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Viability and Abortion

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  • #16
    Originally posted by Yttrium View Post
    It occurs to me that if we ever could get man-made wombs available from fertilization, then we'd want to have all conception done in test tubes, just to prevent any miscarriages. We'd prevent all women from getting pregnant. That would prevent unwanted pregnancies from happening. Hmm.
    For that to work you'd also have to "fix" all men and women. You might want to rethink this one.

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    • #17
      Originally posted by seer View Post
      Why do you hate unborn babies Sam? Have you tried to get help for this mental disorder?
      Er, think Sam is just critiquing the argument...
      "It's evolution; every time you invent something fool-proof, the world invents a better fool."
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      • #18
        Originally posted by Yttrium View Post
        I'm fine with outlawing abortion after brain activity starts. That's a third trimester thing, if I'm not mistaken. Of course, the trick would be to determine brain activity.
        I am fine for outlawing abortion as a simple case of murder. The only reason it is not murder is that the legal system is wildly screwed up.
        Micah 6:8 He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

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        • #19
          Originally posted by Joel View Post
          I have come up with a new argument regarding viability.

          One dividing line for the acceptability of abortion, commonly used by pro-choicers (and the main one used in Roe v Wade), is that of viability. That is, the time after which the baby is capable of surviving (assisted) outside the mother's womb.

          In previous debates I have argued that viability is not a reasonable dividing line.
          But I have recently thought of a different/additional approach to take: to argue that taking viability as the dividing line actually implies that the dividing point in time is at fertilization, when taken to the logical conclusion.

          First, a reminder that the necessity of assistance does not negate viability. After all 5-year-olds require assistance to survive. And viable premature births may require advanced technology (and many such babies go on to live normal lives).

          Now, as technology improves, the line of viability moves earlier. Earlier premature births are able to be saved. So my previous argument was that the right to life has to do with what kind of being the baby is, and is not determined by external technology. And thus viability is irrelevant.

          But instead let's take it a step further. I think it is highly likely that technology will continue to improve and one day will reach the point where the point of viability is pushed right back to fertilization. Human wombs exist. There is no reason to suppose that man-made wombs are impossible. And just because we don't know now how to do it, does not contradict its being possible. And if it is possible, then it is possible for a human being to survive outside the mother's womb from fertilization.

          Therefore human beings are viable from fertilization.

          Put it another way: if viability is to be used for determining the right to to life, then we have to interpret viability as an attribute of the kind of being the baby is (and not as any external accident). If human beings are the kind of being that can ever possibly survive outside the mother's womb from fertilization (via any conceivable technology), then they are viable from fertilization.

          Thoughts?
          It's a bad argument because it is a strawman. Viability refers in context to 'viability OUTSIDE the womb'. The reason you don't hear viability as a point much anymore is that the measure keeps changing as younger and younger babies survive outside the womb. But as to the legal argument proper, viability only refers to ex utero viability which makes the rest of your argumentation moot.

          The better arguments against viability are subjectivity (no objective reason why it should matter) and irrelevance (humans aren't viable 500 ft underwater - but it's still murder if you deliberately and with malice aforethought take away the person's oxygen supply).
          "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

          "Forgiveness is the way of love." Gary Chapman

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          • #20
            Originally posted by Sam View Post
            ... and that's how we ended up living the plot of "Judge Dredd".
            You're just being a spoilsport because you don't wanna get fixed.

















































































            Sorry, couldn't resist.
            "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

            "Forgiveness is the way of love." Gary Chapman

            My Personal Blog

            My Novella blog (Current Novella Begins on 7/25/14)

            Quill Sword

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            • #21
              I think pro-choice people cannot totally eliminate the possibility that abortion is murder. Thus I would as a precaution take the pro-life stance.

              I think Joel's proposal will not sway many pro-choice people.
              The greater number of laws . . . , the more thieves . . . there will be. ---- Lao-Tzu

              [T]he truth I’m after and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance -— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

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              • #22
                Originally posted by Teallaura View Post
                You're just being a spoilsport because you don't wanna get fixed.


                And I'd hate to think of Taco Bell as "fine dining."


                But, yeah .... mostly the 'getting fixed' part.
                "I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"

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                • #23
                  Originally posted by Irate Canadian View Post
                  Er, think Sam is just critiquing the argument...
                  No, Sam thinks it should be legal to kill little innocent babies in the womb. I mean really - how morally depraved can one get?
                  Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

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                  • #24
                    Originally posted by seer View Post
                    No, Sam thinks it should be legal to kill little innocent babies in the womb. I mean really - how morally depraved can one get?
                    I'd be interested to see whether you could, even after numerous threads on the topic, explain my position and the rationale for that position with any sort of accuracy. Pretty sure that's a prerequisite to passing any legitimate judgment.
                    "I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"

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                    • #25
                      I realize there are lots of other pro-choice arguments out there besides viability. But it is one that I often see. I'd like this thread to restrict its discussion to viability.

                      Originally posted by Sam View Post
                      It seems like an invalid argument:

                      P1) The "dividing line" of when an abortion is acceptable or unacceptable is viability.
                      P2) Viability is currently X weeks (~22-23).
                      P3) Future technology may bring the point of viability sooner, possibly 0-1 week.
                      C1) Therefore, viability is currently 0-1 week.

                      Because there is a potential for viability to be earlier in the future than it is now does not give us license to say that viability is currently that earlier period.
                      I will attempt to clear up this equivocation that I have caused:

                      One could speak of viability in an absolute sense (viability per se), or on the other hand one could speak of viability-given-one-is-restricted-to-the-technology-available-today. It seems obvious that the latter cannot be the dividing line of whether the human fetus has the right to life. My arguments prior to this thread (that I mentioned) were directed at that.

                      So I guess my new argument is that if we instead try to interpret the viability argument as charitably as possible, we would need to consider viability in the absolute sense. In the absolute sense viability is at fertilization. And that is true all times, including today.

                      I just looked up Roe v Wade and see that that in that decision "viable" is defined as "potentially able to live outside the mother's womb, albeit with artificial aid." That seems to suggest the absolute sense.

                      Apart from the logical aspect, I think you have to deal with the idea that artificial wombs create viability. I don't see how they necessarily do so — viability is the point at which the neonate can live outside of a mother's womb. While it's possible that the law might come down on the side of such technology making a fetus "viable" from fertilization, I think that's extremely unlikely. More likely that the law would simply recognize an artificial womb as the same kind of environment as a maternal womb and maintain the current paradigm.
                      Hm. "Artificial womb" was just a shorthand for "technology that enables the neonate to live outside the mother's womb." Right now preemies are placed into enclosed incubators, in order to create a safe and suitable environment, and hooked up with tubes to supply things like oxygen, water, and nourishment. It would be arbitrary to draw a line at some point and everything beyond that a "womb" and everything before that "not a womb".
                      Sure, in that case we'd fall back to the standard arguments that that line is arbitrary and irrelevant.

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                      • #26
                        Originally posted by Joel View Post
                        I realize there are lots of other pro-choice arguments out there besides viability. But it is one that I often see. I'd like this thread to restrict its discussion to viability.


                        I will attempt to clear up this equivocation that I have caused:

                        One could speak of viability in an absolute sense (viability per se), or on the other hand one could speak of viability-given-one-is-restricted-to-the-technology-available-today. It seems obvious that the latter cannot be the dividing line of whether the human fetus has the right to life. My arguments prior to this thread (that I mentioned) were directed at that.

                        So I guess my new argument is that if we instead try to interpret the viability argument as charitably as possible, we would need to consider viability in the absolute sense. In the absolute sense viability is at fertilization. And that is true all times, including today.

                        I just looked up Roe v Wade and see that that in that decision "viable" is defined as "potentially able to live outside the mother's womb, albeit with artificial aid." That seems to suggest the absolute sense.


                        Hm. "Artificial womb" was just a shorthand for "technology that enables the neonate to live outside the mother's womb." Right now preemies are placed into enclosed incubators, in order to create a safe and suitable environment, and hooked up with tubes to supply things like oxygen, water, and nourishment. It would be arbitrary to draw a line at some point and everything beyond that a "womb" and everything before that "not a womb".
                        Sure, in that case we'd fall back to the standard arguments that that line is arbitrary and irrelevant.

                        I would argue that there's a considerable difference between an incubator (and assorted medical equipment) and a womb — they are just radically different environments. A 24 week-old neonate in the NICU, for example, has functioning lungs (though they are still too underdeveloped to be self-sufficient) and responds to circadian light rhythms. Skin-to-skin contact is just as necessary for a 24 week-old as it is for a 40 week-old's development. At that point, you're not dealing with anything like the womb environment. And I'm aware of no medical or legal context that would allow for current technology to be considered comparable to the maternal womb. That might change in the future but it's not here yet.

                        So "in the absolute sense," newly-fertilized embryos are not viable. We don't have anything like the technology necessary to artificially sustain life from blastocyst to neonate. So arguing that a fertilized egg, under the current legal or philosophical paradigm of viability is, in fact, viable rests on a false premise.

                        "Viability" is a changing target, as Teal says (though we're probably not likely to get very much below 22-23 weeks in the near-to-mid future) but it does exist as a concrete concept. I doubt that a legal framework will be adopted that conflates a maternal and artificial womb, even if such technology does arise.
                        "I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"

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                        • #27
                          Originally posted by Sam View Post
                          So "in the absolute sense," newly-fertilized embryos are not viable. We don't have anything like the technology necessary to artificially sustain life from blastocyst to neonate.
                          That's the restricted-to-today's-technology sense, not the "absolute" sense.

                          I doubt that a legal framework will be adopted that conflates a maternal and artificial womb, even if such technology does arise.
                          In your previous post you thought it likely that the law would conflate them. Are you flipping on that now?

                          (I don't know if it matters. I have come to expect the law to adopt the position opposite of that which is just and decent, on pretty much every issue. So it's not clear whether the likelihood of the set of laws I advocate being adopted affects my position or arguments.)

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                          • #28
                            Originally posted by Joel View Post
                            That's the restricted-to-today's-technology sense, not the "absolute" sense.
                            I don't think that we can conflate the terms "absolute" and "potential". For one, such a technology may never exist, making it unreal and not absolute. Secondly, if we're using "absolute" in the sense of "total," "ultimate" or "undiminished" sense, we're still very much talking about what the reality is in the present. Something that might be true in the future is not "absolutely" true in the present.


                            Originally posted by Joel View Post
                            In your previous post you thought it likely that the law would conflate them. Are you flipping on that now?

                            (I don't know if it matters. I have come to expect the law to adopt the position opposite of that which is just and decent, on pretty much every issue. So it's not clear whether the likelihood of the set of laws I advocate being adopted affects my position or arguments.)
                            No, I wrote that it's likely an artificial womb would be considered the same kind of environment as a maternal womb, not that a legal framework would conflate "artificial" and "maternal" in such a way that one could maintain that an embryo is viable because it exists in an artificial, rather than maternal, womb. I was focusing on the environmental difference between a viable and non-viable fetus and you're reading it as focusing on the difference between artificial and natural qualifiers.
                            "I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"

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                            • #29
                              Originally posted by Sam View Post
                              I don't think that we can conflate the terms "absolute" and "potential". For one, such a technology may never exist, making it unreal and not absolute. Secondly, if we're using "absolute" in the sense of "total," "ultimate" or "undiminished" sense, we're still very much talking about what the reality is in the present. Something that might be true in the future is not "absolutely" true in the present.
                              So, what I'm saying is that it is true today (because it is true for all times) that humans from fertilization are possibly able to live outside the mother's womb, albeit with artificial aid. The fact that we don't know today how to do it doesn't change the fact that today, such a human is a kind of being that is possibly able to live outside the mother's womb, albeit with artificial aid.

                              No, I wrote that it's likely an artificial womb would be considered the same kind of environment as a maternal womb, not that a legal framework would conflate "artificial" and "maternal" in such a way that one could maintain that an embryo is viable because it exists in an artificial, rather than maternal, womb. I was focusing on the environmental difference between a viable and non-viable fetus and you're reading it as focusing on the difference between artificial and natural qualifiers.
                              I'm still not following. But unless you think it's important, I'll drop it.

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                              • #30
                                Originally posted by Joel View Post
                                So, what I'm saying is that it is true today (because it is true for all times) that humans from fertilization are possibly able to live outside the mother's womb, albeit with artificial aid. The fact that we don't know today how to do it doesn't change the fact that today, such a human is a kind of being that is possibly able to live outside the mother's womb, albeit with artificial aid.


                                I'm still not following. But unless you think it's important, I'll drop it.
                                But it's not true for all times. It's not even necessarily true for any time. It's certainly conceivable but it's not actual.

                                The argument about viability isn't an argument about absolute kinds or forms. It's an argument regarding feasibility. Legal personhood is given to individuals that can attain some degree of self-sufficiency. Obviously, such a determination is fluid and non-absolute but the idea is that neonates that cannot survive outside of the womb (for the purposes here, natural or artificial) are not considered developed enough to be such persons.

                                No one, I think, is particularly satisfied with this somewhat ad-hoc framework and I believe that fetal consciousness will eventually replace it as the delineation between a non-person fetus and a person-fetus. But it's a question of feasibility and finding a rational marker, not a question of kinds or forms. People who are still arguing on the basis of viability are not going to be persuaded by an argument about potentials, any road.
                                "I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"

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