demagogue on 1/6/2009 at 02:01

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This is an easy case since vigilantism is wrong even if he were right on the moral issue, which itself isn't obvious.

On that, though, one persistent question I have, good for getting a debate started, is if late-term and partial-birth abortions can be legal, why analytically infanticide is still illegal. I mean, if a mother has a baby then dumps it in a dumpster, how is it really different from a partial-birth abortion in analytical terms? If you read a good utilitarian like Peter Singer, he'll admit analytically there isn't (much) difference and infanticide is not wrong (at least not as wrong as murdering a rational person that can perceive their own desire to want to live). That doesn't seem to be many people's intuitions, so they should reflect on what really makes abortion ok...

It also confuses where the line is and muddies the ethical debate, because morally speaking, from the fetus's perspective (experience) birth is a quite arbitrary line. A lack of viability by itself is arbitrary, with the analogy that killing someone on lifesupport is still wrong even though their body isn't self-viable. So it has to be more than just that. Singer's line is the ability to perceive one's owns preferences, which may come quite a bit after birth, but that doesn't match many people's intutions (and where's the line when a being can "appreciate" its own "preference"; not an obvious question.)

Sentience is a very intuitive line, but that's confounded in a few ways, 1. as I understand they don't have a great test when a fetus has passed absolutely into consciousness, since the brainstem doesn't work the same way it does in normal life where there's a test to see if someone is in a coma (and even if they get some activity, what kind of consciousness is it exactly?); 2. iirc it happens sometime in the 2nd trimester, which is pretty early, earlier than what seems to be the intuitive time before which a lot of people feel abortion is ok; 3. It's not clear that sentience in the nascent stages is a simple on/off switch (in contrast to something like waking up or coming out of a coma), but different systems may go sentient to varying degrees over time, which raises questions like how conscious does a system have to be to be considered "snuffed out", and which kinds of "snuffing out" are the really bad kinds?

Then you have the Thompson argument, even if it were clearly snuffing out sentience, what about the right of a person not to have another "unwanted parasitic organism" living off her, sentient or not, and whether or not she was responsible for inviting the organism into her body, even if enforcing that right would kill the organism. It's an important question because it undercuts the fetus 'right to life' arguments at their root, and most pro-life arguments don't spend much of any attention on giving a good response to the extent it warrants. There's also an intution gap somewhere in there, since some people think a pregnancy is analytically different from a parasitic infection that creates special obligations, maybe with the knowledge of the mother and certain social norms, but I'm not going to try to untangle all that now.

One thing I could say about the abortion debate, I don't think it's as simple as a lot of people seem to take it for granted as. At least people have opinions that seem obvious to them, but I'm not sure they have an appreciation for the analytical issues their opinion raises, and how knotted up they can get.

Rug Burn Junky on 1/6/2009 at 02:49

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That's a provocative strawman argument, since late term abortions are not per se legal and are almost never performed outside of the "health of the mother" exception, which clearly wouldn't apply to infanticide. It's easily distinguishable.

Random_Taffer on 1/6/2009 at 03:23

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There would be no love involved, Shug. As much as I'd want you to be on me, it would only be lust.

Sgt_BFG on 1/6/2009 at 10:16

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Lol, Christianity.

AR Master on 1/6/2009 at 11:03

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i have no opinion in the matter but I like when people protest any kind of move to restrict abortion by saying "we can't tell women what to do with their bodies!"

then have no problem with ticketing people for not wearing a seat belt

but on topic: rrg, kkkristians, i hate them, they are al-quaeda *ignores islamic fundamentalists*