraterrestial intelligence (artifice).

In every case, the difference between natural and unnatural was intelligence.

It might be unclear whether we should call a beaver building a dam natural or artificial. The process is not due to blind forces of nature such as those that might build a sand dune. It's common to consider the act of building it natural. You might see it on a nature show. But this is clearly intelligent design - intention, purpose. That would be a slightly different understanding of the word when we allow the artifacts non-human intelligence to be called natural.

A related use of the word is as used in The Natural, or "You make me feel like a natural woman." It's a metaphorical use intended to mean something that is or happens without much effort or design. The Natural was a great ahtlete without much artifice - training - and the natural woman is who she is without much effort or artifice (this is a second meaning of that word, more akin to deceit).

And another meaning for natural is the opposite of supernatural. By this reckoning, everything that happens in this universe including human artifice is natural.

You seem to be conflating a couple of these ideas leading to equivocation fallacies when you call everything that man does and ever will do natural, but then saying that therapeutic abortion is wrong because it isn't natural (spontaneous abortion, or miscarriage, is natural by all definitions).

I would recommend trying to get a clear understanding of what you mean when you use these words, and using them consistently.



Yes, but perhaps there is a second point - don't gather in closed spaces with other people for prolonged periods of time doing something you can do just as well in six or twelve months. We just cancelled a home improvement project, since it can wait (elective), and why be with a construction crew in your home now? This is analogous.

Regarding elective surgery, if the surgery requires general anesthesia, as with a hip replacement, it will require a ventilator. Surgery done with local anesthesia such as the excision of a skin lesion, doesn't compete with those needing ventilators, but it might compete with those who need hospitalizaton and a hospital bed.



Well said. Somehow, advertisers made natural into a purely positive word, like organic. Arsenic is natural. Hemlock is organic.

Can you explain how abortion is more loving and *positive* than adoption? Because if something is negative, and not loving, then why should I support it?

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Can you explain how abortion is more loving and *positive* than adoption? Because if something is negative, and not loving, then why should I support it?

Being less positive is not being negative. Is everything all or nothing in your view?

 

[Cooky]

Time? Time has nothing to with whether something is natural or not, positive or negative or not. Russia lasted a long time, therefore communism is natural and positive. See where your logic takes us. Let's move to the Roman Empire that lasted even longer.

Clearly, if you like something, it is natural. If you do not like it, it is unnatural. I think most here will agree that is the real conclusion you are not saying.

It's not what I'm saying. It never was, and my posting history in this thread proves it. Go back and read again.

With time, slavery occured naturally, from natural humans... Now slavery *over time* has been deemed unloving and negative, and so it is banned.

...Are you understanding yet?

 

[Cooky]

Being less positive is not being negative. Is everything all or nothing in your view?

There's 100 ways to skin a cat. But there's only one best way. Think about it.

 

[columbus]

I am.
It's a choice, but one I favor.
(Over-population, & all.)

Revoltingest doesn't want to share what's left of the biosphere with any more humans than he can avoid.

"Any abortion is a good abortion". I'm pretty sure that's a quote.
Tom

 

[Dan From Smithville]

It's not what I'm saying. It never was, and my posting history in this thread proves it. Go back and read again.

With time, slavery occured naturally, from natural humans... Now slavery *over time* has been deemed unloving and negative, and so it is banned.

...Are you understanding yet?

No. All I see is that you arbitrarily assign positivity or negativity to something and declare it natural or unnatural. The assignment is not completely arbitrary, since it seems to depend on what you like or dislike.

Surely, you are not just now hearing this. I saw others post much the same conclusion earlier. What other conclusion could there be?

Slavery is not natural. Just because something can take place and is accepted by one or more cultures does not make it natural. Being natural does not equal being culturally accepted. Genital mutilation is still acceptable in some cultures. Does that make it natural? Of course not.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

There's 100 ways to skin a cat. But there's only one best way. Think about it.

But the 99 other ways are not negative because one is more positive.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

It's not what I'm saying. It never was, and my posting history in this thread proves it. Go back and read again.

With time, slavery occured naturally, from natural humans... Now slavery *over time* has been deemed unloving and negative, and so it is banned.

...Are you understanding yet?

How would slavery peg the needle on your Lovometer in the past and in the present? Sex slaves are not enslaved out of love and I bet you can find more than a few that do not love it then or now.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

There's 100 ways to skin a cat. But there's only one best way. Think about it.

According to your way of thinking, not skinning a cat would be negative and unnatural. The 100 ways of skinning it would be natural and positive (probably not for the cat). With one or more being more positive than the others perhaps.

 

[Cooky]

How would slavery peg the needle on your Lovometer in the past and in the present? Sex slaves are not enslaved out of love and I bet you can find more than a few that do not love it then or now.

I don't really have time for this like I did yesterday. My job is considered "essential" so I get to work during the COVID-19 outbreak...

...But hey, let's get a witness... @Evangelicalhumanist, would you prefer to have been aborted or be alive today. Honestly.

Is abortion more loving than adoption?

 

[epronovost]

Can you explain how abortion is more loving and *positive* than adoption? Because if something is negative, and not loving, then why should I support it?

It's more loving in the way that it doesn't deprive a child from parental love and care often for extanded period of time. It doesn't deprive a parent from self estime as readily as abortions either (self love count for something in your worldview I suppose).

 

[Cooky]

It's more loving in the way that it doesn't deprive a child from parental love and care often for extanded period of time. It doesn't deprive a parent from self estime as readily as abortions either (self love count for something in your worldview I suppose).

I would like to ask @Evangelicalhumanist to be the spokesman for all aborted babies. Is it better to be aborted or adopted?

...Which of the two options would you have preferred for yourself?

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I don't really have time for this like I did yesterday. My job is considered "essential" so I get to work during the COVID-19 outbreak...

...But hey, let's get a witness... @Evangelicalhumanist, would you prefer to have been aborted or be alive today. Honestly.

Is abortion more loving than adoption?

That, I'm afraid, is a particularly stupid question. Asking such things after-the-fact make no sense at all. Tell you what, go and ask the newly-fertilized egg that was to become me, see what answer you get.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I would like to ask @Evangelicalhumanist to be the spokesman for all aborted babies. Is it better to be aborted or adopted?

...Which of the two options would you have preferred for yourself?

Couldn't say -- neither happened to me.

 

[epronovost]

I would like to ask @Evangelicalhumanist to be the spokesman for all aborted babies. Is it better to be aborted or adopted?

...Which of the two options would you have preferred for yourself?

That's a bit of a strange question. Fetuses don't have feelings or will (at least not at the age where elective abortions are performed) while babies do. Nobody asked to be born or when and from which parents or of which gender.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I don't really have time for this like I did yesterday. My job is considered "essential" so I get to work during the COVID-19 outbreak...

...But hey, let's get a witness... @Evangelicalhumanist, would you prefer to have been aborted or be alive today. Honestly.

Is abortion more loving than adoption?

Mine is considered essential too. Just happen to have scheduled today off prior to current conditions.

The question we have been batting around isn't whether abortion is more loving than adoption or adoption more than abortion.

I am just trying to understand how you came to conclude what is natural and unnatural in your view and now whether something less positive is automatically negative. Your view appears entirely based on subjective criteria that can easily be nullified by others for having different subjective criteria. I never was in the pro/con abortion debate. I am just curious how other people come to the conclusions they do.

 

[Cooky]

That's a bit of a strange question. Fetuses don't have feelings or will (at least not at the age where elective abortions are performed) while babies do. Nobody asked to be born or when and from which parents or of which gender.

This coincides with my points about time earlier... When we do an abortion, an obvious negative for the fetus, out of convenience for us, how can we be sure that fetus wouldn't have wanted to live when it was old enough to consider it?

 

[Cooky]

Couldn't say -- neither happened to me.

My mistake. I thought you mentioned before that you lived in foster homes. Sorry.