Look, I know it's been overdone - but abortion

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Look, I know it's been overdone - but abortion - yay or nay?

POSTED BY: FLF
UPDATED: Wednesday, November 29, 2006 03:13
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Friday, November 17, 2006 9:29 AM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

The way I see it, abortion is a tricky issue for most progressives. Mainly because it’s difficult to view it as ‘progressive’ as far as our humanity is concerned. It’s only really progressive in the sense that it is anti-religion – defying the morally domineering religious right.

On the issue of abortion the progressives are forced either to argue against this despised foe without the moral high ground, or else to concede to them much of the ground that they won during the sexual revolution, where people gained the freedom of casual sex. Society has so much embraced this ideology that to ban abortion now would be unthinkable – not necessarily morally wrong, but definitely unthinkable. Many people would suffer as a result: embarrassment, discomfort and broken personal hopes and ambitions, or else dangerous and possibly injurious/fatal back street abortions.

It seems to me indisputable that abortion is the killing of a human being, which, if not yet a person, has the full potential to develop into one. But does it constitute murder? Legally no, although the way I’ve defined it it sounds as though it should do. It’s not straightforward though, because all of the laws that we humans have created to govern our society stem from the subjective, our sense of morality. And I think it’s fair to say that, as with other cases of the purposeful killing of human beings such as euthanasia, abortion doesn’t provoke as much moral outrage as ordinary first-degree murder.

Still, it provokes some. And any attempt to legitimise it by saying the foetus doesn’t qualify as a human being until precisely this point, such as reaching a certain level of brain activity, well, you’re distilling humanity down far too simply for my liking. And also over simplifying murder, and what exactly is so bad about it. Murder offends us on lots of different levels, hence we have all sorts of subjective responses like; ‘he’s left behind a wife and children’, ‘he had his whole life ahead of him’, ‘nobody should have to die like that’, and even if it’s someone we don’t know, or like, who died painlessly and left no one behind to grieve; ‘everyone should have the right to live their life’.

Now abortion offends us on some, but not all of these levels, and to varying extents depending on the development of the foetus. Our conscience doesn’t really know what do to with an embryo - it takes a lot of imagination (or some religious faith) to grieve over one. A lot of our instincts to protect our young don’t really kick in until the foetus is in noticeable human form – although there will always be a certain amount of squeamishness about taking a unique human life, however undeveloped. Also, I would say that killing animals for food or whatever also pricks some of these guilty feelings, albeit to a lesser extent.

So, in conclusion: saying abortion is right or wrong in black or white terms, doesn’t really mean much (without religion backing you up, in which case you say; ‘Ah, but I know something you don’t know’, but then they say; ‘good for you’ – and your argument is stalemated). All you can say as fact is that abortion, to a certain extent goes against these instincts of empathy, justice and preservation of life, which we humans like to take as our guide when it comes to governing our society. And at some point in the future if we become more civilised, or if technology makes it easy for us, we will do away with the practice. Right now it doesn’t sit completely right. And the same goes for killing animals.

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Friday, November 17, 2006 9:32 AM

HKCAVALIER

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Quote:
I didn't see Jesus advocating the death penalty for anyone except himself.

ROFL

Signy, your take on God and His son is always too damn funny! I would love to hear you really cut loose one of these days in full-on rant mode ([small]start a thread, please, please[/small]).

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Friday, November 17, 2006 9:54 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

I wouldn't know what to say! Guess I'm just a stranger in a strange land!

KPO- We LIKE to think we're empathetic, caring etc. but it's especially easy to be empathetic to something that hasn't DONE anything yet. The challenge is to be empathetic towards someone who doesn't "deserve" it.

FINN- There is one more possible addendum to your post. I guess you could say that while "human" is gentically defined, a human's "worth" tends to go down in proportion to the harm they've done.

But you know, we all get tarnished with time. By the time you're my age, you've prolly done several unethical things that you deeply regret, possibly even life-and-death things. There are about five things I would re-do if I had the chance. And being only human, I imagine I've still got a couple more big bloopers ahead of me. So given that we all make serious errors in judgement, are we all less "valuable" with time?

---------------------------------
Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.

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Friday, November 17, 2006 10:17 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

kpo,

I think HK had a really good post about the socially important differences between a women who gets an abortion (not a person on a rampage) and a murderer (a person who is on an unbounded rampage).

I'm still going to plug my POV:

as a society we've already defined the end of life as the end of brain activity.

Now we've embarked on the definition of the beginning. If what makes us meaningfully alive at the end as human individuals is brain activity, I think that could be used to define the 'humanity' of a mass of cells at the beginning.

I think we'd recognize that if a fertilized egg only results in a placenta, or a poorly differentiated mass of cells (seriously - looks like scrambled limbs, guts and blobs floating around, no head, and inside-out skin) there is no 'one' there. If you start to refine the edges as to where a 'person' exists and where one doesn't, I think you'd find most people would agree that a brainless headless torso is not a person. And so on.

The end of life is already defined as the end of brain acitivty. I'm hopeful that we can rationally define the beginning of life the same way.

(You are probably too young to remember how contentious the concept of 'brain dead' was, how much angst it caused, and how long it took to resolve. And even for those who were around, all most people think about these days is bland acceptance of the definition. But there are lessons to be learned from the past. I hope that being able to parse out the topic is one of them.)

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Friday, November 17, 2006 2:07 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

Didn't know if I should post this here or under "nasty people".

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/11/17/family.planning.ap/index.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration has picked the medical director of an organization that opposes premarital sex, contraception and abortion to lead the office that oversees federally funded teen pregnancy, family planning and abstinence programs.

... (the conservative xtian group) opposes contraception, saying its use increases out-of-wedlock pregnancy and abortion rates.

Keroack's appointment as deputy assistant secretary for population affairs does not require Senate confirmation. He is expected to start work in the next several weeks, Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman Christina Pearson said.

----------------------

Yeah, gotta punish those women for having : looks furtively around and whispers : sex.

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Friday, November 17, 2006 4:17 PM

SIRI

Quote:
Originally posted by FLF:
Like the itle says, I know it's been overdone, but I have just spent the better part of an hour arguing (fruitlessly, I might add) that as far as I'm concerned it's a woman's choice - and no-one has the right to take that away from her.

Any other opinions here? Can anyone suggest how I can convince my friend or shall I just give up?

Thanks.

I don't know about being overdone - I also don't see viewpoints changing - at least not at this point in time. I have been around to remember how it was before abortion was legal. While I never had an abortion and I'm glad I didn't. I considered it at one time and know it would have saddened me. But I was also there with friends who did and I remember the circumstances.

I don't know when life begins. I have opinions that all matter and form are part of energy that comes together and breaks apart - I tend to believe (today) that if a soul is meant to come into existence it will - in one body or another - when the time and place are right. I don't know for sure - who can - and I don't know how it works.

If we can avoid taking life we should. If we can live with a spirit of kindness, compassion and honesty - right action in the Buddhist way - would avail us on the life path. That would include avoiding abortion if at all possible.

At the end of the day though, I think a woman's body is hers and hers alone. As much as I can respect and understand the arguments against abortion, and I can, I still believe the woman has the right to choose. I really do resent men making decisions for women - power over and control of - which they would deny.

I would prefer we do everything we can to make birth control more available and acceptable, teach our young people to respect their bodies, make good choices and be responsible.

I've also seen too many unwanted, neglected children, often born to women who do not respect themselves and men who think having sex and making babies proves their manhood. The kids get taken away, put into foster care and worse.

There are so many things involved here. You have your opinion, your views, everybody who posts here has their own opinion. I don't like thinking it's as simple as yay or nay for most of us. Having a baby should be an exciting, joyful experience. Welcoming that child into a warm and loving environment should be the most memorable and happiest time of one's life. Loosing a child at any stage of existence is a great loss.

Siri

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Thursday, November 23, 2006 9:22 PM

KPO

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Quote:
The end of life is already defined as the end of brain acitivty. I'm hopeful that we can rationally define the beginning of life the same way.

I won't argue about the acceptance of the term 'brain dead'. And you did a very tidy job of putting your view across on the beginning of 'human' life.

What I was suggesting is that we humans are instinctively uncomfortable with abortion, and will be relieved to abandon the practice if/when technology makes it easier for us to do so. I suspect you agree with this, but think that for the present, a more objective and scientific view of things is better, so that we don't give ourselves such a hard time over it all, and so that society runs smoother.

And I would agree with you. My personal conviction is that repressing human beings with guilt trips and moral lectures is often quite futile, and sometimes causes more harm than good, and we should look to science to help us live full lives less damaging to ourselves, others and the environment.

Problem is, I don't think your way of defining humanity is 'scientific'. I think there can be 3 purely honest and sensible answers to the question: "Why is it generally wrong to kill human beings?"

Religious man: "Because all human beings have a soul, which has a higher worth than our mere bodies of flesh, and shouldn't be taken."

Humanist: "Because it offends our 'human' instincts which we like to use to govern our society."

Atheistic scientist: "It isn't really. The worth of human life and society is a human delusion - we are just bodies of flesh with animal instincts which affect us via chemical and electrical signals in our brains. Human life has evolved, it has no value or purpose, it just is."

Myself, I think the second two views are accurate, though only the second is constructive.

Now asking the question: "Why is it generally wrong to abort a foetus?" You get exactly the same answers.

Now to adress your view Rue. It seems to me that you've arrived at it by taking the very common (and i would say instinctive) human belief in the soul, and, deciding it to be religious and unsubstantiated, made a close scientific approximation to it. Then you've gone about answering the two questions in exactly the same way as a religious person, explaining the soul in cold scientific terms, but retaining the mystical sense of it. Now if you're a humanist that mystical sense of worth of the human life is excusable, but it is just one of those human instincts that rebels against the taking of human life. You've dispensed with the rest. What about the sense that humans should have the right to live if they choose to? What about the horror, or one might say squeamishness of violence upon our fragile human bodies? Many of these feelings shrink as you go back in the development of a foetus to its emryonic stage - but don't disappear. And as a humanist you should be considerate of them, since, you know, they're good for us governing society and all.

Quote:
I think we'd recognize that if a fertilized egg only results in a placenta, or a poorly differentiated mass of cells (seriously - looks like scrambled limbs, guts and blobs floating around, no head, and inside-out skin) there is no 'one' there. If you start to refine the edges as to where a 'person' exists and where one doesn't, I think you'd find most people would agree that a brainless headless torso is not a person. And so on.

This is an interesting point to bring in to the discussion. I guess it comes to counter any simple definition of a human being that includes a foetus at its early stages of development, like mine from a previous thread: "The foetus has human DNA, and is a living entity - therefore it is a human being."

I think you're just blurring things here, using the confusion surrounding the difference between living tissue and a living entity. I haven't read up on this, but it seems to me that the placenta is one of several key organs which an embryo develops. If the development of any fails, it results in the death of the entity, although since the tissue is in such a favourable environment it lives on and does what it was doing before, for a while at least. So you have living, unique genetic material inside the mother's body - but no human being. Strange, but no different to what happens in the case of blood transfusion or organ donation.

I think this is a sensible way to look at things.

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Tuesday, November 28, 2006 5:12 AM

KPO

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Quote:
kpo,

I think HK had a really good post about the socially important differences between a women who gets an abortion (not a person on a rampage) and a murderer (a person who is on an unbounded rampage).

Yep. I read that post - it seems fair. If we can agree that abortion is not as bad as regular premeditated killing, but feeling guilty and sad is a valid and natural response to it, then as far as I'm concerned this whole overdone subject is sussed

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Wednesday, November 29, 2006 3:13 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

I don't think I am a religious person. My argument was for the sake of those who are religious, to show that the division between life and death has already been drawn in an acceptable way.

And I think this division makes sense of our own internal reactions. Having seen hundreds of people die, I can tell you that the ones who die after just talking to you, or who die looking at you, are much more disturbing than the ones who die after you first see them unconscious.

I agree with almost everything in 'atheistic scientists'. It reflects something I believe to be true "Heavan and earth are not humane." It falls short on one thing, and that is an objective acknowledgement of our humanity.

As living creatures we value our own lives. As apes we understand 'me' and 'them', fair and not fair. As humans we have powerful brain chemicals that make cooperation, trust and nuturing feel good. While 'heaven and earth are not humane', objectively, humans are. I believe if one is looking to 'objectively' set standards for human behavior you need to account for our evolutionary inheritance or risk an untenable code.

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