NOW they do. That’s a relatively recent change in doctrine. It used to be “quickening”.
The Bible has a number of examples to counter this new position: for example, babies under 7 days old aren’t counted as actual people yet, and there’s even a recipe for an abortificant which is to be administered by the religious leader under certain conditions.
I think you are being deliberately obtuse. How do you think the respective camps chose those labels? You don’t think there was a historical process involved?
From wikipedia:
The description “pro-life” was adopted by the right-to-life (anti-abortion) movement in the United States following the Supreme Court 1973 decision Roe v. Wade,[1] which held that a woman may terminate her pregnancy prior to the viability of the fetus outside of the womb and may also terminate her pregnancy “subsequent to viability … for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.”[8] The term “pro-life” was adopted instead of “anti-abortion” to highlight their proponents’ belief that abortion is the taking of a human life, rather than an issue concerning the restriction of women’s reproductive rights.[1]
But that’s disingenuous – the “pro-life” activities of the “pro-life” camp are 100% restricted to trying to restrict women’s reproductive rights. Furthermore, it’s predicated on a metaphysical premise (that abortion is murder).
Given that the “pro-life” label is based on a lie, how is it so different from “the only moral human beings”?
In your terminology, it’s “sending a signal”. But it’s sending a false signal. Are we still constrained to using the demonstrably inaccurate label?
Absolutely. And infanticide was pretty common too.
I concur.
In the context of our culture, perhaps. But I think Roe v. Wade manufactured the “potentiality of human life”, to quote the decision itself. I find nothing in the Constitution to support this idea that the state has a right to balance current body sovereignty against the future possibility of life that might later come into being. The early ‘70’s Court was comprised of capable Constitutional scholars and I can only assume they knew this. As such I suspect they were trying to strike a ruling that would retain some allegiance to the 14th Amendment and not instigate an Amendment that would have turned women into state vassals. Anyone who believes the Court does now or ever has operated in a politically neutral vacuum is fooling themselves. But the Constitution also places the Supremes’ interpretation of the existing state of that living document above mine or anyone else’s. Fortunately, it also protects my right to criticize their decisions.
Come on japh, you know I love a fellow pedant 
Ugh, “the middle ground.” Sometimes between two opposing positions you find a reasonable middle ground, sometimes you don’t. People pushed “civil unions” as a middle ground between gay marriage and no gay marriage. But you can’t find a middle ground between someone’s rights and a group’s collective wish to deny those rights. Those who want laws against abortion are proposing a war on abortion that raged for a long time and worked out about as well as the war on drugs.
If you have a middle ground position that you feel is more enlightened than the pro-life or the pro-choice positions, then we are currently engaged in a discussion ,why not raise it? Or if you’ve heard several that you thought were reasonable, why not point to them as examples? I have no interest in hypothetical reasonable middle grounds that we hypothetically can’t hear.
If there was, wouldn’t the government be obligated to do something about climate change?
I should have finished that as “sending a signal to me”. You aren’t constrained at all. If somebody asks to be referred to as mr-never-wrong, it sends a signal to me that they aren’t interested in discussion and so I don’t engage. Likewise, if somebody on my side of an argument disrespects the other side, I probably wouldn’t engage with them either (I think I called that irritating).
While we’re arguing semantics here, when you say: “I was with her until she said anti-choice.” do you mean that in the sense of “except for that part?” Or do you mean that you literally stopped agreeing with the author in the second half of the first sentence?
I’m finding it hard to understand your complaint if you basically agree that there are people with significant audiences advocating violence and harassment against users and providers of a legal medical practice, but yet are so turned off by the label attached to them.
Weird.
Because initially, you seemed to be saying we can’t have a reasonable discussion about abortion unless we use each camp’s preferred label for itself.
(Of course, the labels don’t have very much to do with the issue itself. We could quite fruitfully discuss the issue without mentioning those labels at all. But playing along for the sake of argument.)
When I pushed a little, you conceded that if one side uses a label for themselves that signals an unwillingness to discuss, then you just don’t discuss with them.
OK, suppose we all think “pro-life” is a label that signifies an unwillingness to discuss the issue. Are we still necessarily being unreasonable in discussing the issue? After all, “pro-life” suggests that any justification for the position is necessarily metaphysical, and therefore any discussion is fruitless unless we buy into the same set of metaphysical premises.
“Echo chamber!” But that accusation only holds any merit if reasonable positions are being excluded from the debate, which is exactly what’s being debated. Is there any sense in which the anti-choice side is reasonable, such that there is some incentive for me to use the term “pro-life”?
I think it’s almost entirely middle ground among non-extremists (is that a tautology?).
Consider the beginning and end of pregnancy. A zygote isn’t a life. It’s a clump of cells without a brain or heart or anything human-like (other than DNA). I think a person that claims a zygote’s right to develop trumps a woman’s right to choose to prevent that development (thinking of things like the plan-b pill) is an extremist.
At the other end, I think only an extremist would say a woman has the right to terminate a pregnancy moments before delivering a healthy full term baby.
So, IMHO, everything interesting is in the middle. Do you really think that the issue boils down to protected-life-begins-at-conception vs right-to-choose-ends-with-birth? I hope not, because then there truly isn’t anything to talk about and no alternative viewpoints to be considered.
I agree with your first sentence totally. Your second sentence is probably not correct.
If my (or your) opponent wants to call themselves pro-life I say concede that. Otherwise, the discussion is over before it even starts and that’s not good for anybody. There’s a long history behind that moniker and assuming the person you are talking to is being reasonable and honest is a good start if you want to make progress.
If the label they claim is “infallible-judge-of-all-morality”, then there’s no point engaging. It’s going to go nowhere.
“except for that part”.
Inflammatory labels are part of the problem.
You seem to be ignoring what I actually asked you.
Granted, if I wanted to discuss something with a pro-life advocate, I should just adopt the label.
But why would I want to?
They do this! Their entire position is predicated on having a magic book that gives them the correct answers to all questions of morality.
This is exactly why I asked you directly: is the pro-life position a reasonable one? And if not, why should I want to include any such people in a discussion about abortion? And if I wouldn’t, why should I concede the label?
And if I shouldn’t bother to concede the label, why did you come in here claiming that a reasonable discussion of abortion is impossible if we use the term “anti-choice”?
Of course it’s correct. Trivially.
Pro-abortion: snarg
anti-abortion: ploo
We can now have an entire discussion about both sides of the abortion debate without uttering either “pro-life” or “pro-choice”, referring instead to “snarg” or “ploo” where appropriate.
Prove it? That’s easy; I’m not in favour of legislation that denies women the right to choose what happens inside their own bodies. And I am not prepared to murder, or harass those who disagree. They are a vocal minority who consensus and basic human decency has decided cannot have their own way any more. Peace and love, motherfucker.
Are you talking to cartoon characters? I personally don’t know anybody that one-dimensional. The pro-lifers that I’ve talked to don’t have a problem with abortion if the woman’s life is in danger, for example. If they looked hard enough, they could probably even back that up with their bible (or whatever magic book you were trying to be clever about).
No, I meant that you couldn’t have a fruitful discussion with somebody that believed they had all the answers. If the label they want is “master-of-morality”, relabeling as snarg isn’t going to be enough to have a fruitful discussion.
I’ve never, ever come across anyone arguing the latter point, tbh. Theoretically, they might exist, but where? Lunatic asylums hopefully.
I was talking about “pro-life” and “pro-choice” in the parenthetical to which you responded.
No, I’m being a little glib because I’ve already explained this at great length and I assumed you were following along.
To reiterate, the conclusion that abortion is immoral is predicated entirely on metaphysical claims: the belief in a soul, and the belief that the soul is created at conception.
Because they are metaphysical in nature, neither of these claims is falsifiable. They are premised entirely on religious belief and not on anything that could be reasonably termed “evidence”. And any religious belief is predicated on having access to information or insights about reality that people outside the religion do not have access to.
Now, for the third time (! please answer this time): Is there any such thing as a reasonable “pro-life” position? Is there a non-metaphysical justification for the pro-life position?
In that sense, we do agree. And perhaps, in some alternate universe, the inflammatory label of “anti-choice” will be used to justify someone’s murderous rampage in a coffee house where folks are just trying to have a reasonable discussion of issues.
However, in the universe we currently inhabit, labels like “baby killer” are being used to spur on acts harassment, intimidation, bombings and murder. So perhaps, just perhaps you’re suggesting a bit of false equivalence here.
Not at all, because I think the question of when life begins is irrelevant and ill-conceived. The question is, should lawmakers involve themselves in determining access to abortions. Life could begin before your mother was born (since that is when the organism that is you was first identifiable as an individual - your insistence that zygotes are obviously not lives notwithstanding) or it could begin when you are 18 and get the right to vote. I don’t know, “life” is a term we are struggle with the more we learn (to me the before-your-mother-was-born option appears to be the most objective one).
But should we pass laws that say, “No abortions”, “No abortions after 20 weeks”, “No abortions in the third trimester”, “Abortions only when medically necessary”, etc.? No.
There is no law in Canada regarding abortions. The law was struck down by the Supreme Court and no government has decided to reopen that discussion. There is a complete legal vacuum. So do we have a rash of third-trimester abortions here? Are doctors aborting children who they could just as easily deliver alive? Are women going on abortion sprees? It turns out women don’t have abortions maliciously or for fun, and doctors don’t just do whatever you ask them to do (your liver is part of your body and rightfully yours, but try to find a doctor who will take it out for you because you don’t like it anymore). And before we talk about justice I will say this: If laws against murder were shown to 1) not decrease the number of murders; and 2) cause collateral damage then I would also advocate against murder laws, even though we all know murder is wrong.
The reasonable discussion to be had is whether laws against abortions are so good for the country that they merit restricting individual rights. I think laws against abortion don’t do any good at all, but even if you think I’m wrong, the burden of proof is with those who want to restrict abortion to show that whatever law they are implementing will have a positive effect. Otherwise it’s a bad law, and probably an unconstitutional one.
When the discussion leaves the realm of laws and moves into morality then maybe lots of different opinions are possible based on individual experiences. 50% of the population using laws to impose their morality on the other 50% is a bad model for democracy (as is 80% imposing on 20% or even 95% imposing on 5%).
A large portion of the argument about the morality of abortion comes down to the question: when does life begin?
If killing a newborn infant is murder, then at what point do you define when it becomes murder?
One common definition is “viability”: that is, when the foetus can be removed, hooked up to a machine, and be brought to term. However, that’s a very strange definition, as it is wholly dependent on the current level of technology. I can foresee a future where we have the technology to incubate a baby, from conception to birth, within an artificial womb. If you use that definition of “viability,” then any abortion might be considered murder. On the other hand, if a solar flare came by and wiped out a huge chunk of our technology, the point of viability might be considered weeks later than what we currently consider it to be.
There are really only three solid places to define life: when the cell is fertilized, when it is implanted, and when it is born. Every other definition in the middle is pretty squishy, but I find myself at odds with both ends. I can’t consider killing a single cell murder; nor can I consider killing a baby hours away from birth anything else but murder.
I can’t find an easy answer about what I believe to be morally right when it comes to abortion. So, yes, I believe that the pro-life position is a reasonable one, at least morally.
However, as I’ve previously stated, I think that regardless of what the answer to the moral question is, the legal question is easy for me to answer. Making abortions illegal won’t end them: it will only drive them into the shadows, and put a lot of young women’s lives in danger. It just won’t work, and it will hurt many, many more people than it will help.
In my opinion, abortion must be safe and legal. The moral question we can debate until the stars burn out, but the answer to the legal and ethical question is clear.
However, I can see someone who think that our laws should enforce our morals, having reached the conclusion that abortion is murder from the point of conception, would come to a different conclusion. So, yes, I think that the pro-life position can be a reasonable one, and that it’s always worth debating. If nothing else, you may force yourself to examine and question your own views, which is always a good thing.
