Atheism & Abortion

Boston

I oppose government intervention not because I believe people should have a right to choose but rather because I see it as counter productive. In order to be pro choice i would have to believe people should have the right to choose to have an abortions for any reason. I do not hold that belief. saying someone should have a right to do something and saying someone shouldn't be prevented from doing something are too very distinct things from my point of view. If it was possible to have a middle ground between the pro-life and pro-choice, I'd be there.

Hivemind187

Boston wrote: »

I oppose government intervention not because I believe people should have a right to choose but rather because I see it as counter productive. In order to be pro choice i would have to believe people should have the right to choose to have an abortions for any reason. I do not hold that belief. saying someone should have a right to do something and saying someone shouldn't be prevented from doing something are too very distinct things from my point of view. If it was possible to have a middle ground between the pro-life and pro-choice, I'd be there.

Fair enough.

Zombrex

Hivemind187 wrote: »

I have spoken with a number of these pro-life people and not a single one of them, from priests to parents have ever once made a sound rational or logical argument that is supported by any evidence at all.

Can we assume from that they did actually put forward an argument, you just didn't think it was particularly convincing?

That is different that saying they don't have an argument to begin with.

Hivemind187 wrote: »

this, strangely, seems to be a blind spot for you on this issue.

Not at all. I don't find the pro-life arguments that personhood begins at conception convincing at all.

But it would be rather silly of me to suggest that they don't have these arguments to start with, as you appear to be.

Hivemind187 wrote: »

To my mind that means their argument is invalid, that is makes no rational or logical sense.

Yes but you appear to be suggesting that they know this and therefore must be motivated by some other factor to pursue the "pro-life" agenda. And you seem to be suggesting that this motivating factor is a desire to control people.

All that seem rather a bizarre thing to claim. You haven't been watching the recently re-released DVD of the Invasion of the Body Snatchers by any change

Hivemind187 wrote: »

And yes, they do demand the right to control other peoples reproductive system.

Of course they do. How else does one stop someone killing their unborn child?

But again you appear to be suggesting that they pursue this stance specifically to control other peoples reproductive systems, as if they extract some morbid pleasure from controlling people.

Which again is a rather bizarre thing to suggest. It would be like suggesting that people who attempt to out law rape do so because they are fascinated with controlling the sexual habits of rapists.

That of course isn't the motivation. The motivation is to protect people from being raped, not to control the sexual desires of the rapist. That is simply the way they attempt to stop people from being raped.

Hivemind187 wrote: »

Their motivation is irrelevant since it is not their property.

As has already been mentioned on this thread, children are not considered the "property" of their parents.

If the foetus is a "person" then the foetus is not the property of the parent.

You can argue that this doesn't apply because the foetus is not a person, not an individual. And I would agree with you up to a point (brain development)

But again then it is a bizarre thing to claim that the pro-life groups also accept this. They don't, they view the foetus as an individual from the moment of concept, and as such is no more the property of the mother as her 5 year old son is her property.

Hivemind187 wrote: »

spare a thought for one moment that the laws may not be just, or adequate or even, perhaps, that you are still misunderstanding my reasoning.

Your reasoning is irrelevant. By definition the pro-life groups don't agree with your reasoning.

Your entire argument appears to be that they do agree with your reasoning, that they don't view the foetus as a person, but continue to push the pro-life agenda because they wish to control people. Which is nonsense.

Just imagine for a second that you yourself viewed the foetus as an individual person with all the rights that a 5 year old has. What would you do?

Hivemind187 wrote: »

Consider; You have the right to live because you are taking the responsibility to support that life.

I reject that reasoning.

For a start there is no conscious decision to support your own life. It is an automatic process that, apart fro throwing yourself off a bridge, you actually have very little say in.

Secondly all life manages to maintain itself. This is not a property exclusive to humans, so I see no reason to consider it a property worthy of bestowing human rights to. You seem to have skipped over the question of why humans have rights other animals don't, and just jumped into the assumption that they do because they can take responsibility for supporting their own life.

Thirdly, the idea that someone has to do something, either consciously or instinctively, to get rights is one that I'm very uncomfortable with. Rights are bestowed (or should be bestowed) based on what something is, not what it does.

Hivemind187 wrote: »

because I will be robbing you of the right and responsibility of life - an interference with an entity that we can observe supporting itself.

And if my body can't support itself? Then you can kill me?

Under that logic its OK to murder someone who is terminally ill, because their body has given up the "responsibility" of keeping itself alive and is slowly wasting away. If you murder them you aren't doing anything wrong because they aren't supporting their own life and as such have no right to life.

Can you see the problem with that logic?

Hivemind187 wrote: »

Simply the choice to continue supporting the growth of a particular part of the body

The foetus is not, biologically speaking, part of the mothers body. It is, biologically speaking, a separate organism. The mother nourishes the foetus, but it is not part of the mothers body, any more than a child breastfeeding is part of the mothers body.

You are certain right that the foetus cannot survive on its own up until a specific point, but that doesn't mean it is part of the mothers body.

Hivemind187 wrote: »

that is contributing nothing or to cease that support.

I understand what you are saying, that the mother has the right to "disconnect" herself from the process, and if the foetus cannot survive on its own that is its problem.

It is an argument that I've used before to get people to think about the idea of responsibility to help your fellow human vs the right of body integrity. For example, just because you are dying from kidney failure doesn't mean you have the right to take one of my kidneys, even if I can survive without one and you can't. Or at least most people would agree with that.

But when applying that ethical logic to the issue of abortion you get into issues of parental responsibility.

Parents cannot abandon their children to starve to death, even if they want to. Society recognizes that the parent has a duty to the child, even if the parent doesn't agree, to protect and support the child as best they can.

If you agree with that stance, should this not apply equally to the unborn child?

Hivemind187 wrote: »

It is a choice. It is not interfering with any one else.

Well it interferes with the foetus. So it depends on if you consider the foetus "someone else"

Hivemind187 wrote: »

Pro-life want to prevent abortion from taking place because they want to protect something they perceive of being a child.

Exactly.

Hivemind187 wrote: »

They want to be able to make this decision for everyone, not just themselves, or their families or their townspeople. Everybody.

Well obviously. Child neglect is not something one says "Well I wouldn't do it but I don't want to force that position on you"

Can you imagine someone saying "Well I wouldn't lock my children up in the basement while I go on holiday for 6 weeks, but if you want to go ahead. I don't want to interfere with your choices"

I'd imagine not.

Hivemind187 wrote: »

The argument that the law is their to protect is cobblers as well by the way. People murder each other all the time and they dont give a toss about the law or society.

There is strong evidence to support the idea that without an established system of law crime, including violent crime, shoots up.

The legal system doesn't prevent crime, but it does lessens it significantly .

pH

Wicknight wrote: »

The Pro-Life groups are doing this because they believe the foetus is a human being and as such has the exact same rights as any other human being.

You can disagree if you like (I disagree up to a point). But to say that this isn't their argument is nonsense.

I'm not sure I agree with you here, in some respects the 'pro-life' camp doesn't appear to think that the foetus has the same rights and any other human being.

For example compare the following 2 situations, a woman loses a 2 month old baby, or a woman who had not even noticed she was pregnant loses a 2 week old foetus.

Are they saying that the state intervention should be the same in both cases? We'd (as in the state/medical services) investigate the death of a 2 month old baby, are they should the same thing should take place for every miscarriage.

Should all pregnancies be notified to the state? If a woman endangers a 2 week old foetus inside her body through her actions (say taking part in something dangerous) is she a culpable as if she'd done the same with her 2 month old baby strapped to her?

There are many other examples I could give you, but to say that the 'pro-life' camp believe that the unborn has the exact same rights is incorrect based on what they campaign for and how they act.

It is also worth noting a lot of Pro-Lifers in Ireland come from a devout catholic background, an organisation whose position on the rights of the unborn for centuries has been shameful to say the least.

Zombrex

pH wrote: »

I'm not sure I agree with you here, in some respects the 'pro-life' camp doesn't appear to think that the foetus has the same rights and any other human being.

For example compare the following 2 situations, a woman loses a 2 month old baby, or a woman who had not even noticed she was pregnant loses a 2 week old foetus.

Are they saying that the state intervention should be the same in both cases? We'd (as in the state/medical services) investigate the death of a 2 month old baby, are they should the same thing should take place for every miscarriage.

Should all pregnancies be notified to the state? If a woman endangers a 2 week old foetus inside her body through her actions (say taking part in something dangerous) is she a culpable as if she'd done the same with her 2 month old baby strapped to her?

There are many other examples I could give you, but to say that the 'pro-life' camp believe that the unborn has the exact same rights is incorrect based on what they campaign for and how they act.

It is also worth noting a lot of Pro-Lifers in Ireland come from a devout catholic background, an organisation whose position on the rights of the unborn for centuries has been shameful to say the least.

You would be surprised ...

http://women4hope.wordpress.com/2007/09/04/pro-life-or-pro-choiceyou-must-agree-that-criminalizing-miscarriage-is-wrong-with-youtube-video/

Rev Hellfire

I would imagine the issue there isn't if a miscarriage occurred but if an illegal abortion was performed (by illegal I mean not carried out by a registered clinic).

Scofflaw

Rev Hellfire wrote: »

I would imagine the issue there isn't if a miscarriage occurred but if an illegal abortion was performed (by illegal I mean not carried out by a registered clinic).

Wouldn't it be the point of the investigation to determine that? The first investigation that is undertaken in any death is whether there is any suspicion that there has been foul play.

Logically, you'd check every miscarriage to determine whether it was accidental death or murder.

cordially,
Scofflaw

karen3212

Where are all the atheist pro-lifers?

Is there any argument against saying that two people inhabiting the same body can't have the same rights?

I mean in the sense that carring a pregnancy to term, carries a higher risk to the woman's life. From a pro-lifer's point of view, do they think she is entitled to more of a right to life than a foetus? So in that sense do they think the foetus has less of a right to life than the mother? If so, they already concede that the two are not equal, and the foetus is less of a human being/person.

Ciaran500

karen3212 wrote: »

Is there any argument against saying that two people inhabiting the same body can't have the same rights?

There is, read the thread.

EDIT: This was added in later

karen3212 wrote: »

So in that sense do they think the foetus has less of a right to life than the mother? If so, they already concede that the two are not equal, and the foetus is less of a human being/person.

That's exactly what has been argued over for the last 16 pages...

Zombrex

Rev Hellfire wrote: »

I would imagine the issue there isn't if a miscarriage occurred but if an illegal abortion was performed (by illegal I mean not carried out by a registered clinic).

As Scofflaw points out, that is the point.

pH's point was that if pro-lifers really believe that the foetus is a full person, then they would want to carry out the same form of investigation when a foetus dies as when a child dies, to determine if a crime has taken place.

A miscarriage is an act of nature, like a child falling off a tree onto a pile of rusty nails and then being eaten alive by ants .. or something ...

But apparently it still requires an investigation to rule out foul play.

karen3212

Ciaran500 wrote: »

There is, read the thread.

EDIT: This was added in later

That's exactly what has been argued over for the last 16 pages...

oh, I was actually talking more about the extremist pro-life people, if you know what i mean

robindch

karen3212 wrote:

Where are all the atheist pro-lifers?

For the reasons I gave before, I don't like the term "pro-life". But having said that, my position is pretty much the same as the more moderate pro-lifers, though probably for different reasons and certainly with caveats.

Rev Hellfire

An interesting article in todays breakingnews.ie on the subject.

Hivemind187

Wicknight wrote: »

A miscarriage is an act of nature, like a child falling off a tree onto a pile of rusty nails and then being eaten alive by ants .. or something ...

I'm giving points for creativity here +1 for the ants.

John Wine

karen3212 wrote: »

Is there any argument against saying that two people inhabiting the same body can't have the same rights?

How about siamese twins? Can one kill the other?

Gurgle

karen3212 wrote:

Where are all the atheist pro-lifers?

Right here, being ignored when we make a comment. And its not pro-life, its anti-abortion.

I mean in the sense that carring a pregnancy to term, carries a higher risk to the woman's life. From a pro-lifer's point of view, do they think she is entitled to more of a right to life than a foetus?

No, their rights are equal but I would not force a woman to carry a pregnancy to term where the pregnancy was causing a real medical threat to her life.

So in that sense do they think the foetus has less of a right to life than the mother? If so, they already concede that the two are not equal, and the foetus is less of a human being/person.

Not at all, thats a silly arguement.

Would you force an anaemic haemophiliac to give blood to save a car accident victim?

Would answering 'no' to that question mean that a car accident victim is less of a human being than the anaemic haemophiliac?

In your example you would be compromising her right to life in favour of the unborn baby's.

karen3212

Gurgle wrote: »

Right here, being ignored when we make a comment. And its not pro-life, its anti-abortion.

No, their rights are equal but I would not force a woman to carry a pregnancy to term where the pregnancy was causing a real medical threat to her life.
.

But that is what I'm thinking about. How much of a risk. Having a baby is I think 13 times riskier than having an abortion. (from the figures I've seen)

Gurgle

karen3212 wrote: »

But that is what I'm thinking about. How much of a risk. Having a baby is I think 13 times riskier than having an abortion. (from the figures I've seen)

Care to do a linky?

coffee_cake

I can't find the factor, but any googled site I see says childbirth is far riskier than abortion. Which I've heard plenty of times previously anyway.

Conar

1/1,000,000 with surgical abortion through 63 days gestation[8]
1/100,000 with medical abortion through 63 days gestation[9]
1/100,000 with miscarriage[7]
1/10,000 with a term delivery[10]

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/529318

karen3212

Gurgle wrote: »

Care to do a linky?

sorry I can't find the article. But I think the numbers above were similar to the ones I saw.

Anyway, I have to say it's good that people at least talk about abortion.