>You're making up your own definition of murder. Murder is a specific term in law. Until the US or a state defines abortion as murder, it isn't murder. It's an abortion. Since you're being pedantic about Catherine's comment.<
Yes, the law does not currently convey the moral reality that abortion is more or less synonymous with murder. I am arguing that the law is wrong and should be changed, and indeed many states are moving in that direction now that Roe v Wade is finally out of the way. This is quite similar to the way in which, before the Civil War, abolitionists argued that laws regarding the personhood of black people should be changed, and though it took much strife to get there, everyone eventually had to admit that they were right.
I know that all of this is super duper extremely complex and difficult to understand, so take the time to read it over a few or ten times if you need to.
>People can have their own moral opinion and still support a law that allows others, with different morals, to make different choices.<
Can we "support a law that allows other, with different morals, to make different choices" when it comes to who counts as a human being and thus which acts count (or do not count) as murder?
We can have different laws reflecting different opinions on many issues, but some things cannot be compromised on. It is fine for one state to have a lower tax rate and one state to have a higher tax rate. It is not fine for one state to define a certain class of people as not human beings and to legally endorse their murder.
>The question is when should a ferus have rights? I like the states deciding for themselves until a federal law is.passed.<
"The question is when should a negro have rights? I like the states deciding the issue of slavery for themselves until a federal law is passed."
No. Human beings have some basic rights that are not, or rather should not, be up for a majority vote. This includes the right to not be enslaved. It also includes the right to life, arguably the most basic right of all.
>Human beings have some basic rights that are not, or rather should not, be up for a majority vote.<
Isn't that how democracy should work? Otherwise, what is your authority for deciding? I think the founding fathers did a pretty good job, especially considering their location in time and space.
My personal opinion. I don't think it is evident that a 6 week human fetus, who is indistinguishable from a pig or rat fetus, should have the same rights as a viable human fetus and or an adult human being.
>Isn't that how democracy should work? Otherwise, what is your authority for deciding? I think the founding fathers did a pretty good job, especially considering their location in time and space.<
Are you implying that it would be okay for 51% of the population to vote to murder or enslave the other 49%? Or even 99% to vote to kill the 1%? On the basis that that would technically be democratic?
>My personal opinion. I don't think it is evident that a 6 week human fetus, who is indistinguishable from a pig or rat fetus<
A 6 week human fetus is easily distinguished from a pig or rat fetus. The first hint is that they are growing inside of a human female. I feel confident that a woman has never given birth to a rat or a pig. If there were a chance of that happening, this may be more of a relevant comparison.
>should have the same rights as a viable human fetus<
How do you distinguish "6 week fetus" from "viable fetus?"
>Are you implying that it would be okay for 51% of the population to vote to murder or enslave the other 49%? Or even 99% to vote to kill the 1%? On the basis that that would technically be democratic?<
Our country isn't set up that way. We have elected officials who are supposed to represent their people.
I'm suggesting that the people decide which law should be kept and changed by voting. And if another process was preferred, the people would have to elected officials to implement that process.
So if someone wants to make all abortions illegal, they need to get congress to pass that law. Otherwise, states decide and if people have a problem, they send it to the courts. I like the checks and balances. I also have a growing admiration for how difficult the constitution and government is to permanently change.
<How do you distinguish "6 week fetus" from "viable fetus?">
Literally a 6 week fetus cannot survive outside the mother. A viable fetus is developed enough to survive outside the mother. I would distinguish with medical technology.
We as a society have to decide. I mean these next questions rhetorically. How should we value a women's egg? Those eggs could easily become a viable human. Should we give those potential lives rights?
>So if someone wants to make all abortions illegal, they need to get congress to pass that law. Otherwise, states decide and if people have a problem, they send it to the courts. I like the checks and balances. I also have a growing admiration for how difficult the constitution and government is to permanently change.<
Yes, unfortunately, government policy and societal norms in general take time to shift, sometimes even generations. This does not mean that the truth behind said shifts somehow changed, only that people are slow to realize it, and often try to deny it when it clashes with their priors.
Again: Not everything can be decided by a vote. If we all get together tomorrow and hold a vote decreeing that pigs are now birds, the pigs are not going to suddenly sprout wings. Likewise, the fact that people currently allow premature humans to be killed in the womb does not change the reality of what they are doing. The humans that they are killing remain humans regardless of what laws they pass or who they elect. Physical reality does not change according to political convenience.
>So if someone wants to make all abortions illegal, they need to get congress to pass that law. Otherwise, states decide and if people have a problem, they send it to the courts. I like the checks and balances. I also have a growing admiration for how difficult the constitution and government is to permanently change.<
You actually don't need to get Congress to do anything--in theory, the Supreme Court could issue a ruling declaring that the right to life includes the unborn, much as it did in the opposite direction with Roe v Wade, and that would be that. Now, I don't think that is going to happen anytime soon, but I also think it's more likely than Congress ever doing anything, just as nationwide allowance of abortion had to be done through SCOTUS rather than Congress back in 1973. Roe v Wade is actually a perfect example of how our system does allow for such issues to be placed above the reach of voters, albeit very erroneously in that particular case.
>Literally a 6 week fetus cannot survive outside the mother. A viable fetus is developed enough to survive outside the mother. I would distinguish with medical technology.<
So you define a human being as a child that is theoretically able to survive outside of the womb (note that this is something that can only be estimated, although you can typically narrow it down to a particular period of weeks, in my understanding). If so, why does a child that is not yet able to survive outside of the womb, not count as a human being? Why are they not more accurately described as a human being that cannot yet survive outside of their mother's womb?
The point at which a child can survive outside of the womb has been moved backwards drastically by modern medical technology. I'm having trouble finding an exact number on short notice, but children today can potentially survive outside the womb at only 22 weeks, with the record being held by a child that survived being born at 21 weeks and 1 day.
Suffice to say, hundreds of years ago, the average age of viability in this sense would be much later in the pregnancy. Does this mean that the advent of modern medicine has somehow managed to shift the definition of human being backwards in time during the specie's developmental process? Was an unborn child of 25 weeks not a human being yet in the year 1600, yet somehow is a human being today? Is a 25 week unborn child in a remote Amazon tribe today not a human being because they lack access to a modern hospital? How does that make sense from a biological perspective?
Additionally--why would this definition of human life choose the womb as the defining point of life, given that infants still require care from others in order to survive? If the definition of human life rests upon being able to survive without care from others, this would seem to include infants and small children, possibly even pre-teens depending on the environment. Why do we make the womb the deciding barrier to life when infants cannot survive outside of it on their own either?
>We as a society have to decide. I mean these next questions rhetorically. How should we value a women's egg? Those eggs could easily become a viable human. Should we give those potential lives rights?<
You answered your own question with "could easily become," implying that they are not human, only that they are something which might become a human (and the odds actually aren't great--at puberty, women have about 300,000 eggs, although that's nothing compared to the numbers of sperm men are working with). Whereas an unborn child is not a "potential human," they simply are a human.
Even if one were to give sperm and eggs "rights," I don't think this would actually change very much about our lives. It's not like people are out trying to intentionally destroy them in their un-fertilized states, they generally only care once the fertilization happens. If left to their own devices and not combined into a new human being, the natural course of these cells' "lives" is to simply exist for a while and then expire naturally, doing nothing that is even detectable to us without microscopes. Even if we were to grant these microscopic entities "rights," what exactly would they do with their "rights" that would affect us?
This is a common point that I've seen abortion advocates raise, and part of me thinks..... go for it, I guess? We both know you aren't serious, but if you were, honestly that would be a pretty small price to pay in exchange for tens to hundreds of millions of unborn children no longer being murdered unnecessarily.
>You're making up your own definition of murder. Murder is a specific term in law. Until the US or a state defines abortion as murder, it isn't murder. It's an abortion. Since you're being pedantic about Catherine's comment.<
Yes, the law does not currently convey the moral reality that abortion is more or less synonymous with murder. I am arguing that the law is wrong and should be changed, and indeed many states are moving in that direction now that Roe v Wade is finally out of the way. This is quite similar to the way in which, before the Civil War, abolitionists argued that laws regarding the personhood of black people should be changed, and though it took much strife to get there, everyone eventually had to admit that they were right.
I know that all of this is super duper extremely complex and difficult to understand, so take the time to read it over a few or ten times if you need to.
>People can have their own moral opinion and still support a law that allows others, with different morals, to make different choices.<
Can we "support a law that allows other, with different morals, to make different choices" when it comes to who counts as a human being and thus which acts count (or do not count) as murder?
We can have different laws reflecting different opinions on many issues, but some things cannot be compromised on. It is fine for one state to have a lower tax rate and one state to have a higher tax rate. It is not fine for one state to define a certain class of people as not human beings and to legally endorse their murder.
>The question is when should a ferus have rights? I like the states deciding for themselves until a federal law is.passed.<
"The question is when should a negro have rights? I like the states deciding the issue of slavery for themselves until a federal law is passed."
No. Human beings have some basic rights that are not, or rather should not, be up for a majority vote. This includes the right to not be enslaved. It also includes the right to life, arguably the most basic right of all.
>Human beings have some basic rights that are not, or rather should not, be up for a majority vote.<
Isn't that how democracy should work? Otherwise, what is your authority for deciding? I think the founding fathers did a pretty good job, especially considering their location in time and space.
My personal opinion. I don't think it is evident that a 6 week human fetus, who is indistinguishable from a pig or rat fetus, should have the same rights as a viable human fetus and or an adult human being.
>Isn't that how democracy should work? Otherwise, what is your authority for deciding? I think the founding fathers did a pretty good job, especially considering their location in time and space.<
Are you implying that it would be okay for 51% of the population to vote to murder or enslave the other 49%? Or even 99% to vote to kill the 1%? On the basis that that would technically be democratic?
>My personal opinion. I don't think it is evident that a 6 week human fetus, who is indistinguishable from a pig or rat fetus<
A 6 week human fetus is easily distinguished from a pig or rat fetus. The first hint is that they are growing inside of a human female. I feel confident that a woman has never given birth to a rat or a pig. If there were a chance of that happening, this may be more of a relevant comparison.
>should have the same rights as a viable human fetus<
How do you distinguish "6 week fetus" from "viable fetus?"
>Are you implying that it would be okay for 51% of the population to vote to murder or enslave the other 49%? Or even 99% to vote to kill the 1%? On the basis that that would technically be democratic?<
Our country isn't set up that way. We have elected officials who are supposed to represent their people.
I'm suggesting that the people decide which law should be kept and changed by voting. And if another process was preferred, the people would have to elected officials to implement that process.
So if someone wants to make all abortions illegal, they need to get congress to pass that law. Otherwise, states decide and if people have a problem, they send it to the courts. I like the checks and balances. I also have a growing admiration for how difficult the constitution and government is to permanently change.
<How do you distinguish "6 week fetus" from "viable fetus?">
Literally a 6 week fetus cannot survive outside the mother. A viable fetus is developed enough to survive outside the mother. I would distinguish with medical technology.
We as a society have to decide. I mean these next questions rhetorically. How should we value a women's egg? Those eggs could easily become a viable human. Should we give those potential lives rights?
>So if someone wants to make all abortions illegal, they need to get congress to pass that law. Otherwise, states decide and if people have a problem, they send it to the courts. I like the checks and balances. I also have a growing admiration for how difficult the constitution and government is to permanently change.<
Yes, unfortunately, government policy and societal norms in general take time to shift, sometimes even generations. This does not mean that the truth behind said shifts somehow changed, only that people are slow to realize it, and often try to deny it when it clashes with their priors.
Again: Not everything can be decided by a vote. If we all get together tomorrow and hold a vote decreeing that pigs are now birds, the pigs are not going to suddenly sprout wings. Likewise, the fact that people currently allow premature humans to be killed in the womb does not change the reality of what they are doing. The humans that they are killing remain humans regardless of what laws they pass or who they elect. Physical reality does not change according to political convenience.
>So if someone wants to make all abortions illegal, they need to get congress to pass that law. Otherwise, states decide and if people have a problem, they send it to the courts. I like the checks and balances. I also have a growing admiration for how difficult the constitution and government is to permanently change.<
You actually don't need to get Congress to do anything--in theory, the Supreme Court could issue a ruling declaring that the right to life includes the unborn, much as it did in the opposite direction with Roe v Wade, and that would be that. Now, I don't think that is going to happen anytime soon, but I also think it's more likely than Congress ever doing anything, just as nationwide allowance of abortion had to be done through SCOTUS rather than Congress back in 1973. Roe v Wade is actually a perfect example of how our system does allow for such issues to be placed above the reach of voters, albeit very erroneously in that particular case.
>Literally a 6 week fetus cannot survive outside the mother. A viable fetus is developed enough to survive outside the mother. I would distinguish with medical technology.<
So you define a human being as a child that is theoretically able to survive outside of the womb (note that this is something that can only be estimated, although you can typically narrow it down to a particular period of weeks, in my understanding). If so, why does a child that is not yet able to survive outside of the womb, not count as a human being? Why are they not more accurately described as a human being that cannot yet survive outside of their mother's womb?
The point at which a child can survive outside of the womb has been moved backwards drastically by modern medical technology. I'm having trouble finding an exact number on short notice, but children today can potentially survive outside the womb at only 22 weeks, with the record being held by a child that survived being born at 21 weeks and 1 day.
Suffice to say, hundreds of years ago, the average age of viability in this sense would be much later in the pregnancy. Does this mean that the advent of modern medicine has somehow managed to shift the definition of human being backwards in time during the specie's developmental process? Was an unborn child of 25 weeks not a human being yet in the year 1600, yet somehow is a human being today? Is a 25 week unborn child in a remote Amazon tribe today not a human being because they lack access to a modern hospital? How does that make sense from a biological perspective?
Additionally--why would this definition of human life choose the womb as the defining point of life, given that infants still require care from others in order to survive? If the definition of human life rests upon being able to survive without care from others, this would seem to include infants and small children, possibly even pre-teens depending on the environment. Why do we make the womb the deciding barrier to life when infants cannot survive outside of it on their own either?
>We as a society have to decide. I mean these next questions rhetorically. How should we value a women's egg? Those eggs could easily become a viable human. Should we give those potential lives rights?<
You answered your own question with "could easily become," implying that they are not human, only that they are something which might become a human (and the odds actually aren't great--at puberty, women have about 300,000 eggs, although that's nothing compared to the numbers of sperm men are working with). Whereas an unborn child is not a "potential human," they simply are a human.
Even if one were to give sperm and eggs "rights," I don't think this would actually change very much about our lives. It's not like people are out trying to intentionally destroy them in their un-fertilized states, they generally only care once the fertilization happens. If left to their own devices and not combined into a new human being, the natural course of these cells' "lives" is to simply exist for a while and then expire naturally, doing nothing that is even detectable to us without microscopes. Even if we were to grant these microscopic entities "rights," what exactly would they do with their "rights" that would affect us?
This is a common point that I've seen abortion advocates raise, and part of me thinks..... go for it, I guess? We both know you aren't serious, but if you were, honestly that would be a pretty small price to pay in exchange for tens to hundreds of millions of unborn children no longer being murdered unnecessarily.
Thanks for the thoughtful response.
<So you define a human being as a child that is theoretically able to survive outside of the womb>
That wasn't the question I was responding to. This was: <How do you distinguish "6 week fetus" from "viable fetus?">
How I, or you, define a human being barely matters. Society has to decide.
I commented on your post too. I'm going to further respond to your points here later in a more thoughtful process.