Abortion: 10 years as an atheist and I still don't get it

[The Grand Nudger]

You;d be wrong.  You employed the terms we use to denote instances of killing which -aren;t- legal or moral, but ofc there are instances of killing that would fit any of those that we do consider justifiable and can be legal.

Honestly, I'd say that a person who just "can't get" what sort of moral justifications there are for abortion isn't really unaware of there being such justifications..they just don't agree with them.

Broadly speaking, if having the child is worse than not having the child - then we consider not having the child the moral option..just like we do in any other example of an endless list of similar situations. If we can acknowledge that it;s possible for this situation to present itself, then wev'e acknowledged the moral defensibility and justification for abortion. We might still, for our own personal reasons, reject that option. To roll the dice and do the worse of the two..hope that things turn out better. That;s okay, obviously, as a decision a person makes for themselves.

[mlmooney89]

I still don't think genocide, matricide or homicide is considered moral or legal. What makes infanticide or feoticide any different?

Who said anything about infanticide?!

in·fan·ti·cide /inˈfan(t)əˌsīd/ noun

noun: infanticide; plural noun: infanticides

1. the crime of killing a child within a year of birth.

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Honestly I think you are a morally better person to get the abortion if you are going to bring a child into the world that you will resent for your entire life, if you can't even feed it, if you will end up putting it into the system, or if you don't have a reputable person/agency to adopt the child.

I'm against abortion but it is the lesser of two evils and unless we become magic and can put every unwanted baby into a good home it will never cease to be needed. I want to cry thinking of how much more horrible the system in America would be if we added hundreds of thousands of children to it each year. Plus it keeps the population in somewhat of a check. Then again I'm the asshole person that thinks we will over populate by getting rid of all disease and extending our life expectancy.

[Aegon]

I still don't think genocide, matricide or homicide is considered moral or legal. What makes infanticide or feoticide any different?

I'm sure you already understand why. There is a fundamental disagreement on terminology and the status of a fetus before/after X amount of weeks that will most likely never be resolved.

[The Grand Nudger]

That matters more to it's legality than to it's morality.  If the forced birthers have their way it would be illegal to have an abortion, but still morally justifiable - as is so often the case with illegal things.

[Mermaid]

1) Morality is subjective.

Therefore...?

Therefore you cannot dictate morality to another person. Your morals are yours alone and nobody else's.

By this logic jurors should just shrug and say, "Well the incident in question didn't involve me so it's none of my beeswax."

When the Nazis were gassing Jews, well, we were out of line to intervene because they can do with their citizens as they please.

Or do you see a problem there? 

You are equating ending a pregnancy with murdering a living person as well as putting the contents of a woman's uterus on trial? The wheels have fallen off.
You are making snarky quips about people not reading your OP, but you don't seem to be absorbing the perspectives of people who have taken the time to discuss this with you. I suspect you still don't get it because you refuse to or are unable to listen.

[The Grand Nudger]

Is that an objective rule or a subjective one that you can;t dictate to others?

Another way to frame the above, without falling headlong into the pit, is that regardless of what is or isn't right or wrong and regardless of which of two things is wrong to a greater degree - a person ultimately decides for themselves the level of moral accountability that they are willing to bear - and any other person who insists that they should have borne the other had better be prepared to bear that other option themselves before making such a condemnation.

[Nihilist Virus]

Good points.  Yes, there are other issues involved in deciding moral questions.  I was adding a couple.  I liked Robvalue's post about not trivializing the debate.

Many of our moral choices are between bad and worse.  Imposing a one-size-fits-all rule because of a religious idea is the problem at the heart of the debate.  It's far too over-simplified.

The funny part is that Christians have no legitimate reason to be pro-life. Despite "no one coming to the father" without Jesus, Christians inexplicably believe that aborted babies go to heaven. Further, the Bible endorses forced abortions in the event of infidelity (on the woman's side, of course) via magical potions. See the latter half of Numbers 5.

They might chuck around quotes like, "I am wonderfully and fearfully made" or "I was knitted in my mother's womb" but they will scream about context if you mention, "Happy is he who takes thy little ones and smashes them over rocks." Well, the context is that the Jews really hated their Babylonian masters. Is that a good enough reason to fantasize about murdering babies?

[The Grand Nudger]

American christians, in living memory, used to call abortion "the catholic issue".  This was before the reorganization of american christendom into an enforced monolith as a wedge for conservatism.

[Aegon]

The funny part is that Christians have no legitimate reason to be pro-life. Despite "no one coming to the father" without Jesus, Christians inexplicably believe that aborted babies go to heaven.

You sure? Fetus was never baptized therefore still guilty of original sin. I'm sure at least 5 or 6 Christians in the world believe that. I'd be pro-life too if I legitimately thought women were dooming thousands of fetuses to burn in Hell for all eternity.

[Nihilist Virus]

I still don't think genocide, matricide or homicide is considered moral or legal. What makes infanticide or feoticide any different?

Was genocide moral when Joshua perpetrated it on the people in the holy land? Is homicide moral if we are killing a person who has gathered some twigs on the Sabbath?

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I think we sometimes confuse our rights with morality. I have a right to shoot you if you try to cut me, even if I know you're only going to cut me once, not very deep, and I'll not only survive, I won't even be terribly inconvenienced. You don't have the right to cut me against my will and I do have the right to shoot someone who is trying to cut me against my will. But 'the right thing to do' ™ is to not shoot you and avoid being cut in some way that doesn't involve killing you, or even let you cut me. But my right to resist being cut is absolute, even if allowing you to cut me would save your life.

What I'm saying is that even if an abortion is not 'the right thing to do' ™, it should still be legal under a rights system, certainly if it's one where I can shoot someone trying to get a pint of my blood against my will to (for instance) save an innocent child's life, which is the regime most of us live under. If we don't allow abortion, maybe doctors should be allowed to seize my blood to help someone else who needs it more. Or one of my kidneys. And make organ donation compulsory.

Agreed on all points.

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You;d be wrong.  You employed the terms we use to denote instances of killing which -aren;t- legal or moral, but ofc there are instances of killing that would fit any of those that we do consider justifiable and can be legal.

Honestly, I'd say that a person who just "can't get" what sort of moral justifications there are for abortion isn't really unaware of there being such justifications..they just don't agree with them.

Broadly speaking, if having the child is worse than not having the child - then we consider not having the child the moral option..

Worse for whom? Society, the mother, or the fetus? Or some kind of "average" of all three?

An abortion is obviously the worst case scenario for the fetus so that would skew the average quite a bit. And if we aren't considering the well being of the fetus then that's just avoiding the conversation because I think the pro-lifers very much want to discuss the well being of the fetus.

just like we do in any other example of an endless list of similar situations.  If we can acknowledge that it;s possible for this situation to present itself, then wev'e acknowledged the moral defensibility and justification for abortion.  We might still, for our own personal reasons, reject that option.  To roll the dice and do the worse of the two..hope that things turn out better.  That;s okay, obviously, as a decision a person makes for themselves.

You mentioned a warzone abortion earlier so how bizarre of situations are you considering? I mean... we could come up with a bizarre scenario where rape is the moral thing to do. That doesn't mean we should just legalize rape.

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Therefore you cannot dictate morality to another person. Your morals are yours alone and nobody else's.

We all dictate morality to others. Or would you just let someone rape and murder you without even objecting?

You are equating ending a pregnancy with murdering a living person as well as putting the contents of a woman's uterus on trial? The wheels have fallen off.
You are making snarky quips about people not reading your OP, but you don't seem to be absorbing the perspectives of people who have taken the time to discuss this with you. I suspect you still don't get it because you refuse to or are unable to listen.

You certainly do not seem to have browsed the OP very much. I explained in excruciating detail that a fetus has no personhood and is not a person. And then you accuse me of saying that an abortion is the murder of a person? And you say I'm unable to listen? Please go back, read the unedited OP, and acknowledge that you are wrong.

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The funny part is that Christians have no legitimate reason to be pro-life. Despite "no one coming to the father" without Jesus, Christians inexplicably believe that aborted babies go to heaven.

You sure? Fetus was never baptized therefore still guilty of original sin. I'm sure at least 5 or 6 Christians in the world believe that. I'd be pro-life too if I legitimately thought women were dooming thousands of fetuses to burn in Hell for all eternity.

Sure there are probably a few exceptions. But poll 1000 people leaving a church and see what they say. I don't think 1000 is enough to find one who will condemn aborted fetuses to eternal hellfire.