I live in a state where abortion is illegal - but still done. However it does mean that when a 14 year old is raped by her mothers boyfriend we have to go to court to seek permission for an abortion. It happened. Fortunately we have a "health and safety" clause for women that does allow abortion otherwise, like South America and Africa, women in dire need of immediate termination of pregnancy would also have to appeal to a court to obtain one. This happened in Ireland where they lost a young woman - the foetus was DEAD and they could not abort. To me there is no difference between the woman with a health issue whose pregnancy is threatening her life and the woman who has found herself homeless and pregnant and in that situation the pregnancy may well also threaten her life by making her less able to fend for herself
You said you believe in virtue ethics... I am asking you about the intersection between virtue ethics, your beliefs, and abortion. So I invite you to explain and justify your position in your own words. In a prior post you stated "Well, no, that's the entire point of the debate. I think there's a legal role to prevent abortion." That led me to observe that you need to justify a position that involves the use of the law to enforce your preference (i.e. preventing abortion).
I can only speak for my own opinion as well. It seems logical that states might need to implement different laws to deal with geography or resources unique to those states (e.g. Ohio might need to protect family farms while California might need to control coastal resources). I have a harder time understanding why a 20 year old woman who is raped in Bristol, Virginia might be governed by different abortion laws than a 20 year old woman who is raped in Bristol, Tennessee. I do realize there is precedence (e.g. teenagers can get married at 18 in some states and 19 in other states). It just does not seem logical to me that personal rights should vary from one state to another.
You just made no sense. A fertilized eggs are lost all the time and until they implant themselves in the uterine wall they are not even a potential human being never mind a human being as you inferred. They are as close to being a human being as a carrot is. AA
Problem with your line of thought here is that as a male it never becomes your business. Just your burden, if the woman feels it should be. At least that is the thoughts of many women on this board at least.
How so? You and I and everything else living or not in the Universe is comprised of the same thing. Quantum Particle/Wave Forms of Energy. Upon a Quantum Level....there is no difference between you and a carrot. AA
I should clarify that my virtue ethics is not Aristotelian, but rather Nietzschean. Specifically, the kind of character I admire is one who has uncompromising and shameless self-esteem, one that applies to the individual, and to the larger groups to which the individual belongs, such as family and nation. You could say it's a "spiritualization" of pride and arrogance, rather than its total removal (i.e. religion, the life of a plant, the life of a monk). In that context, my view on abortion stems from my value judgement that respect for one's family and nation is a positive trait. This leads me to saying that abortion is decadent. I think you don't fully understand this view because it is positively value laden, i.e. it embraces the arbitrariness in choosing values and supporting them. You seem to want to return the debate back to a scientific one, but this misses the entire point of what I'm saying. Again, no. To continue the Nietzschean push, it is against Socratic dialectic.
Do you see how ridiculous a position you've pushed yourself into? Do I really need to say why this is ridiculous?
You have made a value judgement that respect for one's family and nation is a positive trait. I think many people would agree with that. How does that lead to the conclusion that abortion is so decadent that there should be "a legal role to prevent abortion" (or am I misunderstanding the role you would have the government play)? Having two slices of pie after dinner could be considered decadent, but hardly worth involving the government to enforce a restriction on pie.
I'm more interested in a culture that would adopt this attitude automatically moreso than a government imposing it on a people. If people outside of this culture, i.e. its physical region of dominance, want to do abortions, I wouldn't really care.
If consent to sex is also consent to pregnancy for the woman then it logically follows that there is consent from the male to support the resulting pregnancy regardless of what the woman decides
Has there ever been a culture without abortion? Why is forcing someone to give birth "respect for family" ?
If you feel having a child is a burden have a vasectomy.......or, , like the Anti-Choicers tell women, just quit having sex.....see how easy that is... The LAW feels it should be your burden, don't blame women for everything...
Since Nietzschean value ethics embraces the arbitrariness in choosing values and supporting them, how do you address the fact that others within your culture might assign a higher weight to quality of life for actual persons (versus potential persons)?
Probably not. I'm not sure how less technologically capable people did it back then though. Respect for the life of the child, and the expansion of the family. - - - Updated - - - Why do I have to "address" this? They can think whatever they want.
A new life clearly begins at conception, for that reason I think that an abortion should be allow in cases of rape or risk of maternal death
Because in post #160 above you made this claim; RO asked you a perfectly reasonable question based upon your own alleged "Nietzschean virtue ethics". Essentially you are stating that your "virtue ethics" have no value to society at large and are just your own personal opinion and nothing more.
Tecoyah stated "Life" begins and began LONG before a human baby is born.....and Abortion is none of my business unless it directly involves me or mine." I was simply informing Tecoyah that as a male the birth or termination of your child never becomes your business. Currently many women and many on this forum (as have quoted my statement) believe they are the only people that get to make the decision to keep or terminate an unborn child is them. So based upon whatever the woman desires the child is possibly a burden to the male. So the statement of me or mine is pointless for males in this society.
That makes no sense. If it did, "logically" there would never be abortions except in cases of rape, since the women consented also.
Not blaming women for everything. Just would be nice is the male had an "opt out" like the woman has since she clearly didn't get a Tubal ligation either.
How they did it back then? I don't know about other cultures, but Native American women would have used herbal abortifacients (in most cases) if they found themselves pregnant at a time that would cause a burden for the tribe. They would have been considered it selfish and irresponsible to create a new child if the tribe was already facing hardships. Respect for the life of the child and expansion of the family? There is only the potential for a child, so (unless you are going to prove that it is a person in the womb) the child does not count in the abortion equation. If the expansion of the family is the priority, then it could excuse kidnapping and rape as well, since that would expand the family. Why do you have to address the fact that others within your culture might assign a higher weight to the quality of life for actual persons (versus potential persons)? Perhaps I have misjudged your position. If you are pro-choice there is no reason to justify your position because you have the right to follow your own beliefs, but if you are "pro-life" that generally means you want to impose your value system on the rest of the country. Since you are not inclined to justify your position, perhaps you are pro-choice.
