We need laws to restrict men's reproductive choices.

[Wiglaf]

[Lorizael]

Pregnancy needs to be decoupled from being a woman so that pro-choice people can stop pretending abortion is a women's rights issue.

[Wiglaf]

Can someone explain to me why it's okay to kill an unborn child but not a 1-2 year old, who has less intelligence than the average dog but is much much much more annoying?

[DaShi]

Good question.

[Felch]

Pregnancy needs to be decoupled from being a woman so that pro-choice people can stop pretending abortion is a women's rights issue.

If people like MrFun were serious about liberating women they'd be working to figure out the secrets to extra-utero gestation. I guess killing fetos is easier than SCIANCE!

[Lorizael]

I guess killing fetos is easier than SCIANCE!

Well, it is.

[giblets]

A gamete will never grow into a fetus. Zygotes do all the time. Conception matters because it's the first stage in the human life cycle. Once the two sets of chromosomes meet, a human being is created.

I don't see why the fact that it can eventually become a baby is relevant. Are people morally obligated to take every opportunity to make a baby? If it currently has moral worth then that must come from its current state. I guess like Al you're asserting that human DNA and having a particular number of chromosomes makes something intrinsically valuable.

[Lorizael]

I'm not sure what's worse -- that the abortion debate became a women's rights issue or that it became a semantic argument about where life begins.

This is all that's required for the abortion debate: Human life is valuable. Actions that foster human life are valuable; they should be promoted. Actions that hinder human life are harmful; they should be discouraged.

When moral paradoxes arise due to the abortion debate, the answer is the same as it is for all other moral paradoxes: more science!

Too many people getting pregnant accidentally and putting poor children who will lead terrible lives into the world? Make sterility the default human condition but reversible under certain circumstances!

A woman's life would be seriously negatively affected by having a child? Remove the fetus from the womb and have it raised by robots!

Not enough resources to care for more children in the world? Store the fetus cryonically until more resources are available!

Science! It's the answer to all life's problems!

[Felch]

Why is Loki mispelling SICANCE!?

[Felch]

I don't see why the fact that it can eventually become a baby is relevant. Are people morally obligated to take every opportunity to make a baby? If it currently has moral worth then that must come from its current state. I guess like Al you're asserting that human DNA and having a particular number of chromosomes makes something intrinsically valuable.

Can eventually? No, it will become a baby in a matter of months, assuming that it doesn't die.

[Lorizael]

No, it will become a baby in a matter of months, assuming that it doesn't die.

Which it most likely will.

[Ben Kenobi]

I don't see why the fact that it can eventually become a baby is relevant. Are people morally obligated to take every opportunity to make a baby? If it currently has moral worth then that must come from its current state. I guess like Al you're asserting that human DNA and having a particular number of chromosomes makes something intrinsically valuable.

If people have their moral worth based on their current state, wouldn't people who are handicapped have less value than other people?

[Ben Kenobi]

No, it will become a baby in a matter of months, assuming that it doesn't die.

Where's the bright line? Fetal development is a continuum. It's not as if x number of cell divisions crosses you over the threshold.

The baby is the baby - you can detect the child in the womb quite early on I don't see why you would call it not a baby then, and it later becomes one....

[Ben Kenobi]

Are people morally obligated to take every opportunity to make a baby?

No, there's a difference between "being open towards procreation", and "taking every opportunity to do so." There's nothing wrong with choosing to abstain to give you and your wife a break.

[Elok]

Which it most likely will.

Doesn't matter, really. Suppose you have stage four cancer--every part of your body is riddled with malignant tumors, doctors say it's amazing you're even alive now. You're going to die soon, one way or another. But if I shoot you in the head, legally, I'm still a murderer, no? And no moral system I know of disagrees, unless you more or less ask me to.