[QatzelOk]

A lot of ink is being spilled these days about Trump making moves to "limit abortions." The conventional wisdom on the subject is that the easier it is to get an abortion, the more free and advanced women become and the more "equality" is created between genders.

But there is a problem with this. The "equality" that abortion creates involves killing an unknown entity for economic reasons. Personal economic reasons.

We have been taught (in the last half century) that this unborn baby is not a person, is not a life, and is not worth saving if the mother doesn't feel like supporting it. Media often teaches us that certain nations need to be destroyed in order to save the economic order.

Drones are similar in the sense that the killer is far removed from the victims of the killing.

And like drones, abortion allows a human to kill another human without putting his/her own life in danger. These technologies remove the mutual danger of killing your baby, or killing your enemy.

And in both cases, the killer has no idea who they've removed from existence: the next Einstein? The next Gandhi? A wedding party of doctors and charity workers?

In both cases, economic reasons are served, and future lives (of unknown quality) are ended by a person whose own life is in no danger.

[One Degree]

There are very strong arguments on both sides. When you are in a stalemate, then the person closest to the issue should be given the choice, which is why I support a woman's right to choose.
Ideally, better birth control, could prevent us from having the argument.
I support the issue going to the states, because I understand the depth to which people disagree with any abortion. They should have a place where their views are honored.

[snapdragon]

No person's feelings should ever trump the rights of another person.

[Wellsy]

Just to dig deeper into the manner of abstraction going on where certain details are emphasized in order to show a similarity, I think can question the comparison of economic reasons.

What is the exact nature of the likely economic reasoning in each case.
I imagine with the drone it's not just cost benefit analysis of putting soldiers at risk, but also costs of putting soldiers on the ground and outfitting them with gear and how effective they are to do a military task compared to the drone.
With the woman, finances might be something emphasized, but a child isn't just an economic investment. Its years of care, time, effort, time/task management and if the kid happens to be severely impaired in some way, it is a life time of care. A kid isn't purely just something one looks as a economic drain, more goes into assessing the task of raising a child. One might view it purely in economic terms, but I just wish to point out that we're projecting a reduced sense of what a person considering an abortion might be thinking of.
Though I do think there is certainly an instrumental reasoning in abortion that many find distasteful.
Though at the same time, when it comes to addressing such an issue rather than simply moralizing about it, it's quite clear we should be improving access to contraceptives, education on it and educating people about power dynamics in relationships since it enhances sex education and empowers people with the knowledge on how to deal with certain circumstances more so than no education. If it is an economic issue, then it also suggests that economics is the solution, which is where people start getting at maternity leave, socialized child care and so on.

One could coherently recognize that the child at some stage development is alive, yet still believe that abortion is justified. But depends on what arguments one posits in regards to things like life, personhood and reason for abortion to be legal. Though I think in practice the things I mentioned above are more pressing than the philosophical debates.

[QatzelOk]

Index of OP similarities between (the use of) drones and (the use of) abortion:


1. In both cases, the users life is spared and another life (or lives) are ended.
(Historically, both abortion and warfare were less attractive because of the very real possibility of mutual death)

2. In both cases, the killer(s) are removed from knowing their victims - the life that would have been.
(This opens the door to callous rationalization of taking lives)

3. Both technologies are used for economic reasons: maximizing income potential for young parents, or colonizing foreign nations for as low a price as possible.
(climate change is also about maximizing income here-and-now no matter who it kills)

.......

.. a child isn't just an economic investment. Its years of care, time, effort, time/task management and if the kid happens to be severely impaired in some way, it is a life time of care. ..

Conventional warfare also involves a lifetime of care for veterans (and new colonies) who are often badly damaged and in need of permanent care. They often cause civil wars and other domestic disturbance. And if one of your generals decides to take over your country... And don't even get me started on how hard it is to live without any kind of warfare pillaging at all. Lack of warfare looting could lead to a few generations of income redistribution and economic changes that hurt all your super-rich friends.

[Wellsy]

Conventional warfare also involves a lifetime of care for veterans (and new colonies) who are often badly damaged and in need of permanent care. They often cause civil wars and other domestic disturbance. And if one of your generals decides to take over your country... And don't even get me started on how hard it is to live without any kind of warfare pillaging at all. Lack of warfare looting could lead to a few generations of income redistribution and economic changes that hurt all your super-rich friends.

I'll admit i'm not sure to what end you're intending to achieve by comparing certain aspects between use of drones and abortion, except perhaps to rhetorically argue against the inhumanity of abortion.
To which I attempted to make an emphasis that despite any moralisims,s accepting the state of affairs, that the solution to the matter should then of course be to address the basis for which people abort.

But to continue with what was my initial concern about the degree of abstraction, where one might abstract many details out in order to emphasize similarity.
My thought in general is to point out any dissimilarities between the woman who chooses to have an abortion and a state that uses drones for warfare. That I think your example of care of veterans (which is barely done in part due to significant costs let alone lack of care) and colonies that need basic care to achieve political interests, I don't see how this reflects much upon the circumstance of a woman deciding to have an abortion. That if there's to be a point about culture or the logic of capitalism and its instrumentality then I think one can proceed to be more direct. But I see a large gap in actuality between the woman's circumstance and the state's use of drones in warfare. Emphasizing similarities without tying it all up with an explicit point as to the purpose of such an abstraction for similarities ends up feeling as aimless as stating that I farted, where one might inquire why are you telling me this.
So what is your aim in emphasizing certain similarities?

[QatzelOk]

...That I think your example of care of veterans (which is barely done in part due to significant costs let alone lack of care) and colonies that need basic care to achieve political interests, I don't see how this reflects much upon the circumstance of a woman deciding to have an abortion.

Women who terminate their babies usually need years of psychiatric counselling. Their communities experience demographic gluts because of the popularity of "death" as an economic solution. And in both cases, the reason for the "anonymous killing" are that the state that does the killing (or that doesn't offer enough collective support for children) is the central problem, forcing other actors (women, the military) to commit atrocities that harm them forever.

"No, we don't want to pay for other children's welfare. So why don't you just kill your baby... I mean terminate the unwanted pregnancy."

The double-speak that's involved is another similarity.

[Wellsy]

Women who terminate their babies usually need years of psychiatric counselling. Their communities experience demographic gluts because of the popularity of "death" as an economic solution. And in both cases, the reason for the "anonymous killing" are that the state that does the killing (or that doesn't offer enough collective support for children) is the central problem, forcing other actors (women, the military) to commit atrocities that harm them forever.

"No, we don't want to pay for other children's welfare. So why don't you just kill your baby... I mean terminate the unwanted pregnancy."

The double-speak that's involved is another similarity.

Got something to support the assertion of women who have an abortion usually need counselling?
Because I believe that the association isn't well established.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_and_mental_health

And in regards to economics being a motivator for abortion, I agree, that many feel coerced by circumstances of poor finances to have abortions. In which case socialized supports is better than individualized child support.
And it is indeed the case that the state largely doesn't support the veterans who come back traumatized and blown to pieces from the wars they send them into.

[One Degree]

And in regards to economics being a motivator for abortion, I agree, that many feel coerced by circumstances of poor finances to have abortions. In which case socialized supports is better than individualized child support.

If I understand your comment correctly, then you are simply placing individual rights above community rights. Why should society pay for an individual to have more children than they can support? We simply have an argument of whose rights should be dominant, as with most of society today. Personally, since I believe over population is a serious problem, I do not believe society should take any position which encourages more births.

[Wellsy]

If I understand your comment correctly, then you are simply placing individual rights above community rights. Why should society pay for an individual to have more children than they can support? We simply have an argument of whose rights should be dominant, as with most of society today. Personally, since I believe over population is a serious problem, I do not believe society should take any position which encourages more births.

In my mind I was emphasizing a communal right over that of individuals, the child support system we have presently is the individualized one. Though I imagine you're conceiving of it as an individual right because individuals are the ones that get access to it. But I'm seeing it as communal as socialized supports for child rearing isn't a individualistic right. Liberalism didn't come up with the positive right to an education and for every child to be well provided for in education and basic human needs.
But regardless of what kind of right it is, I see it as addressing the tension people have around abortion where no one really likes it but accept it out of perceived necessity or as the lesser of evils from their perspective.

I'm not that concerned though since when women are educated, have access to contraceptives, see higher rates on measures of gender egalitarianism in their region and have greater access to reproductive health services, generally birth rates drop below the 2.0 replacement rate. In some Scandinavian country, rates are so low that the government has sought to support those who do want to have kids and attempt to make it easier for them to conceive and to incentivize having children. So providing care and quality of life for children who are born, I don't see as necessarily leading to overpopulation within conditions such as women having better control over their reproductive health. Because the tendency is that helping people have better control over their reproductive health actually tends towards the population decreasing in the long term if something isn't done. To which many speak of regulating the population through steady flow of immigrants to maintain a stability in population that us sustainable as too difficult to keep birth rates stable comparatively to immigration.

Though I'm skeptical to how some frame the issue of overpopulation, but haven't sought to investigate the subject that deeply myself though read a chapter for the Australian context.

Sorry if this is a bit mumbled, 'bout 2am and bout to go to bed and cbf reading over and editing.

[QatzelOk]

Why should society pay for an individual to have more children than they can support?

This popular capitalist notion that children are "private property" that is the responsibility of biological parents to "raise and educate" is so anti-social and illogical. It extends much further than to abortion.

If the state lets poor parents or negligent parents ruin "their own" children, these children grow up and leave these biological parents, and go on to be stupid, shitty adults who ruin the societies in which they live. This is the same as the neglect of war veterans, who, if neglected, simply ruin their own families and communities.

The state is supposed to provide the legislation of communities, but here in the Business-controlled West, the state is just there to make sure GM and Exxon don't pay for any social programs - they just sell community-destroying products and start culture-destroying wars.

Abortion also creates a situation where intelligent and innovative women simply don't have babies - this is left to suburban dummies. The result is a glut of young workers, who are then replaced with refugees from countries that are droned.

The state is supposed to ensure that everyone has an equal chance at success, whether they're "unborn" or "born poor." Because this isn't the case in America, our own government (and its corporate owners) use propaganda to convince us that it's okay to destroy unborn babies.

Propaganda is sort of like pre-counselling, whereas many women who have abortions don't receive any counselling afterwards. A lifetime of guilt, like many kinds of psychological distress, increases consumption of certain "escape" products like travel, alcohol and entertainment.

The psychological stress that damaged war veterans often suffer from was behind the suburban bungalow in isolation model of home that was popularized after WW2. This model also assures that neglected children stay that way. Neglected.

And then their psychological stress encourages more consumption.

So while it's true that "we" might have to pay for more child-rearing, the current reality is that we pay MUCH MORE for the lack of state-funded child-rearing that we have now.

[One Degree]

So while it's true that "we" might have to pay for more child-rearing, the current reality is that we pay MUCH MORE for the lack of state-funded child-rearing that we have now.

Ideally, it would be easy to agree with you. The truth is the state has shown they are totally incapable of providing a better environment than even abusive homes. This is why judges repeatedly place children back into the care of parents who are not capable of raising them. This results in my argument being the state should not encourage births of people incapable of financially providing for them, and should perhaps slightly discourage it. This does nothing for abusive homes of people of means, but that is even a more difficult problem to address. I don't even suggest income has any connection to child rearing, but it is one of the few areas the government can influence which may be a factor, or at least not encourage.

[QatzelOk]

...The truth is the state has shown they are totally incapable of providing a better environment than even abusive homes. ...

More precisely, what the AMERICAN CAPITALIST state has shown is that, if you entrust business tycoons to represent you, you will have crappy governance that destroys your culture and the cultures of many other of your victims.

A normal state in the presence of a normal culture... takes care of everyone's kids because... these kids are YOUR future neighbors, co-workers and friends.

Businessmen are excellent at avoiding paying for anyone outside their bubble. Which is one of the reasons that corporate, centralized governance (Military-Industrial governance) is a disaster.

It leads to "solutions" like drones and abortion. (and clean coal, clean nuclear, leaky pipelines and fracking...)

No person's feelings should ever trump the rights of another person.

I agree, in a way. So if the state fabricates a group "feeling" (through mass media propaganda) that the state should neglect the poor and helpless children, this should NOT be allowed to interfere with every person's (including children's) right to happiness, education, health and socialization. No one deserves to be pre-killed in the womb, or droned at a wedding.

[snapdragon]

I agree, in a way. So if the state fabricates a group "feeling" (through mass media propaganda) that the state should neglect the poor and helpless children, this should NOT be allowed to interfere with every person's (including children's) right to happiness, education, health and socialization. No one deserves to be pre-killed in the womb, or droned at a wedding.

pre born children (whatever that means) aren't people, so your point doesn't stand .

You are a person, I am a person. Your feelings don't trump my rights.

Not only that, I find your comparison of an embryo to an actual born child to be pretty disgusting, really.

You have the right to be as disgusting as you like, but try to think how someone who had lost their son or daughter to a drone attack would feel at you telling them their beloved child was of no more importance than the gazillion embryos that get flushed down the loo every month. They would be very distressed and angry. They might even try to punch you in the face.

[QatzelOk]

pre born children (whatever that means) aren't people, so your point doesn't stand .

You are a person, I am a person. Your feelings don't trump my rights.

Not only that, I find your comparison of an embryo to an actual born child to be pretty disgusting, really.

You have the right to be as disgusting as you like, but try to think how someone who had lost their son or daughter to a drone attack would feel at you telling them their beloved child was of no more importance than the gazillion embryos that get flushed down the loo every month. They would be very distressed and angry. They might even try to punch you in the face.

You implied that my judgement was being clouded by "feelings," and then mentioned someone punching me in the face. Sounds like you might be the one whose judgement was clouded.

Dead people can't punch, whether they've been droned or flushed down a toilet. And dead babies can't even count on their parents to support their cause, so really, abortion is worse.

Likewise, your claim that unborn children aren't "people" is similar to the way the media treats foreigners who get killed in our economic wars of predation as "non-human" entities.

The first step to killing someone is to deny their humanity.

[snapdragon]

You implied that my judgement was being clouded by "feelings," and then mentioned someone punching me in the face. Sounds like you might be the one whose judgement was clouded.

I don't think so. I can think of at least two parents who would punch you in the face if you tried to tell them an aborted embryo was of equal importance to their dead child.

Dead people can't punch, whether they've been droned or flushed down a toilet. And dead babies can't even count on their parents to support their cause, so really, abortion is worse

No, abortion is not worse than losing a born child. I don't think anything is.

Likewise, your claim that unborn children aren't "people" is similar to the way the media treats foreigners who get killed in our economic wars of predation as "non-human" entities.

The first step to killing someone is to deny their humanity.

No. My claim that unborn children aren't people is a fact. You try claiming tax benefits for your potential children and see where it gets you.

[QatzelOk]

My claim that unborn children aren't people is a fact.

That's an easy claim to make since no foetus is likely to argue with you, or punch you for saying this.

Likewise, we're "allowed" to kill animals because "they don't have a soul." Like unborn children, they can't defend themselves with texts either. So we kill all of our textless victims with no remorse as abortions and drone victims, (and by killing their future environment both social and ecological).

And the victims of drones are also denied representation, which seems to prove to you and many other people, that they have no reason to live. The early colonists in America thought it was okay to kill the locals who didn't understand orders in English, or Spanish, or Portuguese. They were denied their humanity for the same reason you would deny an unborn child his/her humanity: Unable to speak to you.

They're are billions of people on the Earth who will never have the chance to speak to you, and they still deserve to live.

Solipsism is not next to Godliness.

[snapdragon]

That's an easy claim to make since no foetus is likely to argue with you, or punch you for saying this.

It's impossible for a foetus to do any such thing because it's inside the pregnant woman.
If the woman dies, the foetus dies.

[/quote]

You don't seem to understand the difference between people and potential people.

[QatzelOk]

You don't seem to understand the difference between people and potential people.

Let me put this another way: that unborn children are "people" or "not people" isn't a fact at all. It's a philosophical argument, and not a factual one. It's up to the person arguing to define what a "person" is, and whether their definition gives them the right to kill that unborn.

It's a philosophical question that has always been answered by "yes, it's a person, you must not kill this person!" up until the Modern Period, which is when we also started using poison gas and drones to kill total strangers for abstract reasons.

[Cocoa Jackson]

Unborn children are not the same as living people so there is no comparison.

There is no magical creation of a human at conception. People develop in gradual stages and there is no clear cut stage where we go from not a person to a person in an instant.