Ranx wrote: I admire the consistency of your position, it's well thought out - a rarity!
Why thank you. You're a right proper daisy yourself.
Ranx wrote:What actual, measurable costs are you referring to here, and how are they distinct from the financial, time, psychological etc. costs involved in post-natal care?
The actual and measurable costs of pregnancy? There's additional prenatal healthcare, dietary differences, clothing differences, lost work, the physical cost of pregnancy in terms of damage, wear, and injury to the body of the mother, etc, etc. They aren't significantly different from, or (of course) greater than the costs of post-natal care, but that's rather immaterial... Since we can at least assume that if abortion is legal, those saddled with the costs of post natal care will be taking them on by choice. My point is that it's immoral to inflict these costs on a person to protect the rights of another, merely 'potential' person who has neither the means nor the intent to compensate for them.
Ranx wrote:Tangentially, given that the majority of the population does not in fact subscribe to your moral framework, to what lengths would you be willing to go to support your morality against their objections? That is, constitutional amendments or supreme court ruling in favour of a universal right to abortion. I've always felt that, whatever my personal feelings on abortion, it should not be the responsibility of the judiciary to decide morality - but I'm not American and so don't have that perspective on Roe vs. Wade.
Now this is a delicious and multi-layered question...
The "moral framework" (should we choose to call it that) in question is a combination of several ideas, really... There is the idea that a child is not "human" until some time after birth, there is the idea that a woman should have the option of abortion at her disposal, there is the idea that males should have the same legal freedoms of refusal or parantage as women do...
I agree with what you say, but perhaps not with what you mean... I don't want courts defining morality, but I do want them adjudicating legality... And it's important we don't get the two confused.
Morality is a matter of principal... Right and wrong, good and evil, social acceptability, and other artificial human constructs that allow us to apply unwritten rules of polite behaviour to social interaction. Morality is neither real nor codified in any substantial sense. While it can be said that morality is necessary to the function of society, it's no more or less so than taste or style... Because of it's theoretical nature, there can never be a full agreement on what is or is not moral, and society chugs along just fine under the existence of that ambiguity.
Legality, on the other hand, is a matter of codified social contract, and is absolutely necessary to the smooth function of society. Society cannot function on any level beyond anarchy without the codification of what is and what is not legal.
The judiciary need not (and cannot) define whether or not it is moral for me to have an abortion... Only whether or not it is legal. This is why the majority opinion of the SCOTUS in Roe v Wade speaks of the scientific definitions of life, the external viability of the fetus, and so on, rather than the "morality" of the issue. As the court has essentially held in matters like Flint v United States, Lawrence v Texas, and other cases, whenever the government gets into the business of legislating or adjudicating morality, it is near certain that the rights of someone are going to be wrongly infringed upon.
The problem with the abortion issue lies in zealots... urm... that is to say... "people of exceptionally strong but unfounded opinion" claiming that someone's rights are being infringed upon when there is
no one there to have said rights infringed upon. While I can certainly understand and even sympathize with those who have a deep emotional conviction that fetuses are human beings, perhaps because they look so much like little huan beings, or because those people hold fanciful if naive beliefs regarding some supernatural aspect of humanity and the inherant "spirit" or "soul" of human beings and the way they imagine these things to begin at the moment of heavy petting, we can no more take away the rights of real, living, breathing women in order to protect imaginary or potential humans than we can limit traffic over bridges to protect the habitats of imaginary trolls. All we can do is allow those who believe in trolls to avoid driving over bridges late at night.
So, to answer your question... I would not advocate or support a move to codify my views on when a post-natal child becomes a sentient human being... Once the child is born, a parant who no longer wants to raise it has numerous options to relieve herself of that responsibility... We need not legalize abortion to the fourty-third trimester, no matter how much I enjoy joking about it.
I would, however, advocate almost any legal measure to define and enforce the legalities of a man or woman's right to protect themselves biologically and financially from an unwanted pregnancy... Up to and including constitutional amendments, SCOTUS decisions, etc.
Ranx wrote:sweet or sour wrote:The minds of those who do care about this, will not change, and no amount of talk will make it change. The subject is simply too heated to sway the opinion of anyone who actually cares enough to forge their own opinion.
This is patently untrue. I consider this a very important debate, but my opinion has fluctuated repeatedly in response to well-reasoned arguments from both sides.
I have to agree entirely and vociferously here... The fact that some people are certainly too ignorant, unimaginative, pig-headed, conditioned, or just plain stupid to change their minds on subjects of significant importance can never be allowed to be used as an excuse to stop talking about important things. I personally am 100% willing to change my position on any given subject of fact, philosophy, science, or opinion, given new or better information or ideas.