French Study: Abortion puts future births at risk of death or a disability

[Elok]

Spiff, that argument makes no sense. If pain is what it's all about, would you support a late-term abortion if we could do it by painless three-stage lethal injection? Or does the ***** of the first needle that knocks it out constitute undue suffering? I think it's definitely common sense to realize that life is more than a blur of experiences. And to bank on the potential future of a person as justification for killing it is just disingenuous. If life sucks so much, people are more than capable of killing themselves. When the poor disadvantaged youth turns five, hand him a knife and tell him where his carotid is. If he thinks it's unkind of you to let him decide for himself, well, we'll go from there. Somehow, though, I doubt it.

The genetic identity argument is valid because that is the moment at which the lifeform is created. Period. It's not about personhood or anything, it's just that prior to that point the embryo/zygote (I always get the terms mixed up) did not exist as an entity. It was divided in two, into two cells which were a part of its parents' bodies, carrying their DNA. After fertilization, there is a unified form with an essentially unique combination of DNA, distinct from its parents, and as such it has an identity as an individual, feeling and thinking or not. I still fail to see how this is not obvious.

As to objectivity, if I wanted philosophy-speak condescension I'd have started this argument with Agathon instead of you. I can't claim with certainty that anything I think is "objective," but I can only act based on the truth as I perceive it. If my perceptions seem inaccurate, others can explain my apparent errors to me, and I can in turn try to convince them. Your style of reasoning would have us do nothing. All judgments are subjective, all laws based on value judgments. And when the stakes are as high as they are here, to do nothing in the name of congeniality is just cowardice.

[chequita guevara]

I still think abortion should be madatory for conservatives.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Elok
Spiff, that argument makes no sense. If pain is what it's all about, would you support a late-term abortion if we could do it by painless three-stage lethal injection?

If there was a way to make a late abortion that the fetus doesn't resist (i.e no fear of death apparent), I'd have much less of a rational problem with it (though I would still dislike it, considering that the fetus would have already begun to have its own experiences).
It'd still bother me, but I would think of late-term abortions as much less abhorrent than I do now.

I think it's definitely common sense to realize that life is more than a blur of experiences.

I think it's definitely common sense to realize that life is more than a genome.
Seriously, it's pretty hard to find a "common sense" definition of life, considering that it is an extremely old question that has no definitive answers despite (or maybe because of) the great many people who wondered.
Since your definition of a person seems to rely solely on the specificity of the genome, does it mean that perfect twins aren't different people? That clones aren't different people? Don't they have a right to live, because of their sharing an identical genetic code with somebody else?
We live in a time where the question of life has become even more complicated than before: we'll likely see perfect viable clones before we die of old age. We'll likely see artificial intelligences that act like credible humans before we'll die of old age (even emotionally speaking). What is alive? What is not? What does life entail? These questions will only become more complex as we'll continue to play god.

The genetic identity argument is valid because that is the moment at which the lifeform is created. Period.

Yeah, it's a lifeform. So what? What makes this single cell so special that I must preserve it, no matter how much negative impact it can bring to my life if I let it grow? Let me ask you a question: what makes a human inherently worthy of living? Is it its genome?

It's not about personhood or anything, it's just that prior to that point the embryo/zygote (I always get the terms mixed up) did not exist as an entity. It was divided in two, into two cells which were a part of its parents' bodies, carrying their DNA. After fertilization, there is a unified form with an essentially unique combination of DNA, distinct from its parents, and as such it has an identity as an individual, feeling and thinking or not. I still fail to see how this is not obvious.

Yes, this is obvious: a specific lifeform is created when the spermatozoid meets the egg. What is NOT obvious, however, is why this criterion should decide that the lifeform has the right to live.
Another obvious thing: the embryo cannot feel anything until it has nerves. This is the criterion I use, and it is scientifically as true as yours.
Another obvious thing: the fetus feeds off the mother until birth. This is the argument the late-abortion-supporters use, and it is scientifically true. It's the criterion they choose to draw the line about the fetus' right to live.

I also dispute that a zygote (zygote is the first single cell IIRC - in an embryo, cell-division happens) has an identity. It has a genetic identity, true, but it doesn't have an identity that is remotely similar to one of any living human: no name, no personality traits, no distinctive looks (hard to have distinctive looks when your body is made of one cell), nothing of the sort. Just a genetic code. That's genetic identity for you, but that has nothing to do with the concept generally understood as "identity".

As to objectivity, if I wanted philosophy-speak condescension I'd have started this argument with Agathon instead of you. I can't claim with certainty that anything I think is "objective," but I can only act based on the truth as I perceive it.

I must have been unclear in my previous posts. I don't dispute the fact that a new genetic code appears when sperm meets egg. I don't intend to enter a debate about how true science is: it's way too complex, and completely off topic.
What I dispute is the idea that having a separate genetic code immediately grants a right to life. There is a logical link between the two, but this logical link is challenged by other possible logical links.
It is very possible to think that you can deny the right to life to a lifeform with a human DNA under some conditions. The lack of nervous system is the condition I set in my belief system. The dependence on the mother's body is the condition the late-abortion-supporters set in their belief system.

Your style of reasoning would have us do nothing.

This is because there is absolutely no progress possible in such a discussion. This is why I generally avoid abortion threads, because they become pointless as soon as it enters the pissing contest: "who is right, when does the right to life begin?".
The only possible point of such debates is to sway passerbys (people with no clear-cut opinion on the matter) to your belief system. Those who are already knee deep in their opinions will NOT change their mind. Simply because it is a typical issue where you can't sway others with reason.

I have come to accept it. This is the reason why I merely said what my belief system was. The argument I made wasn't aimed at proving the superiority of my belief system, it was only intended to explain how pointless the debate is, because all belief systems have a similar claim to being logical and rational.

You can dispute my belief system all you want, but it'll be only a experience for you. I come from a different background on the issue. The things you care about, I don't care about (and vice versa). How can you win me with your arguments, if you know that I don't give a rat's ass about the embryo's genetics?

You value the life of the embryo because it has a specific human genetic code. You value it more than the life of the parents, and you consider the embryo and the grown child to be the same thing.
I consider the embryo to be completely expandable, because I don't believe that having a genetic code on your own gives you an inherent right to life. As such, to me, the embryo weights nothing when I am to think about the future consequences of the pregnancy.

All judgments are subjective, all laws based on value judgments. And when the stakes are as high as they are here, to do nothing in the name of congeniality is just cowardice.

I do not "do nothing". I am a diehard supporter of the right to abortion on demand, in a reasonable delay. As I said earlier in the thread, I think the right to contracpetion+abortion are the greatest things that come from the 20th century (and it wasn't a troll: I consider family planning to be the greatest thing that happened to women's liberation, knowing that women are 1/2 of our species).

As you say, the stakes are huge. To me, the stake in the abortion issue are very closely related to the stakes of the contraception issue. It's about freeing women from what has shaped their individual destinies since the beginning of human society: their pre-set role as housewives.

If I attributed any value to embryoes, if I considered it was inherently bad to kill embryoes, then I would be much less enthusiastic about abortion. Because I would think in terms "weight the needs of the baby vs the needs of the mother". But I don't. The embryo has no value to me, it's just another lump of flesh (which happens to have a separate gene code, big deal).

My words may look gut-wrenchingly disgusting to you. And yet they're not even a troll (Obviously, I don't attempt to convince you )

But know also that it took me time to stomach the arguments of the anti-abortion people. Had you seen me in an abortion thread two years ago, you'd see me calling the anti-abortion people as monsters (and I meant it), because I saw them as bigotedly outweighing the "needs" of a lump of flesh over the needs of the actual people whose life they destroy (the born child included).
Since then, I have come to accept that your side genuinely believes that a human being as an inherent right to live since conception. I do not believe it. I fight bitterly against the political implications of such belief. But I accept that you hold this belief, and that my core belief is radically incompatible with yours.

[Elok]

Eh. If you want to leave it at that, fine. But you do realize, of course, that there is no way in hell I will back down, don't you? I can't speak for the whole pro-life movement, obviously, but I can't imagine that any of us will ever sit still while you folks continue to legalize murder (or what we consider to be murder, whatever). It's just not going to happen. In real life, agreeing-to-disagree is not an option. The only reason I disagree with the people who assassinate abortion docs is that I don't think all possibility of discussion has been exhausted (I can't feel much pity for a man who kills infants for money, though I'll always detest the clinic-bombers for striking at the desperate women who go there). Talk could still accomplish something, especially now that the whole stem cell mess has forced the issue. But if it were not for my continuing, if fading, hope for triumph by democracy, I don't know what I'd do. Surrender or failure are not an option, and you seem to feel similarly determined, if less brusquely so. The issue must be faced sometime, by talk or otherwise. Bear that in mind.

[Spiffor]

1. I'm not in your country, so it's unlikely we ever fight on the issue in any other mean than on an internet forum.

2. You shouldn't get your ideas so high as to ponder political violence over the issue. This will achieve nothing, it will be counterporductive to your aims (making the anti-abortionists look like a murderous crowd), and it will land you to jail.

3. Abortion doctors aren't necessarily vampires that do it for the money. If any abortionnist sees the issue the way I do, he may very well do it to do good. Even if his definition of good isn't the same as yours.

[Elok]

1. I know, I'm just saying that if you were, agreeing-to-disagree is not an option IRL.

2. This is not a matter of political violence, at least not in the sense of terrorism you imply. I dislike doctor-shootings for the moment because, as I said, talk may achieve something. However, if our democracy crushes the rights of the unborn, effectively legalizing infanticide from my POV, you can't realistically ask me or anyone else of like mind to accept the law. If the government fails in its fundamental obligation to protect human life, to sit back and tolerate it would be deplorable. The object of any violence would not be persuasion, but to make this aberration as much of a cast-iron biznatch to pull off as possible. While I don't like the practice, the assassinations have already seriously dropped the number of doctors who specialize in abortion. I suppose it does "persuade" new pHds to go into different fields, but it's not the sort of random brutality normally associated with political violence.

3. I am aware that many abortion doctors believe they are providing a service to humanity, but so do enemy soldiers in a war. If they would constitute a valid target in the event of revolution is debatable. It may be a moot point, anyway, as people increasingly turn to RU-486. If clinics become obsolete, it will simply be a matter of locating the factories (which manufacturers naively hope to keep secret at the moment) and sabotaging machinery. At the moment this is not happening, because the number of pro-lifers willing to resort to extreme measures is pretty small. We still hold out hope for sane discussion. And I think some of us are in denial, and then there's the evangelical factor which lumps the pro-life position together with homophobia and random lunacy, and so on.

But when ideals clash and neither side will back down (which certainly seems to be the case in America), there will be blood eventually. I don't like the prospect, but this is the only apparent alternative. That's why I say we can't afford to give up the discussion. It won't go away if we ignore it.