Abortion Discussion

Brown Bomber

gaynorvader wrote: »

I'm going to summarise what I think BrownBomber is saying without all the sensationalism. Please correct me if I get anything wrong, and apologies if this comes across as arrogant, I'm just trying to get my head around it.

• Abortions are fine so long as the foetus had no chance of surviving outside of its mother's womb.
• If a woman qualifies for an abortion and the foetus has a chance of surviving outside of the womb, she should have a C-section instead and the foetus should be given a fighting chance of survival.
• If a woman has a c-section instead of an abortion she waives all parental rights to that baby and it goes up for adoption/orphanage/foster home/whatever.
• If a c-section would endanger a woman's life, where an abortion would not, but the foetus has a chance for survival, the woman should be forced to have the c-section (I'm least sure on this one tbh).

Please let me know if I've misunderstood your views anywhere here BB.

Just one point - I don't believe any woman should be forced to do anything against their will, least of all have surgery. I just believe the above would be more moral with the womans acquiesence.

I would never say abortions are fine but they they can be the lesser of two evils.

shruikan2553

Brown Bomber wrote: »

Just one point - I don't believe any woman should be forced to do anything against their will, least of all have surgery.

Except for continuing with a pregnancy.

Bannasidhe

Brown Bomber wrote: »

And how is it going to the extreme?

You tell me then when is the next morally significant change from a viable infant to birth...

I believe I asked you a direct question yesterday- how about you answer that eh?

gaynorvader

Brown Bomber wrote: »

Just one point - I don't believe any woman should be forced to do anything against their will, least of all have surgery. I just believe the above would be more moral with the womans acquiesence.

I would never say abortions are fine but they they can be the lesser of two evils.

I think I may actually agree with you then. I don't believe abortion is wrong, but I do think that giving the foetus the chance has no downside to it.

coolhull

gaynorvader wrote: »

I think I may actually agree with you then. I don't believe abortion is wrong, but I do think that giving the foetus the chance has no downside to it.

So we finally have an agreement!

doctoremma

Brown Bomber wrote: »

You tell me then when is the next morally significant change from a viable infant to birth...

My first post of this subject was to ask the question: why is the achievement of viability (albeit, not without aggressive medical intervention) somehow "morally" significant?

To say "Well, it's obvious" or, as you have done above, not address it and carry on as if we are all still assuming it to be a morally significant event, is not really going to cut it for me.

doctoremma

Brown Bomber wrote: »

the potentially morally significant stages of human development

1. Fertilisation
2. Implantation
3. viability of the foetus
4. ?????
5. Birth
6. Infanthood
7. Realisation of "self.

My point is that if the cut off point for abortion is not 3 then when should it be? I can think of no morally significant transition that takes place between 3 and 5 above.

This list comprises a "mix" of events, and I don't see how how any carry any innate moral significance. Moral significance is a human application.

I can understand the application of moral significance to a born child. I can actually understand why some would want to apply moral significance to a fertilized egg. I don't see why moral significance comes with viability.

MrPudding

doctoremma wrote: »

This list comprises a "mix" of events, and I don't see how how any carry any innate moral significance. Moral significance is a human application.

I can understand the application of moral significance to a born child. I can actually understand why some would want to apply moral significance to a fertilized egg. I don't see why moral significance comes with viability.

I have to say, I am unsure as the the practicality of viability as a. AdeqjAte measure. My personal feeling is that the limit for elective abortions, by which I mean an abortion for no reason other than the woman wants one, should be limited to when the foetus could be born and survive, so viability, I suppose. My issue is, however, how does one measure viability?

Is that the child will have a reasonable chance of survival, but also a reasonable chance of being profoundly disabled mean it is viable? What about where it will only survive for a few days or weeks?

Also, BB seems to think that there are tests that can be run for viability. Now, I am no expert, but I would have thought that each case would be different a d there is no solid way of working out in advance how a particular foetus will react to being delivered prematurely. No? In addition, and related, I expect that some of the issues that will effect the viability of a premature baby will be the result of the delivery itself, which can be complicated by the underdevelopment, and cannot, therefore, be known in advance.

Whilst I am not trying to promote some kind of eugenics program, I do question the ethics and morality of delivering babies that will be profoundly disabled or will otherwise suffer as a result of their disabilities or because of complications due to their early delivery. And before BB suggests it, no, I do not think we should euthanise disabled children, I simply think that we should consider options and what is actually best for the child when deciding what to do when that child is still to be born.

MrP

old hippy

Brown Bomber wrote: »

Where have I said anything about the conjoined twins being foetuses? They are 20 years old- Can't make this any easier for you.

Sorry, getting a bit confused what with all the twins/nazis/paedophiles and slaves cropping up in the thread :rolleyes:

Bannasidhe

old hippy wrote: »

Sorry, getting a bit confused what with all the twins/nazis/paedophiles and slaves cropping up in the thread :rolleyes:

not to mention the skull crushing and ripping limb from limb.

aloyisious

One person's "moralist" can be another person's "heel on the head".

Objective morality.......

Objective morality is the idea that a certain system of ethics or set of moral judgments is not just true according to a person's subjective opinion, but factually true. Proponents of this theory would argue that a statement like "Murder is wrong" can be as objectively true as "1 + 1 = 2." Most of the time, the alleged source is God; no objective source of morality has ever been confirmed, nor have any prior proofs been offered to the effect that morality is anything other than subjective.

The moral principles that people claim to be "objective" usually coincide very well with what they feel subjectively to be true. When pressed to provide justification, the person in question will usually just fail to understand that morality might not be objective, and might consequently grow increasingly doubtful or hysterical as the subjective bases of their arguments are progressively revealed, as has been observed in recent times.

Nodin

old hippy wrote: »

Sorry, getting a bit confused what with all the twins/nazis/paedophiles and slaves cropping up in the thread :rolleyes:

...its like coming across an old review of "Reign In Blood" betimes...

Mark Hamill

doctoremma wrote: »

My first post of this subject was to ask the question: why is the achievement of viability (albeit, not without aggressive medical intervention) somehow "morally" significant?

If it were so, then it would beg the question that if we got to the technological stage that we could incubate a foetus outside a human body for its entire gestation period, would we be morally obligated to do so for every egg and sperm pair?

Obliq

Mark Hamill wrote: »

If it were so, then it would beg the question that if we got to the technological stage that we could incubate a foetus outside a human body for its entire gestation period, would we be morally obligated to do so for every egg and sperm pair?

Good question. Better ask BB, as he's the moral authority on all things embryonic.....




edit: I'm sure there'd be a really good and moral reason as for why we couldn't do that though....and it'll be much better than the reasoning that women who decide for an abortion use. *bitter laugh*

shruikan2553

Mark Hamill wrote: »

If it were so, then it would beg the question that if we got to the technological stage that we could incubate a foetus outside a human body for its entire gestation period, would we be morally obligated to do so for every egg and sperm pair?

He doesnt care about sperm or eggs. Only from his randomly chosen point does he care about life.

gaynorvader

MrPudding wrote: »

I have to say, I am unsure as the the practicality of viability as a. AdeqjAte measure. My personal feeling is that the limit for elective abortions, by which I mean an abortion for no reason other than the woman wants one, should be limited to when the foetus could be born and survive, so viability, I suppose. My issue is, however, how does one measure viability?

Is that the child will have a reasonable chance of survival, but also a reasonable chance of being profoundly disabled mean it is viable? What about where it will only survive for a few days or weeks?

Also, BB seems to think that there are tests that can be run for viability. Now, I am no expert, but I would have thought that each case would be different a d there is no solid way of working out in advance how a particular foetus will react to being delivered prematurely. No? In addition, and related, I expect that some of the issues that will effect the viability of a premature baby will be the result of the delivery itself, which can be complicated by the underdevelopment, and cannot, therefore, be known in advance.

Whilst I am not trying to promote some kind of eugenics program, I do question the ethics and morality of delivering babies that will be profoundly disabled or will otherwise suffer as a result of their disabilities or because of complications due to their early delivery. And before BB suggests it, no, I do not think we should euthanise disabled children, I simply think that we should consider options and what is actually best for the child when deciding what to do when that child is still to be born.

MrP

This, for me, has become the crux of the question.

doctoremma

MrPudding wrote: »

My issue is, however, how does one measure viability?

Is that the child will have a reasonable chance of survival, but also a reasonable chance of being profoundly disabled mean it is viable? What about where it will only survive for a few days or weeks?

I came across this paper this morning: http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3560289.pdf

As I predict many of you may not be able to access it, I will summarise below:

The authors acknowledge that viability has played a role in setting policy on abortion, in neonatal care and on research. They outline four considerations for a rigorous discussion of the usefulness of viability in setting public policy.

1. Intrinsic .v. extrinsic viability. Fetal viability is reflective of environment (whether a modern SCBU unit or the natural womb, whether 500 years ago or now, whether in the developed or developing world) to a far greater extent than it being an intrinsic property of the fetus (which must be unchanged in human history). Conclusion: "Viability, therefore, is always a relative quality, reflecting both the intrinsic developmental properties of the fetus and the extrinsic facts of environment and technology".

2. Natural .v. artificial support. All infants depend on artificial support at some level, even if it that comprises only warmth and milk. Conclusion: "While there is no intrinsic quality of viability without regard to external circumstances, there is also no requirement for complete independence from them for viability to exist".

3. Length of survival. Even the most premature infant not born dead (so displaying a single heartbeat, a single breath, a single pulse of brain activity) could technically be considered viable for at least a few seconds. However, this does not conform to "ordinary notions" of viability, so we must accept a minimum period of survival in any definition of viability. Conclusion: "biological facts alone cannot determine the appropriate interval. Instead the interval seems to depend on preference or convention".

4. Empirical .v. predictive viability. Empirical factors usually include gestational age and weight (or a combination of the two), covering medians/modes/averages/minimums, as befits the individual preference of policy-makers. Conclusion: "The use of minimum gestational age or weight rather than other criteria is in fact an implicit policy rather than a definition".

Viability and medical care/abortion: "Since viability must depend on arbitrary variables, it cannot bear the conceptual burden that some demand of it in the abortion debate...Even if viability entailed a single, definite boundary, its significance would be open to doubt. Michael Tooley has argued that an organism's physiological dependence on another organism is irrelevant to the question of its right to life, and presumably to other rights.

"In treatment decisions, the physician is considering the use of expensive and possibly painful medical intervention to prolong the patient's life. The relevance and importance of viability is obvious: if the patient is not viable, the intervention is pointless and ought not to be carried out.

"In the abortion decision, however, viability is purely hypothetical. The decision is not whether to resuscitate the womb-bound fetus. The question is whether the fetus, if it were removed from the womb, could be resuscitated - in which case (since it would be viable) it ought not to be removed. [Thus] the viability criterion is puzzling in its logic. Why should a fetus's capacity to live independently be a reason to forbid the mother from forcing it to live independently?"

doctoremma

A shorter, but sweeter, blog post here:
http://www.owen.org/abortion-and-viability/

The key point for me (my emphasis): If we should attach moral worth to a foetus, it is because of the characteristics it has (e.g because it feels pain or because God has infused it with a soul) or because we attach value to what it has the potential to become. Whether or not a foetus has moral worth cannot possibly depend on whether scientists have yet developed an effective artificial incubator.

gaynorvader

doctoremma wrote: »

A shorter, but sweeter, blog post here:
http://www.owen.org/abortion-and-viability/

The key point for me (my emphasis): If we should attach moral worth to a foetus, it is because of the characteristics it has (e.g because it feels pain or because God has infused it with a soul) or because we attach value to what it has the potential to become. Whether or not a foetus has moral worth cannot possibly depend on whether scientists have yet developed an effective artificial incubator.

Why not? Would you not say that there is a moral imperative to try save someone using all the tools science has given us? I don't think the woman's body should be put under undue risk to save the foetus, but if it can be extracted and saved with science without harm to the woman, why is that not our moral obligation to try?

TheChizler

gaynorvader wrote: »

Why not? Would you not say that there is a moral imperative to try save someone using all the tools science has given us? I don't think the woman's body should be put under undue risk to save the foetus, but if it can be extracted and saved with science without harm to the woman, why is that not our moral obligation to try?

As someone posted above, by extension that line would extend to saving every single zygote. How many conceptions end in spontaneous miscarriage? I'm pretty sure it's a significant fraction, if not the majority? Please correct me if I'm wrong.

But if the technology progressed to the ability to incubate from egg/sperm fusion to bouncing baby, and the zygote had a greater chance of survival in this incubator than in the womb, would we be morally obliged to extract and artificially grow the cells rather then leave them in the relatively risky uterus?

Withholding making contraception mandatory to ensure that zygotes cannot be formed in the body and only making babies through IVF, the only practical situation is to establish some sort of developmental threshold above which the zygote/blastocyst/embryo/foetus gains legal protection.

Edit: That would be the subject of a very interesting ethical essay. "The logical conclusions of assigning the right to life at the point of external viability". I presume it's been done? We could get the crowd BB referred to to do it.

iwantmydinner

TheChizler wrote: »

How many conceptions end in spontaneous miscarriage? I'm pretty sure it's a significant fraction, if not the majority? Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I can't link you to any research but I know from a doctor that the medical community believes around half of all pregnancies end in miscarriage - many would take place in the first couple of weeks and in many, many instances, the woman would know nothing about either the pregnancy or the miscarriage, so accurate figures are basically impossible.

She put it in these sort of terms: a lot of sexually active women, even those who would be using contraception correctly, are very likely to have actually experienced a pregnancy and subsequent very early miscarriage at least once over the course of a number of years and not noticed anything other than maybe a heavier period than normal.

Now, I am aware that I haven't linked to any research or scientific evidence, but this information is coming from a qualified, practicing doctor, and therefore I would attach weight to it.

Sarky

Most official organistations agee on somewhere around half. Generally 40-60%, give or take. As has been said, accurate reporting is likely impossible.

doctoremma

gaynorvader wrote: »

Why not? Would you not say that there is a moral imperative to try save someone using all the tools science has given us? I don't think the woman's body should be put under undue risk to save the foetus, but if it can be extracted and saved with science without harm to the woman, why is that not our moral obligation to try?

I don't see how that relates to the assignment of moral value at "viability"?

kylith

Sarky wrote: »

Most official organistations agee on somewhere around half. Generally 40-60%, give or take. As has been said, accurate reporting is likely impossible.

A nurse told me once that it's very possible that any late period is actually a miscarriage. As you said, many would miscarry so early that the woman has no idea that she's pregnant.

Sarky

Huh. If that's the case, chances are good I got an ex pregnant for all of a week.

Oh well.

kylith

Chances are also good that I've had approximately a miscarriage a year for the last decade.

Of course, I also have a reproductive system that hates me, so it's possible my ovaries were just trolling.

gaynorvader

doctoremma wrote: »

I don't see how that relates to the assignment of moral value at "viability"?

I was saying that viability will shift as scientific methods improve. Pinpointing exactly what constitutes a human life is still open to discussion. Does a foetus with a 10% chance of living outside the womb count? What about 50%? or 90%? Where should the cut off point be?

MrPudding

gaynorvader wrote: »

Why not? Would you not say that there is a moral imperative to try save someone using all the tools science has given us? I don't think the woman's body should be put under undue risk to save the foetus, but if it can be extracted and saved with science without harm to the woman, why is that not our moral obligation to try?

How would one remove it without undue risk? As far as I am aware, all methods of delivery carry a risk to the mother. You might have an amazing incubator capable of wonderful things, but what if, due to her particular medical history, there was a high probability that she would suffer complications, up to and possibly including death, I order to get the foetus to the point where it was "viable" a d remove it.

So perhaps we might have a moral obligation to do what we can for the foetus, but this will frequently be in conflict with the wellbeing of the mother. For me there is only one winner of that conflict.

MrP

gaynorvader

MrPudding wrote: »

How would one remove it without undue risk? As far as I am aware, all methods of delivery carry a risk to the mother. You might have an amazing incubator capable of wonderful things, but what if, due to her particular medical history, there was a high probability that she would suffer complications, up to and possibly including death, I order to get the foetus to the point where it was "viable" a d remove it.

So perhaps we might have a moral obligation to do what we can for the foetus, but this will frequently be in conflict with the wellbeing of the mother. For me there is only one winner of that conflict.

MrP

I agree, I'm saying as science advances we are going to be more capable of removing foetuses without threatening the mother and so abortions should be under constant scrutiny to make sure that it's not done for the mother's convenience. I have no problem with a woman having an abortion before 22 weeks, but I think after then it should only be in cases where trying to remove the foetus would threaten the mother's life.

TheChizler

gaynorvader wrote: »

I agree, I'm saying as science advances we are going to be more capable of removing foetuses without threatening the mother and so abortions should be under constant scrutiny to make sure that it's not done for the mother's convenience. I have no problem with a woman having an abortion before 22 weeks, but I think after then it should only be in cases where trying to remove the foetus would threaten the mother's life.

What if a foetus could be saved before 22 weeks?