Attack at Planned Parenthood Clinic

[Mudhammam]

If you think that a woman who carries the human being inside of her to the point of viability, and then decides to kill it, is guilty of a moral atrocity, then the issue is no more about demonization in that instance as it would be in any other wherein a person kills another person for some reason. If you think demonization would be appropriate in the case that a person killed another without justification, then you're special pleading by demanding that this one situation be excepted. 

The majority of late-term abortions don't happen because a woman simply tires of being pregnant or decides she doesn't want to take care of the baby after it's born.  Late-term abortions consist of about 1-2% of all abortions that are performed, and when they happen it's more commonly because it is discovered through regular screenings and genetic testing that the baby either won't survive or will have a very restricted life due to severe disability and the parents have to decide whether they want to carry on with a wanted pregnancy and have a potentially severely disabled child with potentially little quality of life or whether to abort the baby.  Late-term abortions can be prohibitively expensive, and the longer a woman is pregnant the more dangerous performing an abortion on her becomes.  Late-term abortion is not a decision women make lightly.

http://www.livestrong.com/article/193363...-abortion/
http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/06/trut...abortions/
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2009/0...ion-story/

So no, I don't make the blanket assumption that all women who have late-term abortions are committing moral atrocities.  They are more likely to be expectant mothers (and their partners) who are given devastating news about wanted pregnancies and who have to make really tough decisions morally about their child's future, physically about the mother's health and body, and financially due to the cost of the procedure.

I have no qualm with late-term abortions if the life of the mother is at stake or the child has some defect that will drastically effect his or her quality of life. In such instances I think there may even be a moral obligation to have an abortion. Of the roughly 10,000 late-term abortions that are performed each year, I don't know how many would fall into a category such as this. My issue is only with abortions that are performed at this stage because the mother doesn't want the child, whether that be due to the inconveniences that carrying the child to full term may involve or something else. I imagine this would describe a very small number of abortions, but even those I would consider to be too many.

When it comes to moral issues, I don't really care what legal status a person has. To kill a non-citizen without justification is not somehow less of a crime than it is to kill a legal citizen. If a fetus is developed to the point that it has all of the biological equipment required for its survival outside of the womb, then it's own body ought to be considered along with it's mother's, regardless if one has citizenship while the other doesn't.

So you're advocating for involuntary servitude against the woman's will?

Nope. I'm not talking about the state intervening and preventing a woman from making a decision that regards her body. There's simply no feasible way to enforce my views on abortion without consequences that I would find to be even more outrageous. What should be done with the women who violate such a law so as to prohibit late-term abortions excepting the circumstances we have already related? Imprisonment? Fines? I wouldn't want to live in that society any more than you would. However, if we lived in a world where I could convince everyone to act in what I would consider to be the most ethical manner, then between what you call "involuntary servitude" and what I would consider to be the unlawful (immoral) killing of another person, I'd absolutely advocate for it. Where the situation involves those exceptions, i.e. harm to either the mother or the child's future quality of life, of course, I wouldn't consider killing the child to be unjust though. But where the child is healthy and the mother, perhaps because she was not aware of the pregnancy, or has changed her mind about wanting to carry it to term, then yes, she should not destroy that life. She should have the freedom to do as she wants because her right to privacy is incredibly important and there's no practical or even ethical way around it, but I have no sympathy with such a woman if she should be demonized as a baby killer. I do suspect that this rarely occurs, fortunately.

Of course an abortion for the vast majority constitutes an incredibly difficult decision, and since we are talking about terminating a human being in its early stages of development, that's absolutely the way it should be. That sexual intercourse practiced irresponsibly can easily result in the conception of a human life should also be taken seriously, and the decision to engage in such behavior without taking the necessary precautions such as birth control, the morning after pill, condoms, or - my favorite - the pullout method, should also be incredibly difficult for any person who has no desire to bring another life into the world.

I agree that sex should be taken serious (in the sense that it may result in pregnancy - and let's not forget STDs), but consenting to sex does not mean consenting to pregnancy.

If it was all about you and your body, there would be no debate to be had. It's also about the child and his/her body. Don't take their rights away - and I don't mean the rights that depend on recognition from the state.

This would be a really easy problem to solve if these rights you're affording this child had no bearing on another person, but that child has no inherent right to use another person's body to keep itself alive if that person don't consent to it just as I don't have the right to plumb myself to your kidney because I'm in renal failure and am waiting for a transplant.  It's only for a little while and there won't be any lasting effects.  I think...  You can go on disability while I'm hooked up to you.  Don't worry about those wrist bands and ankle cuffs, they're only there for your protection so you don't rip out any of the cords connecting us.  Don't you want to save my life?

That's a weak analogy, at least for your argument. For though the child may be infringing on the person's body against their will, it was likely that latter person's own decisions and actions that forced the child into the circumstances that he or she is in, unlike the scenario wherein you require a kidney to survive and wish to force your will upon another at their expense - which actually more or less describes the mother's act in killing the child because she wants X (note: wants, not needs) and the child is thought to stand in the way between herself and X. If I had been directly responsible for your renal failure - as the mother was for the child's existence and its need to use her body, the probability of which was implied to varying degrees in the consensual first act - then you may in fact have an argument that you are entitled to my kidney, as the child to her body. Rape, of course, would be a different situation, and that would be much more akin to your alternative example. In that case, if we are simply weighing the value of a person's life versus some bodily resources that another can provide without any major or permanent damage to themselves (in other words, unlike giving up an organ) - but perhaps only some moderate and temporary inconveniences - then even though it may be against their will, the life of the person whose existence is at stake is clearly to be valued higher.