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Roe v. Wade Potentially Dead


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 Maybe those of us who are pro-life need better language to explain our position.  The pro-life position is that it’s wrong to directly and intentionally end another innocent human life.  
 

I see a lot of people bringing up ectopic pregnancies.  Ending an ectopic pregnancy is not an abortion since there’s no  way the baby would live anyway.  It’s not an intentional ending of life.  
 

What if a baby that has severe complications preventing quality of life is delivered early and the choice is made to withdraw life support?  Is that an abortion? I don’t think so.

What if the mother’s life is in danger?  If the mother’s life is in jeopardy, than the baby’s is too right?  Obviously that pregnancy needs to be ended. Getting the baby out early isn’t an abortion.   What about getting the baby out by chopping it up or crushing it’s head. That’s an abortion.  But is that ever medically necessary?  I don’t know.  Maybe someone with more medical knowledge can help me out with that one.

 

My point is that maybe we need a new term to describe what pro-lifers are preaching against.  It’s all about reverence for life.  We just want to treat the baby with the same dignity that we would with a person of any other age.

Edited by Rivers
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On 5/21/2022 at 4:34 PM, pogi said:

You are trying to make a legal/moral absolutist out of me. “Incredible moral value and worth” is not the same as absolute protection under the law with no exceptions.   Yes, there are conditions when I think killing a human is a serious moral dilemma but justifiable.  I am not sure why that is not clear by now in our discussions on abortion.  

As I posited, I think pro-choicers  are stuck with the larger  dilemmas in regards to their arguments of justification based on personhood in the scenario I mentioned.  Care to address it?

My only point is that by being willing to kill someone who can’t speak for themselves, has decades potentially to live, is not in any chronic pain, indicates to me at least that being a member of the species is not how we determine personhood rights. Lack of brain function in a human being is sufficient in some cases to declare someone as not a person (despite them being a unique human being with decades of life ahead of them if someone is just willing to feed them) and let their next of kin decide to kill them. 

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12 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

My only point is that by being willing to kill someone who can’t speak for themselves, has decades potentially to live, is not in any chronic pain, indicates to me at least that being a member of the species is not how we determine personhood rights. 

How do you know they are not in pain?

https://www.science.org/content/article/unconscious-brain-still-registers-pain

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5110539/

Once again, you are trying to attribute to me absolute statements and boundaries of rights.  It doesn't work like that - and that is not what I am arguing.  There are exceptions to all rights and rules.   I would argue that this should be one of the extremely rare and compassionate exceptions to the general rule. 

As I have noted, this scenario poses problems for your position too (something you have not addressed yet).  

12 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Lack of brain function in a human being is sufficient in some cases to declare someone as not a person (despite them being a unique human being with decades of life ahead of them if someone is just willing to feed them) and let their next of kin decide to kill them. 

"In some cases"?  What are the exceptions?  You agree then that exceptions to the general rules are necessary?  If you are going to give yourself that latitude in these moral dilemmas, please allow me the same latitude. 

"Just willing to feed them"?  Is that all it takes to care for someone in a permanently vegetative condition?  

Edited by pogi
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1 hour ago, pogi said:

Once again, you are trying to attribute to me absolute statements and boundaries of rights.  It doesn't work like that - and that is not what I am arguing.  There are exceptions to all rights and rules.   I would argue that this should be one of the extremely rare and compassionate exceptions to the general rule. 
 

The exception being whether or not we grant them personhood status, no? So we protect those that we deem to be a person, and grant lessor protections to “human beings” that we deem aren’t people. 

1 hour ago, pogi said:

As I have noted, this scenario poses problems for your position too (something you have not addressed yet).

After you. 

1 hour ago, pogi said:

 

  

"In some cases"?  What are the exceptions?  You agree then that exceptions to the general rules are necessary?  If you are going to give yourself that latitude in these moral dilemmas, please allow me the same latitude. 
 

The exception is personhood. Brain dead humans aren’t persons. The line you want to draw at “unique human being” (forgive if I’m not using your terminology correctly) is not the correct line as proved here. The line is whether or not they are a person. Permanently brain dead humans don’t meet this status for you. 12 week old fetus’ don’t meet it for me. 

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1 hour ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

The exception being whether or not we grant them personhood status, no? So we protect those that we deem to be a person, and grant lessor protections to “human beings” that we deem aren’t people. 

No, that is not what I am saying.  This has nothing to do with arbitrarily bestowing the title of "person" to some humans and not others.    Every right and rule has an exception - even the right to life.  Self defense and capital punishment are exceptions to that right/rule, for example.  How could that be if they are considered "persons" by your arbitrary definition which should guarantee them right to life?  You see, we don't need to deny personhood to someone to make an exception.  The exception in this case is compassion in the face of the devastating prognosis of no recovery.  I think that is morally tenable. 

1 hour ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

After you. 

  I already addressed it.  Your turn.  I will restate the problem that you have avoided answering below.  

1 hour ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

The exception is personhood. Brain dead humans aren’t persons. The line you want to draw at “unique human being” (forgive if I’m not using your terminology correctly) is not the correct line as proved here. The line is whether or not they are a person. Permanently brain dead humans don’t meet this status for you. 12 week old fetus’ don’t meet it for me. 

Again you are misunderstanding my position.  Also, these people (yes, I consider them persons) are not "brain dead" - they are unconscious.  Big difference.  

Will you please state your position on persons (or humans, if you prefer) in a coma or vegetative state?  Are they persons or not?  According to your apparent definition of personhood requiring consciousness, they are clearly not and can legally be killed despite their potential prognosis of good recovery.  Heck, even someone who loses consciousness temporarily from a head concussion is not a person according to your definition, and can legally be killed while still unconscious.   Do you think that is a tenable moral position to hold?  Or, do you allow yourself the latitude of exceptions to the rule based on prognosis?  Those with a good prognosis, despite their temporary lack of consciousness, should not be allowed to be killed, right?  Well, let me tell you, a healthy fetus has a really, really good prognosis.  So, there seems to be moral inconsistency in your position unless you believe that all unconscious humans are not persons and can be killed without legal repercussion despite prognosis. 

Edited by pogi
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On 5/23/2022 at 4:55 PM, Rivers said:

 

 Maybe those of us who are pro-life need better language to explain our position.  The pro-life position is that it’s wrong to directly and intentionally end another innocent human life.  
 

I see a lot of people bringing up ectopic pregnancies.  Ending an ectopic pregnancy is not an abortion since there’s no  way the baby would live anyway.  It’s not an intentional ending of life.  
 

What if a baby that has severe complications preventing quality of life is delivered early and the choice is made to withdraw life support?  Is that an abortion? I don’t think so.

What if the mother’s life is in danger?  If the mother’s life is in jeopardy, than the baby’s is too right?  Obviously that pregnancy needs to be ended. Getting the baby out early isn’t an abortion.   What about getting the baby out by chopping it up or crushing it’s head. That’s an abortion.  But is that ever medically necessary?  I don’t know.  Maybe someone with more medical knowledge can help me out with that one.

 

My point is that maybe we need a new term to describe what pro-lifers are preaching against.  It’s all about reverence for life.  We just want to treat the baby with the same dignity that we would with a person of any other age.

Thing is, abortion is a medical term and you cannot make up your own definition.

Also, you presume that those who chose abortion lack reverence for the life they're ending. That is often exactly what they're doing, acting upon reverence for that life. 

I wish more pro-life people would understand the fundamental issue of a life being inside another person's body. One can have reverence for the unborn and still face irreconcilable problems in pregnancy, not to mention trying to care for the unborn when they're incompatible with life.

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On 5/21/2022 at 9:15 AM, pogi said:

I would be ok with the general guidelines which allow for any condition which requires hospitalization and termination of pregnancy to preserve the life of the mother.  A list of known high risk conditions would give some guidance to doctors, and any abortion performed outside of those guidelines would be subject to review by a medical review board.  This is not uncommon practice. 

The list already exists medically. I'm not okay with a medical review board. The process when you add bureaucracy starts to get really gummed up and when you're dealing with life threatening conditions a week and even a day can be too long. I get the desire to regulate somethin you see as inherently risky/weighing human life. But I think that urge taken too far can inadvertently harm human life.  

On 5/21/2022 at 9:15 AM, pogi said:

I have never used the word DNA, but you like to bring it up a lot.  While DNA is critically important to humans, is it itself is not a living human being.  An embryo, on the other hand, is a living human being.   Of course science is not going to answer the moral questions for us, but it is going to frame and define exactly what it is we are talking about.  For me, I do place incredible moral value and worth on the life of all human beings, despite their stage of development or living conditions, or level of dependency.  Everything else is arbitrary.  The moment you place value on a human life "only if" it possess characteristics similar to you, then problems arise in that not all humans possess those characteristics.  Not all living human beings have consciousness.  Not all human beings can reason.  Not all human beings have sight.  Not all human beings have fingers or hands, etc. etc. etc.  Then you have the problem of describing why each of these attributes are of more moral value.  That gets all too arbitrary and morally problematic for me.  That we are the same kind, with the same potentials, is enough for me.  

DNA is my word to not the one completed and differential thing that the youngest embryo has with the oldest human being. Every other feature is something born humans either don't have at all anymore or are proto/immature/unformed versions of what it one day will be if everything goes right during gestation. 

On the bold, it's this value that interprets the science for you. it's not for me. To me this value is an extreme version of a generally true principle that when placed to an extreme can become a little ridiculous (again, to me). It remind me of when I went on a world religions study binge and briefly explored jainism. It's basic value that it centers many of its practices is to basically reduce harm done to the earth. It's a value I believe in and think we should have. But their practices can take this to an extreme of trying to reduce their impact to the point that nuns/monks will sweep paths in front of every step they take, wear masks to keep from inhaling bacteria, and the most extreme ones won't wear clothes and don't bathe to reduce killing and need for material goods. This version of a principle goes too far for me to continue to see its merit. This is how I feel with this view point. The basic principle I agree with, it's more extreme implications I don't. Valuing human life for me does not mean valuing and/or treating it the same. I can value a blind person and recognize a person who can't see shouldn't be allowed to drive or fly a plane. I can value human embryos without assuming they are equal in value and individual worth as a born human being. There can be a graduated assumption in both value, rights, available privileges, and social function. My view is inherently complex and differentiated because the balance of values change as the embryo does and the women's contexts shift.   

On 5/21/2022 at 9:15 AM, pogi said:

I guess I am confused as this seems to fly in the face of your own position.  If the bread must be out of the oven before it is a person with rights, then on what basis should a viable baby that is still in the uterus be protected?  Apparently it is not a person worthy of rights for protecting under your current argument.  Which I find highly morally problematic. 

 

It doesn't, though I can see how it could. I have a graduated orientation of value on the human embryo/fetus. It's based on likelihood for life/ensoulment, capacity to live autonomously, and is cross-weighed by the concerns and issues facing the woman. A prenatal fetus further along has far more consideration in my context than say a zygote in a petri dish in some fertility clinic. But neither have the same consideration and definite rights/existence of a newborn. It becomes more questionable, though not settled, to me the further along a fetus has developed that a soul hasn't formed (ie. spirit+body or in scientific terms consciousness/ability to fully experience in a bod).  This still doesn't fully outweigh that they are existing via another's body who's life is therefore more important than its own, since it's capacity to fully exist and develop physically is not completed or assured without the continued health and safety of the woman's. A shift in the woman's health and body can mean drastic shifts in the fetus' physical capacity in ways that even if the woman is never present in their life again, can stay with them forever. Once a fetus is born and becomes an undisputed baby with true bodily autonomy that calculus shifts again. At this point there are several viable options that allow a fetus to continue whether or not the woman does and no matter the degree of physical/mental health impairment. 

It's only highly morally problematic if my moral calculus was more like moral addition and subtraction. It's just not that simple for me. It changes as new variables are added...and it will likely change again as unknown variables continue to change the lanscape/understanding around these same topics. 

 

With luv,

BD 

 

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1 hour ago, BlueDreams said:

The list already exists medically. I'm not okay with a medical review board. The process when you add bureaucracy starts to get really gummed up and when you're dealing with life threatening conditions a week and even a day can be too long. I get the desire to regulate somethin you see as inherently risky/weighing human life. But I think that urge taken too far can inadvertently harm human life.  

I wasn't suggesting that medical review boards intervene before the procedure, but review the decision after - if it is performed outside of general practice guidelines (and yes, there must be guidelines in medicine established by medical boards).  That is standard practice in medicine.   In other words, the doctor may be subject to losing their license or have other charges if they are not able to defend their medical reasoning.  Again, standard practice.  Doctors can do whatever they want, but they may be potentially liable if their practice can't be defended.

1 hour ago, BlueDreams said:

DNA is my word to not the one completed and differential thing that the youngest embryo has with the oldest human being. Every other feature is something born humans either don't have at all anymore or are proto/immature/unformed versions of what it one day will be if everything goes right during gestation. 

I'm not exactly sure what you are saying here, but I think you are saying that DNA is the only thing all human have in common throughout every developmental stage of life.  There is more than that though.  They all have life - and that requires more than DNA.  It is much more complex than that.    

1 hour ago, BlueDreams said:

On the bold, it's this value that interprets the science for you. it's not for me. To me this value is an extreme version of a generally true principle that when placed to an extreme can become a little ridiculous (again, to me). It remind me of when I went on a world religions study binge and briefly explored jainism. It's basic value that it centers many of its practices is to basically reduce harm done to the earth. It's a value I believe in and think we should have. But their practices can take this to an extreme of trying to reduce their impact to the point that nuns/monks will sweep paths in front of every step they take, wear masks to keep from inhaling bacteria, and the most extreme ones won't wear clothes and don't bathe to reduce killing and need for material goods. This version of a principle goes too far for me to continue to see its merit. This is how I feel with this view point. The basic principle I agree with, it's more extreme implications I don't. Valuing human life for me does not mean valuing and/or treating it the same. I can value a blind person and recognize a person who can't see shouldn't be allowed to drive or fly a plane. I can value human embryos without assuming they are equal in value and individual worth as a born human being. There can be a graduated assumption in both value, rights, available privileges, and social function. My view is inherently complex and differentiated because the balance of values change as the embryo does and the women's contexts shift.   

My values are not interpreting the science, they are giving value to it.  The science is objective and unchanged by my personal values.

Comparing Jainism to pro-life stance is a little strained, I think.  I am not talking about extreme protection of all life, but the moral protection of human life - and my position is not even extreme on that.  You may personally disagree, but your explanation isn't convincing to me that I am extreme or "ridiculous" in my personal values.

1 hour ago, BlueDreams said:

It doesn't, though I can see how it could. I have a graduated orientation of value on the human embryo/fetus. It's based on likelihood for life/ensoulment, capacity to live autonomously, and is cross-weighed by the concerns and issues facing the woman. A prenatal fetus further along has far more consideration in my context than say a zygote in a petri dish in some fertility clinic. But neither have the same consideration and definite rights/existence of a newborn. It becomes more questionable, though not settled, to me the further along a fetus has developed that a soul hasn't formed (ie. spirit+body or in scientific terms consciousness/ability to fully experience in a bod).  This still doesn't fully outweigh that they are existing via another's body who's life is therefore more important than its own, since it's capacity to fully exist and develop physically is not completed or assured without the continued health and safety of the woman's. A shift in the woman's health and body can mean drastic shifts in the fetus' physical capacity in ways that even if the woman is never present in their life again, can stay with them forever. Once a fetus is born and becomes an undisputed baby with true bodily autonomy that calculus shifts again. At this point there are several viable options that allow a fetus to continue whether or not the woman does and no matter the degree of physical/mental health impairment. 

This "graduated orientation of value" is completely personal and not objective.   The problem that you still have not addressed is that of personhood.  You can give a graduated orientation of personal value to different stages of human development if you want, but that says nothing of legal rights which belong to "persons" (which you define as a fully cooked loaf of bread and out of the oven).  So you have expressed your personal values, but you have neglected to address the legal problem of rights belonging to persons.  A viable fetus is not a "person" according to your arbitrary definition.  So, why should it be given any rights to life which belong to persons only?  You have created a legal dilemma which will allow for extreme measures post 20 weeks gestation (which was where you claim protections should begin).  

1 hour ago, BlueDreams said:

It's only highly morally problematic if my moral calculus was more like moral addition and subtraction. 

I disagree, I think offering no legal protections for the life of fetus's up until birth is highly morally problematic without equating anything to simple addition and subtraction. 

Edited by pogi
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1 hour ago, Meadowchik said:

I wish more pro-life people would understand the fundamental issue of a life being inside another person's body. 

Understand in what way?  What don't I understand that I should?

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2 minutes ago, pogi said:

Understand in what way?  What don't I understand that I should?

Well, first to be clear, I wasn't necessarily speaking about you. But since you asked, you seem to spend a lot of energy on the personhood and human questions. But I think the fundamental issues still remain, and the arguments for abortion rights still stand because of the circumstances of where the unborn live. 

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2 hours ago, Meadowchik said:

Well, first to be clear, I wasn't necessarily speaking about you. But since you asked, you seem to spend a lot of energy on the personhood and human questions. But I think the fundamental issues still remain, and the arguments for abortion rights still stand because of the circumstances of where the unborn live. 

Honestly, I despise arguments surrounding personhood.  I only address it because the law suggests that rights belong to the arbitrary "person".  Because it is arbitrary, it seems rather pointless to argue about what it is - that is my point.  What is objective is the science of human development and taxonomy of species and life. 

Bodily autonomy issues stem from the right to liberty.  But the right to life always trumps the right to liberty.  So, we circle back to the fundamental issue of who deserves the right to life - again, that all comes back to what is a "person" and what is not.  So, I see bodily autonomy as a secondary issue and not the fundamental issue that surrounds the right to life. 

Edited by pogi
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  • 3 weeks later...

I personal think the church should also sue. Many of these new State laws will prohibit LDS members from following church guidelines on abortion.

South Florida synagogue sues over Florida’s new 15-week abortion ban

“A South Florida Jewish congregation has challenged a new state law that blocks abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, contending the measure violates privacy and religious-freedom rights.”

“In Jewish law, abortion is required if necessary to protect the health, mental or physical well-being of the woman, or for many other reasons not permitted under the act [the new law]. As such, the act prohibits Jewish women from practicing their faith free of government intrusion and thus violates their privacy rights and religious freedom.”

Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article262496912.html#storylink=cpy

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