Bid in Lords to overturn move to decriminalise abortion for women

I'd add in the case of late term abortions it is 1:1. If the mother's life is at risk she takes precedence.

The second scenario is the relevant one. The real crux of the
abortion issue is when does life begin, to which there are varying
views. The current limits are set by what we know about premature babies.
Most people shrink from pushing the fat man, most people shrink
from killing a full term baby for any less reason than saving the mother's life etc
That is not a misogynist position neither is it illogical it's the process of making legal and social boundaries.

The trolley dilemma: would you kill one person to save five? share.google/fbIHSpJVj7uWFfpix
Now consider now the second variation of this dilemma.
Imagine you are standing on a footbridge above the tram tracks. You can see the runaway trolley hurtling towards the five unsuspecting workers, but there’s no lever to divert it.
However, there is large man standing next to you on the footbridge. You’re confident that his bulk would stop the tram in its tracks.
So, would you push the man on to the tracks, sacrificing him in order to stop the tram and thereby saving five others?

I mean, we're at the point where they're trying to pretend that being forced to donate blood to save a life is unreasonable and too much to expect, but being forced to continue the massively invasive and dangerous process of pregnancy is no big deal.

I think rationality has left the building.

Still not answering my point about passively abandoning a newborn to die, then?

And assuming you're responding to me, how is it better if you kill the adult human you're hooked up to earlier? That'd just be worse. Not to mention, you'd be taking an active action; apparently that's bad?

But you'd be making an active choice to end a life which is immoral no?

Yeah exactly, I also wonder on how many scenarios passiveness is acceptable to them when it involves a foetus. A doctor not performing an intervention on a baby stuck in the canal is totally passive and okay surely? The morality is all over the place and inconsistent because underneath they're still making the same argument as PP that pregnancy is a natural state imposed on women that women are responsible to continue with whether that imposes unique restrictions on women or not.

Another poor analagy as I would remove myself as a life support well before the nine months stage.

The woman doesn't need to donate anything in the last few weeks.

Many children are born early.
A live birth can be induced.

Your option will still need induction and birth (before you call me a forced birther)

The woman will be giving birth at this stage anyway.

I wonder what PP would think of the old violinist argument; as in, if (s)he went to sleep one night, and then woke up strapped to a bed with her organs being used to sustain another human for nine months, who will die without her.

I somehow don't think the argument that she's 'passive' in the situation, and that to 'actively' remove herself would be murder, would convince her to remain 'passively' attached.

(But yes, you're right - women are donating the use of their blood, organs, and nourishment to the foetus every second that they're pregnant. By the PP's own argument, donating blood etc is active.)

Because you're not equating the same scenario, somehow by your logic not donating blood is passive and donating blood is active..well women "donate" their body to sustain a pregnancy everyday yet you describe that as passive and no longer donating as active. It's confusing.

No. You didn't argue that. You said it. There's a difference.

I repeat, just in case you want to actually try to engage:

I'm not sure of your point with all this active versus passive? Even putting aside any disagreement over pregnancy being passive, leaving a newborn to die of exposure wherever you gave birth to it (say, on a hillside in the woods), is passive.

Does that therefore mean it's not a crime? As in your view, "its not a crime to do nothing."

If you're arguing that passive is less bad than active (which you seem to be?) then by your own argument, having an abortion is 'worse' than giving birth and then simply doing nothing to save the baby from its natural death by exposure or dehydration.

Personally I disagree extremely strongly with that, and I think it exposes a pretty major (fatal) flaw in the whole 'passive vs active' argument.

Meh another one claiming the argument for bodily autonomy is weak while refusing to engage in any critical thinking about their position. If it's so weak you can easily challenge it?

Ah, yes - I feel as though if pregnancy was something a woman had to consciously sustain, and passively decided not to continue sustaining it at 26 weeks gestation, then PPs wouldn't be any happier about her decision to be passive.

I thought I had argued that actively ending a pregnancy was different to passively not donating blood.
Which part of the above needs clarifying?

So you don't think pregnancy involves the active support and use for a woman's body? Her body doesn't have to do anything to support the pregnancy and there are no changes within her body to support a pregnancy and no after effects? I'm curious if you've ever been pregnant or through childbirth if you can define it so simply as passive?

So you're calling my arguments weak, while simultaneously frantically avoiding addressing any of them in any genuine, good faith way?

If my arguments are so dreadfully weak, then why haven't you addressed them head on and dismantled them with great ease, instead of making barely relevant statements of opinion?

Oh dear. Never mind. You tried, I suppose. Sort of.

I have stated i think pregnancy is passive, therefore logically i dont think women can control their blood supply.

This is getting weird now.

I wonder if with their logic is a woman could simply control her metabolic state and choose to stop pumping 50% more blood and other biological process to sustain the pregnancy which result in a miscarriage that would be fine? They could just passively stop supporting the pregnancy like watching a child drown?

I don't feel strongly about any of this.
I merely think your arguments are weak.

If bodily autonomy is the key argument, an incestuously raped 14 yo is irrelevant and only there to invoke pity.

And compelled blood donation is a poor comparitor to not ending a pregnancy.

Exactly, although I'd still disagree I could at least appreciate some consistency that valued life and people's responsibility to maintain it as equal. Now of course they aren't actively restricting or controlling women at all, pregnancy is a completely passive process where our blood and organs are being used and basically saying we don't need consent for usage of women's bodie which can actually be life threatening but we can't demand a simple blood donation from someone. This idea of women as passive incubators that owe their bodies to society being trotter out like a normal thing to say is quite chilling.

I'm not sure of your point with all this active versus passive? Even putting aside any disagreement over pregnancy being passive, leaving a newborn to die of exposure wherever you gave birth to it (say, on a hillside in the woods), is passive.

Does that therefore mean it's not a crime? As in your view, "its not a crime to do nothing."

If you're arguing that passive is less bad than active (which you seem to be?) then by your own argument, having an abortion is 'worse' than giving birth and then simply doing nothing to save the baby from its natural death by exposure or dehydration.

Personally I disagree extremely strongly with that, and I think it exposes a pretty major flaw in the whole 'passive vs active' argument.

I disagree, but would like to hear further why you'd define it as passive? Do you mean only that the woman doesn't have to consciously keep the pregnancy going despite the constant metabolic effort of her body to maintain it where as someone has to consciously choose to give blood? I wonder if you're combining the involuntary nature of pregnancy with it being passive perhaps as I'm not sure how to square the use of a woman's organs as a passive act unless you consider the woman going through pregnancy a bystander rather than an active participant. I also wonder with you describing labour as still inherently passive, what does that mean for women's consent? And why is the pushing part active suddenly when it's an involuntary process as you describe it?

Yes! All of this is so well said. The avoidance of facing up to uncomfortable cognitive dissonance is an interesting thing to see, personally.

I would've thought that people would agree that blood and bone marrow donation should be mandatory, in order to make their arguments regarding abortion seem less obviously misogynistic - after all, what do they have to lose by doing that? It's not like their agreement will make it happen, and it would benefit their argument.

But instead it seems that they feel so strongly and viscerally that people at large should have bodily autonomy but women and girls shouldn't that they can't help but to argue a morally contradictory, blatantly misogynistic position. They give themselves away entirely unnecessarily.

It's a little bizarre.

Pregnancy is passive.

Labour feels active but will happen without our intervention. So passive to begin and active when pushing.

I've addressed many arguments on this thread, and put forth many. It took pages and pages for people to even acknowledge the blood donation argument.

And I'm merely pointing out that I think the 'active vs passive' distinction is a cowardly dodge. What's the issue?

Well, I think that women shouldn't be forced to remain pregnant if they don't want to be. So no, I also don't think that people should be forced to donate blood or bone marrow. That would be morally inconsistent. Although I do believe that late term abortions should be discouraged where possible, and blood and bone marrow donations encouraged and made easier to do.

What about you?

I also think that someone who does not prevent a child from falling off a cliff and dying when they could easily do so, is morally culpable for their death despite not doing anything. Do you?

(I'm not sure what that has to do with burning buildings? I was very clear about 'without serious risk' being a factor and even gave two examples, but you'd apparently rather jump to the totally irrelevant hyperbole of 'burning buildings'.)