Basically I believe everyone has the right to life. The argument I present is you should not be allowed to end another life if said life can survive on its own. So abortion should be limited to that point, save for health of the mother or child.
Thoughts?
PCs openly state that fetal personhood is misguided at best and immoral at worst, but this means that abortion as a right can only be sustained by literally denying rights to a group of humans.
No one would accept a pro slavery movement as a positive right for private property since it would mean removing the rights of would be slaves. So why should we accept preventing the unborn from having rights?
Hypothetically - if a woman maliciously intends to cause maximum cellular damage to an embryo for 4 weeks, knowing she will abort it at week 9, is her action morally wrong, or is it a victimless act because no conscious person is ever born?
So I’m still kind of unclear when it comes to the new abortion law that was recently signed in Massachusetts. I mean I know tons of people are condemning it because it supposedly legalizes abortions up to birth. However, other sources pointed out that abortions up to birth were already allowed beforehand in certain situations and that all it did give more power to the doctors and medical professionals to make the call.
So if I understand correctly, even under the new law, a woman who is 8-9 months pregnant can’t get an abortion without a presenting a valid reason to a doctor and getting their professional approval?
Abortion is not just “ending support.” It is an act that deliberately ends the life of a human life who is not an attacker.
Pregnancy is the normal, temporary result of creating that dependent human; not a forced kidnapping by a stranger.
Lethally taking out this life that is depending on said woman shouldn’t be ok just because the government says it’s legal to do so in a state.
We reject that idea with newborns; consistency applies the same standard earlier. Even if the dependency is unwanted, we still don’t allow parents to kill a newborn who depends on them. The same principle applies before birth.
I am literally just trying to ask a question please dont immediately bash me without reading. I consider myself pro life with the exception of threats to the mothers life and rape. Ive seen alot of pro choice people on social media such as Instagram claim that it is ok to abort a baby that will live with a disability. Why is that? Some people I have seen say that disabled children will only ruin your life. I have a first hand experience that claims that this is not always true. My cousin has severe mental disabilities and needs full time care. He can be difficult sometimes, but he really is an amazing person and does nothing but make us smile. I have also volunteered to help disabled tweens and teens for my school, and while they have varying degrees of needs, all the volunteers including myself have nothing but positive things to share about these disabled children.
Of course I understand that caring for children with certain, more debilitating disabilites can be very taxing mentally, emotionally, and physically. There are support system built for this, for example dedicated full day schooling where employees take care and educate disabled children and adults. Adoption is also an option. There will be someone out there who wants to help you and the disabled child, myself included. Not to mention that in utero diagnoses can often be incorrect until birth confirms or denies it.
My question is, why is it ok to abort a fetus that may have a disability? It is still a human life worthy of love and that has potential just like any other able bodied human. Some disabled people go on to live successful lives. A disability does not make someone less of a human being. Genuinely curious as to why some people think this way about disabled children, please give me some insight?
I hadn't planned on making this post, but Last Week Tonight released an episode about fetal personhood that made my blood run hot.
In the episode, John Oliver cites the case of Cherise Doyley, who was mid-delivery when a tablet with containing a Zoom call with a judge was wheeled into her hospital room to make a determination about whether she would be forced to have a c-section.
In my previous post on bodily integrity, I brought up forced c-sections but effectively "punted" on the issue, saying of such cases:
>Discussing all these cases will be impossible in a single post, but it’s important to note that some of these cases actually do legitimize an intrusion into a pregnant woman’s bodily integrity to save the life of her baby. For example, in Jefferson v Griffin Spalding County Hospital Authority, the Georgia Supreme Court upheld the state’s authority to authorize a caesarean section over a mother’s objection to protect the life of a viable unborn child.
>However, there is a massive caveat: in every case I found where courts overrode a pregnant woman’s bodily integrity to protect a fetus, the compelled procedure also significantly benefited the woman’s health. Courts tolerated such intrusions only when they improved maternal outcomes, not when they posed additional risk.
By sticking to the legal facts alone, I refrained in this post from making a statement of support for or against. For the purposes of the post, this was sufficient, and as I'm long-winded generally, I didn't include arguments against forced c-sections.
However, after seeing such an intrusion on video tape, with the judge telling her that she had no right to counsel in this case, I am incensed and realized I should have taken a hard position against this from the start. The indignity of being ambushed and forced to cover up during childbirth so that a panel of strangers can decide your medical care, against your (informed and educated) consent, and telling you that you have no right to representation while they hastily dictate your treatment, is absurd. Beyond absurd; it's a travesty.
This case is a perfect example of this prescient review written more than 15 years ago:
>Court ordered cesarean sections come up infrequently in the courts, but when the situation occurs, it occurs in the worst possible way. The decision making time is often limited and the doctors face a pressing deadline. Parents are unprepared to defend their position and the courts lack the time to analyze the law and issue properly. (Pg. 24)
That the conclusion is still relevant today is a failure of the legal system:
>Court ordered cesarean sections happen infrequently, but they can occur. Because of their infrequency, courts have reached different results on the issue. In these situations, however, courts should honor the woman’s wishes and not use a balancing test. By using a balancing test, the woman becomes nothing more than a shell protecting the fetus until birth. Women have come a long way since the image of a docile, subservient woman and have the same legal rights as men in this country. A balancing test, however, causes the courts to sweep aside the woman’s rights and places her firmly in the Middle Ages, when the cesarean section was a last resort. While doctors face a quandary about who to treat with a pregnant patient, they, as well as the courts, should honor the woman’s decision. By acting contrary to her decision, the woman’s constitutional rights are violated, and she is placed back in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant. Courts should not presume to know what is best for the woman. Thus, they should abide by the woman’s informed refusal of a cesarean section and not use a balancing test, which could result in a trade off between her rights and the fetus’s rights. (Pg. 25)
This kind of indignity should never occur.
This is a perfect example of how in a culture where fetal rights are given priority over those of their mothers that women are treated as mere incubators, with their desires for their body ignored and their rights trampled. No one should be treated as a vessel for another life that takes priority.
Is there any possible argument that these women should have their competent decisions overridden by rushed judges who paternalistically claim to know better? I do not think there is.
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I feel like regardless of whether you are pro-life or pro-choice, most abortion debates eventually come back to one fundamental question: when does personhood begin?
A lot of arguments seem to start several steps ahead of this question. For example, saying that abortion is “murder” already assumes that an embryo or fetus has the moral status of a person. On the other hand, I’m personally pro-choice, but I also don’t think it is ethical to have an abortion at a very late stage of pregnancy when there is no serious health risk or medical reason. To me, this suggests that the moral status of a fetus may not necessarily remain the same throughout the entire pregnancy.
That’s why I find many abortion debates frustrating. People argue about whether abortion is justified without first agreeing on, or even discussing, what exactly gives a developing human moral status in the first place.
Being biologically alive, being genetically human, and being a person are not necessarily identical concepts. So rather than immediately debating whether abortion is right or wrong, wouldn’t it make more sense to first debate when a developing human acquires personhood or the kind of moral status that gives it rights?
Otherwise, if two people fundamentally disagree about when personhood begins, it seems like they’re debating pro-life vs. pro-choice from completely different starting points
Mostly towards PL. Why should the child, Rumi, in the surrogate case be taken away from the biological parents and renamed Gabriel for requesting abortion but a woman who aborts, maybe even having multiple abortions, be treated differently like its no big deal?
The inconsistency always makes my mind boggle, and I don't get how PL deal with it. If I were PL, I'd say yes. I might even support them changing the kids names if we support calling them baby Gabriel too.
Should the children of a woman who aborts be taken away by the state?
I came across a thread on Facebook recently that absolutely floored me. Obviously, there's been a lot of discourse circulating around states enacting "abortion up to birth" laws and this post was claiming that there is *never* a valid reason to terminate the fetus before delivering it. I countered this argument with a few examples where the fetus would be suffering in utero for the entire second half of pregnancy (24+ weeks) and is guaranteed to die after birth (cases like osteogenesis imperfecta type 2 where the fetus will feel its bones breaking in utero until delivery and will die a painful death shortly after birth, or intra-uterine inoperable tumors that will suffocate the fetus if allowed to progress to full term, etc.).
I originally assumed the *objectively* correct choice would be the one that results in the least suffering for the fetus, which would be a lethal injection in utero followed by inducing labor like any other delivery. This would spare the fetus any further suffering, spare it the pain of childbirth (imagine an OI-2 fetus being pushed through the birth canal), spare the mother the pain and recovery of a C-section (alternative to vaginal birth), and spare both parents the trauma of watching their baby die in their arms after birth (which some parents may prefer, and some may not, and both are valid). This would essentially be a mercy killing in the form of inducing a stillbirth. I was quite surprised when pro-lifers began blowing up the thread with responses basically saying they would absolutely let the fetus suffer for 10-20 weeks in utero, either on the off-chance of a misdiagnosis or simply to avoid having a *gasp* abortion.
I eventually gave up on responding to that thread because I was so floored by the responses, but the topic is an interesting one to delve into and I feel like this community can engage with it in a much more thoughtful manner. So, tell me, PC and PL, do you think lethal injection is a morally acceptable form of abortion to spare a fetus that will suffer in utero if carried to full term?
Note that many of the commenters assumed for some reason that the fetus would be dismembered alive in the process?? That is absolutely NOT the case. I am specifically referring to a lethal injection followed by induced labor. If dismemberment is necessary, the fetus is probably already dead and there's a valid reason why this is the safest way to remove it.
Summary: https://apnews.com/article/surrogate-baby-mckenna-west-texas-207b58c36b8f53dd0ab23e0dc2afaa3a
A newborn with a severe heart defect is at the center of a legal battle between a California couple and a surrogate who flew from Alaska to Texas to give birth in a case that has drawn the attention of anti-abortion groups and GOP leaders.
McKenna West, the surrogate, gave birth Wednesday to a boy with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a life-threatening heart condition. West, who is a nurse, said the couple had wanted to end the pregnancy at 20 weeks, after consulting with doctors about the diagnosis.
The case quickly garnered national attention after Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton intervened and a judge in Dallas ordered two hospitals to ensure they provide life-sustaining care and that the baby remain in Texas until at least a hearing in late August.
The Los Angeles-based couple, Omar Ahmed and Nausheen Gilkar, say West violated the surrogacy contract, and they obtained a restraining order that prevented West from seeing or holding the child after he was born, according to an attorney for the surrogate.
Ahmed and Gilkar were in Dallas, Texas, with the newborn as he receives medical care, according to the couple’s attorney. West and her supporters have called the child Gabriel, but in court filings, the couple has called the boy Rumi.
Here’s what to know about the case and surrogacy law in the U.S.
It goes on further. My thoughts are this whole case is terrible, and that its more of an issue over surrogacy and contract law than abortion. That didn't stop Lila Rose from LiveAction from getting involved, flying the surrogate West and her kids out to Texas because of their laws. Now its a horrible battle between who will care for the child, the biological parents, the surrogate, or the state.
I will never understand pro abortion. People want babies to be born so bad, like they care so much for human life. But they never think about post birth. Child development is very important. The environment you're born in makes you, for the rest of your life. Bad habits are hard to destroy and your values are imbedded in you. Everything you learn or experience, starting from your birth, will be important to who you become and do. Something so simple like an argument could traumatize a kid for life. If you insult a kid for minor things, and condition them to be used to it, they will become insecure, paranoid, pessimisitc, and self degrative. Starting that kind of mindset will take years of learning and reassurence to lessen it. There was an experiment, a mere baby, was conditioned to be scared of furry, animals. (you may search it up) the baby gained ptsd, after he passed away, his family informed people that he had a strange fear for animals. Dogs, cats, whatever it may be, from baby to death. Infamous serial killers grew up in an abusive household. Ed Gein had a calm, mannered, and respectful personality. But he also had a lamp shade made out of skin and various furniture made out of human body parts. He had an abusive father and a controling mother. What could he have become if he were born into a loving family?
"Humans have the right to be born" okay, so what if they wouldn't want to be? What if someone was born into a financially unstable, unloving, and dangerous household? "well that doesnt matter, those are little things and not worse than killing a human being" that just sounds insensitive. Its like guiding a tourist into a thunderstorm knowingly. People want mothers to face loneliness, work multiple jobs, and be emotionally there for a complete human just because society said so. I am 14 and I can barely take care of two cats. I struggle feeding my cats when im gone for school for SEVEN hours. My parents dont allow me to spend money on them other than basic necessesities, and one of my cats dont eat dry food. So imagine a 14 year old mother that has to feed, clean, spend money, and emotionally be there for the baby. I have already enough stress from berading parents that scream responsibilities at me all day, so imagine me also being alone, no friends and family to go through that kind of stuff. And you could not tell me that a person working a 9/5 can be there emotionally.
I saw in the news that the Massachusetts governor is allowing abortions up until birth. I am pro life so to me that sounds horrible. Why would someone decide to abort their baby late in the pregnancy? What is going through a woman’s mind when she decides to get one? When I think of an abortion i think of the baby. How far they have developed and can’t imagine putting a stop to their growth. Hearing their heartbeat, seeing them in the sonogram, imagining their tiny body. I am genuinely curious, please don’t be mean in the comments to anyone.
I’m a man, but I consider myself an egalitarian, so I believe people should have equal rights and control over their own bodies.
My question for people who want abortion banned is: why do you care so much about whether a stranger gets an abortion?
You aren’t the person who is pregnant. You don’t know their health, finances, family situation, how the pregnancy happened, or what carrying it to term could do to their life. You also aren’t the one who will have to raise that child afterward.
I can understand personally believing abortion is wrong and choosing not to have one. What I don’t understand is why that personal belief should give you the right to use the government to make that decision for somebody else.
And if the argument is that you care about protecting children, does that concern continue after birth? Do you also support healthcare, food assistance, affordable childcare, school meals, housing support, and other programs that help those children actually grow up healthy and safe?
Why shouldn’t abortion ultimately be a private decision between the pregnant person and their doctor?
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Abortion should be legal, the govt has no right to influence such a decision, or mandate it by law. But I believe that abortion is, nontheless, a morally ambiguous act.
If a child and an embryo were both in a burning building, and you can only save one, id save the child everytime.
If a newly developed embryo was in a building, alongside a clump of benign cancer cells or soemthing, I might not feel like saving either. But id hesitate. If it had some setup to sustain itself, and i knew this, I might feel like it should be rescued. My intuition tells me its not as strong of an impluse as saving the child, but its definitely not the same to me as saving the clump of cells. It's not a morally neutral choice.
If a embryo in some ex-eutero technology was developing in the 2nd trimester in a burning building, alongside a clump of cells, I might feel like it should be saved. I dont think id regard it as the same as the random clump of cells, or as the newly developed embryo.
I know a lot of people see a newly developed fetus as a clump of cells. And maybe it is best seen as that at first. But id argue, at every stage of development, that clump of cells is intrinsically different than a random clump of cells, like a benign tumor. Like, its on a trajectory that will grant it moral value, unlike a tumor
I dont think that embryo deserves the same treatment as a child, but i also dont think it deserves the same treatment as a clump of cells, like a benign tumor. Thsuly, abortion is morally ambiguous, and less so as it becomes later term. At least, to me.
A lot of pro life people makes this argument that it's murder and while I don't think it's murder, would it actually matter if it was? Body autonomy must be protected at ALL costs. Whether it's someone who got sa,can't afford it, doesn't want it,is a minor,family genetic history or even if they have an abortion "fetish". At the end of the day our bodily autonomy has to be protected no matter the cost. This includes my own birth/existence as my mom told me before when I was really young she wanted to abort me. I was initially conflicted as I probably didn't understand what it meant at that time but as an adult even now I fully support my mom for wanting to do that. And I support anyone else who wants/wanted to do an abortion. Anyone else agree?
In abortion debates, people always ask how I ground my moral values and why I ought to value human life? How do I ground my morals other than saying I value human life or potential for human life? I am a christian, so I obviously cant say my religion, since it just ends the debate
Greetings everyone!
Welcome to AbortionDebate. Due to popular request, this is our weekly abortion debate thread.
This thread is meant for anything related to the abortion debate, like questions or ideas, that are too small to make an entire post about. This is also a great way to gain more insight in the abortion debate if you are new, or unsure about making a whole post.
ADBreakRoom is our officially recognized sister subreddit for all off-topic content and banter you'd like to share with the members of this community. It's a great place to relax and unwind after some intense debating, so go subscribe!
For those who don’t know this is a public order act in the UK as of 2023 and is a “150-metre boundary … place around all clinics and hospitals offering abortion services known as a ‘safe access zone’” (the government website offers the following information)
Within these boundaries it is now a criminal offence to intentionally or recklessly:
influence any person’s decision to access or facilitate abortion services at an abortion clinic
obstruct any person from accessing or facilitating abortion services at an abortion clinic
cause harassment, alarm or distress to any person in connection with a decision to access, provide or facilitate abortion services at an abortion clinic
Police and prosecutors will consider each case individually based on the evidence. However, this could include:
handing out anti-abortion leaflets
protesting against abortion rights
shouting at individuals attempting to access abortion services
This could also cover prayer, including:
silent prayer
holding vigils
any behaviour where someone is intentionally trying to – or recklessly acting in a way that might – influence a person accessing the service
Anyone found guilty of breaking the new laws will face an unlimited fine.
Is this a law you would like to exist where you live? (How would you improve it!?)
If you are pro life what are your thoughts or reflections on this?