Bodily integrity vs moral responsibility

You think it’s wrong. You’re concerned with the psychological harm that you think they’re imposing on themselves. By requiring a waiting period and forcing them to view an ultrasound, you’re simply reinstating your initial judgement. This condemnatory action contains far more psychological harm than any potential regrets.

You seem like a very judgmental person.

How is informed consent harmful...unless the person already feels some sense of guilt? How is that "condemnatory"? You have to presume the woman has some negative feelings about having an abortion before she can feel condemned by any minimal requirement that she is sure of her choice. She must infer condemnation, where in an abortion clinic certainly none exists or is implied.

“There’s this thought that women are just too scattered, we’re too impulsive, we are too hormonal, we can’t make good decisions for ourselves,... We need the state to give us an ultrasound because we must not really realize that we’re pregnant; we have to go away for 24 hours and think it over.

Can you imagine if these kinds of restrictions were put on any other kind of health care in America?”
- Cecile Richards (Planned Parenthood Federation of America President) https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle...story.html

Yes. There are much more restrictions for GRS...in America. We don't have to imagine. We just have to wonder...why the hypocritical double-standard?


Science and reason are all about judgment.

Morality is divided by love and compassion and respecting the rights of others. One dictates our purpose and the other allows us to determine our own. One appeals to empathy and the other to fair play. One appeals to groups and the other to individuality. One is emotional and the other judicial. Both are equally necessary. Love without boundaries can lead to extremes and morals without love is sterile. Excessive integration in society is correlated with altruistic suicide and the lack of integration yields an increase rate of suicide.

However, public opinion is swayed by emotions. Emotions trump reason every damn time.

While we may be the carriers of life and serve its future, in doing so, we must discover its value for ourselves, and its value resides in the present.

No one is pro-abortion. No one says, "YAY! For abortion." No one says "YAY! For assisted suicide." Distinguishing between brain birth and brain death is a difficult matter. It’s pro-choice not pro-abortion.

I think at one point you even said that termination would be acceptable prior to brain waves. Both brain birth and brain death remain controversial. Most people seem to agree that higher brain birth begins in the vicinity of 24-36 weeks. Almost everyone seems to agree that even a zygote is a potential life, but not everyone feels that a woman’s primary role is to be a carrier for that potential life. It’s difficult to appreciate how something can be viewed as having been murdered when it has never lived.

Is this more talking out of your hat, or do you have some source to cite? Sounds like base sentimentality.

No matter how people may justify it to themselves, being pro-choice is functionally pro-abortion. No one says, "YAY! Abortion"?

YAY ABORTION! Best SCOTUS Decision Ever Strikes Down Texas’s Garbage TRAP Laws

Yay! California Abortion Access Bill Heads To Governor's Office

"More access" to abortion literally means more abortion. If you're not willing to drive four hours to an abortion clinic, then maybe you don't have the conviction of your own "choice". Why does pro-choice basically equate to pro-easy-and-convenient-choice? Because if people are required to show some dedication to their own choice, they have a much more difficult time denying their own misgivings. "Pro-choice" people don't just promote choice, or even alternatives like adoption. They promote easier abortions, even to the extent of demanding free abortions. So easy you don't even have to pay.


Let's face it. There is never going to be any point in fetal development, shy of birth, that the abortion crowd is ever going to consider a justifiable limit on abortion. So discussions of that sort of incrementalism is rather pointless. You even seem to be saying that having life experience defines what is alive, in which case, I'd question what counts as "having lived"? Sentimentality is a very poor substitute for objective criteria. We know what life is, and no matter the justifications, abortion ends a life.

As long as abortion is legal, I'm pro-choice...but only if that choice is egalitarian. It currently is not. How do you justify that?

(Aug 25, 2016 04:59 PM)Ben the Donkey Wrote: I think the problem I've always had is that i'm not as interested in the minutiae as others are. I like the big picture, the why, and the how as a result of the why.

I’m not like Ben.  The big picture scares me.  It makes me aware of my limits, and makes me feel helpless, tempered only through aesthetics. Meaning is elusive for me, fleeting, and a master of disguise. It slips through my fingers like sand.  So, I try to focus on a few grains. That’s why I’m drawn to physics.  Even though its goal is to understand the universe, I can hide in the details.

Syne Wrote:As long as abortion is legal, I'm pro-choice...but only if that choice is egalitarian. It currently is not. How do you justify that?

It’s not up to you or me to justify anything.  The judicial system is designed for that.  It’s a collective process but even agreement never yields complete certainty.  We are not creating laws of physics.  We don’t create laws of physics, we discover them, but even they are idealized and contained within a closed system.  All truths are conditional.  

Syne Wrote:Sentimentality is a very poor substitute for objective criteria. We know what life is, and no matter the justifications, abortion ends a life.

We may know what life is but we don’t know how to live.  What makes you think that you can deliver a more promising future?  We’re notoriously bad at predicting the future.  

Like I said earlier, life is "Nature's war"—the great tribulation.  In the jungle there is no right or wrong.  We long to go back but there’s no turning back.  You can take the man out of the jungle but you can’t take the jungle out of the man.  We became aware of our choices.  The agony of choice flooded the market with absolute truths.  We buy and sell snake oil.  

So, what is it exactly that you’re peddling here, Syne?

(Sep 14, 2016 12:26 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote:

Syne Wrote:As long as abortion is legal, I'm pro-choice...but only if that choice is egalitarian. It currently is not. How do you justify that?

It’s not up to you or me to justify anything.  The judicial system is designed for that.  It’s a collective process but even agreement never yields complete certainty.  We are not creating laws of physics.  We don’t create laws of physics, we discover them, but even they are idealized and contained within a closed system.  All truths are conditional.  

Oh, that's right. You have utterly no concern whether anything you believe or promote is in the least little bit consistent. Do you generally believe in egalitarianism? If so, why don't you care about it in this case? Do you have any principles you care enough about that you promote them consistently, even when it may conflict with some of your other interests? I seriously doubt it. No, you are just much more likely to sing a different tune, at your own whim, on any given issue. I doubt you can see how that makes any opinion you have about morals (or anything else) ridiculously pointless.

Again, ad infinitum, it's not about certainty....it's about consistency, which is the basis for all of science.

Quote:

Syne Wrote:Sentimentality is a very poor substitute for objective criteria. We know what life is, and no matter the justifications, abortion ends a life.

We may know what life is but we don’t know how to live.  What makes you think that you can deliver a more promising future?  We’re notoriously bad at predicting the future.  

Like I said earlier, life is "Nature's war"—the great tribulation.  In the jungle there is no right or wrong.  We long to go back but there’s no turning back.  You can take the man out of the jungle but you can’t take the jungle out of the man.  We became aware of our choices.  The agony of choice flooded the market with absolute truths.  We buy and sell snake oil.  

So, what is it exactly that you’re peddling here, Syne?

How can you even feign an interest in science when you mock its every precept? If "knowing how to live" were a requirement to determining anything, we wouldn't have all the things that make survival easy enough for you to while away your time on the internet...nor even hope for the degree of egalitarianism we've achieved (which allows you to live life without being completely dependent on a man for your survival). Who said anything about a "more promising future"? You keep making irrational and non-sequitur strawman assumptions, but then I really should expect that.

"Tribulation"? "Agony of choice"? Are you sure you're not religious?

I'm selling nothing but the most objective criteria (which is the only criteria that can ever be so widely agreed upon) to determine what is best for everyone. Subjective opinions on ethics inevitably favor someone's opinion at the cost/suffering of others.

Oh, boy!

If you’re trying to improve your debate tactics then you should at least be familiar with the topic of discussion.  You start off with ethics on BIID, GRS, and assisted suicide, and then jump into an abortion debate.  You haven’t provided any reliable scientific data.  It reminds me of the little "ex nihilo" phase that you went through. 

You’ve said that you don’t think homosexuality is right. You want women to have a waiting period and be forced to view a sonogram.  You’re pro-choice as long as it’s legal, but only if that choice is egalitarian.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ll assume that you’re not speaking about equal access to abortions.  You’re speaking about gender equality.  If that’s the case, I can only tell you my feelings.  I don’t think that a man should be able to force a woman to be a container, but I also don’t think that a woman should be able to force a man to be a father.

If that’s what you wanted to know, you could have just asked.  I can't even imagine having to have a conversation with you in person.  That would torture.  And men say we’re hard to figure out.

The ethics of BIID, GRS, etc. very much do reflect on those of abortion, since pro-abortion advocates say the fetus is part of the woman's body. If you can't make that simple connection, I really can't help you. "Scientific data"? For what? For ethics? Good luck trying to sound sciency to defray your hypocritical inconsistencies. I've already told you that consistent objective criteria are better than the subjective feelings you rely on. Which is more scientifically valid? Are you now trying to backpedal?

How on earth would a man being able to force a woman to keep a child be egalitarian? But we agree on forcing a man to be a father. If a woman can opt-out of an existing pregnancy, the egalitarian thing is to allow the man to do so as well. No financial or other obligation whatsoever. At least that would make legal abortion equal among the genders.

What's so hard to understand about holding people to consistent values? If you think there should be requirements to ensure that GRS recipients are aware and committed to their choice, it is only consistent to do the same for any other procedure that involves "your body". And if you believe in gender equality, it is only consistent to believe so for abortion rights as well. Ethics and science both require consistency.

So you seem to be consistent on gender equality, but not so much on the needs for medical informed consent.

So why the concern for the person removing a limb, or eyesight, but not the person removing a whole life? Because it isn't "cute"? That is ethically appalling. Anyone who espouses that ethical hypocrisy should feel ashamed, but then, emotions are good at justifying themselves contrary to all reason.

It’s a false equivalence.