Help me clarify my thoughts on abortion and slavery

[Alien826]

The human being is the only animal that can and does create and carry (sometimes to term) another human being. I think it's pretty significant.

And the chimpanzee is the only animal that can and does create and carry to term another chimpanzee.

I don't see your point.

 

[Kathryn]

And the chimpanzee is the only animal that can and does create and carry to term another chimpanzee.

I don't see your point.

No, and I don't expect you to.

 

[Alien826]

The only truly constructive way of dealing with abortions is to make them unnecessary in the first place. Not forbidden and certainly not "automatically immoral", but unnecessary.

Well said. I've had the same thought. But how?

Perfect contraception would be one answer. By that I mean contraception that never failed and had no negative side effects. It should also be very easy to use to exclude careless misuse.

Another idea about contraception is to make the conception the choice, not contraception. By that I mean that the participants would be automatically sterile until some procedure reversed it. That would make every pregnancy a positive decision. For freedom's sake, the reversal should be freely available no matter what the circumstances were.

I leave it to science to come up with these things.

 

[LuisDantas]

Well said. I've had the same thought. But how?

Perfect contraception would be one answer. By that I mean contraception that never failed and had no negative side effects. It should also be very easy to use to exclude careless misuse.

Another idea about contraception is to make the conception the choice, not contraception. By that I mean that the participants would be automatically sterile until some procedure reversed it. That would make every pregnancy a positive decision. For freedom's sake, the reversal should be freely available no matter what the circumstances were.

I leave it to science to come up with these things.

I don't necessarily disagree, but surely you realize that proposing those means brings with them the questions of how to deal with the eventual flaws and failures.

What is supposed to happen when voluntary yet temporary sterelization turns out not to be reversible? What if a medical condition develops and makes the procedure's reversal risky or impossible?

There are pitfalls there as well.

 

[SkepticThinker]

The human being is the only animal that can and does create and carry (sometimes to term) another human being. I think it's pretty significant.

And dogs are the only animals that create and carry (sometimes to term) another dog.
And rabbits are the only animals that create and carry (sometimes to term) another rabbit(s).

What's the significance?

 

[QuestioningMind]

??

ALL individuals have a right to bodily autonomy... UNLESS they get pregnant... THEN the state suddenly has more rights over what they do with their own body than the pregnant individual. Somehow they become a second-class individual with lesser rights.

 

[Alien826]

I don't necessarily disagree, but surely you realize that proposing those means brings with them the questions of how to deal with the eventual flaws and failures.

What is supposed to happen when voluntary yet temporary sterelization turns out not to be reversible? What if a medical condition develops and makes the procedure's reversal risky or impossible?

There are pitfalls there as well.

Nothing's perfect, least of all my ideas.

Seriously though it depends what the proportion of problems would be. No medicine is without side effects, yet we still use them. Try something, see what happens, fix problems, repeat.

As an aside, remember the old joke about the contraceptive pill? The doctor shows the woman a pill the size of a basketball and says it has 50% reliability. She wants better so he produces one the size of a baseball, at 75%. Still not good enough, so a really tiny pill is produced that has 99% success. She chooses that one then asks how anyone could possibly swallow the first pill she saw. Oh no, says the doc, you don't swallow it ....

Spoiler

you hold it between your knees!

 

[danieldemol]

Not necessarily in my view. Suppose they don't want the responsibility and aren't responsible enough to give the child up for adoption. For example suppose they felt that letting the child wander into traffic was less hassle than going through an adoption process, you are forcing them to go through an adoption process, is that a form of slavery?

That's not how it works. A parent who gives birth to a child it doesn't want to take responsibility for simply has to refuse to sign the forms at the hospital saying that they are willing to take legal responsibility. If they refuse then the child it turned over to the state, which then has responsibility for that child until a suitable adoptive parent can be found who is willing to take on the legal responsibility. Any parent who has legal responsibility for a child can sign away the rights and responsibilities for that child to the state at any time.

Source?

Expecting people to take the steps to legally absolved themselves of their responsibility can hardly be compared to slavery. That's like saying that enforcing any established law is a form of slavery.

Sounds as though you are saying because its legal its not slavery.

As for people so vile as to allow their child to wander out into traffic to avoid the hassle of filing some legal forms, that's plain negligence and they should be held accountable.

What risks to their health are we talking about specifically? If a doctor thinks the mother is at risk im not opposed to abortion.

There is a LONG list of potential health risks associated with bringing a pregnancy to term. Hundreds of thousands of women die each year from pregnancy related issues. Millions more develop lifelong health issues associated with childbirth, among them back problems, thyroid disfunction, nerve injury, mental disorders, incontinence, even blindness. A woman's body changes drastically during pregnancy and is never the same again afterwards. And though doctors can warn some women that they might have a greater risk for one health issue or another, in many cases the risks can't be determined beforehand. And who gets to decide what is an acceptable amount of risk a woman should be forced to have to take? If at the beginning of a pregnancy a doctor determines there's a 2% chance of a women developing a serious issue, is that enough of a risk to allow an abortion?

I believe doctors are capable of determining what constitutes an acceptable amount of risk. They have to do it anyway for surgery or other medical procedure in my view.

What if the risk increases later in the pregnancy to 4% or 8%?

Doctors could cross each bridge as they come to them.

I have tremendous respect for all of the women who willingly accept those risks and changes. But no one should be forced to assume such risks and changes. Only the person facing the risks has the right to decide what percentage of risk they're willing to take.

If no one should be forced to accept certain risks why should a concious unborn person be forced to accept a 100% risk of death other than in cases of medical necessity?

And if the suffering of death has no value why does the suffering of say incontinence which is a far lesser form of suffering in my view have value?

 

[danieldemol]

But I don't necessarily have a problem with some persons having greater rights for example a child has the right to a parent up to a certain age where practical, then after that age they don't have that right.

Only, a child DOESN'T have a right to a parent.

Ok it was poor wording, lets just say they have a right to a parent/guardian up to a certain age.

A parent can relinquish responsibility for a child at any time.

Source?

As a society we think that children have a right to basic care, which is why such a child would become a ward of the state.

Would you say why should a child that someday may potentially become an adult have greater rights than an adult?

Children do not have greater rights than adults. Adults have more rights, as well as more responsibilities. Adults can vote and can enter into legal contracts. And even though a child, given enough time and the proper conditions has the potential to someday become an adult, we don't award them the rights of an adult until they actually become adults. And even though a fetus, given enough time and the proper conditions has the potential to someday become a viable individual, it shouldn't be awarded an individuals' rights until it becomes an actual individual.

So you appear to accept that it is ok for different categories of people to have different rights only in this case the parents have more rights than the child.

What makes one an individual? I believe it is not that they are fully born.

 

[danieldemol]

Blood donation is voluntary because we recognize that one person's right to bodily autonomy supersedes another person's right to life. This recognition doesn't dehumanize the people who need blood donations.

Apply this same hierarchy of rights to the question of abortion and we recognize that freedom of choice should prevail, even if we bestow full personhood on fetuses.

That's a strong argument I guess, but I think it would be pretty heartless of a parent who brought their child into concious being to then take a positive action to terminate the life of the child after its born, so perhaps if say a father was medically fit to give a blood transfusion to their healthy born child instead gave it a dose of arsenic or something I think society would frown upon it.

Translating this thinking to after the child was conscious but before it was born and I think we should frown upon a healthy woman with a healthy unborn yet concious fetus terminating it on a mere whim, and if a doctor where trained to check that the mother was in a psychologically healthy state (assuming she could be psychologically improved in her pregnant state) prior to agreeing to termination it would seem to my eyes to be saving a life that I would value.

That being said I still would leave it to patient/doctor discretion to make the final choice.

 

[stvdv]

There is a reason why prochoice thinking requires the dehumanization of the unborn baby.

But only after 4 month and 9 days

 

[stvdv]

There are double standards in place. You say you don’t see much difference in enforcing care for someone from before they are born and after they are born. But I believe other pro choicers see differently, if I understand them correctly.

Observe the following scene.
View attachment 97808

Now reimagine the scene, but instead of cartoon characters, imagine it with a real adult man and a real child.

Suddenly, not so funny, is it?

When you don’t equate an unborn human to a born human, it allows you to have different standards for them.

Similar to killing sentient beings, animals, for gratification of one's senses

Also not funny

Those who don't want unborn humans to be killed, should first start vegetarian lifestyle

IF they want to be non-hypocritical
As regard to inflicting pain to sentient beings

Killing sentient beings = being desensitized
Less compassion, less empathy