Is abortion morally justifiable?

I voted yes, but as to wether it's moral or not, who knows. I don't have a problem with it, but for those would prefer it to be illegal, something my dad told me, who is a doctor, has stuck with me.

"Whether or not abortion is moral or immoral; legal or illegal, if a woman is desperate, one way or another, she will find a way to get an abortion. I'd rather have them be preformed in safe, clean environment, than see someone die of an infection because of a backstreet ally abortion." - the last part was an actual case his med school professor told him about.

Back when abortion was illegal in the U.S. his professor was working at a hospital and this woman came in, she was extremely ill. High fever, clear signs of infection but there were no visible wounds. Finally he asked her if she had an abortion, she said yes. She went into surgery, and they saw that the hanger used for the abortion had punctured through her uterus into her intestine and caused her to become septic. I think she ended up dying.

Sure we can debate if a fetus is a person or not, but when it comes down to it the mother is a living breathing human. That is a fact, and it'd be a tragedy if a woman had to die because she wasn't ready to be a mother.

(Sorry if I offended anyone, or went on a tangent. I have some friends who'd rather abortion be illegal, so I have a bit of a strong opinion on the subject. . .)

 

I picked yes. No one ever wants to have an abortion. People choose to get them because they feel like it's their best/only option. It's the mother's decision and no one else's.

 

Hm... well I guess I don't really have anything against people doing it, but I would never do it myself...

 

I support abortion, and donate money to Planned Parenthood. And the ACLU, even if it's only a bit.

 

OP, really? This forum is extremely blue-shifted. There's no way you won't find broad support for a pro-choice opinion.

I also agree that abortion is acceptable. Not to be used casually as a "get out of jail free card" after unprotected sex*, but if the need arises, I see no moral dilemma. Quite the contrary, I'd prefer that the only babies who are born are the ones that come into this world with loving, eager parents.

*I just mean people who would do it regularly and abuse the system. While I am okay with abortion, I'm not okay with it just enough that I'd oppose someone doing it once a month.

 

Hmm. Bearing in mind that I don't generally care much about philosophy and as such had never heard of any of these terms until you posted them, after which I did a bit of googling to try to get a handle on what you're talking about...

I'm not sure I fit fully into any of these, really. Although the idea that morality or what is defined as 'moral' is just a matter of strongly held opinion or feelings comes closest - so maybe Hume? Although, one of the bits I read said something about not being able to measure things like good and bad (vs measuring or detecting the magnetic field of a planet or the biology of an animal) and so they have no objective existence.

Ultimately, its a subset of the view that existence has no purpose, meaning, or value and that actions are just actions...until/unless we choose to ascribe some purpose or meaning or value to our existence, existence in general, or actions.

Some may define things as good, some as bad, but those are just opinions, at least in 'moral' terms. Ideas on morality seem to have much more to do with social conditioning and spiritual belief than any great degree of objective thought or observation of how the universe works. You can't measure 'good' or 'bad' except as a matter of opinion. So why believe they are anything other than opinion.

Don't know if that clears things up any,

Todd

 

yeah you pretty much take Hume's position on morality then.

although the "there aren't rules of morality taht exist without humans" is sort of a bullshit copout imo. Social constructs are still useful when speaking about the world without objectively existing (like numbers for example)


I'm ethically a Rawlsian who is a neo-Kantian.

 

I say abortions need to continue being a thing. The above posters have said the majority of what I'd say, but I have something else to bring up.

If there's anything my life has taught me, it's that shit happens. I don't mean this as "Oh, let's all have sex. OOPS! BABY COMING TOO SOON!" I mean this as in "Um... Doctor, I don't think this is supposed to happen" kind of stuff.

My mother has been pregnant 6 times. I have 3 siblings. The first time, she did have an abortion. After they had my first sister, they had another abortion that they've been mislabeling as a miscarriage. Long story short, the fetus cooking had an extra chromosome. They had the choice whether to let it continue and live in the world, or to abort. The thing is, if they had let it live, it would have lived every single moment of its life in pain. Perhaps excruciating pain, as well. My mother couldn't bear seeing that all before her eyes, especially after what happened with me (another long story short, I came out into the world with a rare liver disease, enlarged spleen, and on top of that, inhaled some of the embryonic fluid). So she decided to abort. So, even with the "It's a human!" argument, would you really want to see somebody live their entire life in pain?

 

To go back to the 10th grade biology class experiment, you can get a cow heart from a butcher and hook it up to a 9-volt battery and make it beat. Does that mean the cow's still alive, because its heart is now beating?

 

Ever notice how in discussions about abortion that most of the anti abortion people seem to be men that will never be faced with pregnancy...

 

I'm not really seeing how the one (morality is just a social construct) really precludes the other (social constructs are useful). I just see no point in pretending that morality is anything other than a social construct created by humans to manipulate humans to behave in certain ways that the wider society finds useful, preferably without expending too much thought on the matter. Trying to tie it to the fundamental nature of the universe to give it extra 'weight' seems a rather pointless exercise at best and a counter-productive distraction at worst.

Todd

 

Even if a zygote isn't a child, it has the potential to become one. A zygote could become a person, and that person could have a negative impact on the world. He or she may live a horrible life and cause nothing but pain for the people around them. It's also possible that that zygote could become a wonderful person.

Women should be completely free to decide whether or not they have an abortion. If an unwanted pregnancy places a woman's life in danger, she should have that option. However, I don't believe that abortion is moral. I can't believe that a zygote isn't a person; it can and will become one.

 

Using the reductio ad absurdum argument, every bacterium could potentially reproduce offspring which evolve into a sentient life form on par with humans. It's millions of years away assuming it starts today, but if you use an antiseptic, you affect that probability.

Abortion is the same as I see it. The baby born from that zygote could be Marie Curie or Lizzie Borden. But if it is born into a healthy environment, the chances are shifted in favor of the former.

 

"Potential for life" truly has no place in this conversation.
An embryo has potential for creating a new human life, but so does a zygote, and an ovum or sperm cell. Two 14 year old lovers have the potential for creating new life.

If you don't advocate against masturbation and menstruation, then you are making these decisions based on something other than potential for life.

If you don't advocate that the aforementioned 14 year olds should be having unprotected sex, and therefore you are preventing potential conception, then you are making these decisions based on something other than potential for life.

 

Again no. Comparing a zygote to an isolated egg/sperm cell has no place in this conversation.

The life cycle of a sperm & egg cell independently lead to their death

The life cycle of a zygote LEADS TO a living being.

It's like comparing throwing away a cake mix (zygote) in the oven turning into a cake to throwing away eggs, milk & flour (egg, sperm). The two are not the same.

The eggs, milk & flour would not produce a cake just lying about...another variable will be needed for them to make a cake (the cook making a cake mix). Whereas the cake mix which is in the oven WILL RESULT in the formation of a cake without any other variable in its way.

Clearly we are going round & round on this same issue over the last 2 pages.

Yes sperm & egg cells have potential for life. But there are different measures of 'potential' ....a zygote is about 1000 levels higher on the potential scale than just a sperm or an egg.

Edit: I hope I don't sound cranky lol...I have not been able to sleep!

 

You simplify the life cycle into a monolithic thing. What you mean by that is the right environment for life and growth to continue until birth, and any number of things can mess that up. Fertilization is what you consider step one of humanity. The position of pro-choice people is that it is only one step in the middle of countless ones before and after that either lead to a baby or not, and either of those results is acceptable.

 

A voice of reason, as always, Mr. Ridiculous. :eusa_clap

 

Personally I view the taking of life in all of it's forms to be inherently immoral, including abortion. I don't believe people should eat meat, swat flies, or even kill plants without good reason either. I don't think human lives are much more valuable than animal lives either, if at all. This line of thinking would best be described as biocentrism. People talk about all of these what if scenarios, like cases where the mother will almost certainly die. In that case I can understand it more, it's kind of like flipping a switch at the train tracks to kill just one person rather than two.

But I'm not really the kind of person who would flip that switch, and neither was my mother. They told my mom we would both probably die, and we both were put under intensive care for a long time after the medically induced delivery. We both lived, and I'm grateful that my mother didn't choose to abort me. For her there wasn't even a choice, if you have a child, that child is worth much more than your own life.

I realize this is probably an unpopular opinion, but to me it's not a Religious issue. It's not a woman's rights issue. It's a human rights issue, everybody has the right not to be killed. I can't see why people wouldn't just have the baby and then give it up for adoption.

 

I don't really understand what you have just said?

The only simplifying being done here is making the potential for life in a sperm or egg cell the same as that in a zygote...which is absolutely, factually wrong.

Yes from a zygote to a baby being born is a looong journey...heck up to 20% of those babies won't be born due to 'natural miscarriage'. But compared to a egg or sperm cell it will still result in life being created 80% of the time.

My problem is in people simplifying a zygote down & comparing it to random cells from the body. If you're pro-choice..be pro-choice....I have already said I am pro-choice too. But let's not pretend the termination of a fetus/zygote is the same as 'contraception' or 'skin cells dying' or a 'cow heart being electrocuted to beat' or whatever.

This comment is completely uncalled for as:

1. Most of us who are 'anti-abortion' aren't even anti abortion as such as we said it should be the womans choice in the end.

2. Someones gender does not make their opinion necessarily less valuable
or biased...argue against the content and statements they are making not against their gender.

 

Because the adoption/foster system is completely fucked up. That is no place for a child. The only babies that get adopted are white, healthy, pretty babies and as young as possible. If you're not white, not a baby anymore or have health problems in any way, you probably won't get adopted. You'll be thrown around the foster care system, which is literally never an ideal situation for any child to grow up in.

And yeah, it definitely is a women's rights issue (actually, it's a people with uteruses issue, but for the sake of argument here). Because your mother had a choice. She got to choose what to do with her body. She got to know the risks of her decision and she was allowed to make it anyway.

All anyone is asking for is a choice in what happens to their own bodies.

Besides, this would hardly be an issue at all if people were given proper sex ed and equal access to contraceptives.