subbie - When Does Personhood Begin?

[_EAllusion]

Pro-life is the position that abortion should be illegal in all or most circumstances. Pro-choice is that abortion should legally allowed in all or most circumstances. If you think abortion is a choice people generally shouldn’t make, but also think that it should be legally allowed, then you are just pro-choice. You aren’t “pro-life and pro-choice.” If you say, the morality of abortion is too complex to allow one group to politically impose its will on everyone, then you merely are articulating one of the 3 major arguments for the pro-choice position.

Everyone, all of us, are pro-life and pro-choice in the non-technical sense of those labels. In the context of the abortion debate they take on more specific meaning.

[_EAllusion]

The three major arguments for pro-choice distilled are as follows:

1) A developing fetus, at least up to a certain point, lacks the qualities necessary to respect it as a being deserving political and/or moral rights, ergo it should be legal to terminate it.

2) The question of the morality of abortion is either too complex or too dependent on publicly inaccessible reasoning to allow any one position enshrined in law. Given this state of affairs, individuals must decide for themselves if the act is proper or not, ergo it should remain legal to choose abortion.

3) A mother retains the right to see how her body is used as she deems fit, ergo a mother has a right to expel a fetus from her body if she does not permit it to use her organs regardless of whether that fetus is itself a person with rights. Therefore, abortion should be legal.

If you find yourself arguing a variation of any one of these positions, congratulations, you are a staunch pro-choicer.

[_EAllusion]

Sorry. There is a 4th argument for pro-choice that is common enough to describe it as "major." I find it to be terrible and it doesn't appear in applied ethics much at all to my knowledge, but it none-the-less is deployed a fair amount by ordinary people. It goes something like:

4) If you make abortion illegal, even if it is wrong to commit abortions, women will still find means to have abortions, but their chosen methods will be much less safe. The aggregate harm from this is greater than the harm from legally accessible abortions, therefore abortion should be legal on pragmatic grounds.

[_Jersey Girl]

I don't believe I have a right to impose my beliefs on others...What isn't fine is when any of us wish to force our beliefs on to others.

The irony of your belief here is noted. Your post, is in fact is a passive-aggressive imposition of your belief. So while you do not literally tell anyone to agree with or echo your belief, you certainly proclaim it as a "way it should be".
But your sentiment is delightfully meek, albeit anti-social, or rather, anarchist.

Oh, I had you on ignore and only saw your reply in someone else's post. Here's my response to the above.

“F” yourself freely.

[_Chap]

Sorry. There is a 4th argument for pro-choice that is common enough to describe it as "major." I find it to be terrible and it doesn't appear in applied ethics much at all to my knowledge, but it none-the-less is deployed a fair amount by ordinary people. It goes something like:

4) If you make abortion illegal, even if it is wrong to commit abortions, women will still find means to have abortions, but their chosen methods will be much less safe. The aggregate harm from this is greater than the harm from legally accessible abortions, therefore abortion should be legal on pragmatic grounds.

Don't legislatures the world over often (though not always) make decisions on 'least overall harm' grounds like the one you are setting out here? Especially when there is very wide disagreement about whether absolute statements such as 'it is wrong for abortions to take place' are true or false.

Why shouldn't they, exactly? Can you set out the arguments here, please?

[_honorentheos]

For subbie or anyone else who is inclined, I'm bringing this over from the Justice Kennedy thread since the entire intent of this thread was to avoid derailing another:

When you claimed that liberals are being inconsistent when expressing concern regarding children being separated from their parents but are ok with a woman choosing to have an abortion, you made a claim about personhood whether you recognize it as such or not.

If a person believes in a definition of personhood that requires criteria that would exclude developing cells before they reach a certain stage and believes a woman should have the right to end the development of those cells before they achieve personhood, they would be consistent in expressing concern over a child while supporting a woman who chose to end a pregnancy before the conditions of personhood were achieved by the developing cells.

So you disagree. I'd be interested in seeing your concept of personhood spelled out to see how consistent IT actually is.

[_honorentheos]

It's disconcerting to once again see folks arguing over this issue. What I see in the argument is that what constitutes personhood and when life begins are two different issues.

What's even more disturbing is the fact that the first child abuse case in the US was prosecuted under the laws regarding the ASPCA because there were no child abuse rights in the late 1800's so they prosecuted the case on behalf of Mary Ellen Wilson using animal abuse law. It wasn't until the 1970's (!) that this country put in place actual child abuse law (federal) (and I only know this because it was part of my education) and here we are in 2018 arguing over when/if anyone has the right to terminate a pregnancy and who has personhood and who has not, and when life begins which again, are two separate issues.

Makes my head spin.

Some of us believe that life begins at conception and that's perfectly fine. Some believe that personhood begins upon exit from the uterus and that's perfectly fine as well.

What isn't fine is when any of us wish to force our beliefs on to others. This is why I remain pro-choice and pro-life, because no matter what I believe, I don't believe I have a right to impose my beliefs on others. So long as the pro-choice door is open, those who see things differently than I do are free to choose, and so people that believe the way I do, are also free to choose.

I say that in these United States, where an adult has equal protection and equal rights under the law, that the door to choice needs to remain open.

It's the only thing that makes sense.

Thank you, Jersey. Best post in the lot.

For either of you, does the door to choice remain open for late term abortions?

[_Gadianton]

While H is does the work to define personhood for Subs, it's time for subs to roll up his sleeves and contribute something.

and either believe in a right to life or not?

Let's hear it on your terms. When does life begin?

[_honorentheos]

To be as simple as possible, at risk of being overly simple, a person's definition for what makes someone or something a human being with recognized rights is essentially their definition for personhood.

So the question is how subbie would define a human being in relation to the argument liberals are inconsistent when they exclude unborn early stage fetuses from being human beings with rights while including toddlers who are being separated from their parents by the government of the US.

[_EAllusion]

Sorry. There is a 4th argument for pro-choice that is common enough to describe it as "major." I find it to be terrible and it doesn't appear in applied ethics much at all to my knowledge, but it none-the-less is deployed a fair amount by ordinary people. It goes something like:

4) If you make abortion illegal, even if it is wrong to commit abortions, women will still find means to have abortions, but their chosen methods will be much less safe. The aggregate harm from this is greater than the harm from legally accessible abortions, therefore abortion should be legal on pragmatic grounds.

Don't legislatures the world over often (though not always) make decisions on 'least overall harm' grounds like the one you are setting out here? Especially when there is very wide disagreement about whether absolute statements such as 'it is wrong for abortions to take place' are true or false.

Why shouldn't they, exactly? Can you set out the arguments here, please?

If you accept the premise that abortion is murder, which this argument allows, then it is extremely implausible that the gains from preventing abortions by making it a criminal offense will be offset by a much smaller number of abortions still occurring in more dangerous circumstances. And if something so implausible occurred, the best response would be to increase the deterrent effect of criminal penalties to reduce the likelihood of abortion occurring. It's just unlikely to the point of absurd that you can't craft a criminal system that prevents enough murders to more than offset additional harm caused by the smaller number of women still trying to get away with murder in ways more dangerous to them.

This is how a legislature would and does treat other forms of homicide because the unjustified ending of a life, arguably especially a young life, is such a grave harm.