u/yomakest

It's usually women but some guys do it too. I don't understand people who play along. It's such an obvious attempt at more attention and ego boosting (I'm not referring to any BDD-type content because we all know the difference). People are either (1) being nice for whatever reason (2) are idiots who genuinely walked right into it.

I wouldn't be caught dead in a picture let alone a selfie. Over the past 10 years I've kept only one photo because it's with my mom and sister; it's also taken from a good distance away. Fuck these people with their "Teehee I know I'm cute but I want to hear it 1000 more times". I don't wish harm on anyone, but I would also have zero empathy should they suddenly be disfigured.

Those people are fucked in the head. Actually ugly people don't need confirmation - we know we're ugly and we know we'll just get shit on for posting. A lot of us avoid mirrors and photos because they're such stark and lingering reminders of how we look. They don't know what they don't know. Maybe they know but don't care because they'll do anything for more compliments.

I still wear masks regularly because I look so much better that way.

Firstly, I think the questions I'm asking make my personal opinion clear. However, my overall stance on the subject is that there is no right or wrong answer. I believe that everyone is entitled to have an opinion with no obligation to justify it to anyone else. Having said this, I'm hoping to have an open discussion because, ultimately, policies and laws will affect all of us. Please feel free to correct me if I'm making incorrect assumptions, and absolutely pick apart any of my arguments that don't make sense.

Q: How far can we nitpick the definition of a viable pregnancy?

My understanding of PL is that after intercourse of any type, there should be no interference with the natural process of sperm and egg meeting and developing. Life begins when the egg is fertilized.

The PC "loophole": pregnancy tests don't work immediately, and there is a gap of time between intercourse and fertilization. That gap is ambiguous (unless we're going full microscope on everyone's sex lives). In this "unknown" period, if a woman consumes alcohol WITH intent to abort, should it be considered first-degree murder? If she consumes WITHOUT intent to abort, should it be considered negligent homicide? It's impossible to prosecute without knowing if there really was a viable embryo. How should this scenario be handled?

Q: The (un)importance of sentience and differentiating between similar dilemmas.

This one is especially difficult because it very much involves religious beliefs, cultural differences, and beliefs around the bounds of science. Again, I understand that PL stance is that a fertilized egg is a life with the same rights as you and I. How can we reconcile the following two scenarios?

1. Even though an embryo in the earliest stages (before neural tube development) don't feel pain or have thoughts, they are still important, because we can use that same rationale to argue: infants are just a continuation of a life that is now developing in a different environment. They can't speak, they can't form conscious memories yet, but they certainly are alive.

2. A person on life support is still a human although brain-dead. It is almost universally accepted that decision to withdraw is personal to the family, and is not considered murder. Do we accept this because it's a futile use of resources that could be used for someone with a chance of recovery? Is it because they won't continue to "develop" in the sense of ageing and experiencing life as the rest of us do?

The scariest part is how little we know about the human brain and how recent some medical nightmares are. It wasn't until the 1980s that the medical community fully accepted that babies feel pain. Prior to that, operations would be performed without anesthesia which is horrifying. The other relevant examples are locked-in syndrome, and case reports from coma survivors having lived an entirely different life during their coma (in another dimension). We have technology to detect brain activity, but clearly there are possibilities we don't even know. Can we truly consider someone, who had (and maybe has) definitive sentience brain-dead?

Q: How do we factor in sentience?

I can understand a PL point of view being both biological (physical egg and sperm meeting and implanting is all that matters) and ethical (we don't know when sentience begins, so we err on the side of caution and should not interfere with nature). Another supporting argument is that babies in the womb respond to their mother's voice. Every single one of us was that baby at some point and we have no memory of it. Just because we don't remember doesn't mean it can be ignored, because the baby at that moment is experiencing life and who it develops into is irrelevant.

Using the same argument from a PC point of view, why do we not err on the side of caution for brain-dead patients? We stop life support because there is no hope of return to a good life and we, as a society, believe that it ends suffering and is therefore ethical. In the case of abortion, let's consider a child who is born drug-addicted to neglectful parents and a clearly unhealthy environment. Is it more ethical to prevent their tangible suffering by "euthanasia" in the womb when suffering is still theoretical?

Q: How do we define the threshold of a disability being severe enough to warrant abortion, if at all?

Again, I can see a PL argument being that they are still alive. We are projecting our definition of suffering onto someone with an entirely different perception of the world. A child with any disability can be loved and cared for and can experience happiness and fulfillment in their own ways. Allowing termination based on this is a slippery slope to designer babies.

From a PC perspective, forcing a mother to birth a disabled child she does not want has overwhelmingly negative outcomes. The child will likely be deprived of love and affection to an extent that stunts development. If the mother is a full time caregiver, she is no longer a productive member of society as she would have been in a career instead. If caregivers are employed, that issue is solved, but the problem then becomes using limited resources in a situation that was avoidable.

What physical, cognitive, and/or functional defects would be acceptable thresholds to justify termination, if at all?

OKAY THAT WAS A LOT. Thank you for anyone who read any of this and indulged my curiosities. I'm skipping the sexual assault scenarios altogether - we can all agree it's bad and illegal for a reason. The resulting pregnancy is more or less covered in my rants above.