Question for Atheists: Abortion

[_Analytics]

Provenzo agreed that failing to kill babies with disabilities was akin to retard worship.

No he didn't. He said arguing that we need them more than they need us is akin to retard worship.

He also argued that society bears the burden of raising the child, which is undesirable.

What he said was this: "A parent has a moral obligation to provide for his or her children until these children are equipped to provide for themselves."

Do you disagree with this? His actual position is challenging enough. There isn't much reason to distort it if you want to argue with him.

If you don't have the willingness or ability to provide for a child's needs, is it morally responsible to bring such a child into the world? If you bring a kid into the world you can't take care of, do the taxpayers have the moral responsibility to take care of them?

[Guest]

The attitudes expressed here are the natural product of atheism. With atheism there is nothing, nothing matters, nothing means anything, nothing is right or wrong, etc. The only real deterrent to any activity is the possibility of punishment in the here and now (e.g., your wife may find out you are having an affair and get angry).

The lack of meaning to anything necessarily means that it is of no consequence to kill babies (born alive even). We are all nothing so it doesn't matter. This type of thinking borders on psychotic serial killer type stuff, but it appears to be quite mainstream. Disgusting.

I don't think it's the natural product of Atheism any more than the natural product of religious inculcation is hypocrisy. It's a bit of a strawman to say that Atheism leads to a "no consequences life" led.

My girlfriend, a stalwart Atheist, adopted a foster baby from an illegal immigrant. She wants to give a kid who had no chance at a normal life an opportunity his religiously inclined mother wouldn't. She is also a nihilsit. This act of kindness on her part gives her happiness, and it makes her happy to see a child happy and cared for.

Just because someone doesn't believe in a higher power, or is a nihilist doesn't mean that contributing to society in a meaningful way is antithetical to him or her. Indeed, it's beneficial to me, as a nihilist, to be part of a society that has order and cooperates. Nihilism isn't anarchy since anarchy rarely leads to a pleasurable life.

[_silentkid]

I find it interesting that not one female poster has given her opinion in this valuable abortion thread (I think SUAS is female, but she didn't really comment as to the OP). I'm atheist, I'm male, I don't have kids, but I am a scientist and I look at this issue from a scientific standpoint, not an atheist standpoint (whatever that is), though I think that posters like dblagent007 somehow equate the two. Chromosome aberrations occur during spermatogenesis and oogenesis that often result in conditions that terminate the development of fetuses. Autosomal monosomies and autosomal trisomies nearly always terminate by spontaneous abortion. Many are undetected by the mother. Last time I checked, all autosomal monosomies are lethal. For some reason, some trisomy 21 fetuses (three chromosome 21's instead of the normal 2) can make it full term but result in the condition referred to as Down Syndrome. There are a number of recognized polysomies (and one monosomy) of the sex chromosomes that I won't get into here. Suffice it to say that most are lethal and the ones that aren't lead to detrimental developmental issues and sterility (with some minor exceptions). I see these aberrations as the results of imperfect natural processes. How do those who believe that life begins at conception or see God as a guiding force during fetal development deal with these?

[Guest]

Provenzo agreed that failing to kill babies with disabilities was akin to retard worship.

No he didn't. He said arguing that we need them more than they need us is akin to retard worship.

He quoted someone else that made the point you refer to. However, he then went beyond that and asserted that Palin's decision to have Trig instead of killing him, was retard worship. Here is the quote:

"Given that Palin had complete foreknowledge of her child's severe disability yet nevertheless chose to have it, it is hard not to see her choice as anything less [than retard worship]."

He also argued that society bears the burden of raising the child, which is undesirable.

What he said was this: "A parent has a moral obligation to provide for his or her children until these children are equipped to provide for themselves."

Do you disagree with this? His actual position is challenging enough. There isn't much reason to distort it if you want to argue with him.

Oh please, I didn't distort his position. He made the statement you quoted above as part of making his larger point that most parents don't have the means to support a disabled child and therefore the child must be supported by the government.

Here's the rest of what he said beginning right after the sentence you quoted.

"Because a person afflicted with Down syndrome is only capable of being marginally productive (if at all) and requires constant care and supervision, unless a parent enjoys the wealth to provide for the lifetime of assistance that their child will require, they are essentially stranding the cost of their child's life upon others."

If you don't have the willingness or ability to provide for a child's needs, is it morally responsible to bring such a child into the world? If you bring a kid into the world you can't take care of, do the taxpayers have the moral responsibility to take care of them?

Yes it is morally responsible to bring a child into the world because a child is a person that has a worth that transcends his parent's financial condition at the moment.

The responsibility for children begins with the parents. If they fail, the responsibility expands to ever enlarging groups (e.g., extended family, community, church, youth groups, etc.) until the government is the group of last resort. Killing the child is not the answer.

[_dartagnan]

Silentkid, this is not a question of science.

Several here have gone off the reservation and tried to make this thread something else.

My question was simple. If you knew a baby would have DS or some other genetic deficiency, would you think it is wrong for the mother to have the baby?

This is a simple yes/no question.

It has nothing to do with science or the debate about when exactly "personhood" begins in the womb. I already know how everyone here feels about abortion. What I want to know is who would, if they could, prevent others from giving birth, simply because they feel life forms have to serve a purpose to society, or whatever.

The author mentioned in the article suggested it was immoral for the mother to give birth to a baby with Downs Syndrome. I was just curious how many of our resident atheists would agree with this, but I got more information than I was prepared to swallow.

It seems most here don't think she would be morally wrong, but they had to go beyond what was asked by expressing their belief that human life is no more special than fungi. That created various emotional tangents that deserve their own threads.

[_dartagnan]

If you bring a kid into the world you can't take care of, do the taxpayers have the moral responsibility to take care of them?

This is a question for all babies, not just the ones with DS. People have babies they can't financially support all the time. Would atheists pass legislation to prevent humans from exercising their procreative rights?

[_dblagent007]

I find it interesting that not one female poster has given her opinion in this valuable abortion thread (I think SUAS is female, but she didn't really comment as to the OP). I'm atheist, I'm male, I don't have kids, but I am a scientist and I look at this issue from a scientific standpoint, not an atheist standpoint (whatever that is), though I think that posters like dblagent007 somehow equate the two. Chromosome aberrations occur during spermatogenesis and oogenesis that often result in conditions that terminate the development of fetuses. Autosomal monosomies and autosomal trisomies nearly always terminate by spontaneous abortion. Many are undetected by the mother. Last time I checked, all autosomal monosomies are lethal. For some reason, some trisomy 21 fetuses (three chromosome 21's instead of the normal 2) can make it full term but result in the condition referred to as Down Syndrome. There are a number of recognized polysomies (and one monosomy) of the sex chromosomes that I won't get into here. Suffice it to say that most are lethal and the ones that aren't lead to detrimental developmental issues and sterility (with some minor exceptions). I see these aberrations as the results of imperfect natural processes. How do those who believe that life begins at conception or see God as a guiding force during fetal development deal with these?

Who believes that God actively guides all aspects of fetal development? Most believers I know believe (1) that there is a God and (2) that natural processes tend to operate in accordance with nature (imperfections and all) except in the rare instances when God intervenes, which may or may not be through yet another natural process.

[Guest]

Yes it is morally responsible to bring a child into the world because a child is a person that has a worth that transcends his parent's financial condition at the moment.

The responsibility for children begins with the parents. If they fail, the responsibility expands to ever enlarging groups (e.g., extended family, community, church, youth groups, etc.) until the government is the group of last resort. Killing the child is not the answer.

Says who? You? Got news for you, the government, us by proxy, is the one picking up the slack. I don't see extended families and churches raising anyone's down syndrome babies. What I DO see is a lot of down syndrome babies getting government assistance, though. This is an incredible burden on society that gets little in return other than some warm fuzzies experienced by people like you who aren't raising anyone else's down syndrom babies. By "you" I mean your kind, en masse, raising all the down syndrome babies not wanted by society.

For example, my girlfriend's son will receive FREE medical care, from the government, until he is 18 years old. A church isn't giving him anything. Extended family isn't, either. The US taxpayer is picking up the slack for an illegal immigrant woman who has produced 9 kids by several different fathers at a tremendous cost to us, our society, and for what? She keeps doing what she does, and she keeps passing the burden onto society. Where are all the Christians stepping up and caring for her babies? One atheist and one Muslim family have stepped up for two out of nine kids, and that's it. The rest have been raised by the state.

In the end, for the longevity and viability of a society worth keeping, sterilizing this woman after two kids would have been a good thing. Why does a good society bear the burden of rearing someone else's unwanted and uncared for children? Because it gives some people warm fuzzies? That's crazy. That is CRAZY.

[_Some Schmo]

If you can tell me why one species of life is any more important than another, you might have a point, but I doubt you can. Life is life. It's all pretty awesome and mysterious, no matter what species you're talking about.

The only way you're going to be able to state that one species is more special than another is by some arbitrary criteria, likely religious in nature, but it won't speak to the truth of whether one form of life is "better" than another except in your own subjective opinion. And who cares what your opinion is?

Of course, god fearing types want to use this as some kind of stupid argument against a particular non-belief (that of a magical god creature), and they can conflate those two non-related things all they want, but it doesn't make them right. It just makes them look stupid (again).

[_antishock8]

It seems most here don't think she would be morally wrong, but they had to go beyond what was asked by expressing their belief that human life is no more special than fungi. That created various emotional tangents that deserve their own threads.

And where do you get your morality? Where do you delineate which life is good to kill and which life must be spared the sword? How do you come to the conclusion which life is given priority over other life?