Argument for abortion

[Gertrude]

Is this something that you personally believe in and are trying to formulate an argument to persuade people? Or is this purely a rhetorical exercise?

[Sci-2]

My argument says nothing about where life begins: all it says is that it prevents a human being from being born. And if it's wrong to prevent a human being from being born, then so is the rhythm method, and so on

Except from the pro-life position the issue is not with potential human beings not being born, it's with the murder of an actual human being.

So I'm not sure how you've sidestepped the question of life beginning at conception.

[Olwen]

Except from the pro-life position the issue is not with potential human beings not being born, it's with the murder of an actual human being.

So I'm not sure how you've sidestepped the question of life beginning at conception.

Isn't not being born the same thing as murder, in that both result in death? How can a living being live if it's not born?

Is this something that you personally believe in and are trying to formulate an argument to persuade people?

Yep.

[Gertrude]

Sci is right, you'd have to actually equate potential life with actual life and that's ... problematical. If potential life is the same as actual life and should be preserved, then humans are not important except for the life they can potentially give. All humans from puberty on should focus solely on reproduction. Not just sleeping around, but honestly devoting their lives to reproduction. No time for study, so no doctors that could make childbearing safer for women. If you are going to go down this road, take it all the way.

[Castel]

Isn't not being born the same thing as murder, in that both result in death? How can a living being live if it's not born?

Except you need to be alive to die.

[Olwen]

Sci is right, you'd have to actually equate potential life with actual life and that's ... problematical. If potential life is the same as actual life and should be preserved, then humans are not important except for the life they can potentially give. All humans from puberty on should focus solely on reproduction. Not just sleeping around, but honestly devoting their lives to reproduction. No time for study, so no doctors that could make childbearing safer for women. If you are going to go down this road, take it all the way.

Yep, that's a potential contradiction that arises from my argument. Another contradiction that arises from my argument is raping women. If it's true that men should have unprotected sex with women as much as possible, what happens when you don't have a girlfriend or can't hook up with anyone?

I don't think my argument raises the issue of actual life vs. potential life. All it claims is:

1. A fetus can lead to a person being born alive.

2. Unprotected sex can lead to a person being born alive.

3. It is wrong to prevent people from being born alive.

1 and 2 are definitely true, there's just no issue with them. It's just obvious that both can lead to a person being born alive.

I think the issue is with point 3. Is it wrong to prevent people from being born? Would the pro-life community agree with that? Perhaps it's a meaningless argument for the pro-life community, because what matters is life (actual life starts from the zygote) and not birth. The crime of not letting a child be born is not as great as the crime of actually killing someone with abortion--no one dies if there's unprotected sex.

Would the pro-life community agree that not allowing someone to be born is a great crime?

[Stalker]

Hi everyone. I've been thinking of this really weird argument in favor of abortion for years now, and I haven't really had the chance to talk to anyone about it. I was wondering what you guys think.

[...]

I think you guys can see the issues that come if the conclusion is true here. Overpopulation is one of them.

This is nothing new. The absurd consequences of the potentiality argument are well known,

It's rather pointless however, as studies have shown that very few people actually care about those arguments, they tend to just be excuses. The correlation between Social Conservatism and antiabortionism is very high, so if you are actually interested in changing things, it is fundamental values that you need to address.

[Horza]

Yep, no one seriously reasoning from such principles survived the

presented in Chapman, Idle, et al. (1983).

[Gertrude]

Would the pro-life community agree that not allowing someone to be born is a great crime?

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say hell no. If they did, pro-life families would have significantly higher numbers of children, right? Like seriously high numbers. How many children do you think a man and woman can have over the span of their child-bearing years? Do you see many families that look like that? I'd say there is your evidence against it.

[Olwen]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say hell no. If they did, pro-life families would have significantly higher numbers of children, right? Like seriously high numbers. How many children do you think a man and woman can have over the span of their child-bearing years? Do you see many families that look like that? I'd say there is your evidence against it.

Berghammer found that people following the ‘traditional’ lifestyle were more to have 3+ children than those following the ‘modern’ lifestyle.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/11/religious-people-have-more-children-because-theyre-more-traditional/#.Udf6T21aeSo

[Gertrude]

3+ is significantly higher? Um, no.

Look, I guess I don't know what you're looking for here. You obviously have a belief that men and women should have unprotected sex because whatever. I don't know what your limit is, and I assume you have one. Is it just that when whenever you would naturally have sex, pregnancy should always be a welcome consequence, or is it that potential life is so important that people should be trying to procreate as much as possible because - yay babies. Anything less than full on commitment is not a deeply held belief, it's just a preference or a convenience.

[sologdin]

i think you can carry the argument a step further, O, by imposing an affirmative duty on women to conceive, as the menses is the equivalent of a terminated pregnancy. why should conception become magic way station, before which point there is no crime?

another way to take it is to note that the human ejaculate contains hundreds of millions of sperms, nearly all of whom will die even upon successful conception. as the number of murders will always overwhelmingly outweigh the life conceived, people have an affirmative obligation to avoid genocidal ejaculates.

[Darth Visenya]

I'm trying to say that if it's wrong to abort fetuses, then it's wrong not to sleep with as many women as possible.

If it's wrong not to sleep with as many women as possible, can you imagine the consequences? A logical issue that arises if the argument is true is overpopulation. If it's okay to have unprotected sex with women as much as possible, then the consequences that would arise from overpopulation would be stunning.

Things like this post make me so relieved I don't sleep with men :P.

[Olwen]

3+ is significantly higher? Um, no.

Look, I guess I don't know what you're looking for here. You obviously have a belief that men and women should have unprotected sex because whatever. I don't know what your limit is, and I assume you have one. Is it just that when whenever you would naturally have sex, pregnancy should always be a welcome consequence, or is it that potential life is so important that people should be trying to procreate as much as possible because - yay babies. Anything less than full on commitment is not a deeply held belief, it's just a preference or a convenience.

What? No, I don't. I'm against it.

i think you can carry the argument a step further, O, by imposing an affirmative duty on women to conceive, as the menses is the equivalent of a terminated pregnancy. why should conception become magic way station, before which point there is no crime?

another way to take it is to note that the human ejaculate contains hundreds of millions of sperms, nearly all of whom will die even upon successful conception. as the number of murders will always overwhelmingly outweigh the life conceived, people have an affirmative obligation to avoid genocidal ejaculates.

I think I can agree with that.

[Gertrude]

Yeah, I'm confused.

Conclusion: Men should have unprotected sex with women as much as possible.

Is this something that you personally believe in and are trying to formulate an argument to persuade people?

Yep.

Anyhow, I'm not sure that you've gotten responses from any actual pro-life people here (I could be wrong, but it doesn't sound like it). I'm just trying to guess how the pro-life crowd would argue this. But potential life does not equal actual life, period.

This is how your logic sounds to me.

People drive cars.

Driving a car could cause a potentially fatal accident.

Killing someone is a crime.

Driving a car is a crime.

[Olwen]

Yeah, I'm confused.

Anyhow, I'm not sure that you've gotten responses from any actual pro-life people here (I could be wrong, but it doesn't sound like it). I'm just trying to guess how the pro-life crowd would argue this. But potential life does not equal actual life, period.

This is how your logic sounds to me.

People drive cars.

Driving a car could cause a potentially fatal accident.

Killing someone is a crime.

Driving a car is a crime.

I'm trying to convince people that, if abortion isn't allowed for pro-life reasons, then we should have unprotected sex as much as possible--which is absurd. The topic title is "argument for abortion" so obviously I'm trying to argue in favor of it. I'm against unprotected sex, especially if it's as much as possible--unless it's between a married couple for children.

The difference between that argument and mine is that driving cars potentially kill far less people than unprotected sex causes lives to be born. Can you imagine the rate of people dying compared to the rate every time someone drives a car? It'd be like 0.0000000000001%. In comparison, the chance of not having a miscarriage is.. 90% or so.

[I know I know]

if abortion isn't allowed for pro-life reasons

This is where you're off target, and arguing against a strawman.

To most, abortion is forbidden, not for pro-life reasons, but for anti-murder reasons. "pro-life" is a misnomer.

Some people out there are genuinely pro-life in the sense you describe, but they're rare and quiet enough that your argument is effectively a strawman.

[Olwen]

To most, abortion is forbidden, not for pro-life reasons, but for anti-murder reasons.

Evidence for this claim please. I'm pretty sure anti-murder reasons are pro-life reasons.

Advocates generally argue that the human fetus (and in most cases the human embryo) is a person and therefore has a right to life.

So if killing a fetus, who is a person, is anti-murder, then that position is by definition pro-life!

[Castel]

Evidence for this claim please. I'm pretty sure anti-murder reasons are pro-life reasons.

Not the sort of pro-life reasons you're thinking of. It's wrong because the child is already here and is a person,so it would be murder. your argument depends on people seeing no difference between a fetus and a potential child that hasn't even been conceived yet. Well, that and removing any and all qualifiers on when having kids is a good idea.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Olwen,

You're arguing reducto ad absurdum. it fails because the possiblitity of pregnancy is not pregnancy. You make an intersesting argument against those, vaishingly few, who argue against allowing legalized birth control but the argument against the anti-abortion rights position only works if that person is also arguing against birth control.