But there’s a huge difference between legally allowing a woman to become “un-pregnant” by removing an embryo or fetus from her body, and saying that she also has an unlimited corresponding right to do whatever she wants to the separate body, the embryo/fetus/child, that is removed from her. THAT’S where things become morally muddled and potentially horrifying.

At some point in the second trimester, a fetus/child MUST, medically, be delivered in order to remove it from the woman’s body. This is true whether the woman is having an elective abortion, or whether there is a problem in the pregnancy involving a wanted (real) child. It’s a matter of whether the fetus is killed by injection before the delivery occurs, and also a matter of whether the woman’s cervix is medically dilated a few centimeters more or less. If less-dilated, then the fetus must be dismembered to pass through; a few centimeters more and the fetus can emerge intact and potentially alive.

It’s a simple question but one on which so much rests: does a woman have a right to terminate a pregnancy, or does she have an all-encompassing right to a dead baby up to the moment a full-term living infant is 100% emerged from her body? A right that would extend even AFTER the fetus is completely out of her body in those jurisdictions that refuse to enact “Born Alive” types of protections.

No one seems to ask this; no one is made to lay out the moral or ethical case for making the deliberate killing of a viable fetus entirely within a woman’s “right to choose” once the fetus is removed. Using the popular hypothetical where a woman is connected to another person for a transfusion, imagine that she wants to disconnect the tube and go her own independent way. She would have the right to do so, even if that meant that the other person would soon die. But what if the transfusion had been going on for so long that it was almost certain the other person could now be saved with appropriate medical care? In what way could the woman be entitled to “choose” to have doctors deny the other person that care?? She’s achieved her bodily autonomy. She doesn’t have to pay for the other person’s care, and she doesn’t have to assume the burden of continuing to care for that person because there are others who are eager to take on that responsibility.

Somewhat relayed to wisdom and self satisfied assumptions (not addresses to anyone specifically):

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rhCYhlxlp04

As to exposing or [20] rearing the children born, let there be a law that no deformed child shall be reared; but on the ground of number of children, if the regular customs hinder any of those born being exposed, there must be a limit fixed to the procreation of offspring, and if any people have a child as a result of intercourse in contravention of these regulations, abortion must be practised on it before it has developed sensation and life; for the line between lawful and unlawful abortion will be marked by the fact of having sensation and being alive. And since the beginning of the fit age for a man and for a woman, at which they are to begin their union, has been defined, let it also be decided for how long a time it is suitable for them to serve the state in the matter of producing children. For the offspring of too elderly parents, as those of too young ones, are born imperfect both in body and mind, and the children of those that have arrived at old age are weaklings. Therefore the period must be limited to correspond with the mental prime; and this in the case of most men is the age stated by some of the poets, who measure men’s age by periods of seven years, —it is about the age of fifty. Therefore persons exceeding this age by four or five years must be discharged from the duty of producing children for the community, and for the rest of their lives if they have intercourse it must be manifestly for the sake of health or for some other similar reason.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0057%3Abook%3D7%3Asection%3D1335b

Were there a WQ test to match the IQ test, the vast majority of self-identified “liberals” these days (or “progressives”, same thing), they would be almost uniformly be found to be in the bottom 1/3rd of the resulting “WQ” normal bell curve.

ObloodyHell:

However, many on the right and the left are pleased to make that distinction with the understanding that Wisdom is aligned with their particular beliefs and opinions.

I don’t say that all beliefs and opinions are equal, but sorting them out against capital-W Wisdom is less than straightforward.

Sixty million years ago we were tree shrews. We might evince some humility on that score. But humility generally doesn’t make us feel as good as moral certainty and righteous indignation towards those who disagree with us.

Abortion and outright infanticide have been with human civilization since the beginning. Here’s Aristotle, one of the foundational thinkers of Western Civilization, on abortion:
_____________________________

..when couples have children in excess, let abortion be procured before sense and life have begun; what may or may not be lawfully done in these cases depends on the question of life and sensation.

Aristotle, Politics 7.16

Kaboom, but gently.

Here are the differences:

(1) An act of the mother caused the dependent person to exist in the first place, which changes her responsibility towards that person (as opposed to the blood transfusion situation).

(2) The mother has already been providing blood and the use of her body to keep the fetus alive (as opposed to the blood transfusion situation). She would like to stop doing so, thus killing the child. In the blood transfusion situation, one cannot compel the person to start doing so, but that’s not analogous to whether the mother can stop doing so.

You cannot force someone to donate blood or organs to save another person.

Suppose I have an exceptionally rare blood type. Suppose PersonA has that same rare blood type. Neither of us can take a transfusion of blood from anyone else, due to that type. We are the only two known possessors of this type.

PersonA gets into an accident, and, without an immediate transfusion, will die.

I refuse. You cannot force me to provide blood. I am being a total dick, but, it’s still “my choice”.

In what manner is this different from a fetus with the mother?

She’s giving blood, use of her organs, etc., to keep the fetus alive until it can be removed (or birthed, but even “removed”) as viable.

How do you justify forcing her to do so? Given the blood transfusion argument, in particular? The situations are, if not identical, exceptionally similar in the moral and ethical issues they raise. You may be being a heartless, self-centered dick to allow the other to die, but it is within your rights and actual legal responsibility as a person to do so.

Meanwhile, I saved it — that first line is a quote from earlier in the thread, in my usual format.

}}} A human life is, by law, viable from her first to last heart beat

Mmmm. pretty sure that THAT is an utterly inaccurate statement of The Law. It can be argued it is moral, just, and ethical, but it certainly does NOT represent The Law as-is.

I believe, as always the issue is complex as fuck, and everyone on either side tries to reduce it to some simple platitudinal matter just to make their point “inviolable”.

1 — “I’ve seen an ultrasound. It looks human.”. Yeah, so does a wax figure at Mme Tussaud’s. I think we can agree that isn’t human. Q.E.D.: Appearance ain’t it, part 1.

2 — Horrific burn victim, also a quadriplegic, due to the burns and whatever burned them. Looks far more like a huge steak than a person. Human? Yeah, likely. Q.E.D.: Appearance ain’t it, part 2.

3a — Has human DNA. Really? So, a skin cell that flaked off your arm. It’s got human DNA. Is it a human? Duh, No.

3b — “Has human DNA, It can become a larger thing”. Pretty sure I can take something like a deeper skin cell, put it into a petri dish, then cultivate it to make more skin cells. Is the petri dish contents human? Duh, No.

3c — Fertilized ova. Is therefore a human being. Really? Why? I concur and do not dispute: it can become a human being. But at the moment of fertilization, it becomes one? You need a better argument.

3c(I) — At the moment it becomes fertilized, God put a soul attached to it. Ok, we have something here, but it’s a religious argument, cannot be verified without an appeal to religious beliefs, and generally cannot and should not be justified for use as a basis for The Law. If you do this, you open the argument for Muslims to put forth Sharia as a basis for The Law. No. No thank you.

3c(II) — The other problem with this claim is clear: If that is so, then God Himself aborts a lot of souls, because it’s fairly common for a fertilized egg to fail to bond to the lining of the womb, if it happens too early or too late in a woman’s menstrual cycle. Now, I concur, “God can make this decision, and Man cannot” is a reasonable assertion, but I really really have to ask: Why the heck would God do such a thing? Why would God attach a soul to something only to have it naturally abort as a matter of “random chance”? Q.E.D., So perhaps He does not do this, at all. Perhaps there is a point at which the soul gets attached to the fetus, when it moves from “something that might become a human being” to “something which IS a human being”. This fits reasonable sense more than the “fertilized ova” argument.

4 — so, we have a reasonable argument against the fertilized ova assertion, as well as the “it looks like a human” assertion. So what other criteria might be reasonable, preferably one which does not require an appeal to religious principles? I assert, baldly, that the clear point is the one in which the fetus develops independent brainwaves from the mother. If we have any indications of what represents individuality in a human, independent thoughts and ideas, it is brainwaves. Which, interestingly, begin to be uniquely unsynced from the mother @ ca. 12-16 weeks… which matches up to the point beyond which most people start to come to full agreement (except for liberal extremists) about the legality of an abortion.

This does not argue for that timeframe as being “abortion acceptable”, so much as it argues for what The Law should say, sans further studies and evidence, and/or a much clearer, less subjective definition of “What makes a human being a human and not just another living creature?”

I still think, socially, we should discourage outright abortion as a whole (I have no issue with the “day after pill” in any regard. That is clearly mimicking natural processes up to that point), and encourage bringing to term and adoption.

But it should still be mostly up to the mother about what to do (and: mind you — if the father wants the child, then the father should absolutely have the right to raise it over any other individual except the mother, and should have significant legal paternal rights even if she decides to raise it — but that’s part of an entirely different Pandora’s box of legal issues) — though, again, paternally, the father should be made aware of their paternity, if it is known, and should be allowed their input into the decision making process, even though, in the end, it is still up to the woman, who must bear the physical burden.

TL;DR:
Abortion probably should be legal, but socially discouraged, even strongly discouraged, up to the end of the 1st trimester. The fathers, if known, should be legally required to be made aware of it, and allowed their input into the choice, though the choice should still be in the hands of the mother (she should be allowed the presence of a psychologist of her choice, if she wishes, lest she feel browbeaten in the father’s preferential direction). In the event the child is born, to be put up for adoption, then the father’s paternal rights should have every first consideration subsequent to the mother’s. In general, if men are (rightly, no question) to be considered responsible for paternity, then there should be some commensurate authority, to balance that responsibility.

I don’t think IQ has a lot to do with this — though both the right and the left tend to believe the smart people are, of course, on their side.

I assert my previously made observation, it’s Wisdom, not Intellect, that they are sorely lacking in.

Were there a WQ test to match the IQ test, the vast majority of self-identified “liberals” these days (or “progressives”, same thing), they would be almost uniformly be found to be in the bottom 1/3rd of the resulting “WQ” normal bell curve.

Like the Peter Principle and Murphy’s Law, there are short-form and long-form definitions of what feminism is. The short-form definition of ‘feminism’ is as follows: ‘the habit of assessing human relations with the assumption that women have options…and men have obligations’. The abortion discourse is not ‘linked’ to feminism. It exemplifies it.