To be frustrated that it's impossible to have a discussion on abortion ethics....

[coconuttella]

On one side there's those who believe an embryo has fully human rights from conception, and on the other those who believe the foetus has no rights at all until birth.

Both sides seem to put forward their position forcefully and dogmatically as though they're stating the obvious, and anyone who thinks the ethics surrounding it may be a more complex is shouted down, especially by some on the pro-chioice side who seem to view anyone who doesn't agree with their stance as a misogynistic slave of the patriarchy.

Personally, I'm not in either camp and find the ethical questions complex, with this being brought home the other evening when I was reading that Incas didn't regard babies and toddler as having human status until the age of 3-4 (where they had a ceremony to mark this rite of passage) and no longer totally dependent on their mothers and past the most perilous time wrt child mortality. It made me question again my thoughts on when we should a human should acquire rights, and frustrated me that any discussion on this immediately degenerates into a slanging match.

I know that's what you want to assert - but I simply don't agree.

Being wholly dependant certainly has no status in determining whether a baby in utero is objectively a person equal to a born human. That dependence can continue after being born, so that argument fails at the first hurdle.

Also, there is no strong argument to suggest that geometry of being inside a body is a factor. We define people being alive as having regular brain activity - location doesn't matter. I realise you believe that strongly, but it's just a choice and I take a different one.

The conclusion made doesn't naturally follow from the choices, even if I agreed with you. Just because an entity is completely dependant and within another, it doesn't follow that there is a natural hierarchy of rights - it's a choice society will make as with everything else.

I understand you have your view, and I suspect we are actually on the real situation pretty close to each other, but probably differ in our views in the minutes before labour begins.

"Being wholly dependant certainly has no status in determining whether a baby in utero is objectively a person equal to a born human. That dependence can continue after being born, so that argument fails at the first hurdle." No. The type of dependence after birth is much much less than the wholly dependent state of a baby in utero. You are also ignoring the point that the dependency in utero is to the mother only and cannot be transferred in the same state to another person.

"Also, there is no strong argument to suggest that geometry of being inside a body is a factor. We define people being alive as having regular brain activity - location doesn't matter. I realise you believe that strongly, but it's just a choice and I take a different one. " The location of the baby as wholly within the mother isn't relevant to whether the baby is alive, of course the baby is alive. The point is that if you have two competing needs/rights then there must be a way of determining an outcome if those needs/rights clash. As one entity is the host to the other I would suggest that is one reason that gives them priority over the lesser, dependant entity within them.

"The conclusion made doesn't naturally follow from the choices, even if I agreed with you. Just because an entity is completely dependant and within another, it doesn't follow that there is a natural hierarchy of rights - it's a choice society will make as with everything else." Yes I agree it doesn't automatically follow. What are your reasons for prioritising the baby over the mother's wishes?

If you worry so much about what is life, focus more on making sure people have access to birth control (pills/condom/etc), parental care/women healthcare so babies will be healthy and mothers won't have to worry about if she can afford her child, and so on.

In the U.S. it is making me insane listening to people against abortion and also against socialized healthcare, food stamp, welfare (you name it) too. I call them pro birth instead of prolife because it seem they only want to watch babies born, yet don't care if they rot and die

I believe in the rights of the child. The right to be born to loving parents. The right to live a life free from harm, pain, hunger and neglect. This translates into the right for a parent to protect an unborn child from those things should they not be able to provide adequately for the baby, or the children she already has. Treating all life as sacred is taking away the child's rights to a quality life. As if life itself, no matter how awful is wonderful

On a utilitarian level, I'm quite pro-abortion. I don't think the advantages to be gained from allowing a life to bloom in unwanted and difficult circumstances at significant cost to another, when it could be ended before there is any sense of self there, is worth it. I wish it was more often the choice for unplanned pregnancies (though I would never want to see a law requiring it or social pressure that coerced it against woman's better judgment).

I think the ethical justification for a pro-choice legal position is less to do with the lack of rights of the fetus and more to do with the rights of the woman. We do not find a moral requirement for people to use their physical bodies to keep another alive in any other situation. To give blood for instance, or even to donate organs after death. I don't think society has a right to require that of women. The fuzzy status of fetuses as moral beings just adds weight to the lack of balance in putting the fetus before the woman, but for me I don't think it's essential to see the fetus as lacking personhood to allow women to have the right to choose what they do with their body even if it results in the death of another, but I certainly see how it changes the balance of the scales and makes the decision one of greater public interest.

Even so, that isn't to say I think that every decision to withdraw use of one's body to sustain another at the cost of that person's life is good or nice, or individually that moral - that would depend on circumstances, but I don't see it as something that can be morally required of them by others.

In my mind, however pro life someone's personal views are, it doesn't mean thay someone else's choices should be infringed.
Plus, it's about harm. Would altering abortion rights reduce abortions? No. It would lead to risky self conducted procedures, back street abortions abd pills from the internet. How anyone can be feel happy in their 'pro life. Im saving people' views whilst thinking it's acceptable for women to need fo undergo risky unsafe procedures is beyond me. They may say 'but it's not ok for them to suffer througg those', but then their solution is for women to embrace giving birth and motherhood, not actually help

In highschool i knew a girl who had 3 abortions by the time she was barely turned 14, because she refused to practice safe sex

I can't support the first girl who was so dismissive of getting pregnant as she could just abort it, and it has coloured my judgement of her as a person.

It's genuinely astounding that someone not only thought this but then wrote it down and posted it on the internet.

It's also important to remember that we can't ban abortion. We can only ban safe abortion.

I am pro choice up to 16 weeks but once it gets to the point where a baby could be born alive? 20 weeks then to me it is , if not murder, then infanticide. If you can legally kill an unborn child at 34 weeks gestation then there is little difference between that and killing a newborn at the same stage of development.

Exactly Bertrand. You can make abortion illegal and/or not funded so it's free to access.
So rich women can still quietly access a safe abortion in their home country or travel abroad to get one.
Poor women will have children they don't want and can't support or become injured or die trying to end their pregnancy. As happens right now in many many countries.

@MaisyPops I think there is a certain detachment in people born and raised in a country where abortion has been legal and available . They are not familiar with back street abortions, with diy abortions,with women dying , women never being able to conceive again, women and young girls being forced to give birth and then have the baby taken away, orphanages full to the brim, babies dumped in woods, parks, dumpsters etc. It is a horrific view and it's hard to give it thought and consider it when you haven't lived it or have any experience of it.

@blueberrypie0112, you're so right about the US. The crazy thing is that there were fewer abortions under the Democrat presidencies of Clinton and Obama than under the Republican presidencies of Reagan and Bush. Why? Because under the Democrats more was done to support families after birth, and therefore women are more likely to feel that they can cope with a baby.

For me personally, abortion wouldn't be an option. However I will argue with anyone who wants to remove a woman's right to choose and to access a termination safely, legally and without judgement. It is nobody's place to remove that right, all it does is means that women with money can access safe terminations and women without can't.
What I would choose for myself is in no way a reason to judge or comment on anyone else's decision or rights. It's about time that twat and others like him realised it.

I personally see this argument quite simplistically. The human rights of the woman have to trump those of the foetus. Simply because no woman should be forced to carry a child, give birth to it and parent it. It would be a massive violation of her human rights to do so. I also don't agree with a previous poster that abortion should only be allowed for a compelling reason. If the woman doesn't want to be pregnant then that's reason enough. I am glad we live in a country where no woman is forced to be pregnant, go through birth and become responsible for a life when they don't want to.

And apart from anything else, abortion will happen even when others disagree and it's illegal. It just becomes dangerous and done on the back street. You may as well therefore just acknowledge it will happen regardless and make it safe and legal.

@JemandScout, surely not for any reason? In China and India this would be because the baby is a girl, she would keep it if it were a boy? Surely, from an ethical perspective, that shouldn't be allowed.

My son died at a day old three days past the abortion limit.

I've spent the past 64 days in a neonatal unit with my 28 weeker.

My personal experiences have fuck all to do with any other women's choices. As early as possible as late as necessary.

I can't imagine anything worse then being forced to go through an unwanted pregnancy.

I get cornered into this debate a lot in RL (due to the 24 week thing I suspect) and people seem surprised by my stance on it.

unborn well said and i hope your baby is doing well x

Surely, from an ethical perspective, that shouldn't be allowed.

How is that 'surely'? Who decides where the line between good enough reason and not good enough reason is? Forcing women to birth babies they don't want is not the way to solve that particular societal problem. If anything it's reinforcing the same system that makes them not want girls in the first place.

I think it is perfectly possible regardless of anyone's personal experience to be open minded and intelligent enough to realise that their own experience and values aren't the only thing that matters, and I reckon in reality that is where lots of people stand.

Like, I see abortion the opposite way to you on an emotional level, I could never do it, but equally I am capable of discerning that this stance would be unethical to convey to other women in a position of wanting or needing an abortion because it is about their choices.

Jacob Rees Nigg probably wants the poor to breed faster so that the children can work die in factories for the greater Victoria good.

Anti abortionist either have views originating from the 'poor must breed as we need the labour/cannon fodder' route or the 'poor must breed to increase the dominance of our religeon' route.

Usually the will to dictate that the general population should not abort isn't practiced by the ruling class that espouses it.

I don't agree with that pigeon

Completely unregulated legalised abortion, like all things, is open to abuse, and I find the deeply misogynistic practise of discarding and not valuing baby girls quite a good example of why it could never be an ethically sound case to allow any and all abortions at any term or for any reason (if late term).

Contrary to birthing the babies being in support of those awful cultural values, all that would do is enforce them. And especially because it's not as simplistic as a woman not wanting that baby because of it's gender in isolation, it's not a choice made in a vaccuum but in a society with deep rooted issues against girls, and how many women would be pressured into an abortion on finding out the sex if it was perfecly legal to do so? It's not a realistic or ethical solution.

@pigeondujour, except that in a lot of cases it's probably not the woman who is deciding but husbands, in laws or parents.

I am pro life but understand and support the reasons for early abortions...I do think the 24 week limit is unacceptable though unless for serious medical reasons - either mother or foetus...

I am strongly against any healthy viable foetus being aborted (assuming the mother does not have serious medical reasons why she cannot continue carrying the foetus) and see no difference between that and killing said foetus as soon as he/she is born...

Boomboomscousin makes a good point that abortion laws and debates are inconsistent with other laws like the ones surrounding organ and blood donation, including after death. You cannot compel a person to give blood, a procedure that involves no risk or pain, even if the donation would save a few lives. You cannot even take organs from a dead body without family consent - a dead body! The organs must be thrown away even if 10+ people die because of that.

I'm not saying there are easy answers. It's a grey area.

Also as PP mentioned above, a parent would not be compelled to donate a kidney or even donate blood to a child, even if it would save the child's life. Because there bodily autonomy is sacrosanct, no matter what it costs the child. How does that match up with abortion law?