Abortion

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Elios, back one page to see the discussion.

 

I think it should be the mother's decision ONLY, cause she is the one, who has to carry a child for 9 months. If I didn't want my child, but the father wanted, why should I suffer 9 months and a painful labor, because the one who fathered the child wants it?

I hope I never get pregnant.

 

First of all, that crap about it should be the mother's decision only is just that, crap. I agree with Dorion Blackstar's scenerio, when the male is completely willing. I know that in a lot of cases the male would rather take the easy way out of this. But to have the attitude that the father's decision means nothing is arrogant and really pissed me off. Especially since if the roles were reversed and the mother wanted the child but the father didn't, you know damn well the mother would do everything she could to get the father involved, including legal action if needed. That whole argument is stupid, selfish and childish.
Another point I want to make. I'm not sure if it has been said here, there's been so much to read. But hypothetically, what if we could ask the unborn child what he or she wants? What would he/she say?

 

Elios, just to clarify, on page 5 there was the discussion raised about what you're talking about. There were a number of queries about what form the male choice would take. Dorion seemed to be advocating that the choice essentially be that of the male (someone has to break the tie right?) I and others on the other hand responded with pointing out that men are at most financially responsible, often skip out on that, don't bear the responsibility of being pregnant, and rarely assume the same amount of responsibility with regards to child rearing. Given the above, I and others felt that since someone has to have the right to make the final decision it should be the woman who in the overwhelming majority of cases bears the responsibilities.

From what I gather, you have responded with: "that's crap" and "that's selfish and childish." First, I'd note that your response includes a straw man. A straw man is where you take an argument and twist it so that you may respond more easily. In your response you indicate that others here have said that the father's decision means nothing. Where was that said? I don't see it. That's a strawman and that's a logical fallacy. Second, you're response is essentially "that's crap." There were some telling points that I don't feel have been addressed by anyone yet. I see by your profile that you are an educator. Surely you are educating our future to not respond to an argument with "that's crap" but rather to respond to an argument by displaying why the premise or reasoning is incorrect?

[ January 27, 2003, 05:27: Message edited by: Laches ]

 

Well that kinda happens when you emotionally get involved in a topic.

I never said it was said on here. I said "But to have the attitude that the father's decision means nothing ..." It is a general comment I've heard in the past. Sorry for the confusion there.

What are those telling points? I think I presented a pretty straightforward and concrete argument to this.

Its the same as I said in a previous post about how in one case it is considered murder to kill a fetus, but in the case of abortion it is not considered murder. What I am trying to point out is how the whole argument revolving around abortion is filled with double standards. It has nothing to do with my feelins on abortion what-so-ever.
How can one thing be one way in one case and different in another? Well I can answer that, its just how our human nature works.
Now let me say one other thing here. It is a little more general, but still applies to this argument as well. I have my own beliefs and I know what I would do in a given situation. However, those are my beliefs and standards and no one elses. I strongly believe that I have no right to try to instill or force what I believe on someone else. If someone chooses to follow a certain religion that I don't agree with, so be it. If a woman chooses to have an abortion. Regardless of how I feel about it, that is ultimately their own choice. Yes, I am against abortion personally. But that is as far as it goes. If someone does something and they feel that they are making the best posible choice based on what they beleive, then I would support them completely. In the case of abortion, I would hope the woman would seek another alternative, but in the end, I have no right to hold judgement to anyone's decision.

 

The telling points in my opinion regarding who gets to choose are as follows:

(1) Who decides? Dorion advocated allowing the man to decide to either tell the woman to have an abortion and not be financially reponsible if she chooses not to or to tell the woman she can't have an abortion in which case she may not. That is how I layed it out in earlier posts and noone told me I had misinterpreted the stated stance so I assume this is Dorion's stance and the one which you are saying you agree with.

Problems with Dorion's stance and yours in my opinion:

(a) even if you merely wanted notification rights (which I would be pressing if I were you, not the extreme right wanted above) someone will have to be able to make the decision in cases where there is a disagreement. Dorion indicates the decision should be primarily the father's in the sense that he can either forbid an abortion even if the woman wants one or he can demand an abortion and reject any future responsibility.

Here are some of the problems with this:
(i) women typically bear the majority (overwhelming) of child rearing responsibilty.

(ii) Dorion indicates a man could forbid an abortion where he indicates a willingness to take full responsibility -- people change their minds or bluster because they think it sounds good. There are a ton of irresponsible fathers out there who don't live up to their financial let alone emotional legal responsibilities. How many of them do you suppose said, "I'll be a good dad?" My bet is most of them.

(iii) If the mother makes the decision she is deciding what to do with her own body and potentially another person's body (about 1/2 of the nation thinks a fetus isn't a person with rights and this is the debate.) If the father makes the decision then he is not only potentially impacting another's body (the fetus) he is certainly impacting another's body in that he is either forcing her to be pregnant for 9 months or removing himself from any future responsibility. The father meanwhile can continue to live as he will for that time, the pregnancy has no impact on his body.

(iv) Allowing the choice Dorion advocated and you agreed with is an escape clause for men; the ironic thing is many who would support the men having the decision or a larger impact on the decision commonly criticize abortion as being a way of avoiding responsibility.

So, given that women typically bear the greater responsibility when raising the child, that men often state they'll take responsibility and then don't, that at the most the man will be financially responsible often for a minimal amount which is ignored while the woman raises the child, that it is the woman who is pregnant and her body which will either undergo the procedure and be pregnant for 9 months I ask this once again (and these were some of the telling points that were not addressed that you asked about) -- how is it more fair for the man to make the decision than the woman given the above?

As far as this:

I'm not sure how that is really an argument. You're stating that if the mother wasn't allowed to decide what to do with her body then she would go to court. Yup, I'd agree with that. However, from that it doesn't follow that the choice should be the man's and not the woman's.

I don't see the law revolving around abortion as incorporating double standards. The law which troubled you earlier is that in some states the killing of an unborn fetus can be tried as murder while a mother can have an abortion. I'd point out that these are two seperate types of law -- murder and abortion. The abortion laws are internally consistent. The inconsistency comes from comparing the two types of laws. Also, the law is rife with inconsistencies, the fact that abortion law is inconsistent doesn't show that abortion law is wrong. You're missing a premise. Here is what I mean:

You say --

1.abortion law is inconsistent with murder law in some states.

2? missing premise.

Therefore, there is something wrong with abortion law (at least I take this is implied.)

You need to provide the second missing premise to arrive at the implied conclusion which I take it is that inconsistency is wrong. From there though I'd point out that the wrong could just as easily belong with the murder laws and I'd also deny that inconsistency proves something is wrong with abortion law.

[ January 27, 2003, 17:17: Message edited by: Laches ]

 

I agree with you totally on that. I guess what I am having trouble with is understanding how in one case if a fetus is killed, it can be considered murder and in another case the fetus can be killed, but it is not considered murder. I've seen and heard other cases in law where in one case something is black and in the other case its white.
You make a good point on the other argument about whether the father has any rights or not. If this were an ideal world, a father would accept responsibility. But unfortunately we don't live in that world. I was thinking that in a way, that whole part of the argument is pointless anyways.
Wouldn't you agree?

 

The inconsistency of the abortion laws and murder laws is the difference of the status of the fetus accorded in each law. In other words, in the murder law, the fetus is considered to be a person and in the abortion law it isn't. I don't see how you can defend such an inconsistency. While I recognize the division in the U.S. over this issue, either the fetus is a person (with a right to life) or it isn't. There's no middle ground there, and applying a double standard is wrong, in my humble opinion. It seems to me that if you defend abortion law on the principle that a fetus is not really human until it's born, then you must accept that the death of a fetus cannot be murder. Not to say that it wouldn't be a crime, but it wouldn't be murder.

Scarampella, dear, I have to ask. What if the doctor is a woman?

As far as me resenting women because they can give birth -- uh, no. The only thing I envy women is their singing ability. I wouldn't describe men as powerless over that domain either, since without men women can't give birth.

Anyway, I hope from my previous posts that it's clear I'm coming strictly from a position that a child has a right to life from conception -- male/female power struggles have nothing to do with my points.

 

Capstone, way back earlier in this thread I voiced my ultimate opinion I suppose and I know that others seemed to think similarly but I don't want to put words in their mouths. Essentially, I think that there are reasonable positions on both sides of the argument. In a case of extreme moral uncertainty I believe the decision should be an individual one and not a state mandated decision.

So, I'm not overly upset by the inconsistency because I'm not wedded to the idea that a fetus is not a person. In the case of a murder, vehicular homicide, etc the perpetrator of the crime is not just physically assaulting the woman but doing something worse in the sense that the perpetrator is removing her ability to choose permanently. I think this should be punished more strongly than a normal assault case which limits personal freedom to a lesser extent (much like an assault which results in a black eye is punished less severely than an assault which results in paralysis and thus limits a person's freedom more drastically.) The more stringent charges some states use in such cases achieve a more harsh penalty that I feel is justified because of the taking away of that choice and that's why I'm not overly upset.

I would agree that if someone asserts that a fetus is not a person and does not have a right to life they can not consistently defend the position that killing a fetus is murder. However, I can see how they might accept such charges from expediency. They might feel that harsher charges are warranted, and while they might prefer new laws which create harsh penalties for killing another's fetus on the basis of removing choice or on the basis of it being a more drastic form of assault they might know that there is no way the pro-life crowd would allow such a law to pass -- they'd push for using the current murder, vehicular homicide, etc laws on the book in hopes of eventually eroding abortion rights. FWIW, there is no federal law allowing the killing of a fetus to be prosecuted as murder though it has been proposed but is met with strong resistance from abortion advocate groups.

Looking back, I also didn't get the whole resenting women because they can give birth thing that Scarampella brought up. Personally, there is no amount of money in the world that would get me to switch roles and I can honestly say I've never known a guy who has expressed the desire. It's baffling why anyone would.

Back to the life support analogy Capstone, and this is more an aside really, I think the way you look at it is a bit off. You say that a patient is hooked up to a machine that is failing and must be removed in order to fix the machine. You indicate that unhooking the patient and then fixing the machine isn't really murder since otherwise you would've just waited until the machine failed and the patient died to fix it. That isn't actually what we're talking about though. We're imagining the machine is failing and someone is hooked up to it. If that person is removed from the machine in the next, say 5 months, that person will die. The machine can last those 5 months but if it isn't worked on right now after those 5 months the machine can't be fixed. Now, to remove the patient who is on the machine is taking away that person's right to life. It isn't really that big of a deal since I think we've agreed there will be cases where if the fetus does have a full right to life the woman can't really have an abortion even where it puts her life in grave danger and that's what I was driving at.

Also, I'm with Scaramp in that giving the decision of when to have an abortion wholely over to a doctor strikes me as way over the top. You take the decision from the mother and give it to a stranger so that it fits into the triage analogy more closely? I'd say first that I suspect the medical community would reject such a responsibility. Second, I know that there really aren't going to be many who would stand for that -- which is precisely the point of the examples I gave, it shows that to say a fetus has the right to life is going to force many to take a position that they fell uncomfortable with in order to remain consistent. I really can't imagine many are going to be comforted by turning over the decision of when a woman may have an abortion to a strange doctor.

And I'll admit it, one thing I hate more than anything is paternalism, particularly medical paternalism.

 

Ah well, that whole life-support analogy seems to have done more to confuse the issue than to clear it up. Anyway, I think we've both made our positions fairly clear on that....

To be perfectly honest, it boggles my mind that you can't understand why I say the doctors should have the decision. First, remember that I believe that a fetus is human from conception and engenders the same right to life as any other. Now, looking at it from my point of view, how can it possibly be the mother's choice whether to kill her baby or not? As for not putting life and death decisions in doctors' hands, that's been an accomplished fact for millennia. I think the politicization of health care has drastically affected people's trust in their doctors, and I think that's a very bad thing.