This might be more of a politics question, but this board seems more grounded.

Am I oversimplifying the abortion debate if I say the only real question we need to debate is when a zygote/fetus/baby becomes a human and gains the right to life? One side is yelling about respecting life and the other is yelling about a woman's right to choose for her own body, but neither seems to want to discuss what I feel is the real question: when are we infringing on the zygote/fetus/baby's rights?

Y'all seem super smart, so I'm asking here first. TIA for all replies!

Random question? Did you go to Theology on Tap tonight in Houston? They had a panel discussing this very question.

In answering your question, I feel like you have narrowed it down pretty well. Society and Abortion rights advocates have done a great job about making it emotional and focusing on women's rights as opposed to the rights of the fetus. There are several hard situations that can come up in discussion of this, but I think in the end it should come down to what the Scriptures say.

I have met women who claim that a woman's bodily autonomy supersedes any rights a fetus may have to life. So, while the question of personhood is important, and may be the key issue for many people, even if we could come to a consensus that a fetus has the rights of a human being it wouldn't be the nail in the coffin for the pro choice movement.

Through when I was a believer and not I have always said that it should be protected once it is a viable life, seperate from its mother.

Just as you I always wondered why the argument wasn't about when it becomes a human life. Most women that harp on it being a women's rights issue really just don't want to have to be responsible for their actions.

When I have cornered liberal aquantences and friends on the issue they usually admit that they really support it for two main reasons:

1. They don't want to get stuck with an unwanted pregnancy because of casual sex.

2. They don't want children to be forced to be born into a world where they are not wanted and their mom can't afford them.

When you really twist the screws on them they will admit that they don't want all the poor uneducated people to make more poor uneducated kids because it makes this country a worse place.

Nope, I was just thinking about it last night.

AstroAg17 said:

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This is a monthly topic. If you look through past pages on the board, pretty much any thread about abortion will touch on the idea in your post.

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Seems like a majority of the abortion discussions here center around defining personhood rather than whether or not that should be a sufficient condition to settle the debate. You see that topic pop up sporadically but it's always short-lived and tangential to the main discussion, at least from what I've seen. I think this is different enough to be an interesting topic. I personally find anyone who argues that a fetus should be abortable whether it is a person or not to hold a despicable position.

The term you are looking for is personhood. You are correct that the debate is when does personhood begin

AstroAg17 said:

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Although I'm the one bringing it up on every thread, it's still brought up on pretty much every abortion thread. And I've never encountered much resistance to the idea. I think everyone on this board agrees that the core of the debate is whether the fetus deserves rights. At least, nobody has voiced disagreement.

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I've encountered resistance to the idea outside this board. I think the atheists on this board are more conservative than atheists in general, so you don't see some of the hard-line liberal stances discussed here, but I see it outside of this board enough that I think we should try and flesh it out. Why is it that personhood should be the key to this discussion, and why should bodily autonomy take a back seat?

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Why is it that personhood should be the key to this discussion, and why should bodily autonomy take a back seat?

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To me I don't see any validity with this question. If it is indeed a person, deserving of rights, then one's own body autonomy, when it is not a matter of life and death for that person, pales in comparison to the body that is in danger of ceasing to exist. Furthermore, once the body of the child is removed, the mother's body is no longer an issue.

Imagine a set of conjoined twins where only one of them would be able to live separately. They have aged to 25 years and now the one that would be able to live separately is tired of being conjoined. If that twin demands that they both be separated, knowing his other twin will die as a result, but refuses to live joined to another person for the rest of their lives, should we take his body autonomy with more weight than the life of the other twin?

Of course this scenario is far more invasive of the twins body than a mother's who's child is only with them for 9 months. Which makes it even more insane to think that the mother's body autonomy takes precedence over human life.

Also, the twins made no choices in their lives that caused them to be conjoined, while obviously aside from rape, the mother of a child chose to put herself in the situation of being pregnant.

Question: Is there a medical difference between what is considered a "miscarriage" vs. a "stillbirth?" Is there a zone where those terms are kind of interchangeable? My understanding has always been that a miscarriage is much earlier in a pregnancy and doesn't typically result in anything resembling a baby, but I might be wrong on that.

I think it's perhaps a more nuanced question then you're giving it credit for. What rights does one person have on another to sustain their life? I think it's a legitimate question. For instance, does another person have a right to my money or labor to sustain their life? I would think most people would say no. If not, what rights does a person have to my body?

The analogy I've heard in the past to make the case for bodily autonomy trumping the right to life is imagine somebody is hooked up to your body to use your kidneys for dialysis and it's the only thing keeping them alive. Do you have the right to have the other person unhooked? Again, I think most people would say yes.

I think there are some things that make this scenario disanalaogous with abortion which make a difference, but I don't think bodily autonomy can be written off quite so easily by saying that life trumps it in all situations.

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Also, the twins made no choices in their lives that caused them to be conjoined, while obviously aside from rape, the mother of a child chose to put herself in the situation of being pregnant.

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This kinda hits where I stand. I hate abortion but I'd be willing to accept it in cases where the mother had no choice in getting pregnant.

If you chooseably engaged in sex you chose to accept the risk that you could get pregnant and shouldn't be able to get an abortion because you regret the results of the risk you chose to take.

I think my twin scenario better made the case than the kidney one. What is your take on that?

One nuance that is ignored in the "bodily autonomy" question is the relationship between the two people.

A parent can be arrested for endangering their child. Why, then, is it legal for the parent to kill their child before birth?

Also, in the vast majority of cases, that child exists because of actions taken by that parent. To bring up a statement from a discussion with PetroAg at some point in the past; womb trespassing should not be punishable by death.

Texaggie7nine said:

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I think my twin scenario better made the case than the kidney one. What is your take on that?

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I don't know. In some ways I feel that the second twin's bodily autonomy would be in question as well, which kind of obscures the issue of life vs bodily autonomy which we are trying to get at. Either way, it's a difficult ethical question.

It might be interesting to dig down this rabbit hole and try and figure out morally what makes the twin situation different from the dialysis situation.

Dad-O-Lot said:

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A parent can be arrested for endangering their child. Why, then, is it legal for the parent to kill their child before birth?

Also, in the vast majority of cases, that child exists because of actions taken by that parent. To bring up a statement from a discussion with PetroAg at some point in the past; womb trespassing should not be punishable by death.

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I agree. These are key ways I feel that abortion is dissimilar from the dialysis analogy. However, I do think the question of which right trumps the other an interesting question on its own.

dargscisyhp said:

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Dad-O-Lot said:

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A parent can be arrested for endangering their child. Why, then, is it legal for the parent to kill their child before birth?

Also, in the vast majority of cases, that child exists because of actions taken by that parent. To bring up a statement from a discussion with PetroAg at some point in the past; womb trespassing should not be punishable by death.

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I agree. These are key ways I feel that abortion is dissimilar from the dialysis analogy. However, I do think the question of which right trumps the other an interesting question on its own.

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If you choose to engage in sex you cede your right to bodily autonomy during pregnancy. I think that's a clear cut way of looking at it. The child didn't choose for you to have sex. Seems entirely unfair to the kid that you can choose to make them then say, never mind, death to you.

Texaggie7nine said:

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Through when I was a believer and not I have always said that it should be protected once it is a viable life, seperate from its mother.

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The issue I have always had with this approach is that without intervention an infant is not viable separate from its mother. Though this probably depends on how you define "viable".

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I agree. These are key ways I feel that abortion is dissimilar from the dialysis analogy. However, I do think the question of which right trumps the other an interesting question on its own.

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I think you make a great point. I'm pretty sure most would agree that a temporary dependecy that arose predictably, as a result of voluntary actions of the person creating the dependency, has a right to be supported until the dependency is completed or transferred. That would apply to unintentional pregnancy as well as other situations, such as supporting someone you injured while you were driving drunk. Your actions had a predictable response and created a dependency, so the person has a right to your body/labor/resources until another person takes the responsibility or the dependency is finished.

I think it gets more interesting regarding bodily autonomy to turn it around. Let's say you're in an area where kidneys are frequently stolen from drunk people. Even though it is not a surprise or smart, getting drunk in this situation does not given anyone else the right to take your kidney. You are not giving consent for kidney removal by engaging in drunkenness. So I could see someone making the argument that despite knowing the risk of pregnancy, poor decision making doesn't give the embryo/fetus the right to use their body without their consent. While they may have consented to sex with their partner, they didn't consent to pregnancy with this new person.

dargscisyhp said:

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Dad-O-Lot said:

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A parent can be arrested for endangering their child. Why, then, is it legal for the parent to kill their child before birth?

Also, in the vast majority of cases, that child exists because of actions taken by that parent. To bring up a statement from a discussion with PetroAg at some point in the past; womb trespassing should not be punishable by death.

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I agree. These are key ways I feel that abortion is dissimilar from the dialysis analogy. However, I do think the question of which right trumps the other an interesting question on its own.

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How's this for a compatible analogy....

Let us say that we have advanced into the future and Star Trek has become our reality. We now have transporters just like in the show. In a freak accident, while you and I are both being beamed from one place to another, our bodies are "rematerialized" in a conjoined manner similar to the previous conjoined twins I mentioned earlier so that you are the twin that could live if we were surgically separated and I would die. All functioning organs have been determined to be yours.

After the doctors ascertain this is the situation, they also discover from the engineer for the transporter/teleporter that it will be possible to re teleport us and reenergize us back into our separate selves, but it will take 9 months for the computer to finish the calculations so that it knows how to reconfigure us.

You chose to go into the teleporter, even though you didn't expect this to happen, but you knew it was always a very slight possibility.

So, with this knowledge, do you think you should have the right to say "well I don't want to wait 9 months, I want to be separate now" and demand that I be removed from your body, and thusly kill me?

Solo Tetherball Champ said:

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Texaggie7nine said:

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Through when I was a believer and not I have always said that it should be protected once it is a viable life, seperate from its mother.

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The issue I have always had with this approach is that without intervention an infant is not viable separate from its mother. Though this probably depends on how you define "viable".

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Viable in that it can live separately from the mother, physically, if others, who want to, step in and take care of it.

Texaggie7nine said:

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dargscisyhp said:

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Dad-O-Lot said:

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A parent can be arrested for endangering their child. Why, then, is it legal for the parent to kill their child before birth?

Also, in the vast majority of cases, that child exists because of actions taken by that parent. To bring up a statement from a discussion with PetroAg at some point in the past; womb trespassing should not be punishable by death.

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I agree. These are key ways I feel that abortion is dissimilar from the dialysis analogy. However, I do think the question of which right trumps the other an interesting question on its own.

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How's this for a compatible analogy....

Let us say that we have advanced into the future and Star Trek has become our reality. We now have transporters just like in the show. In a freak accident, while you and I are both being beamed from one place to another, our bodies are "rematerialized" in a conjoined manner similar to the previous conjoined twins I mentioned earlier so that you are the twin that could live if we were surgically separated and I would die. All functioning organs have been determined to be yours.

After the doctors ascertain this is the situation, they also discover from the engineer for the transporter/teleporter that it will be possible to re teleport us and reenergize us back into our separate selves, but it will take 9 months for the computer to finish the calculations so that it knows how to reconfigure us.

You chose to go into the teleporter, even though you didn't expect this to happen, but you knew it was always a very slight possibility.

So, with this knowledge, do you think you should have the right to say "well I don't want to wait 9 months, I want to be separate now" and demand that I be removed from your body, and thusly kill me?

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Am I your parent?

Solo Tetherball Champ said:

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Texaggie7nine said:

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Through when I was a believer and not I have always said that it should be protected once it is a viable life, seperate from its mother.

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The issue I have always had with this approach is that without intervention an infant is not viable separate from its mother. Though this probably depends on how you define "viable".

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the problem with taking this issue, is that a child from the stages of zygote all the way through toddler is not viable without intensive intervention from others, but we all agree killing a toddler is murder. (even if they did ask for a cookie 10,000 times in the span of 3 minutes and then melt down when you finally cave give it to them). so viable really has to mean can survive separate regardless of the number of interventions necessary.

I see how that would make it more similar in scenario, but I do not see how that changes any of the moral questions.

Texaggie7nine said:

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I see how that would make it more similar in scenario, but I do not see how that changes any of the moral questions.

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I made that comment only to highlight the fact that in abortion, we are talking about a parent killing their own child. All the "bodily autonomy" arguments in the world don't change that fact.

Considering the morality of taking an action that will end the life of another person may be interesting, but is an inadequate analogy for abortion.

But what you would basically be saying is "well you can kill a person as long as they aren't your child".

dargscisyhp said:

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I think it's perhaps a more nuanced question then you're giving it credit for. What rights does one person have on another to sustain their life? I think it's a legitimate question. For instance, does another person have a right to my money or labor to sustain their life? I would think most people would say no. If not, what rights does a person have to my body?

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I think most pro-abortion people would actually say yes, they do have a right to your money and labor to sustain life. That's what free lunch programs, SS, Medicare, and medicaid are. That's we work several months of the year to pay specifically for the care of others with no choice of our own, under threat of force (imprisonment, confiscation, etc.).

BlackGoldAg2011 said:

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Solo Tetherball Champ said:

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Texaggie7nine said:

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Through when I was a believer and not I have always said that it should be protected once it is a viable life, seperate from its mother.

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The issue I have always had with this approach is that without intervention an infant is not viable separate from its mother. Though this probably depends on how you define "viable".

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the problem with taking this issue, is that a child from the stages of zygote all the way through toddler is not viable without intensive intervention from others, but we all agree killing a toddler is murder. (even if they did ask for a cookie 10,000 times in the span of 3 minutes and then melt down when you finally cave give it to them). so viable really has to mean can survive separate regardless of the number of interventions necessary.

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I disagree with the premise that widespread agreement (killing a toddler is murder) invalidates logical consistency (all require intervention) or the underlying premise that all life deserves protection. We can easily add people with dementia and Alzheimer's to the list and see there is a movement for euthanasia or removal of care, especially in counties with socialized medicine. Likewise we've seen societies over time where murdering toddlers wasn't wrong, as long as they were Jewish or Christian or Muslim or whatever. If morality is simply the whim of the people there is no right or wrong, only what is popular. Hence the debate of whether a human is human because we call it a zygote or fetus (never mind that every living human crossed through all of these stages).

Texaggie7nine said:

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But what you would basically be saying is "well you can kill a person as long as they aren't your child".

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I don't think so.

I see it more as, you have greater responsibility to protect that life, since it is your own child.

On the larger issue of taking the life of another, I believe it is only moral to do so in self-defense; or in defense of another innocent person. But that is a different issue than abortion.

I'm not sure the autonomy question is settled by personhood completely. It's a bit tricky in the case of rape where you didn't take any risks or owe any responsibility. E.g. Thompson's violinist. I'd say the right thing to do is stay attached, but I don't know if I would demand it.