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On June 16 2013 11:04 RCMDVA wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2013 10:41 Millitron wrote:The whole "Abortion is OK before this time, but not after" thing is complete nonsense. Say the limit is 30 days. A fetus at day 29 is practically identical to one at day 31. The same is true no matter when you set the deadline. Setting deadlines like this is complete arbitrary nonsense. You either have to allow abortion at any time, or forbid it at any time, or you're being irrational. I personally don't care which wins in the end, just as long as one of them does. There isn't much I hate more than internal inconsistency. On June 16 2013 10:28 SonZHi wrote:
The abortion debate is mostly cultural.
In Hong Kong we don't debate it, we just treat it as medical procedure. I think we legalized it in the 80s, now nobody talks about it. Also most of us are not religious. Well that's why you don't talk about it. You all mostly agree, there isn't much to talk about. We in the US though, can't agree on anything. In reality, it isn't that arbitrary. Around 20 weeks is when the lungs are developed enough that a fetus has a shot at breathing air with the help of a respirator/incubator. That's the reason for it...and the reason why the SC has "viability" as the line in the sand so to speak between abortion or no abortion. Roe v Wade and the Planned Parenthood decision. Can't breathe air = not viable fetus. It will die if it leaves the womb. Chance at breathing air = viable fetus. ** With the help of mechanical assistance And that reason is also why in the last 40 years there hasn't been that much more advance in that window of 20 weeks. We can't duplicate how a fetus breathes in the womb. The kicker will be when technology advances to the point where you can keep a fetus alive in a liquid environment and it can absorb oxygen through the placenta...or you can splice an umbilical cord to some kind of device that replicates the placenta/uterine wall connection.
But you don't actually know a fetus is capable of breathing air at any particular point around then. A fetus at 19 weeks and 6 days is practically identical to one at 20 weeks and 1 day. Why should one be treated any different than the other?
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On June 16 2013 11:37 Millitron wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2013 11:04 RCMDVA wrote:On June 16 2013 10:41 Millitron wrote:The whole "Abortion is OK before this time, but not after" thing is complete nonsense. Say the limit is 30 days. A fetus at day 29 is practically identical to one at day 31. The same is true no matter when you set the deadline. Setting deadlines like this is complete arbitrary nonsense. You either have to allow abortion at any time, or forbid it at any time, or you're being irrational. I personally don't care which wins in the end, just as long as one of them does. There isn't much I hate more than internal inconsistency. On June 16 2013 10:28 SonZHi wrote:
The abortion debate is mostly cultural.
In Hong Kong we don't debate it, we just treat it as medical procedure. I think we legalized it in the 80s, now nobody talks about it. Also most of us are not religious. Well that's why you don't talk about it. You all mostly agree, there isn't much to talk about. We in the US though, can't agree on anything. In reality, it isn't that arbitrary. Around 20 weeks is when the lungs are developed enough that a fetus has a shot at breathing air with the help of a respirator/incubator. That's the reason for it...and the reason why the SC has "viability" as the line in the sand so to speak between abortion or no abortion. Roe v Wade and the Planned Parenthood decision. Can't breathe air = not viable fetus. It will die if it leaves the womb. Chance at breathing air = viable fetus. ** With the help of mechanical assistance And that reason is also why in the last 40 years there hasn't been that much more advance in that window of 20 weeks. We can't duplicate how a fetus breathes in the womb. The kicker will be when technology advances to the point where you can keep a fetus alive in a liquid environment and it can absorb oxygen through the placenta...or you can splice an umbilical cord to some kind of device that replicates the placenta/uterine wall connection. But you don't actually know a fetus is capable of breathing air at any particular point around then. A fetus at 19 weeks and 6 days is practically identical to one at 20 weeks and 1 day. Why should one be treated any different than the other?
In the real world your argument is completely null and void. It would have some merit if time of conception was known without an approximately 10 days margin of error. However it is not. Thus we have to put in a threshold where we are certain there are no (or at least extremely low) survival chance for the fetus (fetal viability does not cross the 50% threshold before week 25/26 and at week 20 it is 0). Whether or not an abortion can take place is not literally based on days.
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On June 16 2013 11:37 Millitron wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2013 11:04 RCMDVA wrote:On June 16 2013 10:41 Millitron wrote:The whole "Abortion is OK before this time, but not after" thing is complete nonsense. Say the limit is 30 days. A fetus at day 29 is practically identical to one at day 31. The same is true no matter when you set the deadline. Setting deadlines like this is complete arbitrary nonsense. You either have to allow abortion at any time, or forbid it at any time, or you're being irrational. I personally don't care which wins in the end, just as long as one of them does. There isn't much I hate more than internal inconsistency. On June 16 2013 10:28 SonZHi wrote:
The abortion debate is mostly cultural.
In Hong Kong we don't debate it, we just treat it as medical procedure. I think we legalized it in the 80s, now nobody talks about it. Also most of us are not religious. Well that's why you don't talk about it. You all mostly agree, there isn't much to talk about. We in the US though, can't agree on anything. In reality, it isn't that arbitrary. Around 20 weeks is when the lungs are developed enough that a fetus has a shot at breathing air with the help of a respirator/incubator. That's the reason for it...and the reason why the SC has "viability" as the line in the sand so to speak between abortion or no abortion. Roe v Wade and the Planned Parenthood decision. Can't breathe air = not viable fetus. It will die if it leaves the womb. Chance at breathing air = viable fetus. ** With the help of mechanical assistance And that reason is also why in the last 40 years there hasn't been that much more advance in that window of 20 weeks. We can't duplicate how a fetus breathes in the womb. The kicker will be when technology advances to the point where you can keep a fetus alive in a liquid environment and it can absorb oxygen through the placenta...or you can splice an umbilical cord to some kind of device that replicates the placenta/uterine wall connection. But you don't actually know a fetus is capable of breathing air at any particular point around then. A fetus at 19 weeks and 6 days is practically identical to one at 20 weeks and 1 day. Why should one be treated any different than the other?
My guess is that it's a compromise between "personhood starts at conception" and "it's not a person until it comes out of the woman's body". Someone linked this a few pages back, and it was informative to me:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_viability
It's an attempt at least to mark empirically when autonomous life starts.
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On June 16 2013 11:47 Ghostcom wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2013 11:37 Millitron wrote:On June 16 2013 11:04 RCMDVA wrote:On June 16 2013 10:41 Millitron wrote:The whole "Abortion is OK before this time, but not after" thing is complete nonsense. Say the limit is 30 days. A fetus at day 29 is practically identical to one at day 31. The same is true no matter when you set the deadline. Setting deadlines like this is complete arbitrary nonsense. You either have to allow abortion at any time, or forbid it at any time, or you're being irrational. I personally don't care which wins in the end, just as long as one of them does. There isn't much I hate more than internal inconsistency. On June 16 2013 10:28 SonZHi wrote:
The abortion debate is mostly cultural.
In Hong Kong we don't debate it, we just treat it as medical procedure. I think we legalized it in the 80s, now nobody talks about it. Also most of us are not religious. Well that's why you don't talk about it. You all mostly agree, there isn't much to talk about. We in the US though, can't agree on anything. In reality, it isn't that arbitrary. Around 20 weeks is when the lungs are developed enough that a fetus has a shot at breathing air with the help of a respirator/incubator. That's the reason for it...and the reason why the SC has "viability" as the line in the sand so to speak between abortion or no abortion. Roe v Wade and the Planned Parenthood decision. Can't breathe air = not viable fetus. It will die if it leaves the womb. Chance at breathing air = viable fetus. ** With the help of mechanical assistance And that reason is also why in the last 40 years there hasn't been that much more advance in that window of 20 weeks. We can't duplicate how a fetus breathes in the womb. The kicker will be when technology advances to the point where you can keep a fetus alive in a liquid environment and it can absorb oxygen through the placenta...or you can splice an umbilical cord to some kind of device that replicates the placenta/uterine wall connection. But you don't actually know a fetus is capable of breathing air at any particular point around then. A fetus at 19 weeks and 6 days is practically identical to one at 20 weeks and 1 day. Why should one be treated any different than the other? In the real world your argument is completely null and void. It would have some merit if time of conception was known without an approximately 10 days margin of error. However it is not. Thus we have to put in a threshold where we are certain there are no (or at least extremely low) survival chance for the fetus (fetal viability does not cross the 50% threshold before week 25/26 and at week 20 it is 0). Whether or not an abortion can take place is not literally based on days.
It's still arbitrary because one must still set a line, to one side of which abortion is fine, to the other it is not. The only difference is this time the line is based on viability, which is just as arbitrary as simply setting a date. Say the odds required are 80%, a fetus with 81% odds isn't much different than one with 79% odds.
On June 16 2013 11:51 Mothra wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2013 11:37 Millitron wrote:On June 16 2013 11:04 RCMDVA wrote:On June 16 2013 10:41 Millitron wrote:The whole "Abortion is OK before this time, but not after" thing is complete nonsense. Say the limit is 30 days. A fetus at day 29 is practically identical to one at day 31. The same is true no matter when you set the deadline. Setting deadlines like this is complete arbitrary nonsense. You either have to allow abortion at any time, or forbid it at any time, or you're being irrational. I personally don't care which wins in the end, just as long as one of them does. There isn't much I hate more than internal inconsistency. On June 16 2013 10:28 SonZHi wrote:
The abortion debate is mostly cultural.
In Hong Kong we don't debate it, we just treat it as medical procedure. I think we legalized it in the 80s, now nobody talks about it. Also most of us are not religious. Well that's why you don't talk about it. You all mostly agree, there isn't much to talk about. We in the US though, can't agree on anything. In reality, it isn't that arbitrary. Around 20 weeks is when the lungs are developed enough that a fetus has a shot at breathing air with the help of a respirator/incubator. That's the reason for it...and the reason why the SC has "viability" as the line in the sand so to speak between abortion or no abortion. Roe v Wade and the Planned Parenthood decision. Can't breathe air = not viable fetus. It will die if it leaves the womb. Chance at breathing air = viable fetus. ** With the help of mechanical assistance And that reason is also why in the last 40 years there hasn't been that much more advance in that window of 20 weeks. We can't duplicate how a fetus breathes in the womb. The kicker will be when technology advances to the point where you can keep a fetus alive in a liquid environment and it can absorb oxygen through the placenta...or you can splice an umbilical cord to some kind of device that replicates the placenta/uterine wall connection. But you don't actually know a fetus is capable of breathing air at any particular point around then. A fetus at 19 weeks and 6 days is practically identical to one at 20 weeks and 1 day. Why should one be treated any different than the other? My guess is that it's a compromise between "personhood starts at conception" and "it's not a person until it comes out of the woman's body". Someone linked this a few pages back, and it was informative to me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_viabilityIt's an attempt at least to mark empirically when autonomous life starts.
I'm a pretty hardcore Kantian, so compromise doesn't really sit well with me.
Personally, if you ask me, I kinda think I fall into the "It's not a person until it develops a personality, self-awareness, and a sense of having a future." camp. But personhood questions aren't the only issues at stake here. There's also responsibility issues. I believe the father also has a say in the fetus's future, because it's genetic material is 50% his. It's just as much his body as it is hers. I'm not defending a rapist's right to choose though, they sacrificed that right when they infringed her right to abstain.
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On June 16 2013 12:00 Millitron wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2013 11:47 Ghostcom wrote:On June 16 2013 11:37 Millitron wrote:On June 16 2013 11:04 RCMDVA wrote:On June 16 2013 10:41 Millitron wrote:The whole "Abortion is OK before this time, but not after" thing is complete nonsense. Say the limit is 30 days. A fetus at day 29 is practically identical to one at day 31. The same is true no matter when you set the deadline. Setting deadlines like this is complete arbitrary nonsense. You either have to allow abortion at any time, or forbid it at any time, or you're being irrational. I personally don't care which wins in the end, just as long as one of them does. There isn't much I hate more than internal inconsistency. On June 16 2013 10:28 SonZHi wrote:
The abortion debate is mostly cultural.
In Hong Kong we don't debate it, we just treat it as medical procedure. I think we legalized it in the 80s, now nobody talks about it. Also most of us are not religious. Well that's why you don't talk about it. You all mostly agree, there isn't much to talk about. We in the US though, can't agree on anything. In reality, it isn't that arbitrary. Around 20 weeks is when the lungs are developed enough that a fetus has a shot at breathing air with the help of a respirator/incubator. That's the reason for it...and the reason why the SC has "viability" as the line in the sand so to speak between abortion or no abortion. Roe v Wade and the Planned Parenthood decision. Can't breathe air = not viable fetus. It will die if it leaves the womb. Chance at breathing air = viable fetus. ** With the help of mechanical assistance And that reason is also why in the last 40 years there hasn't been that much more advance in that window of 20 weeks. We can't duplicate how a fetus breathes in the womb. The kicker will be when technology advances to the point where you can keep a fetus alive in a liquid environment and it can absorb oxygen through the placenta...or you can splice an umbilical cord to some kind of device that replicates the placenta/uterine wall connection. But you don't actually know a fetus is capable of breathing air at any particular point around then. A fetus at 19 weeks and 6 days is practically identical to one at 20 weeks and 1 day. Why should one be treated any different than the other? In the real world your argument is completely null and void. It would have some merit if time of conception was known without an approximately 10 days margin of error. However it is not. Thus we have to put in a threshold where we are certain there are no (or at least extremely low) survival chance for the fetus (fetal viability does not cross the 50% threshold before week 25/26 and at week 20 it is 0). Whether or not an abortion can take place is not literally based on days. It's still arbitrary because one must still set a line, to one side of which abortion is fine, to the other it is not. The only difference is this time the line is based on viability, which is just as arbitrary as simply setting a date. Say the odds required are 80%, a fetus with 81% odds isn't much different than one with 79% odds.
I don't understand why we're trying to pretend like this won't be decided arbitrarily. Any attempts to do this objectively will fail horribly because biologists will find a bunch of different "phases" to a fetus's formation, all of which are actually ballpark estimations... Even if we accept their ballparks estimation, for instance, fetus becomes "viable" on average on day X, then the debate will whip right back to the "morality" front because using viability as a basis is arbitrary too.
Don't fool yourselves, this is a moral debate.
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On June 16 2013 12:08 Djzapz wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2013 12:00 Millitron wrote:On June 16 2013 11:47 Ghostcom wrote:On June 16 2013 11:37 Millitron wrote:On June 16 2013 11:04 RCMDVA wrote:On June 16 2013 10:41 Millitron wrote:The whole "Abortion is OK before this time, but not after" thing is complete nonsense. Say the limit is 30 days. A fetus at day 29 is practically identical to one at day 31. The same is true no matter when you set the deadline. Setting deadlines like this is complete arbitrary nonsense. You either have to allow abortion at any time, or forbid it at any time, or you're being irrational. I personally don't care which wins in the end, just as long as one of them does. There isn't much I hate more than internal inconsistency. On June 16 2013 10:28 SonZHi wrote:
The abortion debate is mostly cultural.
In Hong Kong we don't debate it, we just treat it as medical procedure. I think we legalized it in the 80s, now nobody talks about it. Also most of us are not religious. Well that's why you don't talk about it. You all mostly agree, there isn't much to talk about. We in the US though, can't agree on anything. In reality, it isn't that arbitrary. Around 20 weeks is when the lungs are developed enough that a fetus has a shot at breathing air with the help of a respirator/incubator. That's the reason for it...and the reason why the SC has "viability" as the line in the sand so to speak between abortion or no abortion. Roe v Wade and the Planned Parenthood decision. Can't breathe air = not viable fetus. It will die if it leaves the womb. Chance at breathing air = viable fetus. ** With the help of mechanical assistance And that reason is also why in the last 40 years there hasn't been that much more advance in that window of 20 weeks. We can't duplicate how a fetus breathes in the womb. The kicker will be when technology advances to the point where you can keep a fetus alive in a liquid environment and it can absorb oxygen through the placenta...or you can splice an umbilical cord to some kind of device that replicates the placenta/uterine wall connection. But you don't actually know a fetus is capable of breathing air at any particular point around then. A fetus at 19 weeks and 6 days is practically identical to one at 20 weeks and 1 day. Why should one be treated any different than the other? In the real world your argument is completely null and void. It would have some merit if time of conception was known without an approximately 10 days margin of error. However it is not. Thus we have to put in a threshold where we are certain there are no (or at least extremely low) survival chance for the fetus (fetal viability does not cross the 50% threshold before week 25/26 and at week 20 it is 0). Whether or not an abortion can take place is not literally based on days. It's still arbitrary because one must still set a line, to one side of which abortion is fine, to the other it is not. The only difference is this time the line is based on viability, which is just as arbitrary as simply setting a date. Say the odds required are 80%, a fetus with 81% odds isn't much different than one with 79% odds. I don't understand why we're trying to pretend like this won't be decided arbitrarily. Any attempts to do this objectively will fail horribly because biologists will find a bunch of different "phases" to a fetus's formation, all of which are actually ballpark estimations... Even if we accept their ballparks estimation, for instance, fetus becomes "viable" on average on day X, then the debate will whip right back to the "morality" front because using viability as a basis is arbitrary too. Don't fool yourselves, this is a moral debate.
Well, I can think of at least two options that aren't arbitrary. Either abortion is always OK, or its never OK are both not arbitrary.
Arbitrary-ness is a sign of internal inconsistency, and internal inconsistency is a sign of immorality.
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On June 16 2013 12:09 Millitron wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2013 12:08 Djzapz wrote:On June 16 2013 12:00 Millitron wrote:On June 16 2013 11:47 Ghostcom wrote:On June 16 2013 11:37 Millitron wrote:On June 16 2013 11:04 RCMDVA wrote:On June 16 2013 10:41 Millitron wrote:The whole "Abortion is OK before this time, but not after" thing is complete nonsense. Say the limit is 30 days. A fetus at day 29 is practically identical to one at day 31. The same is true no matter when you set the deadline. Setting deadlines like this is complete arbitrary nonsense. You either have to allow abortion at any time, or forbid it at any time, or you're being irrational. I personally don't care which wins in the end, just as long as one of them does. There isn't much I hate more than internal inconsistency. On June 16 2013 10:28 SonZHi wrote:
The abortion debate is mostly cultural.
In Hong Kong we don't debate it, we just treat it as medical procedure. I think we legalized it in the 80s, now nobody talks about it. Also most of us are not religious. Well that's why you don't talk about it. You all mostly agree, there isn't much to talk about. We in the US though, can't agree on anything. In reality, it isn't that arbitrary. Around 20 weeks is when the lungs are developed enough that a fetus has a shot at breathing air with the help of a respirator/incubator. That's the reason for it...and the reason why the SC has "viability" as the line in the sand so to speak between abortion or no abortion. Roe v Wade and the Planned Parenthood decision. Can't breathe air = not viable fetus. It will die if it leaves the womb. Chance at breathing air = viable fetus. ** With the help of mechanical assistance And that reason is also why in the last 40 years there hasn't been that much more advance in that window of 20 weeks. We can't duplicate how a fetus breathes in the womb. The kicker will be when technology advances to the point where you can keep a fetus alive in a liquid environment and it can absorb oxygen through the placenta...or you can splice an umbilical cord to some kind of device that replicates the placenta/uterine wall connection. But you don't actually know a fetus is capable of breathing air at any particular point around then. A fetus at 19 weeks and 6 days is practically identical to one at 20 weeks and 1 day. Why should one be treated any different than the other? In the real world your argument is completely null and void. It would have some merit if time of conception was known without an approximately 10 days margin of error. However it is not. Thus we have to put in a threshold where we are certain there are no (or at least extremely low) survival chance for the fetus (fetal viability does not cross the 50% threshold before week 25/26 and at week 20 it is 0). Whether or not an abortion can take place is not literally based on days. It's still arbitrary because one must still set a line, to one side of which abortion is fine, to the other it is not. The only difference is this time the line is based on viability, which is just as arbitrary as simply setting a date. Say the odds required are 80%, a fetus with 81% odds isn't much different than one with 79% odds. I don't understand why we're trying to pretend like this won't be decided arbitrarily. Any attempts to do this objectively will fail horribly because biologists will find a bunch of different "phases" to a fetus's formation, all of which are actually ballpark estimations... Even if we accept their ballparks estimation, for instance, fetus becomes "viable" on average on day X, then the debate will whip right back to the "morality" front because using viability as a basis is arbitrary too. Don't fool yourselves, this is a moral debate. Well, I can think of at least two options that aren't arbitrary. Either abortion is always OK, or its never OK are both not arbitrary.
EDIT: After seeing your edit - forget about this post. You and I would not get anywhere.
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On June 16 2013 12:09 Millitron wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2013 12:08 Djzapz wrote:On June 16 2013 12:00 Millitron wrote:On June 16 2013 11:47 Ghostcom wrote:On June 16 2013 11:37 Millitron wrote:On June 16 2013 11:04 RCMDVA wrote:On June 16 2013 10:41 Millitron wrote:The whole "Abortion is OK before this time, but not after" thing is complete nonsense. Say the limit is 30 days. A fetus at day 29 is practically identical to one at day 31. The same is true no matter when you set the deadline. Setting deadlines like this is complete arbitrary nonsense. You either have to allow abortion at any time, or forbid it at any time, or you're being irrational. I personally don't care which wins in the end, just as long as one of them does. There isn't much I hate more than internal inconsistency. On June 16 2013 10:28 SonZHi wrote:
The abortion debate is mostly cultural.
In Hong Kong we don't debate it, we just treat it as medical procedure. I think we legalized it in the 80s, now nobody talks about it. Also most of us are not religious. Well that's why you don't talk about it. You all mostly agree, there isn't much to talk about. We in the US though, can't agree on anything. In reality, it isn't that arbitrary. Around 20 weeks is when the lungs are developed enough that a fetus has a shot at breathing air with the help of a respirator/incubator. That's the reason for it...and the reason why the SC has "viability" as the line in the sand so to speak between abortion or no abortion. Roe v Wade and the Planned Parenthood decision. Can't breathe air = not viable fetus. It will die if it leaves the womb. Chance at breathing air = viable fetus. ** With the help of mechanical assistance And that reason is also why in the last 40 years there hasn't been that much more advance in that window of 20 weeks. We can't duplicate how a fetus breathes in the womb. The kicker will be when technology advances to the point where you can keep a fetus alive in a liquid environment and it can absorb oxygen through the placenta...or you can splice an umbilical cord to some kind of device that replicates the placenta/uterine wall connection. But you don't actually know a fetus is capable of breathing air at any particular point around then. A fetus at 19 weeks and 6 days is practically identical to one at 20 weeks and 1 day. Why should one be treated any different than the other? In the real world your argument is completely null and void. It would have some merit if time of conception was known without an approximately 10 days margin of error. However it is not. Thus we have to put in a threshold where we are certain there are no (or at least extremely low) survival chance for the fetus (fetal viability does not cross the 50% threshold before week 25/26 and at week 20 it is 0). Whether or not an abortion can take place is not literally based on days. It's still arbitrary because one must still set a line, to one side of which abortion is fine, to the other it is not. The only difference is this time the line is based on viability, which is just as arbitrary as simply setting a date. Say the odds required are 80%, a fetus with 81% odds isn't much different than one with 79% odds. I don't understand why we're trying to pretend like this won't be decided arbitrarily. Any attempts to do this objectively will fail horribly because biologists will find a bunch of different "phases" to a fetus's formation, all of which are actually ballpark estimations... Even if we accept their ballparks estimation, for instance, fetus becomes "viable" on average on day X, then the debate will whip right back to the "morality" front because using viability as a basis is arbitrary too. Don't fool yourselves, this is a moral debate. Well, I can think of at least two options that aren't arbitrary. Either abortion is always OK, or its never OK are both not arbitrary.
It hardly gets more arbitrary than a binary answer with no explanation actually. Especially when you're suggesting that context is irrelevant.
As far as I can tell, you've somehow decided for the rest of us that the stage of development of the fetus is not worthy of considering. I just don't know what to say to that :o
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On June 16 2013 12:00 Millitron wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2013 11:47 Ghostcom wrote:On June 16 2013 11:37 Millitron wrote:On June 16 2013 11:04 RCMDVA wrote:On June 16 2013 10:41 Millitron wrote:The whole "Abortion is OK before this time, but not after" thing is complete nonsense. Say the limit is 30 days. A fetus at day 29 is practically identical to one at day 31. The same is true no matter when you set the deadline. Setting deadlines like this is complete arbitrary nonsense. You either have to allow abortion at any time, or forbid it at any time, or you're being irrational. I personally don't care which wins in the end, just as long as one of them does. There isn't much I hate more than internal inconsistency. On June 16 2013 10:28 SonZHi wrote:
The abortion debate is mostly cultural.
In Hong Kong we don't debate it, we just treat it as medical procedure. I think we legalized it in the 80s, now nobody talks about it. Also most of us are not religious. Well that's why you don't talk about it. You all mostly agree, there isn't much to talk about. We in the US though, can't agree on anything. In reality, it isn't that arbitrary. Around 20 weeks is when the lungs are developed enough that a fetus has a shot at breathing air with the help of a respirator/incubator. That's the reason for it...and the reason why the SC has "viability" as the line in the sand so to speak between abortion or no abortion. Roe v Wade and the Planned Parenthood decision. Can't breathe air = not viable fetus. It will die if it leaves the womb. Chance at breathing air = viable fetus. ** With the help of mechanical assistance And that reason is also why in the last 40 years there hasn't been that much more advance in that window of 20 weeks. We can't duplicate how a fetus breathes in the womb. The kicker will be when technology advances to the point where you can keep a fetus alive in a liquid environment and it can absorb oxygen through the placenta...or you can splice an umbilical cord to some kind of device that replicates the placenta/uterine wall connection. But you don't actually know a fetus is capable of breathing air at any particular point around then. A fetus at 19 weeks and 6 days is practically identical to one at 20 weeks and 1 day. Why should one be treated any different than the other? In the real world your argument is completely null and void. It would have some merit if time of conception was known without an approximately 10 days margin of error. However it is not. Thus we have to put in a threshold where we are certain there are no (or at least extremely low) survival chance for the fetus (fetal viability does not cross the 50% threshold before week 25/26 and at week 20 it is 0). Whether or not an abortion can take place is not literally based on days. It's still arbitrary because one must still set a line, to one side of which abortion is fine, to the other it is not. The only difference is this time the line is based on viability, which is just as arbitrary as simply setting a date. Say the odds required are 80%, a fetus with 81% odds isn't much different than one with 79% odds.
Ok, I'll bite.
In towns, we have a speed limit of 50 km/h. Why isn't the speed limit 49 km/h? Why isn't it 51 km/h? Who knows? It's 50 km/h because the lethality of traffic accidents goes down remarkably somewhere around that number. We're positive that 60 km/h is sketchy and 100 km/h is way too fast... so 50 seems sensible. Surely, this must mean that speed limits are "complete nonsense"... or does it?
Same for age of consent... Why is it 18 instead of 17 years and 11 months? Taxation... Why does 1 euro more change your tax bracket? Obviously, these numbers aren't arbitrary as in "we pull a random number out of our ass" but more arbitrary in the sense of "it's approximately x and we need a number so let's go with x".
TL;DR: What you've discovered here isn't some inconsistency in attitudes towards abortion. What you've discovered here is integer mathematics.
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What's wrong with incest if there is no intention to conceive? Even then aren't probabilities of child defects overblown?
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On June 16 2013 12:14 Djzapz wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2013 12:09 Millitron wrote:On June 16 2013 12:08 Djzapz wrote:On June 16 2013 12:00 Millitron wrote:On June 16 2013 11:47 Ghostcom wrote:On June 16 2013 11:37 Millitron wrote:On June 16 2013 11:04 RCMDVA wrote:On June 16 2013 10:41 Millitron wrote:The whole "Abortion is OK before this time, but not after" thing is complete nonsense. Say the limit is 30 days. A fetus at day 29 is practically identical to one at day 31. The same is true no matter when you set the deadline. Setting deadlines like this is complete arbitrary nonsense. You either have to allow abortion at any time, or forbid it at any time, or you're being irrational. I personally don't care which wins in the end, just as long as one of them does. There isn't much I hate more than internal inconsistency. On June 16 2013 10:28 SonZHi wrote:
The abortion debate is mostly cultural.
In Hong Kong we don't debate it, we just treat it as medical procedure. I think we legalized it in the 80s, now nobody talks about it. Also most of us are not religious. Well that's why you don't talk about it. You all mostly agree, there isn't much to talk about. We in the US though, can't agree on anything. In reality, it isn't that arbitrary. Around 20 weeks is when the lungs are developed enough that a fetus has a shot at breathing air with the help of a respirator/incubator. That's the reason for it...and the reason why the SC has "viability" as the line in the sand so to speak between abortion or no abortion. Roe v Wade and the Planned Parenthood decision. Can't breathe air = not viable fetus. It will die if it leaves the womb. Chance at breathing air = viable fetus. ** With the help of mechanical assistance And that reason is also why in the last 40 years there hasn't been that much more advance in that window of 20 weeks. We can't duplicate how a fetus breathes in the womb. The kicker will be when technology advances to the point where you can keep a fetus alive in a liquid environment and it can absorb oxygen through the placenta...or you can splice an umbilical cord to some kind of device that replicates the placenta/uterine wall connection. But you don't actually know a fetus is capable of breathing air at any particular point around then. A fetus at 19 weeks and 6 days is practically identical to one at 20 weeks and 1 day. Why should one be treated any different than the other? In the real world your argument is completely null and void. It would have some merit if time of conception was known without an approximately 10 days margin of error. However it is not. Thus we have to put in a threshold where we are certain there are no (or at least extremely low) survival chance for the fetus (fetal viability does not cross the 50% threshold before week 25/26 and at week 20 it is 0). Whether or not an abortion can take place is not literally based on days. It's still arbitrary because one must still set a line, to one side of which abortion is fine, to the other it is not. The only difference is this time the line is based on viability, which is just as arbitrary as simply setting a date. Say the odds required are 80%, a fetus with 81% odds isn't much different than one with 79% odds. I don't understand why we're trying to pretend like this won't be decided arbitrarily. Any attempts to do this objectively will fail horribly because biologists will find a bunch of different "phases" to a fetus's formation, all of which are actually ballpark estimations... Even if we accept their ballparks estimation, for instance, fetus becomes "viable" on average on day X, then the debate will whip right back to the "morality" front because using viability as a basis is arbitrary too. Don't fool yourselves, this is a moral debate. Well, I can think of at least two options that aren't arbitrary. Either abortion is always OK, or its never OK are both not arbitrary. It hardly gets more arbitrary than a binary answer with no explanation actually. Especially when you're suggesting that context is irrelevant. As far as I can tell, you've somehow decided for the rest of us that the stage of development of the fetus is not worthy of considering. I just don't know what to say to that :o
Sorry for not including context, I assumed I had been clear enough, my mistake. I would defend abortion right up until birth based on claims of personhood, and on potentiality. I would defend preventing all abortion by the classic "personhood occurs at conception". The fetus receives its genetic material then, and is biologically neither the mother nor father from that moment on.
I don't really care which you pick, because both are internally consistent.
Being the Kantian I am, I don't care for A Posteriori reasoning as far as moral issues are concerned.
On June 16 2013 12:25 Poffel wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2013 12:00 Millitron wrote:On June 16 2013 11:47 Ghostcom wrote:On June 16 2013 11:37 Millitron wrote:On June 16 2013 11:04 RCMDVA wrote:On June 16 2013 10:41 Millitron wrote:The whole "Abortion is OK before this time, but not after" thing is complete nonsense. Say the limit is 30 days. A fetus at day 29 is practically identical to one at day 31. The same is true no matter when you set the deadline. Setting deadlines like this is complete arbitrary nonsense. You either have to allow abortion at any time, or forbid it at any time, or you're being irrational. I personally don't care which wins in the end, just as long as one of them does. There isn't much I hate more than internal inconsistency. On June 16 2013 10:28 SonZHi wrote:
The abortion debate is mostly cultural.
In Hong Kong we don't debate it, we just treat it as medical procedure. I think we legalized it in the 80s, now nobody talks about it. Also most of us are not religious. Well that's why you don't talk about it. You all mostly agree, there isn't much to talk about. We in the US though, can't agree on anything. In reality, it isn't that arbitrary. Around 20 weeks is when the lungs are developed enough that a fetus has a shot at breathing air with the help of a respirator/incubator. That's the reason for it...and the reason why the SC has "viability" as the line in the sand so to speak between abortion or no abortion. Roe v Wade and the Planned Parenthood decision. Can't breathe air = not viable fetus. It will die if it leaves the womb. Chance at breathing air = viable fetus. ** With the help of mechanical assistance And that reason is also why in the last 40 years there hasn't been that much more advance in that window of 20 weeks. We can't duplicate how a fetus breathes in the womb. The kicker will be when technology advances to the point where you can keep a fetus alive in a liquid environment and it can absorb oxygen through the placenta...or you can splice an umbilical cord to some kind of device that replicates the placenta/uterine wall connection. But you don't actually know a fetus is capable of breathing air at any particular point around then. A fetus at 19 weeks and 6 days is practically identical to one at 20 weeks and 1 day. Why should one be treated any different than the other? In the real world your argument is completely null and void. It would have some merit if time of conception was known without an approximately 10 days margin of error. However it is not. Thus we have to put in a threshold where we are certain there are no (or at least extremely low) survival chance for the fetus (fetal viability does not cross the 50% threshold before week 25/26 and at week 20 it is 0). Whether or not an abortion can take place is not literally based on days. It's still arbitrary because one must still set a line, to one side of which abortion is fine, to the other it is not. The only difference is this time the line is based on viability, which is just as arbitrary as simply setting a date. Say the odds required are 80%, a fetus with 81% odds isn't much different than one with 79% odds. Ok, I'll bite. In towns, we have a speed limit of 50 km/h. Why isn't the speed limit 49 km/h? Why isn't it 51 km/h? Who knows? It's 50 km/h because the lethality of traffic accidents goes down remarkably somewhere around that number. We're positive that 60 km/h is sketchy and 100 km/h is way too fast... so 50 seems sensible. Surely, this must mean that speed limits are "complete nonsense"... or does it? Same for age of consent... Why is it 18 instead of 17 years and 11 months? Taxation... Why does 1 euro more change your tax bracket? Obviously, these numbers aren't arbitrary as in "we pull a random number out of our ass" but more arbitrary in the sense of "it's approximately x and we need a number so let's go with x". TL;DR: What you've discovered here isn't some inconsistency in attitudes towards abortion. What you've discovered here is integer mathematics.
The speed limit and taxation not moral issues so I'm fine with A Posteriori reasoning then.
Age of consent is arbitrary, hence why you get it varying between 16-18 even just in the US. It's only 14 in Japan.
How about just set the ability to consent to be once you are capable of managing your own affairs, i.e. finances, health, education? You still get around the same age, and it's not arbitrary. You've shown you're able to make big decisions already.
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On June 16 2013 11:51 Mothra wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2013 11:37 Millitron wrote:On June 16 2013 11:04 RCMDVA wrote:On June 16 2013 10:41 Millitron wrote:The whole "Abortion is OK before this time, but not after" thing is complete nonsense. Say the limit is 30 days. A fetus at day 29 is practically identical to one at day 31. The same is true no matter when you set the deadline. Setting deadlines like this is complete arbitrary nonsense. You either have to allow abortion at any time, or forbid it at any time, or you're being irrational. I personally don't care which wins in the end, just as long as one of them does. There isn't much I hate more than internal inconsistency. On June 16 2013 10:28 SonZHi wrote:
The abortion debate is mostly cultural.
In Hong Kong we don't debate it, we just treat it as medical procedure. I think we legalized it in the 80s, now nobody talks about it. Also most of us are not religious. Well that's why you don't talk about it. You all mostly agree, there isn't much to talk about. We in the US though, can't agree on anything. In reality, it isn't that arbitrary. Around 20 weeks is when the lungs are developed enough that a fetus has a shot at breathing air with the help of a respirator/incubator. That's the reason for it...and the reason why the SC has "viability" as the line in the sand so to speak between abortion or no abortion. Roe v Wade and the Planned Parenthood decision. Can't breathe air = not viable fetus. It will die if it leaves the womb. Chance at breathing air = viable fetus. ** With the help of mechanical assistance And that reason is also why in the last 40 years there hasn't been that much more advance in that window of 20 weeks. We can't duplicate how a fetus breathes in the womb. The kicker will be when technology advances to the point where you can keep a fetus alive in a liquid environment and it can absorb oxygen through the placenta...or you can splice an umbilical cord to some kind of device that replicates the placenta/uterine wall connection. But you don't actually know a fetus is capable of breathing air at any particular point around then. A fetus at 19 weeks and 6 days is practically identical to one at 20 weeks and 1 day. Why should one be treated any different than the other? My guess is that it's a compromise between "personhood starts at conception" and "it's not a person until it comes out of the woman's body". Someone linked this a few pages back, and it was informative to me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_viabilityIt's an attempt at least to mark empirically when autonomous life starts.
Well I took a look at that, I have no idea how they tested it without killing A LOT of babies. I saw the page though. It's interesting. I know that abortion in the first trimester is the only allowed abortion in the states. While I feel that abortion is necessary, many common arguments for it, like, "If it were men, they would have that right," or "My body, my rights," are just plain dumb. I think in general, the idea of how difficult it is to determine that a girl needs an abortion and that the baby they have inside them is being condemned to death by no one but that girl is an extraordinarily cruel decision to force upon a young woman/lady; in the end however, abortion is justified by the positives it gives to society in the decrease in crime and the decrease in general population. I definitely have my reservations about abortion though, especially the psychological side of it.
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On June 16 2013 12:26 Xahhk wrote:
What's wrong with incest if there is no intention to conceive? Even then aren't probabilities of child defects overblown?
There is a highly controversial psychological disorder called GSA. The wikipedia page for it is definitely interesting, I heard about it over facebook actually. It is a disorder where children are born with the possibility of sexual attraction between the two. In general, the chances of genetic defect in a child by two people of similar genetics isn't enormously high, but overtime it becomes much higher. The main reason it is illegal is because it is A) looked down upon by biblical law and thousands of years of law codified against incest, B) Simply by doing the act, one increases the chances of giving a child genetic issues enormously compared to a dissimilar genetic paring, which one could easily argue is immoral/unethical.
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Some people seem to be forgetting that having a baby with your father, uncle, or grandfather is not exactly the most ideal thing in the world.
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On June 16 2013 12:31 docvoc wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2013 11:51 Mothra wrote:On June 16 2013 11:37 Millitron wrote:On June 16 2013 11:04 RCMDVA wrote:On June 16 2013 10:41 Millitron wrote:The whole "Abortion is OK before this time, but not after" thing is complete nonsense. Say the limit is 30 days. A fetus at day 29 is practically identical to one at day 31. The same is true no matter when you set the deadline. Setting deadlines like this is complete arbitrary nonsense. You either have to allow abortion at any time, or forbid it at any time, or you're being irrational. I personally don't care which wins in the end, just as long as one of them does. There isn't much I hate more than internal inconsistency. On June 16 2013 10:28 SonZHi wrote:
The abortion debate is mostly cultural.
In Hong Kong we don't debate it, we just treat it as medical procedure. I think we legalized it in the 80s, now nobody talks about it. Also most of us are not religious. Well that's why you don't talk about it. You all mostly agree, there isn't much to talk about. We in the US though, can't agree on anything. In reality, it isn't that arbitrary. Around 20 weeks is when the lungs are developed enough that a fetus has a shot at breathing air with the help of a respirator/incubator. That's the reason for it...and the reason why the SC has "viability" as the line in the sand so to speak between abortion or no abortion. Roe v Wade and the Planned Parenthood decision. Can't breathe air = not viable fetus. It will die if it leaves the womb. Chance at breathing air = viable fetus. ** With the help of mechanical assistance And that reason is also why in the last 40 years there hasn't been that much more advance in that window of 20 weeks. We can't duplicate how a fetus breathes in the womb. The kicker will be when technology advances to the point where you can keep a fetus alive in a liquid environment and it can absorb oxygen through the placenta...or you can splice an umbilical cord to some kind of device that replicates the placenta/uterine wall connection. But you don't actually know a fetus is capable of breathing air at any particular point around then. A fetus at 19 weeks and 6 days is practically identical to one at 20 weeks and 1 day. Why should one be treated any different than the other? My guess is that it's a compromise between "personhood starts at conception" and "it's not a person until it comes out of the woman's body". Someone linked this a few pages back, and it was informative to me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_viabilityIt's an attempt at least to mark empirically when autonomous life starts. Well I took a look at that, I have no idea how they tested it without killing A LOT of babies. I saw the page though. It's interesting. I know that abortion in the first trimester is the only allowed abortion in the states. While I feel that abortion is necessary, many common arguments for it, like, "If it were men, they would have that right," or "My body, my rights," are just plain dumb. I think in general, the idea of how difficult it is to determine that a girl needs an abortion and that the baby they have inside them is being condemned to death by no one but that girl is an extraordinarily cruel decision to force upon a young woman/lady; in the end however, abortion is justified by the positives it gives to society in the decrease in crime and the decrease in general population. I definitely have my reservations about abortion though, especially the psychological side of it.
They did not kill "A LOT of babies". Whenever a premature birth occurs doctors try and save said child with any means possible. At week 20-22 the child might very well be stillborn though.
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On June 16 2013 12:30 Millitron wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2013 12:14 Djzapz wrote:On June 16 2013 12:09 Millitron wrote:On June 16 2013 12:08 Djzapz wrote:On June 16 2013 12:00 Millitron wrote:On June 16 2013 11:47 Ghostcom wrote:On June 16 2013 11:37 Millitron wrote:On June 16 2013 11:04 RCMDVA wrote:On June 16 2013 10:41 Millitron wrote:The whole "Abortion is OK before this time, but not after" thing is complete nonsense. Say the limit is 30 days. A fetus at day 29 is practically identical to one at day 31. The same is true no matter when you set the deadline. Setting deadlines like this is complete arbitrary nonsense. You either have to allow abortion at any time, or forbid it at any time, or you're being irrational. I personally don't care which wins in the end, just as long as one of them does. There isn't much I hate more than internal inconsistency. On June 16 2013 10:28 SonZHi wrote:
The abortion debate is mostly cultural.
In Hong Kong we don't debate it, we just treat it as medical procedure. I think we legalized it in the 80s, now nobody talks about it. Also most of us are not religious. Well that's why you don't talk about it. You all mostly agree, there isn't much to talk about. We in the US though, can't agree on anything. In reality, it isn't that arbitrary. Around 20 weeks is when the lungs are developed enough that a fetus has a shot at breathing air with the help of a respirator/incubator. That's the reason for it...and the reason why the SC has "viability" as the line in the sand so to speak between abortion or no abortion. Roe v Wade and the Planned Parenthood decision. Can't breathe air = not viable fetus. It will die if it leaves the womb. Chance at breathing air = viable fetus. ** With the help of mechanical assistance And that reason is also why in the last 40 years there hasn't been that much more advance in that window of 20 weeks. We can't duplicate how a fetus breathes in the womb. The kicker will be when technology advances to the point where you can keep a fetus alive in a liquid environment and it can absorb oxygen through the placenta...or you can splice an umbilical cord to some kind of device that replicates the placenta/uterine wall connection. But you don't actually know a fetus is capable of breathing air at any particular point around then. A fetus at 19 weeks and 6 days is practically identical to one at 20 weeks and 1 day. Why should one be treated any different than the other? In the real world your argument is completely null and void. It would have some merit if time of conception was known without an approximately 10 days margin of error. However it is not. Thus we have to put in a threshold where we are certain there are no (or at least extremely low) survival chance for the fetus (fetal viability does not cross the 50% threshold before week 25/26 and at week 20 it is 0). Whether or not an abortion can take place is not literally based on days. It's still arbitrary because one must still set a line, to one side of which abortion is fine, to the other it is not. The only difference is this time the line is based on viability, which is just as arbitrary as simply setting a date. Say the odds required are 80%, a fetus with 81% odds isn't much different than one with 79% odds. I don't understand why we're trying to pretend like this won't be decided arbitrarily. Any attempts to do this objectively will fail horribly because biologists will find a bunch of different "phases" to a fetus's formation, all of which are actually ballpark estimations... Even if we accept their ballparks estimation, for instance, fetus becomes "viable" on average on day X, then the debate will whip right back to the "morality" front because using viability as a basis is arbitrary too. Don't fool yourselves, this is a moral debate. Well, I can think of at least two options that aren't arbitrary. Either abortion is always OK, or its never OK are both not arbitrary. It hardly gets more arbitrary than a binary answer with no explanation actually. Especially when you're suggesting that context is irrelevant. As far as I can tell, you've somehow decided for the rest of us that the stage of development of the fetus is not worthy of considering. I just don't know what to say to that :o Sorry for not including context, I assumed I had been clear enough, my mistake. I would defend abortion right up until birth based on claims of personhood, and on potentiality. I would defend preventing all abortion by the classic "personhood occurs at conception". The fetus receives its genetic material then, and is biologically neither the mother nor father from that moment on. I don't really care which you pick, because both are internally consistent. Being the Kantian I am, I don't care for A Posteriori reasoning as far as moral issues are concerned.
Really, really don't understand why 'personhood' is defined as either 'at birth' or 'at conception'. A child whose mother dies before actual birth and then survives because of great science isn't getting the 'personhood' tag out of you? Was Kant the guy that invented trolling or something? (not actually asking who Kant is mr Kantian)
As a hint, to avoid the situation where a nonperson would be born we have this thing called 'viability of the fetus!!' and the rest goes as Ghostcom and others already said.
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Abortion is always justifiable. Let women have their bodies. Brain takes 3 months to starts developing, if we count potential people as people masturbation is genocide. Sorry if im evil for not thinking that pre-people without a brain have more rights than women.
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There's a saying I think pertinent: two wrongs don't make a right.
No one has the right to kill a baby by any determination of future well-being, in the case of incest. And, the mother's trauma, intensely horrible as it may have been, or may be in the future, cannot possibly justify the murdering of another innocent.
No, in both cases.
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On June 16 2013 12:30 Millitron wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2013 12:14 Djzapz wrote:On June 16 2013 12:09 Millitron wrote:On June 16 2013 12:08 Djzapz wrote:On June 16 2013 12:00 Millitron wrote:On June 16 2013 11:47 Ghostcom wrote:On June 16 2013 11:37 Millitron wrote:On June 16 2013 11:04 RCMDVA wrote:On June 16 2013 10:41 Millitron wrote:The whole "Abortion is OK before this time, but not after" thing is complete nonsense. Say the limit is 30 days. A fetus at day 29 is practically identical to one at day 31. The same is true no matter when you set the deadline. Setting deadlines like this is complete arbitrary nonsense. You either have to allow abortion at any time, or forbid it at any time, or you're being irrational. I personally don't care which wins in the end, just as long as one of them does. There isn't much I hate more than internal inconsistency. On June 16 2013 10:28 SonZHi wrote:
The abortion debate is mostly cultural.
In Hong Kong we don't debate it, we just treat it as medical procedure. I think we legalized it in the 80s, now nobody talks about it. Also most of us are not religious. Well that's why you don't talk about it. You all mostly agree, there isn't much to talk about. We in the US though, can't agree on anything. In reality, it isn't that arbitrary. Around 20 weeks is when the lungs are developed enough that a fetus has a shot at breathing air with the help of a respirator/incubator. That's the reason for it...and the reason why the SC has "viability" as the line in the sand so to speak between abortion or no abortion. Roe v Wade and the Planned Parenthood decision. Can't breathe air = not viable fetus. It will die if it leaves the womb. Chance at breathing air = viable fetus. ** With the help of mechanical assistance And that reason is also why in the last 40 years there hasn't been that much more advance in that window of 20 weeks. We can't duplicate how a fetus breathes in the womb. The kicker will be when technology advances to the point where you can keep a fetus alive in a liquid environment and it can absorb oxygen through the placenta...or you can splice an umbilical cord to some kind of device that replicates the placenta/uterine wall connection. But you don't actually know a fetus is capable of breathing air at any particular point around then. A fetus at 19 weeks and 6 days is practically identical to one at 20 weeks and 1 day. Why should one be treated any different than the other? In the real world your argument is completely null and void. It would have some merit if time of conception was known without an approximately 10 days margin of error. However it is not. Thus we have to put in a threshold where we are certain there are no (or at least extremely low) survival chance for the fetus (fetal viability does not cross the 50% threshold before week 25/26 and at week 20 it is 0). Whether or not an abortion can take place is not literally based on days. It's still arbitrary because one must still set a line, to one side of which abortion is fine, to the other it is not. The only difference is this time the line is based on viability, which is just as arbitrary as simply setting a date. Say the odds required are 80%, a fetus with 81% odds isn't much different than one with 79% odds. I don't understand why we're trying to pretend like this won't be decided arbitrarily. Any attempts to do this objectively will fail horribly because biologists will find a bunch of different "phases" to a fetus's formation, all of which are actually ballpark estimations... Even if we accept their ballparks estimation, for instance, fetus becomes "viable" on average on day X, then the debate will whip right back to the "morality" front because using viability as a basis is arbitrary too. Don't fool yourselves, this is a moral debate. Well, I can think of at least two options that aren't arbitrary. Either abortion is always OK, or its never OK are both not arbitrary. It hardly gets more arbitrary than a binary answer with no explanation actually. Especially when you're suggesting that context is irrelevant. As far as I can tell, you've somehow decided for the rest of us that the stage of development of the fetus is not worthy of considering. I just don't know what to say to that :o Sorry for not including context, I assumed I had been clear enough, my mistake. I would defend abortion right up until birth based on claims of personhood, and on potentiality. I would defend preventing all abortion by the classic "personhood occurs at conception". The fetus receives its genetic material then, and is biologically neither the mother nor father from that moment on. I don't really care which you pick, because both are internally consistent. Being the Kantian I am, I don't care for A Posteriori reasoning as far as moral issues are concerned. Show nested quote +On June 16 2013 12:25 Poffel wrote:On June 16 2013 12:00 Millitron wrote:On June 16 2013 11:47 Ghostcom wrote:On June 16 2013 11:37 Millitron wrote:On June 16 2013 11:04 RCMDVA wrote:On June 16 2013 10:41 Millitron wrote:The whole "Abortion is OK before this time, but not after" thing is complete nonsense. Say the limit is 30 days. A fetus at day 29 is practically identical to one at day 31. The same is true no matter when you set the deadline. Setting deadlines like this is complete arbitrary nonsense. You either have to allow abortion at any time, or forbid it at any time, or you're being irrational. I personally don't care which wins in the end, just as long as one of them does. There isn't much I hate more than internal inconsistency. On June 16 2013 10:28 SonZHi wrote:
The abortion debate is mostly cultural.
In Hong Kong we don't debate it, we just treat it as medical procedure. I think we legalized it in the 80s, now nobody talks about it. Also most of us are not religious. Well that's why you don't talk about it. You all mostly agree, there isn't much to talk about. We in the US though, can't agree on anything. In reality, it isn't that arbitrary. Around 20 weeks is when the lungs are developed enough that a fetus has a shot at breathing air with the help of a respirator/incubator. That's the reason for it...and the reason why the SC has "viability" as the line in the sand so to speak between abortion or no abortion. Roe v Wade and the Planned Parenthood decision. Can't breathe air = not viable fetus. It will die if it leaves the womb. Chance at breathing air = viable fetus. ** With the help of mechanical assistance And that reason is also why in the last 40 years there hasn't been that much more advance in that window of 20 weeks. We can't duplicate how a fetus breathes in the womb. The kicker will be when technology advances to the point where you can keep a fetus alive in a liquid environment and it can absorb oxygen through the placenta...or you can splice an umbilical cord to some kind of device that replicates the placenta/uterine wall connection. But you don't actually know a fetus is capable of breathing air at any particular point around then. A fetus at 19 weeks and 6 days is practically identical to one at 20 weeks and 1 day. Why should one be treated any different than the other? In the real world your argument is completely null and void. It would have some merit if time of conception was known without an approximately 10 days margin of error. However it is not. Thus we have to put in a threshold where we are certain there are no (or at least extremely low) survival chance for the fetus (fetal viability does not cross the 50% threshold before week 25/26 and at week 20 it is 0). Whether or not an abortion can take place is not literally based on days. It's still arbitrary because one must still set a line, to one side of which abortion is fine, to the other it is not. The only difference is this time the line is based on viability, which is just as arbitrary as simply setting a date. Say the odds required are 80%, a fetus with 81% odds isn't much different than one with 79% odds. Ok, I'll bite. In towns, we have a speed limit of 50 km/h. Why isn't the speed limit 49 km/h? Why isn't it 51 km/h? Who knows? It's 50 km/h because the lethality of traffic accidents goes down remarkably somewhere around that number. We're positive that 60 km/h is sketchy and 100 km/h is way too fast... so 50 seems sensible. Surely, this must mean that speed limits are "complete nonsense"... or does it? Same for age of consent... Why is it 18 instead of 17 years and 11 months? Taxation... Why does 1 euro more change your tax bracket? Obviously, these numbers aren't arbitrary as in "we pull a random number out of our ass" but more arbitrary in the sense of "it's approximately x and we need a number so let's go with x". TL;DR: What you've discovered here isn't some inconsistency in attitudes towards abortion. What you've discovered here is integer mathematics. The speed limit and taxation not moral issues so I'm fine with A Posteriori reasoning then. Age of consent is arbitrary, hence why you get it varying between 16-18 even just in the US. It's only 14 in Japan. How about just set the ability to consent to be once you are capable of managing your own affairs, i.e. finances, health, education? You still get around the same age, and it's not arbitrary. You've shown you're able to make big decisions already.
I'm interested in your explanation on how the bolded part can be considered knowledge a priori.
On a sidenote, for the Kantian that you are, you're remarkably unaware of proportional (!) taxes as civic duty, and of the distinction between constitutive and regulative ideas of quantity and pure quantity ("Größe" und "Maß").
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I'm not a woman unable to support a child, let alone a child born out of rape or incest. But if I were, here's what would be my motto - "If it can kick, keep the slick. If it couldn't, then I wouldn't."
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EPT
