Discussion Zone for Abortion

This post will serve as the launch point for the discussion of abortion. The discussion zone will be near the top of the Left Hand Column, along with the discussion zones for Atheism and Evolution.

Hugo has provided a good place to start the discussion.
Here's the discussion with Hugo, so far.

Hugo says,
“As I mentioned above, it's not about whether we should decide 'who' can be killed or not; it's about where in the human development stage do the cells go from 'it' to 'who', from just cells with the potential to be a human to an actual human (with "personhood" and "human-ness") that has the right to life.”

You can dance around the issue all you want, but I’m standing firm on actual logic: you cannot have come to exist without having come through the entire process of human development. When you were a “developing” human, you were a human. No matter what adjectives you add to the word “human” you cannot deny the human her humanity… unless you are the moral authority and arbiter of her fate as you choose to define it. However you define it, you are choosing a point at which the human may be killed. No wonder you want to deny her her obvious human natural access to a full life (you escaped the denial of humanity; you are privileged with life due to not having been killed).

”Logically speaking, statements are either true, or not-true. Statements about morality talk about moral actions or immoral actions. There is no in-between. “

Good so far. But I sense a diversion coming up.

”However, it's not always easy to spot which is which, and humans disagree all the time on which is which. In other words, some situations are definitely back-or-white, but many are somewhere in between. Abortion is at times clearly moral, but not always, so it's not a black-or-white topic. But the self-labeled pro-life crowd would like to put it that way.”

True or false: Shredding an embryonic human is killing.

”Here's a way to illustrate the dilemma:

1) Spermatozoids/eggs contain genetic material; a random set of chromosomes from a male/female. On their own, they cannot even potentially become an independent human being. Nobody argues that these should be kept alive for future use; abortion does not come up. And it's obviously not possible to do so anyway, especially not with the billions of spermatozoid that a single male produces over his lifetime. There is no 'who' being killed when an egg/spermatozoid is taken on its own.

Red Herring. No one argues that spermatazoa by themselves are human life; neither are unfertilized eggs. So 1) has no bearing on the argument being made, and it is diversionary.

”2) When a woman is pregnant with a baby, it happens quite often that the baby will be born before the ~40 week mark, the normal average gestation period. At that time, and for many weeks before, the baby is fully formed and able to live outside the womb. Abortion does not apply here either, just like #1, but for a different reason: the process is called a c-section and the baby lives. It would require the explicit killing of the baby to make sure it does not survive.”

And that is what Tiller and his ilk have done: inject the human embryo with poison through the uterine wall, killing the baby and making its removal by shredding into an abortion, necessitated by the murder of the intrauterine human.

Of course, as you mentioned on another thread, there are some people who apparently want this to happen, but that's not about abortion anymore at this point. There is no abortion once the fetus is fully viable, the baby is a 'who' that clearly has the right to live.

Of course there is and you don’t know any different because abortions are strictly secret (privacy, doncha know)..

...but in between, that's where it gets a bit more complicated.

Only if you self-anoint with moral authority to make it more complicated, and you eschew all rational arguments regarding human development happening to humans.

”3) The first one I will list is the easiest, in my opinion: at the time of conception. Because we understand human development very well, (and any sexual reproduction actually, since it's all the same), we know that the result is a combination of the female egg, which has half the number of chromosomes of a full human, with the male spermatozoid, which also has half the number of chromosomes. Together, they form a random combination, which is almost certainly unique because of the statistical improbability of combining the exact same genes twice, and the small mutations that can happen during cell division. This process can be triggered naturally, or artificially in a laboratory, or even just theoretically: take a spermatozoid from any male, take an egg from any woman, and combine their genetic code to get an idea of a new potential human being.

The latter case is purely imaginary, and is included as another Red Herring. No imaginary process produces, of itself, anything real in the material sense. No one is aborting anyone’s imagination.

” In the latter case, that human would never exist since it's just a thought experiment, while in the first 2 it could lead to a human, if the initial cell is nurtured in a womb and grow successfully to become a viable fetus, an actual human being. But, at the time of conception, there is no 'who' yet; there is nobody to talk about.”

Ah the human identity is merely denied, thus enabling its death by human destruction of its gestation.

” It's just 1 of a quasi-infinite number of valid sequence of human DNA.

As are you. And I emphasize the “just”.

”Moreover, the notion of 'time of conception' can also extend to hours, and maybe a couple of days, after conception, where the initial cell has had time to reproduce itself thousands of times already, but without forming anything resembling a human yet.”

It exactly resembles a human at that stage of development, just as you did at that stage of development. You have inserted your prejudice, and it is rejected.

”4) The next one, first trimester of development, is also easy but emotional manipulation kicks-in in full force from the so-called "pro-life" side.”

False. Declaring the argument against your desire to kill to be emotional is merely word-play. Every human has to go through all the stages of development, right up to time of death. That individual is human the entire time. Your desire to redefine that obvious conclusion is rejected.

” Here, we are talking about a something that is not, at all, a person yet…”

This is a FALSE declaration. You have anointed yourself to be the arbiter of who can be considered a person and who cannot. The use of the word “person” changes the argument illegally away from the issue of the humanness of the developing human. And you use this redefinition which you make up to “justify” your theory of who can be killed at whatever stage which you choose to justify by changing definitions.

This is entirely Machiavellian.

”…but the embryo can start to reassemble one because of the formation of organs, and even a beating hearth at the threshold between embryo and fetus.”

All of this is trivial and so is the following discussion of Highschool biology.


”During the first trimester of a pregnancy, quite a lot happens basically and, the later it is, the more human-like the embryo is. However, there is absolutely no way that this embryo would survive outside of the mother's womb, there is no working nervous system and thus no 'who' to talk about.”

And another redefinition is put in place: no human is a “who” until you say so, because you have the moral authority to allow or deny a human her “whoness”, based on your opinion.

This is definitely still just some pack of cells, a lot of them, but not a human person.

This definition forgot to include the inability to talk about her “whoness”. You have made your decision using the same decision path and format that the eugenicists leading up to both Lenin and Hitler used: that category is not human; it has no person-hood; it has no whoness; it is without value, and it is a drain on its host and so: kill it.

”Moreover, that's when the vast majority of natural miscarriage occur and abortions performed during the first trimester are thus not much different from natural ones.”

Complete irrational misconception: “a natural cause of huan death is similar to killing a healthy human at the same stage”. I’m not even sure what it takes to make such a statement.

”Numbers vary and are hard to estimate, as many women don't even know they were pregnant, but it is said that only 30% to 50% of conceptions progress past the first trimester.”

Oh. Then it is statistically OK to kill your progeny. That’s a new argument and it doesn’t work, because it is statistically true that many black youth in ghettoes do not survive their teen years, so you might as well just go ahead and kill the inconvenient black teen youths. That would be racist though, whereas killing black humans at certain pre-born stages is just PEACHY.

”5) Now, the tough one... what should we do if a woman wants an abortion past the 3-month mark? If it's close enough, say during the 4th, it still pretty much the same situation as in #4, but the now fetus is getting very close to be what we should rightfully call a human, a person, who can live on their own.”

Nah. You can modify your definition of humanness yet again to include this category. A great many Pro-kill activists have already done so. Why is your opinion better than theirs?

”The most premature babies to have ever been born were only in their 20s, as in less than 30 weeks of development and thus only 5-to-6 months old. On the other hand, some abortions, without medical reasons, are performed up to the 20th week, and even a bit more, overlapping with the youngest babies to have survive. At this point, it's a very grey area.”

You are self-authorized to bite the bullet and make the decision whether to kill her or not. As your entire argument proceeds, that is what you are doing – justifying your opinion of when she can be shredded and relieved of her life.

”Personally, I am not comfortable either way and would let doctors and other medical/ethics professional weight in.”

So your moral authority fails you at this point? Someone else’s moral authority is allowed to supersede your own, so that you don’t have to face this failure point in your own moral theory?

”Doing everything possible to save a 20-something fetus has a very low chance of success and can actually lead to a life of misery of the person who survives.”

So you can decide that preventing a possible uncomfortable future life is a good reason to kill that person pre-emptively?

”But it's possible, and thus falls under the person category. I would tend to stay cautious and give a right to life to fetus as soon as they hit the 20-week, 5-month, mark, perhaps even a bit before and we can be accurate enough. We are now talking about someone, a who, in my opinion. Trying to get rid of that fetus is killing and should not be acceptable. But...

Yes. But… You might change your mind and allow the killing to proceed, anyway.

The remaining quandaries are not worth my discussion time; Here’s why: everything you say is predicated on your own personal moral authority to decide to kill. You base that on your own definitions of which humans you personally consider to have value: the values of “personhood”, “whoness”, and the value of being a healthy human.

I reject your moral authority to make those determinations for another human.

”To conclude, I will quote a few lines of your last 10 comments Stan. This might help clarify my position and the arguments I am presenting in favor of safe and legal abortions, with the 6 situations listed above as framework.
Stan said...
"You referred to the embryo or zygote or whatever name might be given to the fertilized cell attached to the uterus as “meaningless”. Now we can establish that you understand that this cell is human, with its own life and identity, is growing through a necessary phase of human development. That, according to you, is meaningless in the decision to kill that human."

The embryo or zygote is "not" a person; it has no right to life and no identity. ”

And there is the entire issue. Who gave you the authority over other humans at whatever stage of their development – to kill that human if it is deemed inconvenient? Who gave you the right to make these definitions which you declare with such certainty of your moral authority to do so? If no one gave you this magnificent power, then how did you get it? Here’s how: you gave it to yourself, as a part of your atheist elitist worldview.

That’s exactly how Atheism works.

Here are more declarations from on high:

”Only a fetus can be labeled as person, and only a fetus can be 'killed', once it is deemed to be an actual person. Something meaningless cannot be 'killed', or 'murdered', by definition, as it is not a person. The only acceptable cases where abortion 'is' about killing were explained under #6, and are limited to rare medical situations.”

So you have outlined a moral code for who can be killed, complete with paragraph numbers.

”In other words, all humans went through the phases of human development, but not everything that goes through 'some' of the phases of human development is a human. What was discussed under #1-3-4 are examples of things that go through some of the human development process, without being humans.”

More definitional clarifications under your personal authority to decide which human dies.

”" find the time in the gestation where the “person” organ is installed, and declare that to be the cut-off for killing the developing human, thereby depriving her of her life. Obviously, the ability to detect the material “Personhood Organ” is something that only the “Right To Kill” advocates have. That’s an astonishing ability. And in fact it Does Not Exist. There is no more onerous ploy than to claim the ability to deny personhood to another human."

Nobody is stating that it's simple, and there is no such thing as a 'person organ'. This is a use of ridicule in order to avoid a tough debate.”

Not ridicule at all. You are installing personhood and whoness and killability with your personal opinion of which humans are killable. You are a dedicated Materialist. So if personhood is acquired, it must get installed at some point, under your own philosophy of Materialism. If that is not the case, then its just your opinion regarding which humans you have decided are killable.

”As I keep mentioning, the pro-life side has nothing but emotions on their side.”

And that is absurd. When I assert that when an egg is fertilized it becomes a unique individual being launched into the normal path of human development, that is biological fact. Your case, on the other hand, is purely opinion. There is no reasoning which allows you to be the arbiter of life and death over another biological human. All of your vaunted “reasoning” is just opinion which is supported only by your emotionally derived definitions which you have modified to support your case in advance to actually making it.

They point out to how embryos 'look' like babies, or how the embryo 'could' have been a human.

Did no such thing. Straw Man/Red herring.

”But the question is whether the embryo 'is' a human at the time of abortion.

False. The issue is why you think you have the moral authority to deny life to another human.

”The longer the gestation period the tougher the question becomes. But, the fact that we have the 2 extremes, as explained under #1 and #2, means that there is necessarily a cut-off. Using facts and reason, we can try to figure out the ethical way to find that cut-off and avoid killing humans.”

You have not used facts; you have created false definitions which you assert as fact. You have not used reason; you have rationalized your own personal authority to decide life and death over other humans.

"Apparently then, infanticide a la’ Peter Singer (the moral-free ethics prof) is OK with you, too?"

No, not at all. The quote, which you misunderstood, was meant to illustrate that if someone attempts to label 'human' something which is not human at all then, yes, it makes it look like killing.“

Another false statement, and equivocation: no one has made labels except for you with your phony redefinitions. The consistent use of the obvious "humanity" involved in the propagation of humans is not a label. It is an inconvenient fact which you refuse to acknowledge, in the defense of your own assumption of personal moral authority.

”If I label mosquitoes as humans, and then ask you: have you ever kill a mosquito?”

Red Herring/False Analogy/Straw Man. You are the one creating labels, not me.


”Does it mean that you did in fact kill a human if you answer yes? This is exactly the same thing here. The pro-life side defines embryos, or even just a single cell, as 'human'; they then equate the destruction of these cells with killing a human.”

Only your bogus labeling says otherwise. You cannot defeat the biological necessity of the humanness of the fertilized egg, etc.

"The human inside the woman is a unique individual, living through the development stage: it is not “the same as a fully formed human” and it is fully human"

Why?”


It is biological necessity. It is normal human at a normal stage of human development. You deny this with your bogus redefinitions which are not True in any material fashion, but are merely your opinion.

”This is what makes no sense with your position. And all of this really is just about that 1 question: why do you think that anything, literally anything, that is part of the human development process after conception is literally a human, a person, that can be killed? We are talking about 1 cell at first, then a few, and then maybe something that starts to look like a person, as described under #4, but it is not a human that can survive before several more weeks.

All humans up through teen years cannot survive without help from other humans. Nor can the elderly, the indigent, the disabled, the mentally ill, and other demographics. Your rationalization would of logical necessity include all of them as “killable”.

”**Final thought / side note**
I purposely avoided anything not directly related to abortion, including the notion of objectivity. But, I must repeat that this is not what I think is my opinion, or a subjective view of morality that varies with the whim of the people. This is about figuring out what is 'the' moral choice in any given situation regarding pregnancy.”

It’s not that hard: either humans have value which is not to be denied by other humans, or they do not and may be killed as they are determined to be inconvenient.

”Objectively, there are always moral choices and immoral choices, regardless of our opinion, but we don't always agree on what these objective moral truths are.”

Obviously it goes beyond that: why do you think you have moral authority over the lives of other living humans?

”The notion of whether such objectivity even exist, under Theism or Atheism, is irrelevant to the question here, and I thus hope to come back to it on the other thread, eventually.”

I’ll prime that pump: Atheists think they have the boundless freedom to decide their own moral principles as well as moral principles for application to other people. Theists do not think that.