gonetoseeamanaboutadog
the law is very much set up to ensure that women carry their babies to
full-term after this point (24 weeks) No it isn't, a woman can drink,
smoke, take aspirin, caffeine, over-the-counter medicine (even prescription
drugs), take part in dangerous activities, drive fast cars, commit suicide,
fly to another country and terminate the birth 1 hour before birth, legally
there are no sanctions and currently there is nothing anyone can do to stop
them. So if you have any factual evidence whatsoever as to how you can
justify saying, "women are losing absolute bodily autonomy for almost half
the pregnancy", please share. Because that is just not true in the UK.
If the state was taking away a woman's absolute bodily autonomy the
precedent set would be that when a life is at stake the state could morally
force you to use your body in a way you don't want. For example you could
be forced against your will to donate a kidney, some liver, lung, pancreas,
intestine, bone marrow, blood cells, eggs, sperm, all in the name of saving
life. Don't you think that is morally outrageous?
The factor that changes is not anything to do with women's right to bodily
autonomy, but instead it's down to how the developing baby is perceived Its
both factors and many more, I listed them in previous post. Once the time
scale is set, people's perceptions evolve from that. If I remember right the
church used to say the moment of life was when you first felt the baby kick,
opinion changes based on the information they are given from agreed
experts/authority figures.
*The pro-choice lobby tends to be highly subjective in how the foetus is
viewed. * This is part of the 'bonding' process selected by evolution to
ensure the survival of the species. It does not change any facts, we
override our evolutionary instincts all the time when it suits us. We no
longer live in caves, we have hospitals. In a previous post I explained we
can put absolute values on life, when its personal we feel aggrieved but
when discussed rationally we agree because it is the morale thing to do.
there is certainly an acknowledged sanctity about the existence of a wanted
'baby' regardless of gestational age Is there? Where is there evidence
for that? There is no moral dilemma over aborting a few cells, its just
popping another pill the word baby hardly even comes into the discussion
these days, no one I know would perceive it as one. I have some friends
that discussed miscarriages from the second half of their pregnancy but I
have never heard (m)anyone mention miscarriages in the first or second
month, it just isn't considered losing a 'baby', nothing like the scale of
sanctity everyone considers in relation to life after birth. I have never
known anyone have a funeral for a 12 week termination, why is that, maybe
because its not the same as losing an actual baby. From my experience it is
totally dependant on gestational time. So where is your evidence that there
is a sanctity to a 'wanted baby' regardless of gestation time? Perhaps you
mean the hopes and dreams a mother has for what the egg/cells might become?
A strength of the pro-life approach is that a consistently high value is
placed upon the unborn child irrespective of how convenient that life is
This is also its greatest weakness. A belief in anything irrespective of
facts is dogmatic, irrational and can cause a person to end up supporting
immoral acts. Whilst you might claim to not be an extremist the logical
conclusion to dogmatic beliefs is extreme behaviour. For example pro-lifers
in America will defend the 'life' of a few cells to the extent that they are
prepared to bomb clinics and murder doctors. Closer to home they are
content to let mother and child die in childbirth, or imprison a teenage
girl.
if the life of both woman and foetus were in danger, the mother's life must
be seen as of higher value Only, because of irrational dogmatic religious
beliefs that abortion is wrong, this is not always the case. Abortions are
refused even if it kills the mother, I have already cited the recent case in
Ireland. This is a direct consequence of making unborn cells/foetuses
sacred life.
You mention several times that pro-life people see it as a moral principle
set in stone but you have still not defined what life you mean, when it
becomes alive, is and how you justify these conclusions!
You need to define what you mean by life because I think the word is being
using to mean different things. A lot of people might include quality of
existence as integral to the definition of what life is. So someone who
values life might decide their life is so painful or meaningless so as to be
no life whatsoever.
valuing a life less because we can't see it, or ..... is not something we
could accept Yet everyday you do. Pro-lifers drive cars and pollute air
killing someone somewhere. They support governments that go to war killing
others. They keep money in the bank when someone somewhere is starving to
death. They eat meat which is the result of an animal being killed. They
eat vegetables which is the result of a plant or flower being killed. They
go on holiday wasting money when someone somewhere is dying. They have
operations to fix varicose veins when that surgeon could be saving other
peoples lives. They don't donate every organ/cell in their bodies to save
others. It just hypocritical to pick one example and say "this life is
sacred" but don't do literally everything possible to save other lives in
the world.
You still haven't answered 12 weeks, why not 6? You miss a period 4 weeks,
2 weeks to have an abortion. Why have an extra 6 weeks to think about it,
why not 18 more? You still haven't said what you would do to a woman who
chose to have an abortion at 13 weeks. How would you stop the thousands of
women flying abroad to have abortion at 21 weeks? What would you do with
any increase of unwanted babies, who would pay for them? How would you deal
with the massive trauma you would do to women forcing them to have babies
they don't want but aren't allowed to abort? I know you talk about an ideal
world but that is just fantasy, in the meantime we have to make good laws
in the real world.
Have you considered that since you have postulated removing women's bodily
autonomy is morally acceptable that a solution would be to sterilise all
women at birth and they could only have it reversed when they pass a test to
prove they want, afford and cope with a baby? Is that your ideal world with
no abortion?
Morality is self correcting. An end to slavery, women's equality, gay
rights, equal marriage, human rights... History is littered with immoral
acts which advanced countries have ended. Priests used to pass immoral
laws, we now have superiority secular morality. We had horrific wars,
Europe got together and created the EU so we would never fight again. We
ended the death penalty, banned guns. We faced mutually assured nuclear
destruction and stepped back. Yesterday Europe upheld the mass murderer,
Anders Breivik, human rights. The biggest threat the world faces now is
beliefs based on irrational, dogmatic religions. So perhaps you could
provide evidence to the contrary?
Wasn't aware that MN didn't talk about war, I assume you mean WWII?
Society can be trusted to evolve human standards, advanced western societies
have. The model of the greatest good is something that society uses 'sub
consciously'. When people verbalise it to justify actions, its usually to
hide evil acts. Like when the church discriminates against gays, women,
hides child abuse, bans contraceptive etc. and hides it all behind a
omnibenevolent good god. Morale societies joined together to stop atrocities
in the last century and now Germany is one of the most pacifistic benevolent
counties in the world. Humans corrected its mistakes, because if we hadn't
we wouldn't be here, exactly as evolution works. This all works because
there are more people doing good things than bad people doing bad things,
were it not so the human race would go extinct, this is how evolution works.
I don't think the NHS funding issues are a great analogy here In real
world morality, its a very comparable. In a week doctors in England are
going to withdraw emergency care because they want more money. Now lets
take the doctors at their word and say they are doing it to protect future
of the NHS. The reality is people having accidents on those 2 days could
die because of them. So in reality doctors could let people die because
they are trying to protect people's future care. That sounds very like
pro-lifers who are willing to kill doctors to save a future life. People
are making a judgement about the value of life and deciding that all life is
NOT equal.
I know quite a bit about religion albeit not at the level of a theologian,
more a philosopher. You're confusing understanding to agreeing with. What
values has christianity given our society, other than bad ones? Any cursory
study of history teaches that society has struggled against religion to
create a better world. Perhaps you could give some examples as I did
above? Religion is irrational, illogical and arbitrary for one very simple
reason. All its ambiguous out of date rules arise from, "because my god
says so". This is the opposite of logic and rational thinking. After
thousands of years and thousands of different gods in this world not one
single religion has come up with any other explanation as to what determines
their morality other than invoking an unknowable deity's opinion inflicted
upon you as a quirk of which country you were born in.
I certainly don't think our morality is more or less innate in our society,
we have to work at it every day with reason and experience. Its like
pushing a rock up a hill, if you stop struggling forwards you fall back
down. Our court of human rights is full of moral dilemmas that society has
to confront and reason out, balancing the greater good. It will be a sorry
day if we ever think we have come to a conclusion about an absolute moral
code is, there isn't one.
I agree we should live our lives considering the consequences of our
actions, most people I know do. That should not give the state the power to
force a 19 year old to go through a pregnancy and have a baby they can't
afford, can't cope with and don't want. That is just entrenching poverty,
and who knows what other discrimination/abuses.
We don't get to make all the rules up and we don't get to hide behind
'society' either Society does make up the rules, we have a common law
system, so not sure what you mean by this.
Right and wrong is not right and wrong because society has decided it
should be so Democratic governments reflect the will of people, so laws
are usually based on what the population agree is morally right, informed by
expert advice on what is factually correct and what is possible. The
majority of people come to morale conclusions based on their experiences,
reasoning and empathy. Of course their are a few people that are morally
corrupt, sometimes they even get into power and corrupt other minds but over
time the majority of the population comes to sane rational morale
conclusions and the bad decisions are reversed. Humanity gets better and
faster at doing this the more civilised we become.
Yes saying all life is sacred is a subjective statement. Plenty of 'morale'
people believe in the death penalty, assisted suicide, self defence,
veganisim etc most people place a high value on human life but to say all
life is sacred is a very religious statement and is not backed up by any
evidence, do you accept that?
Anti-abortionists do get accused of not being objective, surely you could
change that by giving the explanation and reasoning on how you came to your
objective conclusion, unless you are accepting that your position isn't
objective. So far all you're saying is that it is because it is. That does
not mean pro choice is saying all their arguments are objective, they all
aren't but some are and I have already listed some objective medical facts
in previous posts. Unless you list some that are wrong then I will assume I
have proved that point.
I don't know exactly when life begins but I think God does, and the point
at which that life entrusted to an individual (so, if you like, when our
moral responsibility begins) is at implantation Ok, so that does beg
quite a few questions, that you have avoided. How do you know gods opinion
is the morale one? How has god communicated his opinion to you? Why does
gods communicated opinion change over time? Why does every religion in the
world disagree on what gods communicated opinion is? Why do intelligent
morale people work out what the greatest good is and its different from gods
opinion, because normally the same objective facts are reached by every
logical person who looks for them.
I am not saying life begins at the point of independent foetal viability, is
anyone? I am simply saying this is one factor to consider when working out
the date of 24 weeks. If you changed the date to 12 weeks and a woman
decided to have a caesarean to get a baby out she didn't want and wasn't
allowed to abort then the foetus would die making 12 weeks a useless date.
At 24 weeks a woman can have a caesarean and still have reasonable
independent foetal viability, making it a sensible date to allow the baby to
survive and the mother to maintain bodily autonomy.
Just because you say a pre 24 week foetus looks like a fully formed baby
does not mean it is. The objective facts prove it isn't. To suggest that
they never lived just makes no sense, that statement doesn't make any sense
because you haven't defined what life is.