The Abortion Debate

[Dînadan]

Okay, this is a very devisive topic and I doubt everyone here will see eye-to-eye on it or even reach an agreement acceptable to everyone, however I'm creating this thread for one simple reason; this topic has been raised in the thread for the review of 'Ent: Stormfront', so to avoid that thread getting derailed by the abortion debate, and to avoid other threads getting derailed by it in the event it rears its head as a consequence of the discussion, I'm creating this thread. Please post anything related to the discussion here rather than derail other threads with it.

Please keep the forum rules in mind and try to keep things civil.

[technobabbler]

An arguable implication of ep. 3 of Orville is that prenatal testing and abortion are banned in The Union.

As Bortus clearly didn't have a prenatal health scan of his egg done. And the Orville doctor was able to perform surgery on Macklins, but chose not to.

Whether that's due to pro-life Macklin religion, pro-life Union law or the Orville script writers' ignorance about an amniocentesis, discuss amongst yourselves.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Bodily Autonomy.
That is what it all boils down to. There is a core, moral principle that says that nobody can tell you what to do with your body.

Period. That's why we have blood drives from the red cross instead of mandatory blood drawings.

This principle is applied even to dead people. It's why we have organ donors. Even if it would save a life, even if it would save DOZENS of lives, even if you are dead and rotting and have no use for them, nobody can force you to give up your organs. That is an absolute.

Nobody should question the moral validity of Abortion without first challenging the principle of Bodily Autonomly

[Antiboyscout]

Drug use

[Robovski]

You don't have bodily autonomy, you don't even have a right to end your own life should you choose you no longer can stand to live it regardless of how old you are, how unhealthy you are, or how much you are suffering in many many places.

[The Romulan Republic]

You don't have bodily autonomy, you don't even have a right to end your own life should you choose you no longer can stand to live it regardless of how old you are, how unhealthy you are, or how much you are suffering in many many places.

If one professes the slightest belief in individual liberty or equality, then the government only has the right to restrict someone's bodily autonomy if not doing so would be likely to result in the violation of someone's rights (your rights extend to the point that they infringe on somebody's rights).

So the question is a) are fetuses and embryos people, b) if so, does their right to life trump a woman's right to personal liberty, and c) would banning abortion actually protect anyone, or just lead to a lot of unsafe illegal abortions?

To justify an abortion ban, you have to prove that the answers to those questions are yes, yes, and yes. That's a high bar to pass.

Honestly, if you want to drop the number of abortions, you're better off just providing more birth control, sex ed., and support for poor/single mothers. But most "pro-life" people won't do that, because Bible/socialism/etc. In other words, they only really care about life until its left the mother's body.

[Antiboyscout]

Life
Liberty
Pursuit of happiness

In that order for a reason.

Nice regurgitated anti conservative talking points. Remember, if you don't give endless handouts you don't care about people.
I do agree with giving out birth control. Any one remember the Hobby Lobby controversy? Where they gave out all other forms of female birth control other than the day after and month after pill? Didn't matter that they were getting free birth control, they wanted the abortion pills.

[The Romulan Republic]

Life
Liberty
Pursuit of happiness

In that order for a reason.

While not really the topic of this thread, I'm curious as to weather your prioritizing of Life (and I'd like a source for the claim that they were deliberately listed that way in order of priority) would extend to, say, taking money from the rich to help keep poor people from starving to death, or dying of treatable illnesses.

Nice regurgitated anti conservative talking points. Remember, if you don't give endless handouts you don't care about people.

So, that'd be a "no" then.

I guess we know how much your prioritizing Life over Liberty is really worth, then.

If these points get repeated a lot, and against conservatives, its because conservatives tend to do a very good job of consistently proving them correct. More's the pity.

I do agree with giving out birth control. Any one remember the Hobby Lobby controversy? Where they gave out all other forms of female birth control other than the day after and month after pill? Didn't matter that they were getting free birth control, they wanted the abortion pills.

Okay, so you're slightly less self-defeating than the people who oppose both abortion and birth control. Good for you.

[Dînadan]

Life
Liberty
Pursuit of happiness

In that order for a reason

So what about countries where those ideals aren't couched in that particular pithy statement in their laws, articles and other such documents?

Also, by that logic you could justify concentration camps (provided they're not used to kill) as liberty takes a back seat to keeping people alive. Or how about someone who is in constant agony and suffering? By that logic you can justify imprisoning and restraining them and thus prolonging their suffering purely because you prioritise life over quality of life.


Now you may say these are rediculous examples, but the point is that the importance of that order is only true up to a point. The question is what is that point?




As for the main topic, RomulanRepublic hits the nail on the head I think; the key is at which point does a 'person' begin? I'm not sure of the answer myself, and quite frankly I think there's probably no arbitrary line where it occurs. I'd place it sometime before birth, but how far before, I'm not sure. My best judgement would be whether it can survive outside the womb or not (and by survive I don't mean it'll be able to spend a month on life support before dying). The problem with this though is how well doctors could judge where that limit is, and I'm willing to bet there's a big margin for error, so it may be best (outside of emergency cases), to be conservative with estimating this point, in which case the question is how conservative should it be?

Again, I'm not sure of the answer, so I'll leave it hanging for food for thought.

Are there cases where abortion is justified? I'd say yes:
• the mothers life is in danger; call me callous if you must, but I value the life of the mother over that of the unborn feutus and if complications during pregnancy or labour would kill the mother, then I see nothing wrong with an abortion.
• related to the above point, complications during pregnancy or labour would cause the child to be stillborn or born prematurely at a point where it couldn't survive (or as mentioned about would only last a very short time on life support); in this case it's more humane to abort than put both parents and child through that suffering
• rape; quite frankly I see no reason a woman should be forced to carry the child of her abuser unless she wants to. I'm sure if we looked into things there's plenty of rape victims who loved their child regardless, but I'm willing to bet just as many abandoned or abused them and not an inconsiderable amount who gave them up for adoption.
• the parents not being in a position to support a child; if the parents can't support having a child they shouldn't be forced to have it. Yes they could give it up for adoption, but aren't most countries' adoption/foster systems already over capacity?

There're more, but these are a what that I could think of off the top of my head.


Okay, I've mentioned mother's rights but what about those of the father? Doesn't he have a right to his child? Well yes, but the problem is he's not the one to carry it to term, so unfortunately I feel like the mother's right to her body takes precedence for now; once technology progresses to allow the feutus to be safely transferred to another 'host', I'd be willing to give the father more of a say, and if it also progresses to where artificial means allow a man to carry it then he gets an equal say as it can be transferred to him. Until then however, I'm reluctant to give father's an equal say as, for example going back to the rape point, it'd potentially mean leagally allowing rapists to block their victims from getting an abortion.

There's probably more to add but this is all I can think of for the moment.

[technobabbler]

I'm just a hack with a slightly off-topic thought.

If Seth MacFarlane really wanted to push the social envelope, Ep. 3 of Orville should have been an abortion episode. Especially as, I don't think this will be a controversial statement---a great deal of people who are pro-choice likely are pro-feminism and left on gender issues.

Doctor runs a standard prenatal scan on the egg. It's a girl. Therefore Bortus wants an abortion. Bortus' spouse doesn't want to abort and wants surgery. They argue outside the mess hall, hence everyone's clued in. Drama ensues and everyone on the ship takes sides.

If good sci-fi is about challenging ideas, and as Chuck puts it "making you think". Pre-existing ideological lines should be challenged.

Hey, pro-choice people---how do you feel if abortion was used to abort otherwise normal, but gay, transgender, or female, fetuses?

that issue already is here---see sex-selection abortions, which is prevalent in many countries and one day it will be possible to know if a fetus is gay/transgender, hence abort non-male/female fetuses.

I lean pro-choice, or put it pro-personal body control---BUT I definitely think that pro-choice TV talking heads have really diluted the moral issues that surround abortion. And labeled any pro-life person as a lug-head religious zealot.