Abortion

Look,Everybody keeps thinking we have to rationalize things about abortion. Rationalize "what is life." Rationalize "what is a person."Views on life and abortion are not fundamentally based on logic. Behind all the logic are some underlying assumptions about what is valuable, unsupported notions from which people initially derive their motive to action. Arguing abortion idealistically is like arguing moral systems--there is no fundamentally "right" answer. To search for a "solution" or "meeting of the minds" on the ideals behind abortion is to ignore and fail to accept the underlying assumptions and differences of different people, and that's not OK.Abortion is not an issue of ideals, it's an issue of living together. It's a question of setting up our culture, through cultural agreements, rules, government, whatever, however we want to handle it. And like any such situation, it's a practical, no-win situation. It's about compromise and finding a way to live together--nothing more, nothing less.So, instead of "arguing" ideals (i.e. evangelizing), why not talk about some realistic solutions to the problem, about ways to live together. For example, what about an abortion tax? Discourage people from being stupid by putting a monetary fine on it. That's a way to compromise. If people can't afford to pay the tax, throw them in jail.And fundamentalists, please don't tell me how "unwilling" you are to accept the death of a "person." You simply CAN'T impose your morality on other people. It's your job to keep your people--the people who want to belong to your sub-culture--in line.And those on the left, please don't tell me you shouldn't compromise on what is a "basic human right to choose"--that's just as made up as the fundamentalist position. Everybody has to make sacrifices in a compromise.We live in a culture. We share our lives. We impose arbitrary restrictions and limitations on each other. Ideals are not part of the equation. It's about knowing what different groups of people want (REGARDLESS of the reason) and accepting that the solution lies in none of those things. It lies outside of what you want. That's compromise.BenAbE: Fixed darn subtitleThis message has been edited by Farva, Thursday, 2005/08/25 10:40 PM

Hey holmes, thanks for the comments. I find that levying a general criticism against all aspects of a system is a weak way to criticize a specific policy. Yeah, this happens a lot in the US. It sucks, but that's the way things are. Rich people can also afford better representation in court. They can afford to pay fines levied much more easily. They can afford to pay lawyers to avoid accumulating traffic and losing their license. They can afford health care. They can...The point is to give people a strong reason to avoid abortion. That means, penalize them. Here's another idea; how about if you have an abortion, then we sterilize you? If you don't want kids and you're not taking the measures to avoid having them, it seems like a reasaonable penalty to me.And as far as your comment on contraception... I think that's an excellent point, and one that should be addressed as well. Do you have any ideas on an effective (both results-effective and cost-effective) way we could do it?----- Sure, they do. Think of it this way; stable cultures are like standing waves (like when you shake a rope up and down). If you don't shake the damn rope just the right way, you get nothing stable, nothing consistent. You just get a bunch of motion that never works together to produce something, you get destructive interference.Back to what you said... yes, people can do whatever they want to each other. But there's only certain stable ways to survive together. That's where society and culture comes from in the first place. If we DON'T compromise, if we don't work together, things get a lot more likely to fail. We expose weakness both to nature and to other countries.So ... cessation / civil war is always an option. No doubt about it. But it's not the best one (at least, not at this point). We'd all be weaker if we split into two countries. I don't know why you want to call it a "moral" system... it's a system dictating certain agreements on how we all agree to act. The underlying reasoning or whatever doesn't matter. That's how social settings have to be; there has to be an agreement (whether explicit or implicit) on how to act. If not, the system can't stabalize and won't survive.I think the difference between "anarchy" and systems with government is simply the difference between having implicit policies and having explicit policies. Anyway, I guess I'm not seeing your objection / reason for comment well.------- There's always going to be a tension between individual rights and social agreements. We don't live individualistically, with no dependencies on each other. We derive our strength, instead, in sharing our lives. Once we share our lives, we have to establish policies and compromises that impinge on our individual freedoms. I have to be able to count on you in order to agree to work with you.One policy that we institute across the country is that of killing. It's not within your rights to kill. And this isn't globally instituted just for people either, we establish animal rights as well. If there's a group of people who find abortion to be equivalent to killing, then a compromise has to be reached.If you want to argue that having a global policy about killing is against the Bill of Rights, and that we shouldn't have to compromise the freedom to kill, then I can understand your objection. But otherwise, I don't see what the problem is.-----As long as you've agreed to live with certain people, you have to address them, no matter where their ideals come from. The basic options are to compromise or to end our willingness to live together (through war or split).I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this.BEN

Hey holmes,I finally found time to get back to this. It turned into a pretty long post--so long that I"m unwilling to re-read it. I'd strongly suggest you go to the bottom, and start with the last section (starting at the last quoted box). That should summarize things and make it unnecessary to really examine all sections of this post.Sorry about that. And thanks for the kind words as well.---- Because a large part of our population finds it to be killing. Whether you want to call it imposing "morals" or not is irrelevant--different groups of people find different things "moral" or not. It's imposing a limitation on behavior without reason. Again, it's not what's behind the request for limitation that matters, it's the request itself. Just like it doesn't matter why your (generic) girlfriend gets upset. Whether she's right or wrong, taking a good perspective or not, she's upset. And that needs to be dealt with. I'm not sure. I would suggest (as a compromise) that a rate of incidence of abortion be established. If the rate is exceeded, penalties need to be increased. If it's not exceeded, then penalties can be reduced. Assuming in general that a penalty causes people to avoid the behavior more. ...I think this is a good idea, but it just depends what alternatives are being brought to the table. If they have to do with facilitation of extramarital sex, I have a feeling they're not going to fly well with the population you're negotiating with. I'm cool with this description, but ... I just don't see that it's the practice. To use an example that you've brought up yourself, adults aren't free to have sexual relationships with minors. I'm not allowed to walk around naked. Heck, without shoes and shirt, I get no service. Racism... religious oppression... blah blah blah.Again, I feel like you're proposing we start from scratch. But if we don't start from scratch... we're working off of a base that is not so pure. There are lots of LLP-infringing written laws and unwritten practices. The Bill of Rights is a nice ideal to work towards. And it's a nice anchor to get idealists (both religious and not) to be able to get together and force a compromise which meets neither of their ideals. But when ideals are in conflict, when both groups approach it at the level of emotion of killing... a compromise has to be reached. Even when it infringes upon the Bill of Rights. I'm suddenly interested to know more. I don't need goodies man. But by the same logic, killing anybody that's within your own family should be OK too. But... that's just an unrelated thought.I agree with you, it's not a common issue and need not be dealt with by government. But we've already done it. We've already made the abstraction in government that all killing is punishable. Overstepping that boundary has already happened. You'd have to work to allow some types of killing (such as infanticide, or maybe killing older members of your family as well) in order to remove that abstraction.Once that boundary has been crossed, then I think you can't make this argument any more. It just becomes another "yeah... shouldn't... but does." Just as a note (not sure if it's too related), but I disagree with this. Seeing or hearing something directly isn't necessarily less invasive than hearing about it later. If it can bother somebody to see it, it can also bother them to simply know that it ever happened. A lot depends on the prior experience of the individual as to what effects news may have on them. But I think it's dangerous to discount what is not "immediate." Violation of morals or triggering recall of past events are both very strong emotional forces... as far as I can tell. I totally disagree. I think it has everythign to do with the power of the group, which is probably significantly correlated with population size. Think of rats. Rats are the cockroaches of yesteryear, are they not? Squirrels too. Yet shooting them for fun, or even using them for research somehow became controversial and emotionally intense. Now there's all sorts of legal hoops to jump through to do research, and animal protection laws for rats, etc... You're simply talking from a different perspective. It all depends on how you define "person." Maybe that's exactly where the compromise needs to happen. Once "person" is defined, maybe many of these laws and regulation issues fall right into place. But as it stands now, I think the definition of person is not agreed upon.Although maybe those who are against abortion can start getting more upset about fertilized eggs that don't implant? I would expect them to be more upset about that issue. But whatever... their definition of person doesn't have to be logical. Oops. I guess that's the problem with responding as you read... you write something... then find it already written by the original poster. That's definitely the first question in my eyes as well. And my answer is, you ignore the reasons behind what is "offensive", and you address the difference via compromise. I learned this through dealing with my girlfriend. When somemthing is based on emotion, no amount of reason is going to change their mind. The emotion must be accepted for its simple existence, and a solution must be made with that as the starting point.What is "offensive" is exactly this--a level of trigger of emotion. So it operates by the same mechanism. In time, what is considered "offensive" can change, but it doesn't change via reason. It changes via experience, only through time.So I think acceptance and moving towards compromise is the right way to handle the situation you posed. I'm not sure if this came through above or in my previous posts, but I do agree with this. What I'm trying to show is that the point at which you choose to stand up and refuse to compromise is ... hard to justify.
- You can't justify it by the Bill of Rights, because... it's already been violated in exactly the way you're trying to use it to hold steady.
- You can't justify it based on your own definition of "what is a person" because there's been no agreement on that (and definitions need not be reasoned, another group's definition of person is as valid. Not scientifically valid, but valid for the purpose of establishing lifestyle choices and policy).
- You can't justify it by saying such a policy allows law to be established on basically any random item considered offensive, because our law does.You can choose to stand up at any time and refuse to compromise... but that just means the conflict remains unresolved, and the regular ways of dealing with it (violence, political strongarming, corruption, underground operations, etc) continue. In the worst case, standing up leads to civil war.I'd rather compromise my ideals than work with these practical consequences. And just for the same reason, I'm all for legalizing drugs. But.. I should take that back to the drug thread.Ben

Excellent point. I agree wholeheartedly. Thanks for the note; somehow it's always easy to forget about the guy.

Hey Nuggin,Thanks for the reply. I'll try to get right to the point. Sorry if I start sounding repetetive... I said explicitly at the end that you can always choose not to compromise. I was trying to make 2 points: 1. Refusing compromise, in this case, can't be justified, and 2. that not compromising leads to violence, underground activity, etc. Well yes, but this example is not related. I'm talking about how peers need to deal with each other. Parent-child relationship is a lot different than two neighbors who have to live next to each other. I agree completely with what you say about rape vs. non-rape produced babies. It doesn't make any sense, and it should be questioned.But why does this matter for making policy? I tried to emphasize in my post that the reasoning, or lack of it, is no grounds to refuse to compromise with your neighbor. Your neighbor can have the most illogical position possible. One person's preferred lifestyle is their own choice, they can base it on logic or illogic.When it comes to trying to make things work, it's too late to fight and argue about the premises each person is using to get to their preferred lifestyle. Both lifestyles are valid choices, both are "protected" (caveats from previous included) under the Bill of Rights etc. So the choices are, compromise with the person with their current position, or refuse to compromise and fight the battle in the aforementioned other ways.What I really want to emphasize is that abortion is not a problem of philosphy. It's not about who's "right" and who's wrong. When you allow all people to choose their own lifestyles, then philosophy goes right out the door. It all comes down to policy, of working together to find compromises so that you can live next to your neighbor.Maybe your own philosophy and ideals don't allow you to find the compromise... but the point is, discussing the philosophy of abortion is completely missing the point. That's an endless, pointless debate. It's trying to use logic to tell somebody that their religion is wrong. Religion isn't right or wrong; it's outside of the domain of logic. Emotion isn't right or wrong; it's outside of the domain of logic. The sooner people accept these simple facts, the sooner we can stop the silly talk and really get down to the important stuff.Hope that helps clarify, and I hope you can understand why assessing beliefs of others is not relevant here. Law isn't set to what's "right" or "wrong", only to what is necessary for us to live together. There's no "rehabilitating others" using law, because there's no right way or wrong way to live. We all happen to live in the same country, some of us in the same states, and that means we need to work together... or suffer the consequences of that failure.Ben

OK... I'm feel like I'm going to repeat an argument, so ... sorry if it was just a bad argument and you are arguing against it. Your reply KIND of addresses it, but I think what I'm saying is a bit more... subtle than just "BoR--we ignored it once for one thing, so we should ignore it for everything."I was trying to say that life and death / killing is a special case that we've made with the BoR. According to the BoR (as we seem to be interpreting it together), as long as you are not affecting other people, do whatever you want.But I gave examples of instances of life and death / killing which don't fit that view--it's a crime to kill your own family members (even if they're your dependents). It's a crime to even kill or molest various animals. So for this one point, I think we've gone beyond the BoR and made an abstraction; killing isn't right.BECAUSE of that, I think we have to be sensitive to any issue that involves killing. And that includes the cases where only one group of people find it to be killing--since every perspective, philosophy, religion is allowed and valid.So I don't mean BoR is just bunk now. Just that once you compromise it in a very specific way, you're either obligated to remove the specific compromise, or to continue compromising it in that very specific way.Does that clarify things at all? Absolutely. I absolutely understand, and I think that's a totally valid thing. And I hope that's been clear throughout these posts.For me, abortion is not that level of fighting for me. I've been lucky enough to have the education and means available such that I can deal with abortion issues on my own. I understand that's not the case for everybody. But it is for me, so I'm completely unwilling to go to war for either side. I just want to get something worked out so all the noise quiets down. I don't need to hear philosophical shouting and justification on this point. I'd rather think about RAZD's stuff about personhood (still unsure how to deal with that stuff). I used to have ideals... now ideals come few and far between. When it comes to abortion... it's a tough question, and a lot depends on the situation. In my current situation, even though the situation probably dictates having an abortion is best, I'd probably push to try and go full-term, and have a kid (of course I'm only part of the decision-making team). Part of it is the way I was brought up; that gut feeling is hard to drop. But part of it is, due to what I value and where I see meaning in life, I can really see myself regretting not having that baby, but I don't see myself really regretting having a kid.What I AM against is irresponsibility and failure to take on the consequences of your own actions. So I'll usually look for a way to make that part of any policy I suggest. That is a bias / ideal I definitely have... man I get so pissed off even thinking about it... Given all the philosophical discussion that goes on... I don't think either side's too willing to compromise. I find both sides making the same exact mistakes--discussing who's "right" rather than, how can we make things work TOGETHER.Frankly, the more I think about it, the more I think what I'm saying is a definition of separation of church and state. Instead of "church," which doesn't apply to everybody, I'm substituting a more general word--"philosophy". Come to the table with what you say you "need", and we'll take those things at face value and make a policy. There are some basic things which can't be touched (note the caveat I presented above though), but everything else is open to negotiation. Separation of church and state. No. I hope my clarification above irons this out. Not everything is fair game. But we already opened up the whole killing / death thing. I would say, no no no no no. Too bad. Bill of Rights. Then again, these kinds of things DO happen. So... it's a lot sketchier than it should be. Like I said, I still think drugs should be legal. I think access to cars should be more restricted. I'm undecided about issues with child sexuality. But I do think the Bill of Rights is awesome, and that it shouldn't be violated.But when it comes to killing / death, I think it has been. We gotta work with that.Ben

Right. Sorry it took so long to get to this point. The BoR doesn't care about the "typical" view. It cares about all views. What is "typical" only means... that the "typical" people can strongarm others. Exactly. Both people who want to base their beliefs of what is life, what is personhood on the assumptions inherent in science (naturalist approach, no spooky stuff) are different than those who believe in spooky stuff, who are different than those who believe there's spooky stuff in us. This is one of the major points I've been working hard on. The state doesn't have to admit anything. It's not the state's job to judge the "validity" of any religion. It's the state's job to accommodate it.The problem, as you said above, is that there's a conflict between one group of people and the other. It's not the state's job to judge the "validity" of the basis of that conflict. It's the state's job to judge that the conflict is real, that it's causing strife, and that there's no way to convince one group or the other to accept the other's "needs."So that's when the state comes in and makes things work in a practical compromise. You're saying you can judge the validity of religion using science. Science doesn't have such power. Science is not about epistemological "truth", it is about describing, in an incremental way, how the natural world works. Science can say nothing about whether there's a soul in a sperm or what.So the answer is YES, that needs to be compromised.Now, compromise of course is a practical thing. how many people believe this? One? OK... then we can stand still and say... well, we're not going to budge. We're willing to go to war over this one. And if you still insist, holmes, we're gonna fuck you up.I don't have any doubts that this is the way things work. The majority have the ability to strongarm the minority. The reason the majority should want to compromise is to avoid war, avoid weakinging our country via internal strife. Even if it's not a physical war, our country is weaker divided than working together.The number of people who find abortion to be murder is sizeable. Taking a view of America, I don't think it's wise for either side to continue to bicker about "right" or "wrong". Neither can address the other. It's time to try and work a compromise. If that doesn't work, then maybe we can break the policy down to the state level. That way, there are places people can live with a diversity of choices. I hope you can see my answer now. Yes, absolutely. But we have the ability to strongarm groups any time we want. It's what's been going on. That's why abortion policy changes based on the current administration. It's a policy of strongarming. It's getting us nowhere except a weaker nation. Why should personhood be based on physical characteristics? Where did your determiniation of that come from? Why is naturalism a more valid way of determining personhood than any other method?------By the way I still disagree about your assessment of killing and the BoR. I think you're not addressing a lot of cases, and avoided the animal cases. But I think we got to a point that's beyond that point, so I'm dropping it. Just wanted to mention this in case it pops back up later.And by the way #2, I'm enjoying talking about this with you. It's good to feel that you're being listened to and that points you make are being answered directly.By the way #3... Nuggin, I tried replying to your post, but ... I feel I'll be addressing the same things I'm addressing to holmes. And I also feel a strong wall for some reason from the way you write. So... I couldn't find a way to respond. I'll try again as things move forward with holmes.Ben

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I don't want a large Farva, I want a goddamn liter-a-cola.

Holmes,Well... I think we've got to the point where we're falling farther and farther away from the topic. Some of your points I agree with, and some I do not.. and there's definitely a lot more to be said.The point I'm most interested to address from this discussion is that of "what is the role of science (i.e. epstemic knowledge) in government?" And I see that it's going to encompass the question of "who determines epistemic knowledge?"It's not going to be easy. But that's where I'd like to go with this. So, I'm going to open a PNT on this, and drop this discussion here and move to there. Is that cool?Nice post by the way.BenP.S. Holmes, honestly, the less I see you here, the happier I am. I expected to see you even less, starting after your ... previous break here. You strike me as such a philosophical, thinking person... and the people who I like best are the ones who balance that with doing "cool" stuff. So I was happy to hear you wanted to spend less time here. Maybe that sounds weird and judgemental. It's not supposed to be.Anyway, no need to explain why you won't be around, but I appreciate it. You can always assume that if I'm not here, I'm doing something MUCH cooler like rock climbing or hiking. So... sorry in advance... but yeah, it's just gotta be that way.

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I don't want a large Farva, I want a goddamn liter-a-cola.

Hi Gene,I'm glad you're up for compromise. I think there's two ways that a compromise can happen:

• Avoid making any decision as WHAT abortion is (is it killing? is it a right? don't answer), and just make a policy that compromises based on the effective positions (none vs. anytime)
• Define abortion as the termination of pregnancy before a fetus becomes a "person", and compromise on exactly what "personhood" means, and when it comes around.

I think choice #1 is better; the state shouldn't have to define a philosophical position. But people are so ideological, that #1 may not work at all. Then again, that's a criticism for #2 as well. Who's willing to compromise on a philosophical (read: ideological) position?That's why I think an "abortion tax" or removal of reproductive rights from mother and father is the way to go (i.e. #1). You don't try to mess with the ideological boundaries that exist. You simply say, they're irrelevant. The state is in the business of creating law, and neither side has information that clearly shows the other position is incorrect. I'm fine with that, but... each state will be faced with the same question that we're asking here--what are legitimate compromises to make, and how do you approach it?Ben

OK, so then I was wrong about compromise. You're basically proposing that we break things down regionally, and we don't compromise--but at the regional level.Probably the most believable solution. I agree that compromise is tough to imagine being successful. Because of just what you said--we don't divorce (in our heads) law from our philosophical ideaologies.I'll have to think if there's any way to bring this about. My gut says there probably isn't.Ben

At the risk of going off topic... I think bringing "natural vs. unnatural" into the debate is a poor decision. I'm not sure the word "natural" has any meaning, and it definitely serves to obscure the debate. "Natural" tends to be a word that sums up many facts and personal beliefs into one word.I think focusing on the reasons why you think it's natural, such as physical and/or mental health issues, and leaving behind the word "natural" is the better way to go. "Natural" can just have too many meanings, too many connotations, and makes the meaning way too underdetermined to be appropriate for use in a rational debate, IMHO.So my question would be, what do you mean that abstinence is "unnatural"? This seems to be a non-sequitor to me. If the same people who are against abortion are also against sex-for-pleasure, then of course they would push abstinence as the solution to unwanted pregnancy. Everybody has ideals that they use when solving problems. We could try to solve unwanted pregnancy by castrating those who had one. One of the reasons I don't think we'd ever consider it is because it goes against our ideal of freedom to choose.Or another solution would be to attempt public brainwashings, to attempt to make everybody abstinent. Or, we could find populations that had lower unwanted pregnancy rates, and do what they do. Speaking idealistically, if it was shown that Christians had lower abortion rates than non-christians, would you be willing to legislate a belief in God in order to solve "killing babies"? Probably not, it probably goes against your (our!) ideals.At least, that's the way it appears to me. As always, I'm open to different perspectives.

What do we care if things are "biologically abnormal" or "unnatural?" What does it matter at all?AbE: Abstinence doesn't mean no sex ever. In fact, abstinence and sex ed, if followed, would lead to approximately lead to the same birth rates--since both would lead to only wanted pregnancies.So between these two points, I don't see how your point about reproduction is relevant. No sex except for wanted pregnancies... is that "biologically unnatural"? If so, why should that matter at all to me? Like I said before, only adverse effects would matter to me, not some general label like "unnatural" that seems to have no consequence. I'm not sure, but I think you missed my point. My point was that some solutions are taken not because they are the best, but because other solutions that are better break some other ideals of the decision makers.I wasn't claiming that the solution was going to have a better effect; I was trying to discuss how having ideals and allowing them to guide your decision-making is pretty common, that I believe it's what's happening here, and that that prevents you from being able to make the point you were trying to make (that those who are against "killing babies" should be for birth control and sex ed.). Yes, I did read that. It's good. But read it in the context of my larger point. The reason you accept that solution so readily is because it fits with your ideals. The question I was asking there was, if the solution did not match your ideals, would you be so ready to accept it?Hope that makes sense.BenThis message has been edited by Ben, Thursday, 2005/12/29 08:40 PM

There are two ways for people to make informed decisions. One is for each person to be educated, to develop decision-making skills, and to apply them in all circumstances. Seems ... so unlikely to me.The other is to convince them that others have made the decision for you, and that they know what they're doing, and that you really need to follow. Als seems... so unlikely to me.Some people need the first type of solution. Some the second. I haven't found a way to provide both solutions at the same time.So... I don't think it's as simple as you make it out to be. It's not just about making information available or not. I mean... read the board man. The information is there. It makes a difference to some.Some.