Abortion

Here's something I put together for another forum a while ago, that sums up my thoughts on the issue. Let's add that, when I first considered my position in the abortion issue, I was in principle strongly against it, while still putting the final choice with the mother. Let's call it pragmatic. Over time, I have started considering abortion in itself as less absolutely negative.Hope someone finds it useful
====================================================I would say abortion is one of those issues where there is a huge difference between how we would like it to be handled in Utopia, and how we are sort of 'forced' to handle it in practice, our flawed and imperfect "greyscale" reality.A fundamental value that I believe in, is that people's right to live or die does not depend on the opinion/choice of other people. What has therefore always fundamentally troubled me about abortion, is that you get into a situation where this decision IS made by someone else.Of course, in order to make it possible to make abortion more ethically acceptable, one is willing to argue that the aborted 'thing' is not a person yet. Wherever you put the boundary. But ultimately, I felt this always is a situation where the defendant is judge at the same time. The problem is that, no matter how much we want it, there IS no alternative. Only in Utopia, we would HAVE a magical moment where the "person" is created. Only in Utopia, it would not be a "choice" by society, but an undeniable fact that EVERYBODY accepts without doubt. Sadly, reality is not such (proven by reality itself; religion just doesn't cut it, not surprisingly). So society is forced to take the responsibility to make a CHOICE.If this fact [that the Magical Moment is merely a CHOICE] would be the only "issue" of our reality vs Utopia, then I would be in favour of strictly taking the moment of conception as the start of a new human being with personhood. Why? Because it is pretty clearly defined, and also much more relevant and independant than most other possible choices. [note: I really don't buy the argument that masturbation is comparable to abortion in terms of preventing potential babies, lol. I mean, there is a not-to-be-ignored difference in degree of potential here, if you're honest]But Reality differs from Utopia in a whole lot more issues, which again complicate matters. We don't live in a world of black & white, but in a world of greyscales.First of all, this imperfection degrades some of the 'absoluteness' of certain ideas. For example, although conception seems to be a good candidate for a "sacred" moment of 'creation' (never thought I would use that word) of a person, we have to acknowledge the fact that a huge number of spontaneous abortions happen. This puts the impact of a human-induced abortion into a slightly different perspective. They literally disappear in the sea of spontaneous abortions and miscarriages. Embryos can also do some strange things early on, like splitting and even melting together again. Does it make sense to talk about individuals when those things can still happen?Or take the fact that, if we would leave everything to nature, a lot of babies would be born with the most horrible defects. Human beings who's life would only be suffering, with no chance of ever having any quality or typical human interaction. Is it ethical to 'allow' a human being even if you know that it will only suffer? This could be considered torture. So human intervention in whether something is allowed to become a person, CAN be result of a positive motivation also.Secondly, the everyday world of greyscales differs from Utopia in that fundamental rights & values often overlap and conflict with each other. They are not automatically in harmony. So very often we find ourselves in the position that careful balancing is needed. And I think the ultimate goal should always be to try to go for the option that causes least harm. Sometimes, this actually means that abortion should be an option.There's an abundance of examples of very negative consequences of strictly choosing the moment of conception as the moment when we have a "person":- the use of embryonic cells, which have great promise in medical research, would be impossible. We would throw away a great chance to relieve the suffering of a great number of unlucky people.
- there is the huge number of fertilized eggs that are "wasted" as a by-product of very positive initiatives to give caring parents with fertility problems their own children. Does the negative outweigh the positive here?
- accidents happen even if people/women take reasonable precautions; depending on the situation, the consequences of bad luck can be totally out of proportion for the woman
- the conflict, in general, between everyone's personal physical integrity, and an unwanted pregnancy
- situations like rape
- overpopulation & the additional problems poor people experience with big households (anticonception should be optimized here, but again there are factors (ironically mainly actors who want to BAN abortion) that currently make this very difficult)
- more for sure ...Thirdly, the experience in the everyday world of greyscales proves that a pragmatic approach ultimately often shows better results than dogmatic and absolute reasoning. The question here is: do we prefer to soothe our conscience with an unworkable legislation that totally bans abortions but is ultimately ineffective, or do we add water to the wine because it shows to result in less abortions?International statistics show that in the developed countries where women have FREE ACCESS TO ABORTION, abortion rates are the lowest. ["developed countries" meaning that women have equal rights, are independant, have access to anticonception and are educated about sex&reproduction without taboos]Considering all this, I think all people with some sense for reality and realism, and the necessary skepticism towards absolute truth and dogma, will decide to adopt a pragmatic approach. An approach that replaces a simplistic 'total ban' by efforts to lower the number of abortions as much as possible by the most effective means. An approach that carefully weighs pros and contras, and results in the least possible harm in general.And ultimately I don't think you can come up with something that doesn't include pro-choice. That's just not going to work because the negative side-effects will always outweigh the success. A successful approach will always concentrate instead on the circumstancial factors: poverty, women's rights, independance, anticonception.

Much like RAZD, then.About that particular aspect: you have to realize that that was in the "Utopia" context.I understand your particular argumentation, which starts from the fact that becoming a member of our society, a human being with personhood and all, is not something instantaneous but rather fuzzy. And it can only really happen in interaction with other human beings and such (otherwise no cognitive abilities...) . But that aspect of reality does cause a lot of trouble, so I would argue that a "Utopia" would benefit from a universally agreed 'point of no return'. Just before that point, there is no value, and just after it, there is full protection as a human being with personhood.Like I said, that IS Utopian. But the whole post was kinda created around that "Utopia" context.

That's a good observation. It also works in the other direction: if there wouldn't be such a stigmatisation and taboo, and if there were measures to facilitate teen pregnancies (or for example a culture where mothers or family members find it obvious to (help) raise children of acquaintances or family members), then there would be less need for abortion as well.

That doesn't strike me as a particularly convincing "proof"... The surgeon obviously stimulated a motoric center of some sort, which is also obviously not autonomous but controllable by other areas of the brain (where you would locate the "mind"). With a deeper knowledge it might in principle be possible to stimulate one of these areas instead, which would *indirectly* move the arm. And in such a way that the person would NOT be able to override it. It's just more complex.You wrote While you really had to say Evidently the mans self awareness was not directly related to that part of the brainIt would have been *slightly* convincing if the patient didn't need his OTHER arm to hold the first one.