Abortion

[SpheresOfBalance]

Is having an unwanted child moral?
Is overpopulation moral?
Is telling someone what to do with their body moral?
Is playing god moral?
Is spreading your legs for the fun of it, without contraception moral?
Is spreading someones legs for the fun of it, without contraception moral?
Is killing a fetus moral?
Is raping someone moral?
Is putting your life on the line for a child moral?
Is not putting your life on the line for a child moral?
Is having a child contract AIDS/STD's as a result of childbirth moral?
Is potentially having a child with birth defects moral?
Is having the baby of your father or brother moral?
Does morality exist with a god?
Does morality exist without a god?
Are morals up to each individual depending upon what they believe?
What is morality, who is right and who is wrong, and who is to say?

Exactly. Your analysis of abortion is enveloped with warmth, good sense and great intelligence. It is people like yourself who contribute understanding of each person's unique position involving this decision, would be greatly appreciated, I would imagine, when faced with the terrible decision concerning abortion.

There is a slight problem here because all of the answers to these questions is yes. i.e. they are all moral questions. ~What he is really trying to ask is "Is X morally good or bad."

Playing Magalo, I see, not that I'm surprised, your delusions as a result of your insanity shall haunt you till the day you die, THANK GOD!!!!!

Of course in reality, I'm always willing to give you a chance, should you ask.

[chaz wyman]

.. an insincere attempt at reconciliation...

Life's a two way street, my boy!

“He that is giddy thinks the world turns round:” Shakespeare.

[chaz wyman]

Of course in reality, I'm always willing to give you a chance, should you ask.[/color]

It is for the supplicant to ask; it is not for me.

[SpheresOfBalance]

Of course in reality, I'm always willing to give you a chance, should you ask.[/color]

It is for the supplicant to ask; it is not for me.

Indicative of your delusion, as you are it's product, by your own admission!

[chaz wyman]

Of course in reality, I'm always willing to give you a chance, should you ask.[/color]

It is for the supplicant to ask; it is not for me.

Indicative of your delusion, as you are it's product, by your own admission!

"It's product?"

[SpheresOfBalance]

Of course in reality, I'm always willing to give you a chance, should you ask.

It is for the supplicant to ask; it is not for me.

Indicative of your delusion, as you are it's product, by your own admission!

"It's product?"

Yes, this is what I've always suspected about you, here's the proof!

[reasonemotion]

There are arguments that a fetus is not just human life, but a human person, thus deserving our considerations. A person, or human being, at the very least has interests, and is usually conscious or sentient, aware of its surroundings. In turn, this person wants to be protected by rights from the state so that it can live out its life free of oppression from the state or from neighbors. But in just about every abortion performed in the U.S., the fetus isn’t conscious or sentient. So how can a fetus want freedom or rights? Even if we wanted to grant the fetus rights, why would we do so for an object which we have no reason to believe is part of our moral circle? In this vein, considering we have more moral obligation to the fully human mother than the fetus, there is no basis for society to preemptively grant the fetus rights in wanting to protect its freedom over the freedom of the mother.

[Kayla]

There are arguments that a fetus is not just human life, but a human person, thus deserving our considerations. A person, or human being, at the very least has interests, and is usually conscious or sentient,

the thing is here in the USA the same people who are against abortion are also against things that could reduce the number of abortions eg sex education, social assistance for single parents that sort of thing

whatever arguments they make about moral status of fetuses they are not making in good faith

so really all the philosophical arguments about abortions are an irrelevant sideshow

if someone genuinely wants less abortions they should work towards alleviating conditions that make abortions more likely

and if someone genuinely sees no moral problems with abortion, well there are plenty of good reasons that are not abortion-related to work towards alleviating those conditions

[chaz wyman]

There are arguments that a fetus is not just human life, but a human person, thus deserving our considerations. A person, or human being, at the very least has interests, and is usually conscious or sentient,

the thing is here in the USA the same people who are against abortion are also against things that could reduce the number of abortions eg sex education, social assistance for single parents that sort of thing

whatever arguments they make about moral status of fetuses they are not making in good faith

so really all the philosophical arguments about abortions are an irrelevant sideshow

if someone genuinely wants less abortions they should work towards alleviating conditions that make abortions more likely

and if someone genuinely sees no moral problems with abortion, well there are plenty of good reasons that are not abortion-related to work towards alleviating those conditions

They are making it in good faith. They are faithfully sticking to their own Xian agenda, and the interpretation of the bible as they see fit. They make it is good faith because faith is beyond reason. They are making it in good faith because they say so; because faith needs not attend to rational argument. Faith is following; not thinking.

I agree that if you want less abortions then you ought to support measures that would achieve a state where there are less unwanted pregnancies. But that is a reasoned argument; not a faith based one. But this could be achieved in a variety of ways. When faith has its word then it is about conformity to another set of rules and pragmatism is rejected. The variety of ways to achieve that goal would also have to conform to the faith based assertions. Faith, in their case, demands that celibacy would achieve that same end of less abortions - this is true for those willing to follow it faithfully. Faith says that celibacy is just as important as going full term with a pregnancy. The implication is that should a woman or a girl choose sex, and then aborts, then she is lost to Faith. For the faithful, this is not a problem - only a few will be chosen.

[SJM1970]

There are arguments that a fetus is not just human life, but a human person, thus deserving our considerations. A person, or human being, at the very least has interests, and is usually conscious or sentient, aware of its surroundings. In turn, this person wants to be protected by rights from the state so that it can live out its life free of oppression from the state or from neighbors. But in just about every abortion performed in the U.S., the fetus isn’t conscious or sentient. So how can a fetus want freedom or rights? Even if we wanted to grant the fetus rights, why would we do so for an object which we have no reason to believe is part of our moral circle? In this vein, considering we have more moral obligation to the fully human mother than the fetus, there is no basis for society to preemptively grant the fetus rights in wanting to protect its freedom over the freedom of the mother.

I'd be interested in knowing what personhood account you are using to grant full moral value? Being conscious or sentient doesn't really do that. Moral value and existential desires are strongly linked to sophisticated personhood capacities.

So one can easily reframe the question to ask -similar to the Post Birth Abortion paper- why you think a non person baby or infant has full moral rights.

I deal with your question though in the David Boonin Toxic waste post.

[chaz wyman]

There are arguments that a fetus is not just human life, but a human person, thus deserving our considerations. A person, or human being, at the very least has interests, and is usually conscious or sentient, aware of its surroundings. In turn, this person wants to be protected by rights from the state so that it can live out its life free of oppression from the state or from neighbors. But in just about every abortion performed in the U.S., the fetus isn’t conscious or sentient. So how can a fetus want freedom or rights? Even if we wanted to grant the fetus rights, why would we do so for an object which we have no reason to believe is part of our moral circle? In this vein, considering we have more moral obligation to the fully human mother than the fetus, there is no basis for society to preemptively grant the fetus rights in wanting to protect its freedom over the freedom of the mother.

I'd be interested in knowing what personhood account you are using to grant full moral value? Being conscious or sentient doesn't really do that. Moral value and existential desires are strongly linked to sophisticated personhood capacities.

So one can easily reframe the question to ask -similar to the Post Birth Abortion paper- why you think a non person baby or infant has full moral rights.

I deal with your question though in the David Boonin Toxic waste post.

I think many people tend to see this in terms of a pragmatic issue.
Foetuses can survive outside the womb now at quite an early stage. So let's say that a foetus prematurely birthed at say 28 weeks can live to a ripe old age, an in a legal sense the moment it is separated from the mother it collects all the rights and privileges of citizenship to live to adulthood.
Now take a situation where a woman wants to abort a foetus of a similar age. In conscience how can a doctor take what would other wise be a citizen and dump them in the garbage after first dismembering and decapitating the object in the womb?
Babies that have facilities for incubation can survive at as low as 21 weeks. This has inevitably forced down the legal limits on abortion.

[SJM1970]

There are arguments that a fetus is not just human life, but a human person, thus deserving our considerations. A person, or human being, at the very least has interests, and is usually conscious or sentient, aware of its surroundings. In turn, this person wants to be protected by rights from the state so that it can live out its life free of oppression from the state or from neighbors. But in just about every abortion performed in the U.S., the fetus isn’t conscious or sentient. So how can a fetus want freedom or rights? Even if we wanted to grant the fetus rights, why would we do so for an object which we have no reason to believe is part of our moral circle? In this vein, considering we have more moral obligation to the fully human mother than the fetus, there is no basis for society to preemptively grant the fetus rights in wanting to protect its freedom over the freedom of the mother.

I'd be interested in knowing what personhood account you are using to grant full moral value? Being conscious or sentient doesn't really do that. Moral value and existential desires are strongly linked to sophisticated personhood capacities.

So one can easily reframe the question to ask -similar to the Post Birth Abortion paper- why you think a non person baby or infant has full moral rights.

I deal with your question though in the David Boonin Toxic waste post.

I think many people tend to see this in terms of a pragmatic issue.

I've not seen polls to know this either way. There are many different abortion arguments viability is just one of them. BTW for what it is worth I don't believe vability is very popular among even liberal philosophers as they see the need for an underlying rationale linked to some capacity associated with a existential concerns, not where a organism is or could be.

Foetuses can survive outside the womb now at quite an early stage. So let's say that a foetus prematurely birthed at say 28 weeks can live to a ripe old age, an in a legal sense the moment it is separated from the mother it collects all the rights and privileges of citizenship to live to adulthood. Now take a situation where a woman wants to abort a foetus of a similar age. In conscience how can a doctor take what would other wise be a citizen and dump them in the garbage after first dismembering and decapitating the object in the womb?

A strong bodily autonomy supporter would say her body her choice, it's still in her body and since many seem to dismiss potential personhood I fail to see why potentiality in this sense works either. Ok it could be separate but its not.If bodily autonomy is so important trumping potential persons, why should a potentially viable human, in the sense its still in the woman’s body, matter? Why should an potentiality concept involving changing locality matter when a temporal change relating to personhood doesnt? Yes in one sense that capacity is there, nonetheless that doersn't just change the fact that it still occupies the womans body and you must admit that is often seen as a crucial matter in this debate.

So why give it full moral rights just because it could live separate from the mother? The Post Birth Abortion paper authors would ask this exact question. Most of the lit deals with morally relevant capacities and just relying on locality doesn't provide this.

A kitten is a separate organism, but just because that is so, many don't grant full moral value to it. & it's more than just a legal technicality that we can just grant it so. You have said it can be done but not why it should with a morally relevant reason. In this repsect locality doesnt matter a fig if you don't have another underlying reason to say why that thing that is separate matters morally.

[chaz wyman]

I'd be interested in knowing what personhood account you are using to grant full moral value? Being conscious or sentient doesn't really do that. Moral value and existential desires are strongly linked to sophisticated personhood capacities.

So one can easily reframe the question to ask -similar to the Post Birth Abortion paper- why you think a non person baby or infant has full moral rights.

I deal with your question though in the David Boonin Toxic waste post.

I think many people tend to see this in terms of a pragmatic issue.

I've not seen polls to know this either way. There are many different abortion arguments viability is just one of them. BTW for what it is worth I don't believe vability is very popular among even liberal philosophers as they see the need for an underlying rationale linked to some capacity associated with a existential concerns, not where a organism is or could be.

Foetuses can survive outside the womb now at quite an early stage. So let's say that a foetus prematurely birthed at say 28 weeks can live to a ripe old age, an in a legal sense the moment it is separated from the mother it collects all the rights and privileges of citizenship to live to adulthood. Now take a situation where a woman wants to abort a foetus of a similar age. In conscience how can a doctor take what would other wise be a citizen and dump them in the garbage after first dismembering and decapitating the object in the womb?

A strong bodily autonomy supporter would say her body her choice, it's still in her body and since many seem to dismiss potential personhood I fail to see why potentiality in this sense works either. Ok it could be separate but its not.If bodily autonomy is so important trumping potential persons, why should a potentially viable human, in the sense its still in the woman’s body, matter? Why should an potentiality concept involving changing locality matter when a temporal change relating to personhood doesnt? Yes in one sense that capacity is there, nonetheless that doersn't just change the fact that it still occupies the womans body and you must admit that is often seen as a crucial matter in this debate.

So why give it full moral rights just because it could live separate from the mother? The Post Birth Abortion paper authors would ask this exact question. Most of the lit deals with morally relevant capacities and just relying on locality doesn't provide this.

Indeed why should you yourself have any rights? You are nothing more that the excrescence of your mother's womb?

A kitten is a separate organism, but just because that is so, many don't grant full moral value to it. & it's more than just a legal technicality that we can just grant it so. You have said it can be done but not why it should with a morally relevant reason. In this repsect locality doesnt matter a fig if you don't have another underlying reason to say why that thing that is separate matters morally.

[SJM1970]

@ chaz wyman excrescence ????? That's the first time I've seen offspring of an organism called as such. But thats beside the point.

I suppose there are a number of different ways linked to being a moral agent within a moral ingroup, be it based on personhood or sophisticated personal preferences. Problem is as I see it you then run into the problem associated with the Post Birth Abortion paper and you don't have non arbitrary reasons to keep babies and non person infants alive. Personally my on stance leans towards a Jainist position linked to similar interests -somewhat the Peter Singer line- but with a totally different result.

[chaz wyman]

@ chaz wyman excrescence ????? That's the first time I've seen offspring of an organism called as such. But thats beside the point.

The implication was yours.

I suppose there are a number of different ways linked to being a moral agent within a moral ingroup, be it based on personhood or sophisticated personal preferences. Problem is as I see it you then run into the problem associated with the Post Birth Abortion paper and you don't have non arbitrary reasons to keep babies and non person infants alive. Personally my on stance leans towards a Jainist position linked to similar interests -somewhat the Peter Singer line- but with a totally different result.

I think the Jainist position would utterly refute your position on the absolute choice of the woman.
And what is Pete Singer's line here?