this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2024
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Its "quite literally" fundamentally philosophically ambiguous whether an unborn fetus is a life.
At some point there is just a mother, and at a later point there is a mother and a child, and what at what point you have two lives instead of one is highly contentious for good reason.
Its intrinsically an issue of how you define "life". The reality is, there is no one point at which it turns into two lives, it's a continuous gradient as an existing life forms more life from itself, and there's no easy way to reconcile our concepts of morality with that fact.
I'm an American so how y'all govern yourselves is none of my business, but in the US, I'm very much an advocate of the idea that the government shouldn't be making fundamentally morally ambiguous choices on the behalf of it's citizens, especially given there are potentially dangerous or negative humanitarian outcomes to preventing abortions.
Victims of rape having to go through childbirth with the child of their abuser is horrifically traumatic. You can debate back and forth if it is more humane to abort, or eventually give birth to a child you cannot take care of, or are not capable of providing love to. No idea what the foster care system (or equivalent) is like in Australia but here in the US it subjects children to genuine horrors pretty consistently.
A blanket choice denies people the ability to make the choice they feel is most morally correct given their circumstances. Someone would not be wrong to argue that in a given set of circumstances they feel aborting is far more moral choice. Someone also would not be wrong to argue they think it's always immoral to abort a fetus. Allowing people to make a choice allows for people to behave in the way they feel is most moral.
Fwiw the person you're talking to isn't Aussie either. They're Canadian.
Anyway, my answer is that is fundamentally does not matter whether the foetus is alive or not. Even if we stipulate to the claims that they are alive, no person is obligated to use their own body to sustain another person.
Oath
I know I'm replying to this late, but just wanted to say that's not a perspective I had considered, thanks for sharing it. I don't know that I look at it the same way you do, but I appreciate the opportunity to see the issue through another perspective
Hope you have a good one :)
Hey thanks, I appreciate it. It’s not an idea of my own creation though. It comes from the "famous violinist" thought experiment.
Interesting, I've never heard of it, I'll have to go look it up :)
That was genuinely fascinating, the Wikipedia page for her essay was very helpful. They're obviously metaphors and aren't 1:1 comparable but that gave me some things to think about, and I appreciate you sharing it with me :)
If nothing else I really enjoyed how surreal and even kinda science fiction the examples were
Just because YOU think it's ambiguous doesn't mean other people have to agree with you.
You can't debate your way out of this no matter how hard you want too.
If you're firmly set upon your opinion, as is your right as an autonomous individual, then you're just going to have to get used to the fact that other people won't ever agree with you. You have no right to demand an agreement.
Two problems with this comment.
First:
That's totally fine. If you want to leave it there, I'm not going to stop you. But that means you have to agree that others can make up their own mind. If you want to "agree to disagree", that goes both ways. It means being pro choice because it's about the individual's choice even if you don't agree with it.
And second, you conveniently never bothered responding to my comment above. Possibly because, in fact, you "can't debate your way out of this no matter how hard you want too". Whether or not we agree a foetus is alive is irrelevant. Because you are attempting to argue that if it is alive, it is also possible for one person to be entitled to leach off of someone else's body without them having a say in the matter. That's unconscionable, no matter which way you slice it.
I don't know if the use of the word 'leach' is good here. I don't agree with the troll. But it is an emotional subject, and thats a pretty emotive word to use.
If the foetus is unwanted, it's the definition of a leach. It sucks resources away in order to sustain itself. Both a foetus and the famous violinist are quite literally leaching off the life of their subject.
You don't seem to get it. You don't "agree to disagree" on murder.
If you want to wield the powers of government to silence people who are outraged over the murder of babies, then you're going to have to live with the fact there are people out there who see you that way.
No, you don't get it. You can't tell people they have to respect your opinion and then turn around and say 'you don't "agree to disagree" ' with them.
Also, you don't seem to know what's actually going on here, do you? Without re-reading the article, what exactly do you think happened here?
And again, answer the question. Why do you think the government should force a person to allow someone else to leech off of their body? If I get a rare blood disease, and you are the only person with compatible blood, should I be allowed to tie you to me by a cord for 9 months while your blood runs into me? If you're not going to engage with the criticism, just shut up. Stop talking. Because the longer this goes on, the more it becomes clear you're not interested in engaging.
You don't have to respect my opinion. I never claimed you did. You do, however, have to live in a world in which it does exist. And if you want to wield the powers of government to silence others who share it, then you have to live in a world in which you have wielded the powers of government to silence people who speak out against the murder of babies.
Do whatever you feel is right, but don't go around pretending you haven't done it.
Ok, you're clearly a troll. You've had more than enough chances to engage in good faith. Blocking now.
Tbh I thought it was pretty obvious they were trolling after about their 2nd comment
You’re just going to have to get used to the fact that other people won’t ever agree with you. You have no right to demand an agreement.
Now you're getting it!
Bub, that cuts both ways. Why you feel the need to pretend otherwise and scream for approval is beyond me.
I don't know why you think I'm seeking approval. I'm pointing out that the bit about this move seeking unity is bullshit. It's fully abandoning the pursuit of unity, with dictatorial overtones as a replacement. You don't achieve unity by wielding the powers of government to silence your critics.
If it’s not “ambiguous” every sperm cell spent that doesn’t fertilise an egg is murder. As is every unfertilised egg. Otherwise at some point a fertilised egg goes from being a sperm and an egg into a transition to life. I have no problem disagreeing but I’m happy people without basic science education aren’t dictating to women what they do with their bodies. No debate needed.