Lots of interesting thought experiments here. I remember my gender politics professor assigned a book on abortion that made the violinist argument. She was excited and thought there would be lively debate, but in the class of 50 undergrads everyone was just like “how dare she call a baby a parasite.”
I disagree about pregnancy being like forced behaviors such as traffic laws. The government can require me to stop at a stop sign, but pregnancy is more like impaling someone with a stop sign and leaving it there for 9 months despite the bleeding and pain and trouble functioning, plus visible scarring forever. Don’t get me wrong, I adore my son and it was worth it—but pregnancy is no joke. That’s not even getting into all the complications that can arise such as hyperemesis gravidarum, gestational diabetes, and (rarely) death.
We need to distinguish between rules/taxes and something that alters our bodies, impacting our health and ability to function for months.
1) Bodily autonomy took a pretty big hit in 2021. You only mentioned it in passing but, Covid-19 vaccines. There was also a lot of position flipping. Now, what the relative values are there can be pretty interesting. One causes absolute certain death of something that is arguably not life. The other is highly unlikely to cause the death of something that is absolutely life. Which leads to my second point...
2) I appreciate that this tries to get to the heart of the matter: the abortion debate is about when we value something as life. There's a lot of dancing around this issue but it's true. People disagree on when that life begins and is (theoretically) valued. And since this is pretty much just a societal construct, and there's no such thing as a shared human society, I think it's perfectly reasonable that abortion could be moral at some point in some places and immoral at another point in other places. I feel I violated some important philosophical principle in there but fuck it.
3) Killing Klingons is acceptable because they're animals. They SPOILERS FOR A FORTY YEAR OLD MOVIE killed Kirk's son. I can never forgive them.
Also, I genuinely want to derail this into trans issues just because I now find that funny but I resisted the urge.
I think this is a great application of logic to the issue. And I think you're 100% right that progressives are inconsistent on their ethic (well, just as much as ultra conservatives I suppose).
My latest thinking on the issue revolves around "wanting." Women who want to be pregnant are upset when they miscarry, because they have lost their baby. many (most?) Women who abort don't walk around feeling devastated that they have aborted their fetus. The only difference? One was wanted, one wasn't.
I can't agree that the value of human life comes down to whether another human wants you around or not. This is why I find pro-choice talking points about "overcrowded foster care" or "a life of pain" for disabled people so muddled/inconsistent and frankly insulting.
I know you said you’re ignoring rape, but how is it more acceptable to kill the violinist just because someone forced you to play Super Mario Odyssey at gunpoint? The violinist still exists. If it’s OK to kill some violinists, why not all?
(Jumping around) I think the five traits that define humans could be applied to at least a few animals.
Seems to me we’ve hashed out abortion for a long time — decades! — and by now almost everyone’s thought about it and has decided what they believe, and probably their belief doesn’t rely on philosophical moral arguments (even if maybe it should? I don’t know.)
People have a _gut feeling_ rather than a philosophical position about whether an early abortion kills a “person” or not. Most people think not (and especially the earlier you’re talking about). So to those people abortion is morally acceptable.
Other people have a _gut feeling_ that from conception they’d be killing a person. To those people abortion is not morally acceptable.
I think in the real world it rarely gets more complicated than that.
Just as in a foxhole you’re unlikely to find an atheist, I think in the context of an unwanted pregnancy you’re unlikely to find a pro-lifer. Obviously there are some. Not many.
“ Finally, I won’t consider instances where the pregnancy puts the woman’s body is danger, since I think that reduces to a straightforward case of self defense.”
I’m struggling with this sentence, since pregnancy almost by definition puts a woman’s body in danger. Do you mean certain danger of death only?
Pro-choice advocates must find necessary conditions for personhood and show that a fetus doesn’t meet them. Ultimately, I think that only the pro-choice side can fulfill its end of the bargain
Please elaborate here. I find the pro-life argument much more consistent and humane. I'm a very tepid pro-choice woman that finds abortion repulsive and immoral, but can accept it in the first trimester. I have birth to two children (yes children, not fetuses) after being born too prematurely to survive on their own and the hospital would not save them because they were a few days under legal viability cruel, inhumane and barbaric. I struggled with people that dismissed their death as no big deal because they were not persons. If they were not persons, do I get to mourn them? Is it a loss? If it's a loss, what did I lose?
Do you also think that ending the life of the elderly is fine, if they have dementia for example and don't meet the standards you set forth on human-level consciousness?
If your line is human level consciousness, then are you fine with someone killing a puppy that lacks human level consciousness?
Lots of interesting thought experiments here. I remember my gender politics professor assigned a book on abortion that made the violinist argument. She was excited and thought there would be lively debate, but in the class of 50 undergrads everyone was just like “how dare she call a baby a parasite.”
I disagree about pregnancy being like forced behaviors such as traffic laws. The government can require me to stop at a stop sign, but pregnancy is more like impaling someone with a stop sign and leaving it there for 9 months despite the bleeding and pain and trouble functioning, plus visible scarring forever. Don’t get me wrong, I adore my son and it was worth it—but pregnancy is no joke. That’s not even getting into all the complications that can arise such as hyperemesis gravidarum, gestational diabetes, and (rarely) death.
We need to distinguish between rules/taxes and something that alters our bodies, impacting our health and ability to function for months.
I have three main thoughts here:
1) Bodily autonomy took a pretty big hit in 2021. You only mentioned it in passing but, Covid-19 vaccines. There was also a lot of position flipping. Now, what the relative values are there can be pretty interesting. One causes absolute certain death of something that is arguably not life. The other is highly unlikely to cause the death of something that is absolutely life. Which leads to my second point...
2) I appreciate that this tries to get to the heart of the matter: the abortion debate is about when we value something as life. There's a lot of dancing around this issue but it's true. People disagree on when that life begins and is (theoretically) valued. And since this is pretty much just a societal construct, and there's no such thing as a shared human society, I think it's perfectly reasonable that abortion could be moral at some point in some places and immoral at another point in other places. I feel I violated some important philosophical principle in there but fuck it.
3) Killing Klingons is acceptable because they're animals. They SPOILERS FOR A FORTY YEAR OLD MOVIE killed Kirk's son. I can never forgive them.
Also, I genuinely want to derail this into trans issues just because I now find that funny but I resisted the urge.
I think this is a great application of logic to the issue. And I think you're 100% right that progressives are inconsistent on their ethic (well, just as much as ultra conservatives I suppose).
My latest thinking on the issue revolves around "wanting." Women who want to be pregnant are upset when they miscarry, because they have lost their baby. many (most?) Women who abort don't walk around feeling devastated that they have aborted their fetus. The only difference? One was wanted, one wasn't.
I can't agree that the value of human life comes down to whether another human wants you around or not. This is why I find pro-choice talking points about "overcrowded foster care" or "a life of pain" for disabled people so muddled/inconsistent and frankly insulting.
I know you said you’re ignoring rape, but how is it more acceptable to kill the violinist just because someone forced you to play Super Mario Odyssey at gunpoint? The violinist still exists. If it’s OK to kill some violinists, why not all?
(Jumping around) I think the five traits that define humans could be applied to at least a few animals.
Seems to me we’ve hashed out abortion for a long time — decades! — and by now almost everyone’s thought about it and has decided what they believe, and probably their belief doesn’t rely on philosophical moral arguments (even if maybe it should? I don’t know.)
People have a _gut feeling_ rather than a philosophical position about whether an early abortion kills a “person” or not. Most people think not (and especially the earlier you’re talking about). So to those people abortion is morally acceptable.
Other people have a _gut feeling_ that from conception they’d be killing a person. To those people abortion is not morally acceptable.
I think in the real world it rarely gets more complicated than that.
Just as in a foxhole you’re unlikely to find an atheist, I think in the context of an unwanted pregnancy you’re unlikely to find a pro-lifer. Obviously there are some. Not many.
“ Finally, I won’t consider instances where the pregnancy puts the woman’s body is danger, since I think that reduces to a straightforward case of self defense.”
I’m struggling with this sentence, since pregnancy almost by definition puts a woman’s body in danger. Do you mean certain danger of death only?
Pro-choice advocates must find necessary conditions for personhood and show that a fetus doesn’t meet them. Ultimately, I think that only the pro-choice side can fulfill its end of the bargain
Please elaborate here. I find the pro-life argument much more consistent and humane. I'm a very tepid pro-choice woman that finds abortion repulsive and immoral, but can accept it in the first trimester. I have birth to two children (yes children, not fetuses) after being born too prematurely to survive on their own and the hospital would not save them because they were a few days under legal viability cruel, inhumane and barbaric. I struggled with people that dismissed their death as no big deal because they were not persons. If they were not persons, do I get to mourn them? Is it a loss? If it's a loss, what did I lose?
Do you also think that ending the life of the elderly is fine, if they have dementia for example and don't meet the standards you set forth on human-level consciousness?
If your line is human level consciousness, then are you fine with someone killing a puppy that lacks human level consciousness?