Politics: A new beginning

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Not Me
Great idea! There should be NO CONSEQUENCES WHATSOEVER to having sex!!!! Your genius is shining through yet again!!!!

Yes, it's a better idea to have lots of adverse consequences. Perhaps we should come up with a virus. A virus that will infect people that have sex. But not kill them so quickly that they can't spread it to others by having sex. And even better, make it particularly likely to infect people who do the butt-sex, because that's what they did in Sodom, and we all know what happened to Lot's wife.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Theoretitcally appealing, but, shit, you can tell your kid that at 18 anyway and accomplish the same thing. "You're not my son."

By then you've expended most of the money,* time and energy, so what's the point?

*Unless you plan to fund your kid's way through expensive private college and expensive private law and/or medical school, I guess.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
Because, after birth, if society states that this life has to be supported (fed, whatever), it can appoint (or pay) any of a number of individuals to do it. While still in utero, society has to force one specific individual, involuntarily, to support it, and that individual has independent rights. (Some people would be OK with the gov't dropping of an infant on their door and saying "guess what, he's your own personal problem now, if you don't take good care of him we'll prosecute," but not many I'd wager.) If the fetus could be removed and supported independently from the mother, then the a fetus being "supported" in utero and being "supported" after birth would be analogous. (That's what makes viability an attractive alternative, though, in theory, that would mean women would have a right, at any time, to say "OK, let's induce and let the thing survive on its own if it can.")

I think most people actually rely on some vague, ill thought out combination of "viability" and "utility" in this debate to get to the balancing of rights between fetus and mother that they feel comfortable with. The fetus has increasing rights from conception onward, with some specific events giving it a better or worse claim to protection (viability, birth defects), while the mother has decreasing interests to be protected (not only because she could have done something sooner but because as time goes on her future burden continuously decreases), and enough of society finds late abortion and/or infanticide distressing enough for there to be an increasing utility argument for limiting it (the "birth" line is, I think, ultimately a "utility" standard: people are less horrified at the idea of abortion than infanticide, for whatever rational or irrational reasons, and the prevention of widespread social distress is a good utility argument).

I think most people really quite like the "self consciousness" line from a religious/spiritual/sentimental point of view (also because it is consistent with a lot of people's feelings about eating meat, euthanasia, the right to die and sometimes the death penalty), but the proof problems are pretty much intractable and, unless you combine it with the "social utility" standard I described above, it may force you into condoning infanticide.

BRC seems to have my proxy on this one, too.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Not Me
I know that is your theory, that a just-conceived embryo really isn't sufficiently like a person to warrant protection. However, what I have yet to hear explained is how you arrived at that theory. Why is an embryo not sufficiently like a person to warrant protection. What is it that makes a being sufficiently like a person to warrant protection?

And why is viability the line at which a fetus becomes sufficiently like a person to warrant protection? What is so special about viability that it tips the scales in favor of the fetus rights? Oh wait, scratch that, it is the particular person/involuntary servitude thing. Sorry, I forgot. I was distracted momentarily by all the pretty colored marshmallows floating in my cereal.

Hypothesize a muddy hillslide in the rain, a slippery slope if you will. A newly conceived fetus -- smaller than one of your marshmallows! -- is at the top of the hillside, and it slips, and rolls, slowly, until it reaches the bottom, where it is a newborn little baby.

If that fetus were dependent on me, I'm comfortable that I would have many fewer qualms about aborting that fetus at the top of the hillside -- not no qualms, but fewer -- than I would about smothering the baby at the bottom, but what with the mud and rain and all, I have a very hard time deciding where on that hillside my mind would change.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
I look at a baby and say it's human. I look at a dog, and I say it's a dog. I look at a fetus, and I say, no, not "human" but "fetus" or "blob" or "sac" or "cell mass" or something. Is it simply that it's an entity of some sort?

Human, yes or no (not the one wearing the gloves, the other "entity"? Spree: in utero picture Human or Non-Human?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
But it's a lot easier when you're dealing with potentialities rather than actualities. Why else do both the people with the $5 chocolate bar and the $5 coffee mug strongly prefer to keep what they started with than to trade?

If you can get us talking about the endowment effect instead of abortion, you will be my new hero.

[Bad_Rich_Chic]

Originally posted by sgtclub
If I understand what you are saying correctly, it seems that there is some magical point on the continuum where the balance of rights changes

Pretty much accurate, but that point is probably slightly different for everyone.

and we call this point "viability,"

for a lot of people but not necessarily. I think that's a popular/convenient point because, for various reasons, people see that point as a large jump in the fetus' rights side of the balance.

but it really does not have a direct correlation with whether or not the fetus could survive outside the mother. Right?

for a lot of people, right. For my personal gut instincts, not really - see past posts about being able to transplant, or induce and say "good luck to you." In those situations, actual ability to survive outside the mother are, obviously, critical.

Because if it did, wouldn't it have to be different for each fetus?

To some extent yes - making this test about as problematic as the "consciousness" test at the margins.

Presumably there are some that could survive after week 11, and others not until week 16, but for social convenience we have picked the average.

Not really, until you get into embryo transplantation. Determining factor is development of lungs (20-something weeks), you can't push out-of-utero viability farther back than that.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Yes, it's a better idea to have lots of adverse consequences. Perhaps we should come up with a virus. A virus that will infect people that have sex. But not kill them so quickly that they can't spread it to others by having sex. And even better, make it particularly likely to infect people who do the butt-sex, because that's what they did in Sodom, and we all know what happened to Lot's wife.

Slave will be particularly disappointed, unless you somehow make it not infect dwarves.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
. . . and we all know what happened to Lot's wife.

She became barren, like Not Me's black Catholic grandmother?

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I think you are right that this is a difficult issue and one on which I have never been able to reach a decision. So I just ask questions like why do we, in this case, error on the side of "death*" rather than life, while in all other cases we chose life?

*for lack of a better word.

And at what point do we decide not to impose "our" judgment and to let others decide.

I generally believe that there should be more restrictive provisions, and that the balance has been struck too late. And then the debate starts, and I find the choice of more restrictive but not aboslute is not going to be permitted.

I'm heading out. BRC has my proxy.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
She became barren, like Not Me's black Catholic grandmother?

http://www.usccb.org/saac/factsheet.htm

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Not Me
Human, yes or no (not the one wearing the gloves, the other "entity"? Spree: in utero picture Human or Non-Human?

I assume that's what I expect it to be. I see the pictures, and I still say fetus. A fetus that looks like it will be a human. But go dig up some pictures of 5-day old fetuses and five day old tadpoles. There's a striking similarlity there, and dissimilarity with humans, yet the human fetus is on the safe side of your line. Why? Explain, rather than punching holes in the other side's argument, which is a lot easier to do on the abortion debate.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic . Determining factor is development of lungs (20-something weeks), you can't push out-of-utero viability farther back than that.

You have obviously never heard of ECMO. No lungs required.

Apparently you have never heard of a lung transplant or cardiac bypass surgery, either, which use the same extracorporeal oxygenation systems intra-operatively.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Not Me
http://www.usccb.org/saac/factsheet.htm

And somehow I'm the King of Google? I'm just trying to keep you honest. Nothing crushes the willing suspension of disbelief so quickly as breaking the fourth wall.

[Bad_Rich_Chic]

Originally posted by bilmore
I myself go for the idea of "retroactive abortions". 18 years in which to prove yourself, or out.

You remind me of my Dad, old man, running about during a decade of my youth gleefully quoting Bill Cosby many times each week: "I brought you into this world, I'll take you out!"

BR(and then he'd try to moonwalk and throw his back out ...)C