Comments on EvidenceOfGod/Haven head-to-head debate

[otseng]

This thread is for comments on the head-to-head debate between EvidenceOfGod and Haven.

Does a woman's right to bodily autonomy justify abortion?

[Haven]

I've posted my opening remark. What do you all think?

[Divine Insight]

I've posted my opening remark. What do you all think?

Well, since you asked, I'm not overly impressed with it.

I didn't see your opening analogy with a common parasite as being a valid analogy. Typically when people are infected by a common parasite it is through no knowledge or intent of their own. How does that compare with pregnancy that typically requires active participation in obtaining this so-called "parasite"?

I think that argument can only be made in the case of pregnancies due to involuntary rape.

I'll also confess that I wasn't impressed by your reference to "cisgender women and transgender men and non-binary people (people with female reproductive anatomy)". In what way would these people be any different from anyone else in terms of how they actually got pregnant in the first place?

Do cisgender women and transgender men and non-binary people (people with female reproductive anatomy) just become spontaneously pregnant for no reason out of the blue? If not, then why even bring them up as being a "Special Case"?

I just didn't see the point to that or what it has to do with abortion in general.

I think the only part of your post that was persuasive at all toward your argument that abortion should not be considered to be immoral, was your case that an early embryo does not constitute a "Conscious Person" and therefore there is nothing immoral about terminating an early pregnancy.

So I would stand behind your point that "Fetal Personhood" is not a viable argument for proclaiming that abortion is "immoral".

~~~~~~

Having said all of the above, I personally feel that you have gotten yourself into an impossible situation in this debate.

I think if we consider a concept of "Perfect Morality" (a lofty abstract concept to be sure), then it would be hard to argue that anyone who becomes pregnant due to any act of sexual irresponsibility of their own would already be less than "Perfectly Moral" for having gotten pregnant in the first place. To then abort the pregnancy is hardly going to constitute a "moral act" (when considering a lofty concept of "Perfect Morality")

~~~~~~~

Finally, would like to voice my opinion concerning this debate overall. I feel that is it already an "unfair" debate topic (as far as any religious arguments go). Precisely because it's going to amount to nothing more than an attempt to use a concept of "Moral Perfection" as an argument against abortion. And ultimately this is truly a "religious" agenda which should be clear by your opponent's screen name, "EvidenceOfGod".

As I have already pointed out above, often times (though certainly not always) when people become pregnant with an unwanted pregnancy this was already due to irresponsible behavior. In other words, having gotten pregnant when they didn't want to be pregnant is already an "Immoral Act" (if we allow for a lofty concept of "Perfect Morality")

The problem I have with this as being a "religious agenda" is two-fold:

First:

We don't live in a perfect world. There is nothing "Perfectly Moral" about the world we live in. Therefore pointing to specific actions such as abortion as being an "immoral act" is somewhat meaningless because it fails to account for the fact that less than "Perfectly Moral" actions have led up to the very need for the abortion in the first place.

Secondly:

Using "Moral Perfection" as an argument against abortion does absolutely nothing to further the agenda of "Religious Morality". And the reason I say this is because there simply does not exist any religion in the world that even remotely represents "Moral Perfection".

And so I see this entire debate as being a "set-up" by religious motivations in an attempt to use a concept of "Perfect Morality" as an excuse to support their religious agenda. A religion that itself falls far short of representing a concept of "Perfect Morality".

In short, if the question in this debate ultimately comes down to one of "morality" which it necessarily must do in this debate since "justification" has already been defined as "moral justification", then the whole debate teeters on what a person considers to be "Moral Justification".

I would be the first to agree that any abortion would be less than "Moral Perfection". But the mere fact that situations exist where people desperately want to have abortions only reveal that we already live in a world that is far from being "Morally Perfect" in any case.

In other words, what sense does it even make to hold abortion up to a standard or "Moral Perfection" when that's not the world we live in?

So the whole debate over whether or not abortion is "morally justifiable" (especially if held to a standard of "Perfect Morality") seems to me to be an exercise in futility. It's ultimately not even a meaningful question really.

I would concede without any debate to Clinton Wilcox (EvidenceOfGod), that on a purely philosophical level of "Moral Perfection", any abortion is less than perfectly moral.

But so what?

That's not the world we live in, nor does any religion represent perfect morality in any case. So debating whether something is "morally justified" based on ideals of "Moral Perfection" is a meaningless debate.

This is why I would have never gotten into a debate about the moral justification for abortion in the first place. It ignores the fact that the very concept of "Moral Perfection" has never truly been addressed in the first place.

[Haven]

Well, since you asked, I'm not overly impressed with it.

I didn't see your opening analogy with a common parasite as being a valid analogy. Typically when people are infected by a common parasite it is through no knowledge or intent of their own. How does that compare with pregnancy that typically requires active participation in obtaining this so-called "parasite"?

I think that argument can only be made in the case of pregnancies due to involuntary rape.

Not all unintended pregnancies are the result of rape or unprotected sex. Sometimes birth control fails, condoms break, etc. No contraceptive is perfect.

I'll also confess that I wasn't impressed by your reference to "cisgender women and transgender men and non-binary people (people with female reproductive anatomy)". In what way would these people be any different from anyone else in terms of how they actually got pregnant in the first place?

I was trying to be inclusive. Any non-sterile person with female anatomy can become pregnant, whether they identify as a woman, a man, or something else entirely. That's why I referred to cisgender women and transgender men and non-binary people; I wanted to include everyone who has the chance of becoming pregnant.

By the way, "cisgender" just means "not transgender." Most people are cisgender.

[Divine Insight]

Not all unintended pregnancies are the result of rape or unprotected sex. Sometimes birth control fails, condoms break, etc. No contraceptive is perfect.

That would be an interesting debate topic right there.

Should people who have no desire to take responsibility for pregnancy even being have sexual intercourse in the first place?

I mean, surely there are other ways to reach sexual climax and satisfaction without even bothering to take the risk of impregnation?

I would argue that failed contraceptives is a pretty lame excuse for an abortion.

Of course, I would confess that my "moral values" on that topic are indeed nothing more than my own personal subjective moral values. But still, I would argue the above based upon "my subjective moral values" for whatever they might be worth.

I'll also confess that I wasn't impressed by your reference to "cisgender women and transgender men and non-binary people (people with female reproductive anatomy)". In what way would these people be any different from anyone else in terms of how they actually got pregnant in the first place?

I was trying to be inclusive. Any non-sterile person with female anatomy can become pregnant, whether they identify as a woman, a man, or something else entirely. That's why I referred to cisgender women and transgender men and non-binary people; I wanted to include everyone who has the chance of becoming pregnant.

By the way, "cisgender" just means "not transgender." Most people are cisgender.

I still fail to see the need in an argument about abortion in general. Shouldn't your argument automatically apply to anyone who can become pregnant without the need to specify any special cases?

By the way, I'm not trying to give you a hard time. Please keep in mind that YOU ASKED for comments on your opening post. So that's what I did.

I'll probably have comments on EvidenceOfGod's posts too.

Especially if he requests feedback as you did.

[JoeyKnothead]

From Post 3:

Slicin' & dicin'...

1) I never agreed that religious considerations are irrelevant. I am a Christian and that informs a number of things that I do (including my desire to speak out for those who can’t speak up for themselves). When I discuss this with a Christian, I believe arguing from Scripture is appropriate. However, when discussing with non-Christians, and to show that there are good non-religious reasons to make abortion illegal in a pluralistic society, I argue from science and philosophy.

I think ya stuck to that pretty good. I'm proud to see you don't rely solely on religious arguments (and can't rightly tell ya used even one).

There are one of two things you can mean by comparing the unborn organism to a parasite. Either it is a biological parasite, or the relationship is a parasitic one. Haven seems to mean the former. But the problem is that parasites are malevolent organisms of a different species than its host, usually cause diseases in humans, and are usually transmitted by other creatures, such as mosquitos or sand flies. [1] By contrast, human beings begin their life in the womb, are the same species as their mother and father because they come from the cells of their mother and father, and will one day become adult human beings, like the mother and father, unless prevented doing so by dying.

Compelling as heck. I'm sticking with "parasite", where a woman doesn't want to be pregnant, kinda like how a weed can be a rosebush planted somewhere it ain't wanted.

Besides which, the mother/unborn child relationship, itself, is not strictly parasitic.

To say it ain't "strictly parasitic" is to recognize there's some parisitizin' goin' on. Your admittance here destroys your argument above.

Scientists have recently discovered that it’s actually symbiotic because of a process called microchimerism, in which the mother and child actually exchange cells, and the child’s cells produce good effects in the mother, such as staving off illness (e.g. colds), and could possibly help prevent certain types of cancer or repair damage after a stroke. [2] Pro-choice people tend to present pregnancy as dangerous and oppressive, and while pregnancy certainly does carry with it some risks, the reality is that pregnancy is a good thing for women, on top of being the natural way we all enter life.

"A good thing for women".

Who seek abortions.

Are you so proud as to be able to declare what is and what ain't best for a woman? For all women? For your woman?

You shoot your own argument in the foot, yet again, when you admit that there can be risks. Some women don't wanna take those risks.

as well as ignoring the fact that it was the majority of the Supreme Court, made up of nine men, who made the decision to legalize abortion across the board in the United States.

Wrong. The Supremes can't make laws, they can only interpret laws. They've interpreted the Constitution to mean these rights always existed, so an unconstitutional law was stricken. Not created. Stricken.

He/she has also not defined “conscious� clearly enough. At the very least, there are clear counterexamples. Haven’s definition would, for one thing, make personhood episodic. I was not enjoying my life and I could not feel pain last night while I was asleep. Yet Haven’s definition would allow anyone to morally kill me in my sleep, or while I’m depressed, as long as it’s done painlessly. Haven’s definition leads to clear counterexamples of people I would imagine he/she would take to be uncontroversial examples of persons.
...
Haven has committed a logical fallacy by referring to the unborn as “unconscious,� a category error. They are not unconscious, they are pre-conscious.

Good'n.

It’s true that bodily autonomy is important to human beings, and no pro-life person denies this. The problem is that pro-choice people obfuscate the issue by trying to remove any semblance of value from the unborn human being, and by acting as if a right to abortion is the *only* right that bodily autonomy brings with it. That is certainly not the case. Pro-life people believe bodily autonomy is very important, we just believe that bodily autonomy does not excuse killing a human being unjustly.

"Unjustly" being the operative term. It's beholden on our womenfolk to make their decisions rationally and logically, without too, too much emotion (if only that's a product of the emotional father, 'cause I'm here to tell it, I've had me more'n just a scare or two). To say that all abortions, or even the majority are done "unjustly" goes against the law, and is, I propose, too inflammatory to be of value in this debate.

A woman knows dang well she can't tend to a young'n, and knows dang well the adoption agency's run by a bunch of >insert a term that may be considered inflammatory, but I'm sayin' it's her thinkin' it, and not me tellin' it<. Does she abort this child "unjustly", or does she "unjustly" hand this child over to folks she knows are >refer to censored term<?

So I'd hope we can remove "unjustly" from our terms here, even as we consider the morality of it all.

The unborn are persons because being a person is about the kind of thing you are, not the kinds of functions you can perform.

That's one reason I don't much like to argue about when a fetus was a human, 'cause it was the whole dang time.

I consider the issue to center on a woman's right to control her body, and her obligation to society to not just have an abortion "unjustly", but seriously consider the pros and cons. I've never met me the first women that didn't agonize over such a decision, or didn't have some feller a-pressurin' her one way or the other.

There's also the issue that abortions are gonna happen whether we like it or not, and how maybe a safe abortion might save more folks than an unsafe abortion kills. Abortion is legal in other parts of the world, and how laws that restrict access to abortion then favor those with the wealth to run across the globe and get 'em one. This then disproportionately favors the wealthy to have access to safe abortions, and causes the less wealthy to drink all manner of stuff, and coat hangers and all kinda what-not gettin' poked in the holiest of places, all in an effort to end a pregnancy they realize they either can't feed, or can't take care of, and they don't wanna send 'em off to the >insert censored term< folks. (I'm not trying to play that censored deal in an effort to invoke emotional sentiment, but to try to say it that maybe she thinks of some available adoption providers in a negative light.)

Access to safe abortions then is the least morally problematic choice. Where it takes a life, it often spares one.

It's just one of them deals, we gotta have the hens decide.

[otseng]

To avoid other people from influencing the debate, I'm going to lock this comment thread until the debate is over.

[otseng]

Unlocking the comment thread.

[Lion IRC]

How do you think you went Haven?
Advice for future one-on-one debate aspirants?

[Haven]

Personally, I think it could have gone better for me (I was distracted by the pre-semester rush [planning classes, creating syllabi, trying to make progress on my dissertation, etc.]). I didn't have as much time to devote to it as I would have liked, and I think that shows in a few of my posts.

My advice to anyone else is to avoid focusing too much on refuting your opponent. Make your own arguments and provide the best possible defense for them. Let your opponent say whatever she wants, and address her central points when you can, but keep the overall focus on your own case. I feel like in this past debate I spent too much time focusing on Clinton's arguments and not enough building my own.