[Repubcracy]

Although I am not educated in the subject, I would like to know what opinions you adult persons have.

[Yeddi]

I am currently studying 'Abortion and Infanticide' within my Moral and Ethics subject. Therefore i would not have this answer as my absolute, but at the moment from reading thinking i'm sitting on a very very Pro-choice stance.
In all cases, if a woman really wants to terminate pregnancy then it is morally justifiable to do so, in any case and at anytime. I'm also leaning toward Tooley's idea of allowable infanticide around 1 week after birth. So there you go, i'll prepare to be lynched by conservatives and liberals alike now.

[Soma]

Yeddi...that's more murder than abortion. I can't even decide if you're being serious or not...

I'm pro-life.
I'm against killing the embryo from the moment she reaches the womb - which means I'm not against the morning after pill, but I don't agree with stem cell research or IVF treatment.

[Repubcracy]

Infantcide is wrong in my opinion, but early term (NOT late term) abortions are acceptable

[Visage of Glory]

I am not an "adult" quite yet, so I don't know if my opinion matters to you, but I will give it you anyway. I think that abortion is wrong in every circumstance, except if the woman's life is in mortal danger. It is even iffy then. I don't see any reason to abort a child's life once you have brought it into life.

[Repubcracy]

I think that abortion is wrong in every circumstance

But what if the mother has given HIV or another fatal disease? Would you want your child to live a life of pain?

[Noumenon]

I've already explained my position on other abortion threads, but I believe that a fetus, being a human being, has basic human rights. That includes the right to live. Rights are valid until a person violates anothers', then they forfeit their own. A fetus is innocent. Can someone please explain to me why its okay to violate an innocent human beings' rights by killing it?

[Maxim Litvinov]

For me, human beings don't automatically have rights. Persons have rights. What is the difference? A person is someone with identity, self-awareness, capacity for higher-order thinking skills etc. An alien would be a person if it had these properties.

A foetus, it is generally considered, does not bear the mark of personhood. Therefore, it is not automatically wrong to kill a foetus.

It is thus okay to violate an innocent human being when -
i] they are not a person
ii] they don't have rights (rights in a legal sense)

It is the same answer I would give if you asked me why its okay to murder a perfectly innocent cow.

Now, of course, community standards come into it. They always will in law. And also the fact that the foetus could grow into a person should be considered. But it's still not difficult to outline a pro-abortion case.

[SpiderMonkey]

It's a departure from the traiditional left-wing stance, but I'm quite pro-life. The entire debate seems, to me, to be window dressing for the killing of a baby.

The solution, is to handle it from both ends. Shitloads of contraception, and shitloads of adoption. Two options which are infinitely favourable in my mind to terminating a pregnancy.

[Yeddi]

Yeddi...that's more murder than abortion. I can't even decide if you're being serious or not...

I'm afraid that i'm serious. I used to be for the early term abortion thing, and then i got to thinking, why am i drawing the line for death/life here?
I sort of extended it out, the foetus is not person [read what Maxim said] it has no rights, it is impeeding on the rights of the mother so if she wants it out gone. Then i thought about it some more adn realised that if you take a baby in a womb and then take a baby outside a womb, nothing has changed except its visability, it doesn't become a person until sometime out of the womb (don't know when so made arbitrary 1 week) Please note i'm feelign infanticide should only be used for extreme disabilities that, had they been detected, most likely would have resulted in an abortion.

[Maxim Litvinov]

Yeddi - you are right about the 'pro-abortion' case: if it relies upon personhood then it also sanctions new-born babies being killed. There are always 'ways around this problem', but this does seem to be the 'position from first principles'.

Are you reading Judith Jarvis Thomson, Yeddi?

[Yeddi]

There are always 'ways around this problem', but this does seem to be the 'position from first principles'.

Are you reading Judith Jarvis Thomson, Yeddi?

Peter Singer.

How would one make a way round the problem? i don't see how that would work.

[Maxim Litvinov]

I so should read some Peter Singer. But, then again, perhaps I shouldn't. Because a lot of his ideas appeal to me...

OK. You want to know ways around the problem? I can suggest some. The problem restated is: if it is OK to kill non-persons, and the route to personhood doesn't end until some time after birth, doesn't this sanction the killing of new-born babies?

1] The killing of new-born babies is only OK, if it is a 'good'. The actual act of killing itself is not bad, but it has ramifications that are detrimental. For example - it makes the mother much more guilty to kill a baby that is alive, than one that is still a foetus; the community disapproves much more strongly of such actions; there are more laws against infanticide as opposed to abortion. All of this means that where a cost/benefit analysis of an abortion might tip slightly in favour of saying it is not a particularly immoral decision, these 'practical factors' will almost inevitably tip the scales the other way once the child is born.
2] The child in the womb is only directly dependant on the mother. Once the child is born, it is still dependant, but can be cared for by basically anyone. Therefore, the idea of a 'parasitic' child that a mother has a right to kill vanishes when the child is born. Because now the mother is not simply committing an act on her own body or killing a baby through 'collateral' damage, she is actually having to actively pursue the baby's death.
3] Another simple way related to 1] is just to say: I'm a cultural relativist, poeple generally allow abortions in our society but not infanticide. It is the act of disallowance that makes the act wrong.

Now, none of these are entirely convincing ways around the problem. But they are arguable. Is is always difficult to draw a line in the sand about right/wrong when you are essentially talking about an evolutionary process (that is - from non-person to person).

[Yeddi]

I so should read some Peter Singer. But, then again, perhaps I shouldn't. Because a lot of his ideas appeal to me...

good point.

2] The child in the womb is only directly dependant on the mother..

thats an interesting point but of course if one were to remove a baby from the womb earlier it could survive without the mother herslef, as you said with others caring. In fact as i understand it when that point is reached abortion is no longer legal in Aus.

I appreciate your ideas of Culture, and personally i'd agree i don't think i myself could commit infanticide myself, even without fear of procecution or other sideeffects. i just couldn't physically do it. In fact i believe that same idea happend to Singer after he had kids, he sort of 'grew a heart' and had to revise some of his theories, well thats what my lecturor said.
That is not to say that i don't think it can be morally justified.
It is really interesting to talk/think about these things but as you say society does not approve at all of these things, most people i've attempted to talk about infanticide and things to got ready to rip my throat out without even hearing me out, it is that repulsive for society.

[Repubcracy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion

"Morning after" or "emergency" contraceptive drugs that are taken within 72 hours of sex interfere with the release of eggs from the ovary or with fertilization, and so are not generally considered to be forms of abortion unless they interfere with implantation of a zygote when taken later

How is preventing a pregnancy, and getting an abortion different? They both have the same result in the end, a baby isn't born. In fact, birth control should be outlawed, because it stops the birth of a potential baby.

Miscarriage, which ends 1 in 5 of all pregnancies, usually within the first 13 weeks) or to the cessation of normal growth of a body part or organ. What follows is a discussion of the issues related to deliberate or "induced" abortion.

On a further note, misscarriages should be outlawed, for they prevent the birth of a child, thus MURDER. Also, smoking should be outlawed for it causes 18, 925 misscarriages a year!

[Maxim Litvinov]

It's people like Singer that make you realise your philosophical standpoints are often founded upon trite doctrinal positions that aren't really that valid.

In the end, issues like infanticide and bestiality aren't as cut-and-dry as we'd like to make out. But we end up making really firm lines in the sand on these issues not because we've got some great logical principles in place, but because they are taboos and we don't want to be anti-social.

It would be fascinating to read a biography of Singer. Not surprisingly, I think he gets his fair share of death threats these days.

[Yeddi]

How is preventing a pregnancy, and getting an abortion different?

I think most people would agree the fact that preventing a pregnancy is nearly always morally acceptable in society and abortion is sometimes not is for the simple reason that nothing exists then. as soon as the egg and sperm have met then there are people who say 'that is life' but before they meet there is nothing.

In fact, birth control should be outlawed, because it stops the birth of a potential baby

Are you actually advocating this or are you throwing it in for debate?

As soon as you worry about 'potentials' you are in trouble. Say i agree with you, okay birth control gone, i mean think about all those babies. Yes lets think about them, they don't exist because contraception was there to prevent egg and sperm rendezvous. Abstainance also prevents egg and sperm rendezvous, so people should be outlawed from abstaining from sex, we should have sex all the time and make sure every thousand eggs and every trillion sperm from everyone should be used to create the babies that they would have were the people to engage in sex.
Do you see where this leads? It is actually very hard to defend this claim, from my experience. unless you bring in a "god said that if one were to engage in sex you should have a baby from each union otherwise it's a sin"
I think that you could only defend this from a theological point of view not morality or ethics.

[Maxim Litvinov]

Everyone commits evil acts.
If it weren't for people, there would be no 'evil'.
Ergo, the birth of more people is a bad thing.
Ergo, anything that stops more births is a good thing.
Ergo, birth control and abortions are good things.

There you go. If we're playing Devil's Advocate, then I actually think the above is a pretty good argument.

I take the similar approach to Yeddi, that you Repubcracy must also be making Devil's Advocate statements.

[ZenWilsonian]

If you are not a vegetarian, you cannot be pro-life. A fetus has not the intelligence to sense the fact its life has been ended, this is much less bad than eating meat.

I think that I am pro-choice. An early term abortion basically involves removing an embryo which has a very small brain, which is just beginning to form, and has no use. Were the system of two doctors having to approve abolished, then an early term abortion would be acceptable for everyone. It is only in cases where people have changed their minds or had trouble with their local pro-life GP in which he has blocked the abortion. Maybe longterm abortions should also be allowed because the baby is not viable and scientific evidence shows that the shortest viability that will likely be attained is around 16-18 weeks.

What I am against is this stupid system whereby if your baby is born with what is seen by 2 doctors to be a 'serious enough disability', one can have an abortion right up until full term. This system should be changed to be more specific, as is demonstrated by the recent case of a baby with a cleft pallete being aborted late - my solution is that abortion should be allowed up until full term 'only where the baby will in good probability not survive to adulthood or will endanger the life of the mother by being born'. This would be much better, as such tests can be carried out within the legal abortion term over here and be relatively accurate, so if an abortion is wanted, they can have one in correct time. If the mother changes her mind afterwards it should be tough.

[GandalfTheGrey]

I sort of extended it out, the foetus is not person [read what Maxim said] it has no rights, it is impeeding on the rights of the mother so if she wants it out gone.

This is the problem I have with the pro choice argument. It is based on the premise that abortion is legitimate because the 'baby' is not yet a person, and has no rights. This argument of course invites claim and counter claim regarding what constitutes a 'life' and exactly when does a foetus become a person with rights. Yeddi has taken the most extreme interpretation, claiming that even a week year old born baby is not a person with rights. Admittedly Yeddi qualifies this by asserting that infanticide would only be allowable in extreme cases, but to me, such an interpretation is merely a reflection of the inability of the pro-choicers to understand the significance of conception. If a one week year old born baby can be considered fair game, then where does one draw the line? The point is, the same logic can be used to justify other sorts of killing. Consider a 5 year old child, who suddenly becomes crippled and mentally disabled and is literally incapable of doing anything on his own. Surely this is "impeeding on the rights of the mother"? Obviously few people would condone killing such people, but I would contend that such a case could be made to do so using the same logic for one week infanticide. And once infanticide becomes socially acceptable as a result of legislation, then it is not inconceivable that other more extreme actions can become socially acceptable as a result, since the first steps down that path have already been made.

This is the problem I have with abortion; its the old cliche "once you go down that path...", and I use the same line of argument against euthenasia. The problem lies in the fact that there is no hard and fast demarcation lines within the pro-choice case: on one end, there are people who say yes to abortion, but only before the first trimester. Then on the other end, you have the 1 week infanticide case. Both ends are based on the same basic premise - that life does not start at conception. But the problem of course is, when does life start? It is this very lack of clear boundaries regarding this that allows such an extreme case to be made as the 1 week infanticide case. While it is true Yeddi stated that he would only support such a case in the most extreme circumstances, he did nontheless assert that 1 week old babies are still not 'people' with rights. So when does this occur? In fact, I would argue that the issue is not even resolved after one week: what is the difference between a one week old baby and a two week old baby? Very little. Is a two year old toddler a person with rights given that they are still completely dependent on their mother?

Contrast this very inexact pro-choice case with the pro-life case. On this side, it is very clear when life begins: at the moment of conception. The argument is that while a foetus may not become a 'life' in the true sense of the word, the very act of conception leads the foetus on an inevitable path towards life. The very fact that a foetus will become a life, even if it is not a life straight away, gives me no qualms whatsoever in asserting that life begins at conception. This way of thinking solves the problems the pro-choice case has of deciding when a life actually begins, and in my opinion, eliminates the dangerous potential this open interpretation has.