Philosophy Now Forum

Gustaf wrote:There is an infinity of arguments I could spend time thinking about, so I necessarily must reject some, often after most cursory examination.

When I have people who simultaneously decry "mass slaughter" of abortion, without seeming to realize that spontaneous miscarriages are at least as frequent - and who also support torture and wars of agression (e.g. the American religious right) - it is obvious that they are either hypocrites or stupid (or both) - and thus unlikely to present a philosophically interesting argument.

Eran wrote:I may have a moral obligation to sustain another person's life, but absent a prior commitment, I cannot morally be forced to do so.

chaz wyman wrote:Then you have a contradiction, as failure to care will lead to the death of the child

Eran wrote:I don't see how the hypocratic oath, made in ceremonial fashion, as a legal requirement before being allowed to practice medicine, could be translated to a responsibility a Doctor has towards the foetus.

The appropriate analogy is between that Doctor, and a police officer asked to evict a squatter. The foetus, under the circumstances, is an unwelcome squatter within its mother's womb. While it may have a right not to be killed, it has no right to demand nourishment from an unwilling person, even if that person is its mother.

The Doctor is merely there to facilitate a safe eviction.

chaz wyman wrote:Then you have a contradiction, as failure to care will lead to the death of the child

No contradiction. There is a huge difference, morally, between actively causing somebody's death through an assault on their body or property, and between indirectly bringing about somebody's death due to a refusal to take action that might have saved their lives, but which they had no right to insist on your providing.

Such is not the case with a doctor who has a responsibility beyond the ordinary, and whose inaction would be morally wrong, by their own standards.

An abortion is not a simple eviction - not a single doctor on earth would ever agree with you. An abortion is not an act of inaction by the 'mother' but a surgical intervention that doctors do not perform as some sort of bailiff.

Your analogy is frightfully insensitive and ridiculously inappropriate.





Thus, murdering a homeless person is not the same as refusing them hospitality in your home, even if they then end up freezing to death.

Gustaf wrote:Since we are having a thread or two about abortion, so I thought I would add an extra one.
I was talking to a Pakistani colleague some time ago, and he was puzzled as to why abortion is even an issue in Canada.

I had no answer for him, beyond telling him that just as Pakistani society is fucked up in its own way, our society is just as fucked up, only in a different way.

Eran wrote:Gustaf,
I would add that there is a huge moral difference between accidental and purposeful killings.

Would you say that condemning a murderer is hypocritical because of the thousands of people who die in car accidents every year?

MrsD wrote:Caitlin Moran made an interesting point in her newish book about abortion. She explained that she had an abortion in 2007 after having 2 children, simply because she did not want another child. She goes on to argue that as the physical body can at times decide not to have a child (as in a miscarriage), it was her mind that decided that she could not have this child and that the mind is just as much part of her as the physical actions the body performs.

Just an interesting point. She did however say that she doesn't support multiple abortions, which would in essence mean this argument wouldn't work universally...

chaz wyman wrote: If this were a disease it would be described as an epidemic.

KaydeeDID88 wrote:i feel as if abortion is not necessary though it is the right of a woman to make... its her right to do what she wants with her body and no one can tell her different, though if the a male is involved he too should have say what happens to that unborn child.