Personhood and Abortion Rights

[_Jersey Girl]

"Holy ____" - The classic way one rolls their eyes.

Yeah. It's called sarcasm. If you really want to know the source of the eye rolling, it's the simple humanness that you fail to apply to the topic which is uniquely human at it's core.

[_EAllusion]

If you ignore the fetal non-personhood argument, the argument in favor of allowing the general legality of abortion is generally the idea of bodily self-ownership. There's a bodily integrity argument that exists apart from that. And some people will even argue that a basic right to life and liberty entails access to abortion, though it rests on some shaky comparisons between the risk and inconvenience of pregnancy and the costs of, you know, being killed. But bodily property arguments are the main ones. I did a quick search to see if I'm missing something, and I don't think I am. The focus on privacy exists in an American law context unique to the rather strange interpretive route we got to Roe vs. Wade. I don't see ethicists seriously arguing that a right to privacy entails the right to kill a fetus.

There's a whole other class of arguments that contend abortion prohibition will lead to greater harms while not meaningfully reducing abortions. Call it the "back alley" argument. I'm very skeptical of that stance, because I think criminalizing abortion is likely to significantly drive down its numbers. There will be harmful self-abortions and black markets of course, but it's difficult to see that harm exceeding what is gained from preventing so many killings. That said, you see a lot of people putting their eggs in that basket.

[_Lemmie]

I think you're overlooking the personal/privacy dimension of the intrusion when it comes to abortion. in my opinion, that's what distinguishes the government, say, forcing me to donate a kidney, from taxing my wages to pay for a kidney.

I don't think I'm making property-based argument. That's you Libertarians. I don't derive my position by starting with "I own my body, therefore the government can't poke or prod me." Frankly, I think the Libertarian treatment of the body as property is shallow and misguided. But that's just me.

How you spend your money is inherently no more or less a private matter than what you do with your uterus. You can say one is private and the other is not in a question-begging way, but that doesn't move the ball.

What I do with my uterus is none of your business, thank you.

If you want me to answer the question: spending money isn't inherently a private matter at all. Discussions about how to spend everyone's money take place everywhere. You go to the grocery store and spend your money right in front of strangers. Spending money is about as public an activity as it gets.

Uterus, not so much. In an office with a doctor, with privacy protected by the government.

There are many transactions you can engage in where people not party to the transactions have no way of knowing what occurred. This likely is the vast majority of transactions you engage in. On the flip side, strangers also find out information about what's going on with people's uterus's all the time. Surely you've overheard someone talking about their pregnancy at least once, right?

Further, people generally prefer that the vast majority of information about their finances stay a private matter. The government directly violates this privacy by doing things like finding out how much money you make. This is not something the public inherently knows. You may think this is justified, but it is a violation of privacy to achieve it.

If you instead argue that spending money isn't inherently private because it takes more than one person to do that, then your reference to discussing information with a doctor undercuts that line of reasoning.

Putting aside the (admittedly quite fascinating!!) question of how Res Ipsa acquired himself a uterus, when he referred to "the personal/privacy dimension of the intrusion when it comes to abortion..." I didn't take that as a straightforward privacy issue, as in 'I don't want anyone to know my business,' the way it seems to be addressed in the last post I quoted.

I took Res Ipsa to mean he was emphasizing the rest of his statement, which referred to the "personal.... dimension of the intrusion.". I agree with that, and for that reason, I also don't feel like the Violinist/Case 1/Case2/Case3 philosophical discussion captures the issue at all for me. A pregnancy carried to term cannot be represented as a situation limited to 9 months where you are obligated to engage in a particular task. The lifetime, short term and long term, impact of a pregnancy encompasses so much more than that and is not adequately represented in those examples.

[_EAllusion]

"Holy ____" - The classic way one rolls their eyes.

Yeah. It's called sarcasm. If you really want to know the source of the eye rolling, it's the simple humanness that you fail to apply to the topic which is uniquely human at it's core.

I don't think a sarcastic "Holy ____" has the meaning you think it does, but you do you. I don't know what you are talking about regarding "humanness."

[_EAllusion]

Putting aside the (admittedly quite fascinating!!) question of how Res Ipsa acquired himself a uterus, when he referred to "the personal/privacy dimension of the intrusion when it comes to abortion..." I didn't take that as a straightforward privacy issue, as in 'I don't want anyone to know my business,' the way it seems to be addressed in the last post I quoted.

I took Res Ipsa to mean he was emphasizing the rest of his statement, which referred to the "personal.... dimension of the intrusion.". I agree with that, and for that reason, I also don't feel like the Violinist/Case 1/Case2/Case3 philosophical discussion captures the issue at all for me. A pregnancy carried to term cannot be represented as a situation limited to 9 months where you are obligated to engage in a particular task. The lifetime, short term and long term, impact of a pregnancy encompasses so much more than that and is not adequately represented in those examples.

That's a quick and dirty summary, but you can extend the thought experiment to include costs that go beyond 9 months. Maybe the person is a smoker and you'll be exposed to second-hand smoke for the duration? Everyone understands that pregnancy has potential long-term effects on health, both positive and negative. The experiment is just trying to get at whether there are circumstances where it is justified to make a person use their property against their will, even at significant inconvenience to themselves, for the sake of sustaining another person, then seeing how closely those map onto our intuitions about what is going on in abortion.

Res Ipsa rejected this whole line of reasoning by arguing he's not dealing with bodily property arguments. He kind of dismissed that as cranky libertarian take. I reject the idea that this is the domain of libertarians, even though I agree that those arguments fit most naturally with libertarian rights theorists. To make that point, I linked a discussion on the thought experiment mainly as a way to point out it's not libertarian rights theory that drives it.

Res Ipsa is instead arguing that privacy is what matters. I'm quite dubious on that. We're talking about killing a person in this scenario. It is very difficult to come up with thought experiments where a right to privacy Trump's a right not to be killed.

[_Kevin Graham]

Kevin started with a false premise by stating it does not happen for five days, then went to 3-5 days , when it fact fertilization can start minutes, or hours, or 5 days from intercourse.

Stop lying because that isn't what I said. I said implantation doesn't happen for 5 days after the zygote enters the uterus becoming a blastocyst. It can enter the uterus in as little as 3 days, but it typically doesn't implant until 5 days. Implantation is when the woman is "pregnant." You completely dodged my points that the MAP can completely stop the pregnancy days before it even begins and now you're going to come back with this nonsense by misrepresenting what I said?

The fact is, "Implantation is when a fertilized egg, or blastocyst, has attached to the lining of the uterine wall. It marks the beginning of pregnancy."

It can take five days in that the sperm can hang out in the reproductive system of a female for up to five days, but it could also be minutes or hours until the sperm meets the egg.

Again, this isn't about sperm just "hanging out" it is about how long it takes before a zygote travels through the Fallopian tube before it even has a chance to become a Blastocyst and implant (which is only 40%). "Implantation is something of a miracle itself: 60 percent are not successful."

His assertion was that the MAP tale the next morning was not terminating the process in that he claimed it did not start for five days. I corrected him and told him we have no way of knowing that, so his point is mute.

You didn't correct anything. All you've done is pretend I said "fertilization" when I said implantation.

So again he started with a very inaccurate premise.

No I haven't, but you've begun my misrepresenting what was said. It isn't my fault you haven't educated yourself on this subject enough and conflate fertilization with implantation.

If you truly believe someone becomes "pregnant" instantly after sex, then why is it that pregnancy tests aren't effective until a week after intercourse? This is why:

"OTC pregnancy tests typically test your urine for a hormone called human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG). HCG is only present if you’re pregnant. The hormone is only released if a fertilized egg attaches outside the uterus or to your uterine lining."

Hence, the body only responds like it is pregnant after implantation occurs, which is, as I demonstrated, five days after intercourse. Morning after pills are 95% effective, but you're against them because some non-existent scripture in the Bible tells you sex = pregnancy. Except of course, when its a virgin birth.

[_Markk]

Markkkk if I may try to clear the confusion again. When you are discussing "person" you aren't discussing the term "personhood" that Themis is discussing.

Person and Personhood are two different concepts. Yeah, I know it sounds crazy. Go figure.

Let me runaround and try to find a good definition for you. I think it might help but who knows?

That what I am saying...Personhood, not unlike priesthood is much different than a tangible living being. Personhood was used to deny rights to slaves, it is a convenient way to exploit the human rights of others.

Themis wrote, and I am paraphrasing my understanding of our conversation... that a baby in womb (a fetus) is a person but does not have the attributes and I assume rights, of a woman in that they have personhood.

I guess we can equate this in a way to the ancient Hebrew priesthood, all of Israel were Jews, "sons" of Jacob, yet not all Jews had the rights associated with the priesthood.

At any rate, for me, I see abortion and personhood as excuse to infringe on others rights, in this case a defenseless baby.

[_Lemmie]

Res Ipsa is instead arguing that privacy is what matters.

I don't see that at all, for the reasons I pointed out, but I'm not going to put further words in his mouth.

Everyone understands that pregnancy has potential long-term effects on health, both positive and negative.

I wasn't talking about just health. There is so much more involved. That's why I don't think any of these thought experiments do an adequate job of standing in for the decision-making process. It is an extreme act of creation with a significant impact on every single aspect of a human parent's life, and I don't feel anyone should be forced or obligated into that act.

There's a whole other class of arguments that contend abortion prohibition will lead to greater harms while not meaningfully reducing abortions. Call it the "back alley" argument. I'm very skeptical of that stance, because I think criminalizing abortion is likely to significantly drive down its numbers. There will be harmful self-abortions and black markets of course, but it's difficult to see that harm exceeding what is gained from preventing so many killings....

Bolding added by me. Oh boy. That's quite a statement.

[_Markk]

Kevin started with a false premise by stating it does not happen for five days, then went to 3-5 days , when it fact fertilization can start minutes, or hours, or 5 days from intercourse.

Stop lying because that isn't what I said. I said implantation doesn't happen for 5 days after the zygote enters the uterus becoming a blastocyst. It can enter the uterus in as little as 3 days, but it typically doesn't implant until 5 days. Implantation is when the woman is "pregnant." You completely dodged my points that the MAP can completely stop the pregnancy days before it even begins and now you're going to come back with this nonsense by misrepresenting what I said?

The fact is, "Implantation is when a fertilized egg, or blastocyst, has attached to the lining of the uterine wall. It marks the beginning of pregnancy."

It can take five days in that the sperm can hang out in the reproductive system of a female for up to five days, but it could also be minutes or hours until the sperm meets the egg.

Again, this isn't about sperm just "hanging out" it is about how long it takes before a zygote travels through the Fallopian tube before it even has a chance to become a Blastocyst and implant (which is only 40%). "Implantation is something of a miracle itself: 60 percent are not successful."

His assertion was that the MAP tale the next morning was not terminating the process in that he claimed it did not start for five days. I corrected him and told him we have no way of knowing that, so his point is mute.

You didn't correct anything. All you've done is pretend I said "fertilization" when I said implantation.

So again he started with a very inaccurate premise.

No I haven't, but you've begun my misrepresenting what was said. It isn't my fault you haven't educated yourself on this subject enough and conflate fertilization with implantation.

If you truly believe someone becomes "pregnant" instantly after sex, then why is it that pregnancy tests aren't effective until a week after intercourse? This is why:

"OTC pregnancy tests typically test your urine for a hormone called human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG). HCG is only present if you’re pregnant. The hormone is only released if a fertilized egg attaches outside the uterus or to your uterine lining."

Hence, the body only responds like it is pregnant after implantation occurs, which is, as I demonstrated, five days after intercourse. Morning after pills are 95% effective, but you're against them because some non-existent scripture in the Bible tells you sex = pregnancy. Except of course, when its a virgin birth.

Misunderstanding what you wrote hardly makes me a liar Kevin, we all do it here, Sorry.

But it does not change the discussion at all, nor my belief. Nor that we both believe that a child has right in the womb, but we are about 6 months or so apart.

Is that fair?

[Guest]

I guess we can equate this in a way to the ancient Hebrew priesthood, all of Israel were Jews, "sons" of Jacob, yet not all Jews had the rights associated with the priesthood.

Correction. Not all of Israel were Jews. Technically, only the descendants of Judah, one of the 12 sons of Jacob, were Jews. Because King David was a Jew, Jews became the most dominant of the twelve tribes in the Southern half of Israel, which became the Kingdom of Judah when Israel split in two after the death of Solomon. The Northern half of the divided Kingdom retained the name Israel after the split and consisted of 10 of the remaining tribes, with most of the tribe of Benjamin becoming part of the Kingdom of Judah, along with some of the Levites. The 10 tribes of the Northern Kingdom were forcibly removed and dispersed by the Assyrians when they conquered and destroyed the Northern Kingdom of Israel. What few remained of the other tribes of Israel were more or less absorbed by the Tribe of Judah and became generally identified as Jews.