Essay talk:Abortion and Freedom of Choice

You know what? You're a shitty guy. You just don't give a fuck about how you're dictating the manner women live their lives. You claim to be addressing a rights-based view, but you don't even mention how pregnancies affect a right of self-determination. You've just crossed a line in my mind from "person with unpopular opinion trying to defend it" to "more concerned with hypothetical rights of hypothetical people than real rights of real people".

Have you never asked yourself what an unwanted pregnancy might entail for the pregnant woman beyond mere risk of death? ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 19:22, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

What a great way to start a rebuttal. Landmartian (talk) 19:23, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

No, sorry. There's a point where moral attitudes with immoral results need to be called out. It became clear reading this that he just didn't care about what pregnancy is actually like, at all. It reads far more as male disregard for female concerns than actually addressing the problem as it lies. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 19:26, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

But he's allowed to make these arguments. Didn't you see his profile? He says he's smarter than loads of people!(that are more successful than him)

As for argument's sake: first off, this is just a reword of the 15 other essays he's written on this topic, whether in actual essay space or on talk pages, or attempted page edits, and it's still just as boring as every other one. Secondly, it's trying to quantify subjective morality and situation decisions and equate them with objectivity. That doesn't actually work. And finally, I actually really like SuperDude's rebuttal here [1] Not sure if I can improve on that at the moment Trick (talk) 19:31, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

I am sure life will teach him a some good lessons. Community colleges are full of people who think they are all that and a bag of chips...but don't get why they aren't taken seriously when they haven't done anything but talk big. It's just a part of growing up. -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 23:09, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

I will not entitle your ad hominem attacks with any responses, unless one is demanded of me, since I find such an exercise counterproductive. However, I acknowledge the need to defend my position against relevant criticisms. Ikanreed, just because I happen to be male does not mean that my moral conviction is categorically invalid. To so presume you commit the genetic fallacy. You despise me for applying rights-based ethical theory, and rightly so, since you believe that fetuses are not people. But I will demonstrate (or at least advocate) that the argument from potentiality is valid. Whether potentiality is or is not valid is the root of the problem. I will send you my riposte later today. Sorry to upset you.--Animalian (talk) 15:51, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Copyright

A quick search for the phrase "A Response to the AHA upon the Matter of Freedom of Choice and Abortion" shows that this essay is copy/pasted from another source without attribution. Is it your own work? --SpecialFFrog (talk) 19:34, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Oh, that's bad. What time frame should be granted for explaining the copyvio before deletion? ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 19:37, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

At this point, I think it should up our suspicion that this fucker is a concern troll and should be smacked as such. And delete with all due haste. --Castaigne (talk) 19:43, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It is their own work - User:Animalian is traceble to that name given the information they've put on their user page. I didn't mention it at the time, because it was mostly irrelevant and RW is not tolerant of anything coming close to doxing anyway.--ZooGuard (talk) 19:47, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

I am Arthur C. Callow. It is my work. I argued with the AHA facebook page moderator extensively, just as I have here, with you. I also posted the cream of that otherwise miserable crop on prezi, where I make some of my work visible. And I am not a troll. I am a gifted, 19 year old college student. I do not know what any of you are, but you take too great a liberty in suppressing the dissenting voice. And if it at all assuages you, our debate has settled--I am no longer willing to fight so hard for so little content to appear on the abortion or pro-life page. The onslaught is over. Now please, let me be. Valid criticisms are welcome, but threatening to destroy all my work is fascistic revisionism--it is the logical conclusion of your deliberate ignorement of my arguments in the past. Now you want them gone so everyone else has no choice but to "ignore" them.--Animalian (talk) 15:39, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

GIGO essay based on a claim of rights were none actually exist

Section title added by me based on SW's edit summary.--ZooGuard (talk) 20:21, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

The essay is based on the dubious logic that foetus=child=full citizen's rights. This is the same abortion=murder shtick that the anti-abortion crowd has been claiming for decades and which is bunk for the same reasons as those involved when we don't charge women who experience spontaneous abortion with (involuntary) manslaughter: Foetuses aren't (full) persons, hence they don't possess the rights of persons and for good physiological, biological, psychological and ethical reasons (basically, foetuses lack several of the qualities that we consider necessary for personhood). It's somewhat analogous to why the killing of even higher (non-human) primates isn't murder, or, closer to the mark, why we allow family members to turn off the life support of their loved ones under certain circumstances. Sure, if, some day in the future, the anti-abortionists actually manage to change public opinion to a consensus which does agree that foetuses are fully fledged human beings, this essay would have a point. Since no such consensus actually exists (rather the exact opposite is the case: we most emphatically do not view foetuses as fully fledged human beings, let alone citizens) it's pure bunk to claim that this "essay is a rights-based account," because said rights don't fucking exist. Basically, this essay is a great example of GIGO. ScepticWombat (talk) 19:58, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Depending on where you are, women who have spontaneous abortions are often charged.-SpecialFFrog (talk) 20:34, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

The first article is about El Salvador, which is not what I had in mind (Euro-/Americentrism, I know, guilty as charged). As for the U.S. article, exchange "often" with "occasionally and to public outrage" and you have something more accurate. The fact that these charges generated a clear public backlash actually illustrates my point: There is no consensus that foetuses have or should have full human rights and when sanctions are demanded based on such "foetus rights" notions are presented, they tend to face rather stiff opposition in the public discourse. Though I do grant that such bunk can be "lawyered" into a successful conviction in the right (or wrong, depending on your point of view) U.S. courtroom by anti-abortionist activists. ScepticWombat (talk) 20:53, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

I'll concede "often" applies to El Salvador and not the US, though I'm not sure there is a clear public backlash to these (and similar charges) -- all the articles about these US-based events that I could find are either from outside the US or from less-than-major sources. Really, I think I generally agree with you but would note that there are active attempts going to actually make the "foetus=child=full citizen's rights" a legal reality -- complete with taxpayer-funded legal representation.[2]Which is wrong for all the reasons you indicate (and others). --SpecialFFrog (talk) 21:12, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

"the killing of even higher (non-human) primates isn't murder" It isn't? O_o 141.134.75.236 (talk) 20:58, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

No, but it's frequently considered more severe animal abuse. By way of example: research ethical standards for primate testing are much stricter than for rats. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 21:00, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Sure, legally, the killing of primates isn't considered murder, because our law is speciesist. But morally, is there any reason why the killing of intelligent non-human primates should be distinguished from the killing of human beings? 141.134.75.236 (talk) 21:08, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Well, if you start giving some non-humans the same moral rights as humans, where do you stop? Do marine mammals should also have the same rights? What about Cats and dogs? I don't think we can easilly draw a line once we crossed the "only humans" line. We'd end up with "meat is murder". Super ^{Dude,What does mine say? Sweet!} 21:15, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Well, it depends on what properties we require entities to have in order for their killings to be considered murder. Intelligence? Compassion? The ability to feel pain? The desire to live? And yes, certain marine mammals would be equally deserving of such rights. (If we limit ourselves to primates we'd only be slightly less speciesist than before.) 141.134.75.236 (talk) 21:25, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Unlike the kind of anti-abortionists who like to push a parochially simplistic "rights-based" approach as a better way to get abortion banned than the old "It makes God angry!"-line (which doesn't sell that many tickets any more), an actual rights-based approach taken in less partisan-politicised areas indicates that we can easily think in term of spectra (greater or lesser rights depending on greater or later affinity with the qualities judged as necessary for fully recognised personhood), rather than binaries (full person/non-person). The animal testing rules are examples, as is the Schiavo case, or, for that matter, age restrictions on the franchise, the institution of legal guardianship etc.

As for "speciesism" I've never understood why this isn't employed to decry our "murdering" of countless plants, or the "genocide" involved in taking a shower. Hey, you're killing life in all incidents - if the objection to placing the limit between humans and (other) animals is that it's arbitrary speciesism, why is placing it between some animals or between one type of living entity and another any less arbitrary or speciesist? ScepticWombat (talk) 21:18, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

The charge of speciesism is raised to point out that what species an entity is isn't morally relevant. It doesn't mean that killing a plant and a human are morally equivalent, it means we have to base our classification of 'this entity is morally relevant' on something different than what species it belongs to. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 21:36, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

(EC)The most central answer I've developed is: yes, there's a reason. Higher primates appear to be incapable of engaging moral systems as abstractions, making them incapable(or at least far less capable) of the enlightened self-interest that ethical person-hood demands. A chimp can't see you as a person deserving respect, like we're trying to ascribe to them. If that sounds too objectivist, that's because in order for ethics to work, it needs a certain amount of buy-in from participants to remain self-reinforcing. There's no reason we can't extend orangutan's rights. The distinction is that an Orangutan could be your friend, could trust you, could like you, and you could like it, but it could never understand your or its rights.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that moral frameworks can't exist in a vacuum, they need to be followed to do anything, and generally speaking, persons are the only ones capable of doing so. That's not to say humans are inherently unique and special: just that apes haven't ever apparently risen to the occasion. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 21:25, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

So morality only applies to moral actors? Killing amoral people wouldn't count morally as murder? That doesn't seem right. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 21:30, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Clearly not. We express the interests of amoral actors all the time. Just not the same as the moral actors. Secondary. Protected for the value to moral actors. Endangered species for the uniqueness, the dead for their families, property for its owners, chimps for their intelligence. It's a touch classless, but personhood is about protecting agency, and agency happens within a moral system(of ones own choosing). You can't tell a chimp to get a job, e.g. Or buy the land it depends on. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 21:36, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

"Protected for the value to moral actors." Then what I said still applies. According to you, morality only applies to moral actors. E.g. killing chimps isn't morally wrong; upsetting moral actors (or their sensibilities/perceptions of value) by killing chimps is wrong. I don't agree with this. I think the moral obligation of moral actors isn't only to other moral actors (and by extension the things those moral actors value), but to all entities that may experience harm. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 22:19, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

In addendum to that, I should remark that going by your logic, abortion is immoral because it upsets pro-lifers. :P (Unless you don't think they qualify as moral actors.) 141.134.75.236 (talk) 22:27, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Well, there is the death penalty, so killling people without it being considered murder is not unheard-of. Super ^{Dude,Where's my car?} 21:35, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

That's immoral actors. And I think the death penalty is wrong, personally. It kills to kill, not because it's actually necessary to protect the rights of others. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 21:36, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

That a killing is sanctioned by the state doesn't mean it can't be morally equivalent to murder. (Though it does often mean people won't look at it that way.) 141.134.75.236 (talk) 21:52, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

That's a very good point, but people can think it's not immoral to kill others when the state thinks it is wrong even when the basis of their morals says not to kill. Which is a good demonstration of morality being subjective, and not objective, as the essay writer states. -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 20:01, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

That's not an amazing revelation, though. Anyone who's not completely nuts has believe in a subjective morality. Millennia of legal and philosophical evolution have eventually developed a system of individual rights for legal actors(i.e. persons) as opposed to declaring what is inherently right and just. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 20:31, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Exactly what is considered morally relevant and to what extent will differ from person to person, but at the end of the day, the foundations for all conceptions of morality must hail from objective reality (though people will of course disagree on what that reality is). 141.134.75.236 (talk) 23:48, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Here's a <references/> tag for you

Because why not? :P 141.134.75.236 (talk) 20:44, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

I have advocated neither of those things.--Animalian (talk) 15:42, 7 March 2015 (UTC)