The "Bad Kind" of Abortion

That's fair. Sorry for overreacting, joey.

Except for 4/1/2011. That day lingers in my memory like...metaphor here...I should go.

Well I was advocating the abolishment of fundamental human rights so i can't blame you for being reactionary on principle

hashtagsarestupid

Not exactly statistics, but it seems that discouraging contraception use is a pretty popular pro-life view. This is probably just a case of correlation not implying causation (as pro-life and abstinence-only are both conservative views), but still.

Also, how in the world does "a greater percentage of pro-life people oppose contraception use than the general population" imply "all pro-life people are against contraception use"? I'm not quite following our logic here.

edited 30th Jan '11 10:41:42 PM by zoulza

Yeah, those links aren't exactly making an argument without actual statistics.

The fact that since the two have NO direct correlation aside from being occasionally mutually allied, means it really has no purpose being brought up in the topic.

edited 30th Jan '11 10:44:40 PM by KingZeal

Joey, a Utilitarianism that ignores rights is a Straw Utilitarianism. The entire point of rights is that the transaction costs of policy grow when you create all these super finely tuned policies, and so certain things are said "No don't cross there" not because ALL cases of that are problematic, but because some cases of that are so problematic that the costs of legislating around them is too high. Once again: rights are about metapolicy.

In a no-transactions-cost no-friction system of policy, human rights would be unnecessary. But it would be remarkably similar to a society with human rights.

Of course, we then discuss "What sorts of things are actually human rights?" which is a large part of what abortion debates (and so on) are founded upon.

edited 31st Jan '11 8:12:26 AM by TheyCallMeTomu

That reply is so complicated that it's almost along the lines of Chewbacca Defense, but I'm going to assume that I'm too dumb to understand.

So could you use layman's terms for those of the people like me?

A model without rights would be arbitrarily complex and thus unworkable.

Rights are a simplification of the model to yield roughly the same results, but without all of that complexity.

well I don't necessarily share the axiom that a working society actually needs humans rights, but do I consider them preferable.

hashtagsarestupid

A working society absolutely needs at least a minimum of human rights.

Otherwise I get to stab you for your stuff and there's no basis to build a society on.

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

A working society needs laws and rules yes, but not necessarily rights  ^*

. A society where the public good outweighs the rights of the individual is perfectly workable if open to abuse.

edited 31st Jan '11 2:21:36 PM by joeyjojo

hashtagsarestupid

But the public good is itself based on rights.

If you don't have any right to property, I can take it as much as the government can. If you don't have any right to life, I can take it as much as the government can.

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

Ah but the government does take people's property and life in the forms of taxes and the death penalty in the name of the public good.

If I don't have the right to steal or kill you why should the government?

edited 31st Jan '11 3:14:01 PM by joeyjojo

hashtagsarestupid

Wha? My thread got moved?

I thought it got nuked...

Well, I am glad. This was one of the most civil Flamebaity/Touchy topics I've made so far that haven't gone to complete shit.

So, when is the time that an abortion is not okay?

I know a few weeks before it's born is a major "fuck no" stage that is sure to cause a riot, but how long does the baby have to develop before it goes into the "should not be aborted" stage?

Troper Page

If I remember right, the original post-Roe line was drawn at viability, which is a fuzzy place to put it thanks to all the progress medicine's been making in caring for premature births. These days my understanding is that it's more common just to reject abortion after the third trimester except for health reasons.

Historical perspectives are more varied. Christian dogma for many centuries, before abortion was medically viable, was that the fetus is ensouled at quickening (the point at which the fetus's motion can be felt by the mother); this happens somewhere between the fourteenth and the eighteenth week of pregnancy, but it doesn't correspond to any well-defined developmental stage.

edited 31st Jan '11 3:27:48 PM by Nornagest

I will keep my soul in a place out of sight, Far off, where the pulse of it is not heard.

@joey: It's better, generally, for the government to have it than for everybody to, because that results in the least amount of threat to the average person.

EDIT @Norn: Between the fourteenth and eighteenth... month?

edited 31st Jan '11 3:46:14 PM by BlackHumor

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

Sorry, fixed. Although I might as well mention that another common historical perspective was that the child wasn't ensouled until some point in its early childhood — usually about when the infant mortality curve for that civilization started leveling off.

edited 31st Jan '11 3:33:47 PM by Nornagest

I will keep my soul in a place out of sight, Far off, where the pulse of it is not heard.

Then that's just the government making and enforcing a law for the common good, it doesn't regards rights. The state's ban's on theft and murder is like the speed limit. The police enforcing it and generally follow it themselves. But they don't have to if they feel the need.

edited 31st Jan '11 3:48:29 PM by joeyjojo

hashtagsarestupid

But the whole reason it's for the common good is you have a right to life and property etc.

Because if you didn't it would just be distributed across everyone. You can't take it away from everyone by any way other than killing everyone.

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

Okay lets say I had the cure for cancer. however I refuse to share it and will die before I hand it over. Killing me and taking it would save millions of lives in the long run but would be a clear violation of my personal rights.

What would be in the public's interest? Protecting my right of property and life or the cure for cancer?

hashtagsarestupid

Foul. If your criterion is the public's interest, you've already decided on a utilitarian system of ethics. Human rights in the usual sense are inherently deontological.

I will keep my soul in a place out of sight, Far off, where the pulse of it is not heard.

I don't follow.

hashtagsarestupid

Okay. The major divide in philosophy of ethics is between consequentialist systems, which appeal to an action's physical consequences, and deontological systems, which appeal to an action's adherence to a set of nonphysical rules.

Utilitarian ethics ("the greatest good for the greatest number", and variations) are consequentialist: they state that actions which result in net positive outcomes according to some criterion are ethical even if there are some local negatives. The example you gave falls squarely into this category. The advantage here is flexibility: if you're a consequentialist you can do what you have to do in odd or mixed cases without feeling bothered by ethical rules that don't cleanly cover the situation.

Rights-based ethics (including conventional notions of "human rights") are deontological: an action is immoral if it involves violating a person's rights, even if it's done in the service of some greater perceived benefit. Their main advantage is integrity: you can't easily deceive yourself into thinking you're serving the greater good by breaking some rule if breaking that rule is always bad by definition.

The question of which system is better is nowhere near settled, for complicated reasons which this margin is too narrow to contain. But trying to refute one system by pointing to an extreme example of the other isn't going to convince anyone.

edited 31st Jan '11 4:25:03 PM by Nornagest

I will keep my soul in a place out of sight, Far off, where the pulse of it is not heard.

Though I've always wondered:

Isn't "the greatest good for the greatest number" a rule? Doesn't that make utilitarianism (and really all consequentialist systems) also deontological?

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

Okay I think I get you.

Consequentialist: Killing and stealing from me is morally acceptable if it helps the greater good.

Deontological: killing and stealing from me is morally unacceptable even if it helps the greater good.

edited 31st Jan '11 4:25:16 PM by joeyjojo

hashtagsarestupid

Sort of, but it's a highly degenerate sort of deontology. In terms of practical analysis it makes more sense to treat it as separate.

I will keep my soul in a place out of sight, Far off, where the pulse of it is not heard.