Activity feed

practically, i think the best we can do now is viability outside the mother
if it's viable and there are people willing to adopt [then] the mother shouldn't have the right to kill it
if there's no one willing to take care of it i don't see how anyone can demand for it to not be aborted.

She was neither forced nor tricked. She took an action which she knew (or should have known) comes with certain risks. The risks materialized. That doesn’t make her any less responsible.

On the contrary, per my suggestion, she had six weeks to monitor whether she was pregnant. That’s long enough to miss her period, which is a huge warning sign she’d have to be extremely dishonest about with herself to just ignore. During those six weeks, she could have unilaterally decided to get an abortion safely and with impunity. She instead chose to ignore her pregnancy, evade it, not do anything about it, whatever.

Her body, her choice, her responsibility. #171, #172

depends whether the mother took measures to not get pregnant, if she did and still got pregnant - less responsibility

She was neither forced nor tricked. She took an action which she knew (or should have known) comes with certain risks. The risks materialized. That doesn’t make her any less responsible.

On the contrary, per my suggestion, she had six weeks to monitor whether she was pregnant. That’s long enough to miss her period, which is a huge warning sign she’d have to be extremely dishonest about with herself to just ignore. During those six weeks, she could have unilaterally decided to get an abortion safely and with impunity. She instead chose to ignore her pregnancy, evade it, not do anything about it, whatever.

Her body, her choice, her responsibility. #171, #172

Personhood presumably does come in later on, but we don’t know exactly when. Since the development of the nervous system is the earliest possible point, that’s the time we should choose if we want to be careful.

i agree that morally the cutoff point should be personhood, though i think that probably happens later than the development of nervous system

If, contrary to #221, premature delivery is possible and others want to “save the baby and take care of it”, then sure, go ahead as long as there are no downsides for the baby. But that’s not abortion, so I don’t see how this stance is a criticism of my abortion stance.

You had originally described (#201) a situation where the fetus “is not yet capable of surviving outside the mother (even with all the technological knowledge of medicine)”, meaning premature delivery would be impossible.

it's not a reason in one direction or another, if other people are willing to save the baby and take care of it that seems like a win-win

It does when those others are responsible for your position. See #133, #172, #203.

having rights doesn't mean you get to be supported by others that don't want to support you

Anything that processes information is a computer.

The brain processes information.

Therefore, the brain is a computer.

If you want the abortion to happen as early as possible, then shame is the last thing you want, as it will cause pregnant women to put off the decision for fear of being shamed.

Preventing unwanted pregnancy is the goal. Ending an unwanted pregnancy should happen with shame and as early as possible. It’s a mistake that gets worse with time.

Right, but the absence of a functioning nervous system implies the absence of sentience [see #107]. So I don’t think it’s arbitrary.

It’s arbitrary. A functioning nervous system does not imply complex thought.

But if an accident removes the entire brain yet the body somehow stays alive like a vegetable, then yeah I’d say it’s okay to pull the plug.
Is that fair? It’s interesting how abortion and euthanasia are kind of related in this way.

They’re already a person […].

Not at the time the nervous system is broken and the creative program isn’t running. Personhood has ‘halted’.

I think it’s not okay to kill someone whose nervous system stops working later in life if it may work again.
They’re already a person and may well continue to be a person. That can’t be said of an organism that has never had a nervous system.

If my nervous system isn’t working because of coma, is it ok to kill me?

Clarity is suggesting it wouldn’t be okay, thus whether the nervous system is functional can’t be the determining factor.

That the baby can’t survive outside the womb sounds like an additional reason to carry to term, not a reason not to do it.

Except in cases of rape, the mother is responsible for the baby’s existence.