[Visage of Glory]

1] Our whole lives are full of denying potential. By taking the decisions we have taken, we have probably denied ourselves the opportunity of being far richer and happier, and making the world richer and happier.

2] But our decisions haven't been immoral - even though they might
have led to more unhappiness - because they were performed normally with good intentions of maximising happiness.

That they have not been immoral is true for the most part. However, when you force your decisions on others, ruining their potential, that is when it is immoral. When you don't feed your child because you spend all your money on drugs, that is immoral. You are limiting that child's potential. I personally think that you are wasting your potential as well, but that is your choice. But when you limit the potential of others for your own gain, that is wrong.

5] Of course, the standard rebuttal of potential when it comes to abortion is a reductio ad absurdam. Namely, if to kill a foetus is to stop a 'potential' new life, then so is not to get pregnant, so is not to have sex, so is not to be on the look out for a new partner, so is not to rape someone if you're desperate. Yet, society would have problems saying any of the latter are 'more immoral than murder'.

My response to this is simple. When it gets to the point where it is "natural" potential, then it is immoral to destroy it. I think that comes around when you have sex during the woman's fertility stage, and you do not take any precautions. Now there is a big chance that their will be a fetus, that will likely grow in the womb, be born, and grow to be an adult.

6] Of course, the potential argument also does not take into account the potential in the lives of those already living. A mother will stifle her potential, a father will stifle his. Sometimes their lives will be practically 'potential-less' if they have a child under adverse conditions. And, at the end of the day, the child could be the next Gandhi, but then again it could be the next Hitler. Coming from a dysfunctional family, where the mother didn't want it, it is probably more likely to be a Hitler.

I disagree with you here on a fundemental level. I don't think it stifles the potential of the father and mother when they have a child. I think it instead enhances it. But I don't think we are going to be reconciled on that level, so I don't see the point of arguing about it.

And whether or not the person becomes great or not is a chance I personally am willing to take. I would rather trust in the person to become good, then worry rather they would be good. Maybe I am an idealist, but I have faith in the human race.

Your 'killing a person in the street' example is another bad analogy. Because it is killing a person, instead of a non-person. If you *knew* this person was definitely about to top himself successfully, then it is probably not as bad as killing someone in the prime of his life, but it is all a bit contrived and meaningless from my perspective.

What if you knew the child was going to become the person that brings about world peace? Or what if you knew it was going to be the person that detonates a nuclear warhead in the center of Bejing? Obviously if we knew this, it would be a much easier decision, right? I am not sure of the correct answer here, but I do know one thing. We don't know what is going to happen, so I believe the most moral thing is for life to take its course, not stifle and cut it off for whatever reasons, selfish or not.

[Maxim Litvinov]

Well, I think as you've pointed out, there are certain points that aren't worth arguing, because they have more to do with opinion than 'fact' or 'argument'.

But...

What if you knew the child was going to become the person that brings about world peace? Or what if you knew it was going to be the person that detonates a nuclear warhead in the centre of Bejing? Obviously if we knew this, it would be a much easier decision, right? I am not sure of the correct answer here, but I do know one thing. We don't know what is going to happen, so I believe the most moral thing is for life to take its course, not stifle and cut it off for whatever reasons, selfish or not.

No, in the event that the long-term results of the action are neither clearly positive or clearly negative, it makes sense not simply to 'suspend' any action up until you can find out the results, but rather to act on the basis of what the short-term consequences are likely to be. Which is generally what happens in the case of abortion.

Of course my 'cost/benefit' analysis of abortion would put little cost on aborting a foetus, just as my world view would put little cost on butchering a cow, provided there are good reasons from the persons involved. Your world view would differ on this point, quite obviously.

[Garibaldi]

I find your adoption 'clause' very hard to take. You are saying that if a woman happens to get pregnant, through whatever means - consensual or not, wanted or not, beneficial or not - she should be compelled by the state to do nothing to harm the baby inside her, including seriously restricting her own freedoms.... But that as soon as she's given birth, you have no moral qualms with her simply abandoning the baby?

I see, rather, the abandoning of an infant as a more callous act than aborting a child in the first place.

How is it more callous? You insist that death is more rightous than allowing a more prepared and willing parent to take care of the child, but you state no reason why this is so. In fact, common sense tells us it is not; with the child's life protected and placed in the care of voluntary parents, it is in a much better position than not existing at all.

My problem with the arguments against abortion on this thread are:
1} they seem to acquire a religious, rather than rational, belief to justify.
2} they believe in forcing the effects of this religious belief onto other people through the apparatus of the state.

Maxim, I am not religious and I have not stated any reasons based upon religion, not have I read, as far as I have read, any other arguements based soly or even partially on religion in this thread. Bringing this up upon the discussion of my reasonings is unnecessary and actually serves to discredit you due to it's plausibility as simply meant to distract from the real arguement.

I also think where people talk 'practically' about disallowing abortion through legislation, they fail to acknowledge that this doesn't stop the practice of abortion at all, but just makes it much more dangerous. So, supporting state restrictions on abortion is also supporting a system which promotes the death of women through unsafe medical practices. Women - persons - are dying around the clock around the world because they are forced into unsafe abortions, rather than safe ones.

I never said disallow all aboritons, only the ones which would not force a sane adult to feel threatened. However, most cases of women who have abortions would not do so illegally, in the form of "closet-hanger abortions", if abortions were illegal as a group. The only case where a sane person would commit an unsafe abortion is if carrying the baby threatened her life. This would also be utilized in some cases if a women were raped; however, I would hardly call these women all sane and this arguement still does not answer the question of whether or not the women has a right being violated that is more worthy than the fetus's right to life. Where-as an abortion takes the life of a fetus without it's consent in all cases, an ilegal abortion only takes the life of the women with her own consent.

As for foetuses not being people. Well, this has been dealt with at length. In philosophy and psychology there are some fairly clear parameters about what a person is, and being 'human' is neither a necessary or sufficient condition. A person is, broadly speaking, something with personality - a self-awareness (knowledge of oneself as a distinct entity), a personality, a mode of being in the world, a self-knowledge as a being occupying a place in time.

Self-awareness- At the time a women is aware of her pregnancy, the fetus has been self-aware for several weeks.

Personality- According to Frued, people are pre-programmed from the time of conception. Simply, and event that occurs effects a person's personality and mental development. Since a fetus has yet to see an outside world, every little heartbeat and movement has a profound impact.

Mode of Being in the World- Care to explain?

Self-knowledge of occupying time- How does a fetus not do this? All animals with the slightest brain capacity do this, and possibly species without as well.

How do we judge personhood? We can do so through experimentation. Broadly speaking, infants do not 'fully' develop into persons until age four or so. Which means, although it is a process of slow development, any enwombed human is never going to really be a person. New-born babies, for instance, do not recognise themselves as beings distinct from the mother.

I apologize for the lack of tact, but that is utter horse-shit. New-born babies well know they are distinct from the mother, and the only standard I can see from your time frame is that the true standard of being a human being is the ability to talk. The true reason for this is that at that point in time is that our lyranx drops in our throat and we gain muscles needed to control sound-waves. Unless there is another reason you wish to describe to me why a child is not a person until 4 years of age, that's out the water.

For answers to how the concept of personhood is relevant, or why this doesn't simply mean people like Yeddi and I automatically encourage/condone infanticide, read back along this thread.

I don't have the time nor the patience, but if you know why then just brief them here and I'll get the connection between them and what you say to the other contenders.

[Maxim Litvinov]

*sigh*

1] I find it more callous because it is advocating putting a woman through nine months of hell she'd rather avoid, forcing her to bring into life a child she doesn't want, and then saying it's quite okay for her to abandon the child. If a child was going to grow up unloved, or without suitable conditions, and this was also going to mean forcing the mother to do something to her detriment, then this seems stupid. It's a lose-lose situation. Not to mention that 'adopting' out a child is a very difficult, painful procedure, and hardly possible in many countries around the world. Non-existence, on the other hand, is a relatively sane approach.
2] You might not have stated any religious beliefs, although others have. But, you do not state *where* a human (as opposed to a person) gets their sacred 'right to life' from. I understand how some Christians and Muslims justify this 'right to life' (because God commanded it). But if you are not even resorting to God in an attempt to support the 'right to life', I am even less impressed by the force of your argument -- which basically just seems to assert one shouldn't kill humans, based on some nagging thought that it's wrong, rather than any rational (or even irrational) argument as to why this is so.
3] You are wrong that women would only commit unsafe abortions if they baby 'threatened her life'. Indeed, medical reasons would account for very few illegal/covert abortions, for the simple fact that often women performing the abortions aren't aware that they are at risk by giving birth in the first place. Women carry out illegal/covert abortions all the time on the basis of the perceived detrimental effect the child will have on them. That the child is illegitimate and they'll be ostracised from their community, that they are still at school/work and won't have a chance to fulfill their potential if they have the child, that they couldn't possibly support the child fiscally or even stop it from starving, that they would be persecuted by the authorities if they had the child, that the father would exact revenge upon them etc. I think I would rather listen to an individual woman's reasons why she thinks an abortion is necessary/advisable, than listen to a government's reasons why it should tell women what to do.
4] Self-awareness. Bollocks. Personhood is widely understood, as is cognitive development. You don't have to resort to Freud. Children, for instance, have no concept of themselves as distinct entities when they are newborn. Do a test - or look up experimental findings. I would accept if foetuses were persons then they should not be aborted, though. I just don't think there is any reasonable evidence that they are persons.
5] Mode of being in the world and occupying time: they have the concepts of their individuality, their ability to shape events, concepts of cause and effect, ability to realise that their consciousness is distinct from those around them, ability to see and understand the vector of time, and to see themselves as independent actors in the world with a personality. I would expect all of these concepts to be most fully developed in adult humans. 6] You are simply wrong when it comes to your 'science' of new-born babies. It is generally accepted by all sides of the debate on persons that neonates are not self-aware. I will trawl through Google, or suggest you do, if you don't believe me - but the fact isn't generally contested, for example, by opponents of Peter Singer. New-borns, for instance, do not have the ability to recognise that what they are experiencing/thinking is not readily apparent to their mother.
7] I don't see what the larynx has to do with anything. If you think I believe that you aren't a 'person' until your fourth birthday, then that is wrong. What I am saying is that personhood is a process of cognitive development. Chimpanzees are not quite persons, but have more of the qualities of a person than a baby in the first trimester. When you look at the 'stages' of cognitive development, it also becomes clear that neo-nates, although more like persons than a foetus, are still not conscious of themselves enough to warrant the term.
8] Simply put, I don't condone infanticide because -
i) there are many other moral processes at work in a case of abortion, than infanticide - eg. capacity of the being to exist without the mother, presence of the mother as sole guardian, societal beliefs and condemnation of the practices.
ii) when you get into the territory of infants, I recognise - as I outlined above - that you are getting into the blurry area of personhood. So I think it is generally 'too unsafe' anyway, to go around killing infants, even if you think you have a good excuse.

[Visage of Glory]

Women carry out illegal/covert abortions all the time on the basis of the perceived detrimental effect the child will have on them. That the child is illegitimate and they'll be ostracised from their community, that they are still at school/work and won't have a chance to fulfill their potential if they have the child, that they couldn't possibly support the child fiscally or even stop it from starving, that they would be persecuted by the authorities if they had the child, that the father would exact revenge upon them etc. I think I would rather listen to an individual woman's reasons why she thinks an abortion is necessary/advisable, than listen to a government's reasons why it should tell women what to do.

My problem with this is that these things could be solved by not getting yourself into the problem in the first case. That usually simply means not having improper sex. I hate these justifications for abortion, because I think it is an easy way to get out of a problematic situation at the cost of a human (or at least a potential human) life. I don't feel it is right that someone can screw up and take abortion as an easy way out. If you cannot handle a baby, DON'T have sex while you can become pregnant. It is as simple as that, in almost all cases. I understand that there are some circumstances where a woman would want to have an abortion from some other reason then irresponsible sex, namely rape and threat to the mother's life. But beyond those reasons, I cannot stand most of the reasons for aborting a baby.