If you've taken away an available option that she would have chosen (chemical abortifacients), then you've undermined that consent. You've coerced the woman by artifically limiting her options, so it's still assault.
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Would this Change your Position on Abortion?
- Thread starter Thanda
- Start date
Thanda
Well-Known Member
That doesn't matter either. We all have limited options in this world. If you want to hire or fire someone there are laws that regulate how and when you can do that. If you want to establish a business there are laws about how to do that. If you want to catch a flight there are laws about how to do that. We would not be putting women in a unique situation - they would simply be part of a world that has laws about how things get done. If it is equality women are after and not privilege they would want nothing more.
But you're talking about eliminating a real option that currently exists. The fact that we have limited options doesn't justify artificially limiting the options we do have.
We would be putting women in a unique situation. I've been trying to express this a number of different ways, but you haven't been getting my point. I'll try to express myself more clearly this time:
WE DON'T MAKE PEOPLE UNDERGO SURGERIES AGAINST THEIR WILL.
Whatever your fetal removal surgery entails, it will have some sort of difference between it and "standard" abortion procedures. ANY difference is potentially grounds for a person to consent to one procedure but not to another.
It doesn't matter if you think the difference between standard abortion and your fetal removal surgery is so small that a woman who consents to the one *ought to* consent to the other; if she doesn't consent to the fetal removal surgery, that's the end of the discussion, because WE DON'T MAKE PEOPLE UNDERGO SURGERY THAT THEY DON'T CONSENT TO.
Thanda
Well-Known Member
Yes those are options that currently exist because it currently doesn't matter how a woman ends her pregnancy - the fetus will still die. In the hypothetical scenario that is no longer a certainty and thus there is more to consider than a woman's convenience.
Let me make myself very clear - I am against any type of lifestyle abortion. So I certainly would never force a woman to have any kind of abortion even if it was the removal of the fetus. A woman in my hypothetical world would continue to have the right to either end her pregnancy or continue it. But since my hypothetical world bring to play other rights that currently cannot be considered because of the limits of science, how a woman ends her pregnancy would change. And considering the other rights that are at play it isn't an unreasonable burden on women.
I'm trying to figure out how to interpret "a woman's convenience" in a way that means something other than "reasons that the woman getting the abortion finds compelling but that Thanda doesn't think are important."
That's the difference between you and me, then: more options are fine, but taking away the option that many women would choose is not. The fact that a woman would be forced to choose the best of the remaining options is the same sort of "consent" as when a person is forced to do something with a gun to their head ("hey - I gave them two options and they made their choice. What's the problem?").
Thanda
Well-Known Member
I use the word convenience because it denotes the idea that all we're quibbling about is how to get the same thing done. In all cases the pregnancy is ended - the question is simply how. And it is an inconvenience to have a man or woman looking at and touching your private parts. It is obviously quite uncomfortable I'm sure. The issue here is that the woman is not the only person in the world. There are other people and their rights to consider.
Except you are now clearly using hyperbole to equate two things that have little relation. Continuing with a pregnancy you don't want is not a death sentence. Having a simple procedure to remove the fetus so it can develop independently of the woman is also not a death sentence either. Thus the gun to the head has absolutely no relation to this situation unless perhaps it relates to your belief that a women should have the right to kill or keep the fetus alive - perhaps even being able to use that power as a bargaining chip with the partner? Yes that seems to be the only relation guns against heads has to this conversation of ours.
Koldo
Outstanding Member
As long as it was an accessible ( and as safe ) procedure to the woman, I would, at least on principle, no longer support abortion.
Surely. But the body autonomy of the unborn doesn't include the right to use of the mother's body. Same with the needful and the body of a dead person.
Thanda
Well-Known Member
Sure, and so you would fight for the right of the unborn to be transferred from a women's body rather than be killed I presume?
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If you're asking how I voted in your poll, I voted 'It depends.' Because I think part of legal abortion for reasons of body autonomy includes safe and accessible (physical and financial) abortion. And if the transfer methods aren't equal in those respects to abortion then I'd for continuous availability of abortion. And this isn't just about first trimester abortion methods either, but also late term abortions where the very reason they do abortion instead of a live delivery is because surgery or pushing would further endanger the mother (such as through a hemorrhage, seizure, heart or other organ failure.) In those cases I would still be fine with abortion.
But if we're taking your example to a logical extreme and we're living in a Star Trek world where we can beam the unborn out, then yeah, of course. Do that.
Though I hope we follow such technology up with a hell of a lot more money to our crumbling foster care and adoption systems. Because I believe the debate also includes an element of 'not quantity of life, quality of life.' But I think that's a discussion for another time.
Jumi
Well-Known Member
It has been an option for most of time humans have been civilized. Recall the story of Moses?
How men are given leeway or not in your country is different topic. I'm not even familiar how they handle things where you live.
Are you willing to pay higher taxes to pay for some life quality for those parents who don't want anything to do with a baby? That would more effectively be treated in a state orphanage. I think your solution would either be disastrous or lead to a blooming orphanage industry.
There will be much more of a burden when irresponsible people are forced to "care" for their babies. I knew enough kids when I was in school whose parents cared for them just enough to give them a room and punish them if they made trouble for them. I don't think any kid deserves being thought of just as a nuisance and waste of money.
More quality sex ed for kids helps best in that.
Not everyone understands the information they receive or is capable of acting responsibly based on book/internet knowledge.
Reproductive spaces?
People can solve problems, but not all have ability to find complex solutions. One of the right solutions is to avoid disastrous choices.
Thanda
Well-Known Member
Yes I do - believe his mother took care of him if my memory serves me well. Also the mother gave him up only because someone threatened to murder him if she didn't
I am willing to pay more but more importantly I am willing to pay more for programs that teach taking responsibility and how to handle challenges. I believe that is what the world needs most. In other words I believe in solving the cause not just treating the symptom.
Again, better education is the solution to these problems - not killing babies. The same people who have such bad attitudes also express those same attitudes in other areas of their lives and as a result often have multiple challenges in their lives. So rather than just acceding to and accepting a don't care and irresponsible attitude in our societies we are better served working to change attitudes.
Sure
Sure - and they could use the same excuse with personal information they are taught in school. As a society we can only do so much to assist someone. At some point they have to make the determination to act responsibly. We should not however incentivise irresponsible behaviors.
Yes.
The complex solution is something we as a society have to come up with not each individual.
I haven't read much of this thread, so I don't know whether this has been pointed out yet:
It costs $20,000-$40,000 per year to house an adult inmate in a federal or state correctional facility, which does not include any costs for education, normal clothing, or trained caregivers as children require, and includes only the most minimal toiletries, recreational facilities (no piano lessons for the talented), etc. One can easily estimate that the cost of providing for children from pre-infancy to 18 years old would be double the amount to house a prison inmate. For the ~1,000,000 fetuses aborted in the US each year, that amounts to $40,000,000,000-$80,000,000,000 ($40-80 billion dollars) per year, in order to add to the US population 1 million unwanted, psychologically damaged children per yer. No thanks.
Spend your money, time and energy providing for the 500,000 living children who currently don’t have homes and families. Once you do that, you probably will no longer be eager to incubate 20-week-old unconscious tissue to adulthood.
It costs $20,000-$40,000 per year to house an adult inmate in a federal or state correctional facility, which does not include any costs for education, normal clothing, or trained caregivers as children require, and includes only the most minimal toiletries, recreational facilities (no piano lessons for the talented), etc. One can easily estimate that the cost of providing for children from pre-infancy to 18 years old would be double the amount to house a prison inmate. For the ~1,000,000 fetuses aborted in the US each year, that amounts to $40,000,000,000-$80,000,000,000 ($40-80 billion dollars) per year, in order to add to the US population 1 million unwanted, psychologically damaged children per yer. No thanks.
Spend your money, time and energy providing for the 500,000 living children who currently don’t have homes and families. Once you do that, you probably will no longer be eager to incubate 20-week-old unconscious tissue to adulthood.
Thanda
Well-Known Member
Are the late term abortions that you support medically necessary or they can be for birth control reasons?
What is often forgotten in this debate about quality over quantity is the quality of people who are alive and are making reproductive choices. We need a society where people learn to make better choices. Where people have a good understanding of self-control, planning, patience hard-work, perseverance etc. Those are the values which I think our society would benefit most from developing. Yes sex education is good and necessary; yes birth control is good and necessary. But if these things become an excuse for not developing those other virtues I have mentioned, then they become more a vice than a virtue.
And as I keep mentioning, these virtues will not just help us (as individuals and as a society) on the reproductive and birth control arena, it will assist us with many other social challenges we are currently facing.
Curious George
Veteran Member
Again you are missing the point. No parent has children forced on them. The only thing that is possibly forced on anyone is financial responsibility for an actual child. This is forced on both parents alike if one decides not to give the baby up for adoption. Why exactly does it matter regarding whether or not a woman had the right to choose an abortion? Both parents are responsible for a birthed child. If a woman chooses to get an abortion she is making a medical choice concerning her body at the time. Any speculation about her motives financial or otherwise is unfounded. You offered a hypothetical, I gave an answer with stipulations. If such stipulations were met, I see no reason not to change my position somewhat on abortion.
**edit to delete superfluous "or."
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Thanda
Well-Known Member
As we "progressive" humans consider human life to be worth cost, it should not be an issue. I have heard people use the argument of cost of keeping inmates as an argument for the death penalty. Perhaps you sympathise with such arguments...I do not.
Or alternatively let's scrap the moral relativism and begin to teach values that will help people make better choices and prevent not only having 500 000 children without homes or families but also the 1.2 million children aborted every year.
Thanda
Well-Known Member
They're not unfounded. They are well researched and well known. And most have little to do with medical considerations.
Curious George
Veteran Member
Cite?
The fetus is not her body. Its within her body. She may freely choose to stop giving it her bodily shelter. But if the community values that entity and can provide shelter to it, how does she possess the right to destroy it?
My position is a straightforward one. The thought experiment proposed in the OP is a defeater for the Judith Thomson's "A Defense of Abortion" argument. If such technology is widely available the moral philosophical case grounding abortion collapses.
Not discussing law here, but moral philosophy.