Abortion is morally wrong

[Jackalope]

To respond to your post, Cthulhu, I fully admit that there may indeed be a distinction between a human being and a person. (However, I am not quite convinced I could be swayed one way or the other on this point.) But in regards to my argument, you are correct, I am using human beings and the idea of human rights as my definitional and metaphysical reference in regards to this argument. I am working from the starting point of morality and believe that the law should emulate morality not vice versa. In response to your statement concerning consciousness and ethical behavior as the be all end all as far as humans go I believe we can discover I few problems with this definition.

To back up, a theory should be rejected if it has underlying issues, doesn't explain facts of reality as well as another theory, or contradicts other well accepted facts ect. By reducing humans to purely cognitive and moral function it confuses functionality with ontology. Stated similarly, what a thing can do with what it actually is. Furthermore, it raises ethical issues such as do people who are amoral lack the requirements of human rights? Or how about someone who is half conscious? One quarter conscious? Say, half the population in Earth come down with a virus and cease to have these qualities, do they loose there human rights and is not permissible to kill them? I think in these cases the answer is no.

Your ontological assessment has it's own issues. A zygote and a fully-formed human being are certainly not the same thing. One *may* become the other, but they are not equivalent, and you're ignoring the differences.

I'd wager that you don't even treat them the same. Tell me - do we treat a spontaneously miscarried zygote with the same reverence as a deceased fully formed person? Overwhelmingly we do not - because we recognize that they are not equal.

[Arthur123]

Cthulhu, it actually does not. A baby is not as formed as a child a child an adult ect. And whether we feel a certain way or not concerning something says nothing of the truth hood or falseness of a proposition.

[Losty]

Losty, I have said that due to human embryology a human is genetically complete in its human information and belongs to the species Homo sapien thus should be considered a human being with the same rights as myself. I have argued and defended my view that this is the only coherent definition of a human being.

A fetus is not a person. You have provided zero evidence to show that a fetus is a person. You have made no attempt to show that a fetus is a person.
You have also given no reason why a being with human DNA should have a right to live if it is not a person.

[GrandizerII]

Cthulhu, it actually does not. A baby is not as formed as a child a child an adult ect. And whether we feel a certain way or not concerning something says nothing of the truth hood or falseness of a proposition.

What truth? The abortion debate is more a matter of what is more fair.

In order to see why a woman should have the right to not be burdened to host an unwanted entity in her own body for nine months, you'd have to have enough empathy to do so.

You'd also have to accept that fetuses don't have the psychology to even be aware enough to have a say in the matter. So having false empathy for fetuses is delusional because they don't have any perspective on this matter.

[The Valkyrie]

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Beccs, there was a lot of ad hominem there, appeals to authority genetic fallacy ect. I hope we can have an irenic discussion of the facts and not dissolve into personal attacks. Here, I am discussing personhood of a fetus, my reasons for that have been discussed in other posts. In your previous post, it appears, you have not addressed anything concerning a fetus and its humanity or not. You have attacked the idea that even if the fetus is a human it does not trump bodily rights of a woman. If you wish to debate my view of what a human being is please state your objection. In order to save time and energy I will copy and past what I wrote earlier in response to a similar line of thinking, Some philosophers have likened pregnancy to, a woman who knowingly signs up for a social experiment where she may or may not be trapped in a cabin for nine months with an infant and the infant would need her body to survive for this time. Lets say she is picked, is she now knowing full well she is responsible for bringing about the situation and the dependance of the fetus, should she not be morally and legally held responsible for the child? I believe the answer is a resounding yes. Similarly, in the violinist example, the woman has no responsibility nor connection to the sick man who is hooked up to her body. He is hooked up there because he, (or in her paper she uses "The Society for Music Lovers,") intentionally hooks himself up to her. But why is the fetus hooked up to the woman in the first place? Ninety-nice percent of the time, it is because she engaged in an action (sexual intercourse) that is known to create dependant people(unborn children). The analogy false and misconstrued indeed, in the case of pregnancy the mother and father resemble "The Society of Music Lovers," more than the kidnapped kidney donor in causing an innocent child and using that child to be dependant on a womans body to live. If I am responsible, or freely engaged in an activity that I knew had the possibility of creating a dependent, helpless human life, than I owe that human whatever assistance she needs to survive. A further analogy, shows this in a car-crash scenario. Comparing unwanted pregnancy to that of a car crash. Here, a car crashes into one car propelling it into another car. Now we find out that the owner of the third car also was the driver and instigator of the first car and started the chain reaction. Since she is the owner of both cars, she can only fault herself and indeed the car in the middle can fault her too. Now lets call a pregnant woman A(the father was also involved) the child B and the womans body C. A conceives B thus causing B to inhabit C. Plainly put, C is A, the mother. The child B, the one caught in the middle is innocent. Therefore, the mother has no no reason to evict or indeed kill her child. The metaphysical principle in all of this is,

"If one puts another in a situation without their consent, that situation can not be worse than they would have been in otherwise, and that consent to put someone in a dependent situation, includes the responsibility of caring for that person.
This means that:
If causing someone to exist and then killing that person, does more harm than not causing such a person to exist, abortion is not permissible.
Also,
If one consents to a situation where another is dependent upon them, and that it would have been otherwise true that the person was not dependent upon them, the person consenting is obligated to provide for the other."

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Losty, I have said that due to human embryology a human is genetically complete in its human information and belongs to the species Homo sapien thus should be considered a human being with the same rights as myself. I have argued and defended my view that this is the only coherent definition of a human being.

Study harder! Why would I do that when I have you guys?

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The "personhood" of a fetus has been addressed numerous times here by others and does not need re[eating from me.

Accusation of ad hominems do not hide the fact that, once again, you fail to address the points I've brought up - which is typical of males in the anti-choice movement (take that as an ad hominem if you wish, but it's a fact)

Once again, "a fetus isn't a someone". It has NO biological existence outside of its mother until it is viable - you always ignore that magic word: "viable"

[Ryantology]

It's not an insult Losty. I'm joking. Apologies if you're offended.

It wasn't taken as such. No foul.

When you're married to a psychologist, you have a tendency to adopt her insistence that mental disorders aren't mischaracterized.

[Ksa]

Hello, I am new to these forums and am interested in engaging in fruitful and intellectual stimulating conversations! Today, I am interested in the topic of abortion. I believe it to be morally wrong for non-religious reasons. Simply put, a fetus is a human being from the moment of conception since it belongs to the species homo-sapiens and is genetically complete in its information. I look forward to any responses!

Kindest Regards,

Ok you know what, today, I want you to be interested in how to apply the Laplace transform to a Heaviside step function. I want you to solve 5 examples and post them in this topic.

Afterwards, you can relax, take a breath and talk about abortion and other idiotic stuff.

[Arthur123]

Beccs, I am not arguing from personhood. But that of being a human and human rights. Losty, I have given my definition of what a human is and stated that a fetus falls under this category. If you see a problem with my definition or know of a better one, please, share.

[Esquilax]

If you wish to debate my view of what a human being is please state your objection.

Funny, because I've done that multiple times over the past few days, only to be glossed over. You can't just use genetics to determine what a human being is, because if you did then plenty of things that aren't human would fit into your definition. More importantly, things that don't fit under your umbrella of human rights would too, like a human corpse; this is a problem for your definition because now we have human beings, under your definition, that don't have the same rights as a fully grown person, meaning that not everything that is a human being has human rights.

You need to add more things to your definition; I know keeping it simplistic and glib is what you need to do to keep fetuses nestled squarely in the "human being" category, but it's not anyone else's fault that an accurate definition that encompasses all the elements of this discussion does not include fetuses in it.

Some philosophers have likened pregnancy to, a woman who knowingly signs up for a social experiment where she may or may not be trapped in a cabin for nine months with an infant and the infant would need her body to survive for this time. Lets say she is picked, is she now knowing full well she is responsible for bringing about the situation and the dependance of the fetus, should she not be morally and legally held responsible for the child? I believe the answer is a resounding yes.

And the problems with this still exist; it is always within the woman's rights to opt out of the experiment, in good science. What you're describing isn't an opt in scenario, it's a kidnapping. More importantly, it's yet more astoundingly glib and simple logic, because not everyone who winds up pregnant does so because of unprotected sex that was entirely within their control. Birth control fails, accidents happen, people lie.... there are so many more variables at stake here, and it says so much about your position that you've got to rely on these narrow arguments to make your case.

Similarly, in the violinist example, the woman has no responsibility nor connection to the sick man who is hooked up to her body. He is hooked up there because he, (or in her paper she uses "The Society for Music Lovers,") intentionally hooks himself up to her. But why is the fetus hooked up to the woman in the first place? Ninety-nice percent of the time, it is because she engaged in an action (sexual intercourse) that is known to create dependant people(unborn children).

"The little slut should have just kept her legs shut, if she didn't want to get pregnant!"

Listen carefully: We do not prevent other humans from seeking to mitigate the consequences of their actions.

A further analogy, shows this in a car-crash scenario. Comparing unwanted pregnancy to that of a car crash. Here, a car crashes into one car propelling it into another car. Now we find out that the owner of the third car also was the driver and instigator of the first car and started the chain reaction. Since she is the owner of both cars, she can only fault herself and indeed the car in the middle can fault her too.

Oh, you wanna do car crashes? Okay, let's apply your fallacious reasoning to car crashes: a car crash occurs, and the instigator of the crash is critically wounded and dying. An ambulance shows up with plenty of time to spare, but does nothing: after all, the driver engaged in an action (driving a car) known to cause injurious events (car crashes.) Both of the victims of the accident clearly should not be helped, as they knew the risks of driving cars.

Now comes the hard question, Arthur: is there any meaningful difference that would stop your logic regarding pregnancy above, from being applied to the car crash here? If the two terms are switched, how do the premises of your argument become invalid?

Losty, I have said that due to human embryology a human is genetically complete in its human information and belongs to the species Homo sapien thus should be considered a human being with the same rights as myself. I have argued and defended my view that this is the only coherent definition of a human being.

Listen, you're playing both sides of the field here: does the fetus have the same rights as you, or not? If it does, then it doesn't have the right to hook itself up to another's body without consent and should be summarily removed. If it doesn't, then there's no problem here.

What you're trying to do is slip in special rights under the guise of our usual rights, and as justification you've offered us nothing more than an assertion that the pregnant woman is only "temporarily inconvenienced" by the fetus which, aside from being factually wrong and insulting, is also completely irrelevant to the issue being discussed.

[Losty]

Beccs, I am not arguing from personhood. But that of being a human and human rights. Losty, I have given my definition of what a person is and stated that a fetus falls under this category. If you see a problem with my definition or know of a better one, please, share.

I must've missed it. I've seen your definition of human being about 500 times. I haves seen your definition of person.
I don't have my own definitions. I prefer to use real definitions, rather than making up my own.