In my last two threads, I tried to touch on the concept of abortion being terrible when the woman didn't choose it: Is it really so bad if a man slips a woman an abortion pill? Less punishment for killing when it is inside the womb? Because while pro-choicers are unable to see the terrible tragedy that is abortion, when the woman chooses it, I thought that at least they may be able to recognize it as a tragedy when it wasn't about the woman's choice. But I was wrong, because instead of choosing to recognize the situation for what it is, pro-choicers tried to completely deflect the tragedy and say it was only bad because the woman's body was being violated, choice was being taken away from her. In this way they could still recognize forced abortion as awful without admitting that it was awful because a human life was being killed. So I have been thinking about how to come up with a hypothetical scenario to be able to make my point, while being able to sidestep this type of pro-choice deflection, and I think I have stumbled onto it. Here is the scenario: Imagine a distant time in the future where pregnancy has become a thing of the past. Advancements in medical technology have allowed couples to grow their children in tanks. This is not all just science fiction. Researchers have been getting closer towards development of an artificial womb: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1525-1594.1993.tb03181.x/abstract View of a human fetus in an artificial womb, as part of a Stanford University School of Medicine experiment, Stanford, California, 1965. Oxygen in the pressurized fluid was supplied to the fetus via cutaneous respiration, while nutrient levels in the fluid could be adjusted. http://time.com/3873292/photographer-spotlight-fritz-goro/ Fascinating stuff. But I digress, back to the hypothetical futuristic scenario... It has now become routine for wealthy couples to grow their children in tanks. What woman in her right mind, who had the means of affording it, would want to suffer the inconvenience and side effects of gestating a baby inside her own body? Suppose the biological father goes into the incubator room and pulls the plug without the mother's permission. The mother desperately wants to have this child. The father changed his mind, he doesn't want to have offspring anymore. The relationship has headed south and he has found a new woman to be with. The very idea of his ex-girlfriend having his biological child does not sit well with him. So he decides to abort. So question self-avowed pro-choicers: Would this be so horrible? And if so, why? After all, the woman's body is not being violated here in any way.
Since the fetus would be considered joint PROPERTY either may destroy it at any time. I could destroy my wife's car at any time too if I wish (she could also destroy mine). This one was easy.
"""" pro-choicers tried to completely deflect the tragedy and say it was only bad because the woman's body was being violated, choice was being taken away from her. In this way they could still recognize forced abortion as awful without admitting that it was awful because a human life was being killed."""" BS....just another one of your "misinterpretations " of what was posted. Your continuing scenarios about harming and controlling women are so telling and yet you seem almost proud of what they say about you....and it's nothing to be proud of..
when this is perfected it will be the way many have children... especially if it's safer all others except the children people want will be aborted, they may even have sperm banks for men and make it so they can not have children "before" they become sexually active, then to have a baby you order one based on your own sperm and eggs .
Would there be a cut-off point? Where after a certain number of months into the gestation process, both parents would have to sign? Or would it be ok for a vindictive woman to "get back" at her man and have his seven-month-old developing child aborted, with there being nothing he could legally do about it ?
The cutoff point has already been established by law. Viability. This has all been decided already. Did you think these questions would somehow pose a moral dilemma? This is too easy
Why does the OP ignore the fact that for this scenario to occur there would have to be a legal contract of some type in effect for the purposes of "renting" this artificial uterus for the duration of the pregnancy? And any such legal contract would have terms and conditions binding each of the parties to their commitments and have conditions and penalties for eventualities. So this has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on the current state of legal abortion in the USA and is therefore little more than a deflection from the actual issue of anti-rightists ongoing attempts to deprive women of their Constitutional Right to Privacy. /thread fail
Actually the "point of viability" is a somewhat ambiguous concept. Are we to take it to mean the point at which the fetus can survive apart from the woman, or the point at which the fetus can survive all by itself, without any outside assistance? Because the two are very different things. With intensive medical assistance, the earliest a fetus can survive being taken outside the womb is 22 weeks, and even then it only has about a 1 in 5 chance of survival. (There have been a handful of reports of 21-week-old fetuses surviving but this is incredibly rare) Improvements in future medical technology may push this number even lower. If we are defining "viability" as the point in which the fetus can survive outside the woman, then a fetus growing in a tank would already, by definition, be considered viable. I find it very ironic that anyone would be trying to apply the viability cut-off argument to a fetus growing in a tank. I thought the whole point of viability was it was the point where the woman presumably no longer needed to carry it, so ending the pregnancy and fetal life are no longer mutually exclusive. So what you are saying is a fetus growing in a tank does not have a right to life so long as it needs the nutrients in that tank, but as soon as it is capable of taking in nutrients like a normal baby (bottle of milk, lungs that are developed enough to breathe on their own) then it has the right to life. What about artificial respiration? Does a premature baby that cannot survive outside of an incubator (with oxygen) have the right to life? Viewed in this light, your contention seems absolutely absurd.
Suppose the woman used her boyfriend's sperm without his permission. It was only later he found out his child was growing in a tank. Plus, you are making the assumption that a spouse can sign away their rights to reproduction. Would you be comfortable with a woman being able to a sign a contract requiring her not to get an abortion in the event of pregnancy?
The supreme court never defined viability as when a fetus could live outside a woman. Don't know where you get that. It has always been when it could survive by itself. They let states decide when that is but it is never before 20 weeks. Prior to that it is not a person and has no rights. Put a drain on that artificial womb so people can flush it if they want.
Joakim made a serious flaw with his analogy and hypothetical....anybody spot it? In his mind?....women are "baby-making machines", not people. If he postulates a future and asks "Is abortion bad if it's a tank with a fetus in it?".... then he is admitting that NOW....that's exactly what he thinks of women....they are "tanks", machines, devices, not people with rights.
Those 'grow tanks' would be really helpful to places like PP. They could keep the aborted fetus 'fresh' for better parts to sell.
You have a lot of free time on your hands. Why don't you spend that time helping out humanitarian causes like birth control education or programs for the poor to both reduce the number of abortions necessary or to enable women to make decisions to stay pregnant because they'll have access to more resources. There is no right and wrong when it comes to the abortion issue. The only RIGHT is when a woman gets pregnant when she wants to give birth and raise a child. Any situation aside from that is about her choosing what makes sense for her own circumstances. Idiots think they have some high moral ground from bullying pregnant women with their opinions but the reality is quite the opposite. When you take away a woman's right to make a private medical choice about her own body, you turn her into a unwillingly slave and often doom a child to a very poor existence. You people don't care about children at all...that's why you vote against education and social programs designed to help them prosper and keep them out of prison. Why don't you simply mind your own business and leave pregnant women to deal with their own private health rights. I guarantee you that women don't give a flying crap about your opinion when faced with an unwanted pregnancy so butt out and find something else to do.
No baby can survive by itself. If you abandon a baby and leave it to fend for itself, it will die. Not all newborns are capable of breathing on their own, btw. There are some who need to be attached to an Oxygen tank. You have to see this cartoon series clip: http://www.adultswim.com/videos/the-venture-bros/deans-disfigured-clone/ (there's a short advertisement you have to wait through)
Even if the fetus was growing in a tank and the father had just as much right to his offspring as the woman does? Or they could incubate the fetus to make it keep on growing so that "tissue" would be a more optimal size for harvesting... Maybe the woman has an abortion at 7 weeks. They "extract" the fetus and keep it growing for another 9 weeks. Now they have some big-sized organs that will fetch a hefty price on the medical research market.
If it would be wrong and terrible to abort a fetus growing in a tank, that presupposes there would also be an ethically problematic element to aborting a fetus when it is growing inside a woman. This is why pro-choicers do not want to touch this scenario.
Yet more inane hypotheticals. This is a nonsense thread where you can just make up whatever feces you want to fling at the wall in the desperate hope that something will stick. But none of that has any relevance whatsoever to a woman's right to privacy NOW!
BZZZT WRONG AGAIN! This idiotic scenario is a facile attempt to demean women by equating them to an inanimate object that has no rights. That you see women in this degrading manner says volumes about just what little value you actually place on the LIVES OF WOMEN!
So you think abortion should all be based on some prior contract signed between the two parents, even when the woman doesn't have to go through a pregnancy? The life of the fetus is only worth whatever value the parents decided on a piece of paper beforehand?
This is what I find so sad in the grand scheme of things...the low value, or no value that people have for the fetus. I understand people get pregnant when they don't want to and will have a hard time raising the child. But it can be done. As a mother, I find it hard to comprehend people just not caring that they are aborting a baby. But that is just me and my opinion, which I will be hammered for. Oh well, so be it. On a side note, maybe the baby growing in a tank, where it can actually be seen as a baby, will change some minds? Kinda hard to deny it for what it really is if it can be seen growing outside the body.
This is a mistake often made by pro-lifers they assume that pro-choice people place no value or a low value on the unborn .. that is simply not correct.
Now you have switched that argument and are arguing if the viability standard is a good standard at all. Sorry.....you lost that argument 40 years ago
IMO in this rather silly thought experiment is that they would both have the same rights .. just so long as if one of them decided not to continue then they are completely removed from any legal responsibility. It is so sad to see pro-lifers clinging desperately to this false ideology especially now that CMP are being investigated for their criminal activity.
nope, the two are entirely different, a tank (as far as I am aware) does not have the protection of the Constitution and cannot be injured during the process or are you suggesting a woman should be treated the same as the tank?
That would be theft and as I suspect you know a person cannot legally profit from theft, so I would expect the courts to abide by the "fathers" wishes and "abort" the tank fetus. Depends what you mean by reproduction. You do know that a contract that creates injury to the person is not valid don't you ie a person cannot be held to a contract that results in them receiving injuries as a requirement of the contract.
