Jump to content
Objectivism Online Forum

Late Term Abortion

Rate this topic


 thenelli01

Recommended Posts

7 hours ago, whYNOT said:

What? I have not used derogatory "slogans" of any type to anyone.

You introduced the term, even though no one said it.

So anyway, yeah. Swig didn't quite act appropriately. Don't need to be so sensitive about it, but your ideas certainly reflect a kind of... Ignorance and disregard for women.

7 hours ago, whYNOT said:

"It still isn't an entity that bears any rights". And why not, in future?

Wow. I've been given so many reasons, you even said that rights are something of a red herring. Now you're asking me to explain. Even though I did explain, and that's when you said it was something of a red herring. Oh well. I just hope my post about NYP was interesting or useful to anyone reading along.

Edit: just so it makes a little more sense, of course the fetus will develop into something that bears rights - I've explained how to know when it has (basically in between points 2 and 3 in that post on page 1). 

Edited by Eiuol
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
On 6/23/2019 at 3:44 AM, Eiuol said:

You introduced the term, even though no one said it.

So anyway, yeah. Swig didn't quite act appropriately. Don't need to be so sensitive about it, but your ideas certainly reflect a kind of... Ignorance and disregard for women.

 

"Ignorance and disregard". I have nothing but high regard for all the women (80 to 95+ percent, depending on which polls) who take their bodies, lives and pregnancy, her embryo/fetus or motherhood, with the gravity this deserves and who choose to take immediate steps for an abortion when they have unwanted, accidental pregnancies. This I've made clear. That great majority of women, very apparently, have such high consciousness, self-esteem and respect for a potential life, (and the responsibility of raising a child) to allow for arbitrary actions on this. I am on their side.

Otoh, it is all of you who've argued in support of (let's say) the more irresponsible, irrational woman, the small minority, who leaves her decision late, then - amorally chooses to have her fetus killed, rather than even to get it adopted.  

In other words, it seems you don't expect very much from women. (The soft bigotry of low expectations, as it's called).

Then - who has the greater respect for women, you or I?  

Edited by whYNOT
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, whYNOT said:

Otoh, it is all of you who've argued in support of (let's say) the more irresponsible, irrational woman, the small minority, who leaves her decision late, then - amorally chooses to have her fetus killed, rather than even to get it adopted.  

I've repeatedly made the case that "waiting a while" isn't even a moral error (especially because we don't know the circumstances). I can't have low expectations if my expectation is that when people do make this decision, it's usually a moral one.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 hours ago, whYNOT said:

Otoh, it is all of you who've argued in support of (let's say) the more irresponsible, irrational woman, the small minority, who leaves her decision late, then - amorally chooses to have her fetus killed, rather than even to get it adopted.  

Why aren't you critical of the woman who hastily aborts in the first trimester and regrets it later? Isn't she more irrational than the woman who takes her time and carefully thinks about it until the third trimester? With such a difficult decision to be made, I thought you'd sympathize with the woman who waited until she was certain of the best choice for her. Or are you not interested in what's good for the woman?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 7/5/2019 at 5:27 AM, Eiuol said:

I've repeatedly made the case that "waiting a while" isn't even a moral error (especially because we don't know the circumstances). I can't have low expectations if my expectation is that when people do make this decision, it's usually a moral one.

"waiting a while" - what, 36 weeks, or 24 or 20? Is 22 weeks not long enough to make a serious, far-reaching choice? If it is not, and she's unsure, than one would think it's best she doesn't go ahead with the pregnancy. Does she want to risk eventually having to kill her viable fetus, an existing human, while making up her mind?

As basics, I think to intend having a child needs 1. conviction 2. fitting circumstances. If either is lacking, I don't think the choice is rational.

The stats speak for themselves - if you've not heard several mothers and other women make clear their repugnance, as I recounted. The majority of women will not, pro-choicers, included, venture into the third trimester to have an abortion. Even if they are ambivalent about the biological existence of a human life, and have (somehow) been oblivious to the fetus' size and weight and of its sporadic movements which they personally sense, it appears the 'procedure' itself, finally puts them off. A fetus is not "a clump of cells".The in situ crushing of a skull and evacuation of the remains has become too well-known and unforgettable. A woman's 'natural instinct', so to speak, is never to kill what they perhaps, earlier, valued. Her "instinct" is entirely rational and moral. [So, btw, making her difficult choice to abort before that "bright line" point is fully deserving of one's sympathy].

The real moral blame should go to the medical practitioners who supply the service, who conduct the late/full term abortion. They know exactly what is involved, so can't evade the actuality. And they are ethically bound by the Hippocratic Oath (with all the provisos of foremost acting for their patient's life and health, of course). They would have to face criminal charges.

Edited by whYNOT
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, whYNOT said:

Even if they are ambivalent about the biological existence of a human life, and have (somehow) been oblivious to the fetus' size and weight and of its sporadic movements which they personally sense, it appears the 'procedure' itself, finally puts them off.

Seriously, this is where I see you going from presenting your case, to then expressing incredulity of how a woman would have a late abortion and assume their ambivalence. What evidence do you even have that they are ambivalent about life, and are ignoring what's happening to their body? All you did is give me a reason based on some assumption of what it feels like to be pregnant, and demonize a subset of women because their experience doesn't conform to your expectation of what being pregnant is like. 

1 hour ago, whYNOT said:

They know exactly what is involved, so can't evade the actuality

Have you extensively studied embryology? Have you gone to med school to study how to give abortions?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Eiuol said:

Seriously, this is where I see you going from presenting your case, to then expressing incredulity of how a woman would have a late abortion and assume their ambivalence. What evidence do you even have that they are ambivalent about life, and are ignoring what's happening to their body? All you did is give me a reason based on some assumption of what it feels like to be pregnant, and demonize a subset of women because their experience doesn't conform to your expectation of what being pregnant is like. 

Have you extensively studied embryology? Have you gone to med school to study how to give abortions?

"What evidence ..." Do you know anything about women and pregnancy? have you asked many? Why do you need evidence for what only concerns one's thoughts and evaluations based on universally- known facts at large, and Objectivist principles?

Have you looked into the mechanics of a late fetal extraction? It is quite simple. Studying embryology will tell you little more than you need.

And I said "...even if they are ambivalent about ..." I made no "assumption".

A query, if assumed the fetus is a living, viable being, can it be a/immoral to kill it? If yes to both, then would you not at least criticize (heh, "demonize") the only person who HAS the power and made the choice to do so? Or would you "conform to" her wishes? Why would a woman get a moral pass to kill, which you wouldn't allow a man? Answer these questions, please. They are the crux of my argument which you avoid with sophistry.

See the polls and make the obvious inferences. A large majority of women, about half pro-choice, think late abortion is wrong. The arguments for and against late abortion, fetal viability, etc. *may* make some "ambivalent" -- but even if uncertain they (rationally) plainly don't take the chance of ending the life of an advanced fetus - in such a crude and probably painful (for the fetus) manner, especially - later to perhaps suffer guilt and remorse. And just because they were slow making up their minds..

Tell them it is their reproductive right, and they won't do it. Tell them the law doesn't forbid it, they still won't. And you supposedly support women.... but they and men are the same species of rational animal! To show respect for women I suggest treat them by the same standard of rational (and emotional) beings they are, no less than men. I think Eiuol you're implicitly agitating for a Leftist, SJW, and hard-core feminist 'principle' that few women would ever act upon but find it unethical/distasteful/non-self-respecting - and, being politically pragmatic, it is a non-principle, no guide to moral action. Thank god most women know better. As the one I linked to, wrote:

"These abortion laws aren't what pro-choice is supposed to mean".

Quite.

 

Edited by whYNOT
Link to comment
Share on other sites

No one shares my interest in finding the objective - not subjective nor intrinsicist - solution to abortion, so I'll end here. Thanks and be well, guys! See you another time and place.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, whYNOT said:

And I said "...even if they are ambivalent about ..." I made no "assumption".

It isn't fair or sensible to just state what people might possibly think, not as a part to your discussion. Your "even if" is pointless, except to say that you see something patently immoral about women who get late-term abortions. At no point did you ever say "not all women who get late-term abortions are acting immorally". Throughout the entire thread, you have been talking about how it is always immoral. Are you now conceding that at least some women get late-term abortions for rational reasons? If you don't concede that, then what does it matter that hearing details about the procedure put some women off of getting them? Yuckiness is not a valid justification, and you know as well as I do that intuitions aren't proof of good thinking. 

So, forget assumptions, it's more like conspiratorial thinking. You know, coming up with scenarios that would justify an ad hoc theory of why the world doesn't line up with your intuitions. 

2 hours ago, whYNOT said:

A query, if assumed the fetus is a living, viable being, can it be a/immoral to kill it?

Yes, because it doesn't possess rights. I would of course criticize (even demonize) if a woman got abortions for immoral reasons - the examples you gave were not cases that I thought were immoral, or completely fictionalized such that no such women might exist. But I'm not going to discuss that further, it comes across that you completely forgot about that part of our discussion and starting from the beginning again. I'm tired of that. Ask questions about my previous posts if you genuinely don't understand my position. And stop mentioning fetal pain. Even you said that it's not part of your argument.

2 hours ago, whYNOT said:

And just because they were slow making up their minds..

Wow. You did it again. You rephrased what you wrote so many times already, without making a case for why this is immoral.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As per usual, Eiuol, you apply the common, societal, normative standards to my use of "moral". 

So saying that I "demonize" a woman's - or any person's - choice by some societal standards or by religious morals. This is "social metaphysics" which I repudiate. 

Have you heard of the ethics of rational selfishness? 

You can't accept that an advanced fetus can be killed "amorally" - as I have always called the act - because it doesn't "possess rights"?

That's completely untrue and circular reasoning. "Life" is the base of rights. Rights don't themselves determine whether an act is moral or immoral. One can act within one's rights and commit a moral breach(rationally-selfishly, to repeat). I brought this up a few times and it was ignored. (That I suggested too that, as the result, a viable fetus should in future have the same rights an infant has, is something else).

Always, you pick the lowest hanging branch. "Yuckiness" is the most minor part of what I have put out here, plainly referring to the "crude" procedure being one motive to put many women off late abortion.

"Rational reasons"? What you have are *practical reasons*. E.g. , "my husband left so now I want a last-minute abortion. And adoption? Why bother?" Which definitely tells one she didn't place much rationally-selfish value in having her child, to begin with - i.e. she had amoral ( in terms of rational -selfishness, again) premises. 

Easy. You can't and won't accept the basic premise of an individual, viable, human entity as being "life" in its own right and worthy of continuing to live - you will never accept any other premise or consequence. Fine. Say so and let's move on. 

Edited by whYNOT
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, whYNOT said:

One can act within one's rights and commit a moral breach(rationally-selfishly, to repeat). 

Yeah, that's where we began the conversation... You and I were talking about the morality of late-term abortions. Until you started saying that it was a violation of the fetus's rights.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 hours ago, whYNOT said:

One can act within one's rights and commit a moral breach(rationally-selfishly, to repeat). I brought this up a few times and it was ignored.

So, let's not ignore it. Did you mean to say that an immoral act can be done rationally and selfishly?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...