Is sex-selective abortion an immoral thing to do?

[Belinda]

A large number of sparrows were sold for a farthing

Therefore how much more does your Heavenly Father value you!, said Jesus, if I remember right.

The point made by Jesus was that value relates to the thing . God values , knows, and commands, everything. Jesus was saying that the way God values is a relative not an absolute valuation. To God, sparrows are of relatively lower value than men.
If sparrows are relatively less valuable than men to God then it's possible that foetuses are less valuable to God than the foetuses' mothers.

[Immanuel Can]

A large number of sparrows were sold for a farthing

Therefore how much more does your Heavenly Father value you!, said Jesus, if I remember right.

You're correct.

The point made by Jesus was that value relates to the thing .

??? "Relates to?"

Jesus was saying that the way God values is a relative not an absolute valuation. To God, sparrows are of relatively lower value than men.

Ah. I see a bit more.

That might be so, but it's not actually what He said there. He was speaking of human pecuniary valuations. He's saying, "The people of your day regard the fall of a sparrow of such unimportance that they will sell a bunch (to be killed and eaten) in the local marketplace. But God knows every one of them individually, and knows what happens to them."

In other words, the Divine valuation is not human valuation. God values things much more, and otherwise, than human beings do.

Take yourself. I don't know anything about you. But let us suppose the world sees no value in you. They leave you in a house by yourself, and nobody visits or cares. They put you in a cell, and they throw away the key. They dump you in a "home" somewhere, and forget about you entirely. What Jesus is saying is, "That will not be God's valuation of you; and neither should we assume that just because mankind dismisses you, that you are ultimately only worth their valuation (or lack thereof)."

That's pretty encouraging stuff. And it's set in parallel to another analogy...that God knows even the number of hairs on your head. Nothing about you is not known to God, and no mere human being's lack of discernment in evaluating you can change that. You matter -- you matter to God, and you always will.

It's precisely for the same reason that babies in utero are not evaluated according to the "mother's" estimation. They are rightly valued as God values them, not as any segment of mankind does. And if human beings don't get that, it's very clear who's wrong about that. That's also why Theists of various kinds are more likely than secularists to be against abortion...it follows from what they believe about the value of a human life being established by God.

The same principle makes sex-selective abortions immoral. Whereas many societies say that women are not as valuable as men, and some say not valuable at all, if human value is set in the mind of God, then these anti-women evaluations are just plain wrong; and nobody has the right to select out unborn girls for execution. They're valuable, regardless of how any other person thinks about them.

If sparrows are relatively less valuable than men to God then it's possible that foetuses are less valuable to God than the foetuses' mothers.

Well, if a sparrow and a human being were the same, then the whole analogy would have no point at all, right? So manifestly, that can't be it.

In any case, it's obvious we're talking here about "sex-selective" and elective abortions, not about any life-threatening situations, so that wouldn't be a principle relevant to the present case.

[Belinda]

Immanuel Can wrote:

That might be so, but it's not actually what He said there. He was speaking of human pecuniary valuations. He's saying, "The people of your day regard the fall of a sparrow of such unimportance that they will sell a bunch (to be killed and eaten) in the local marketplace. But God knows every one of them individually, and knows what happens to them."

True. And God knows everything and cares about everything so He'd care for me, the sparrows, the foetus, and the pregnant woman. in addition to your quote above, Jesus added '"How much more does your Heavenly Father care for you o you of little faith". So God has gradations of values. It's generally well known that Christianity values the poor, the diseased, the despised, the unfortunate, the vulnerable, over the rich and powerful.

You may well now argue that in that case, which you cannot deny, the foetus is among the vulnerable of the Earth. That is true too. However so is the pregnant mother and so is the growing child among the vulnerable of the Earth. All these have moral claims to the protection of Christians. Jesus did not go into details about who has the highest grade of moral claim among those three moral claimants. That is left for us to decide.

Jesus' example of the sparrows in the market place is an analogy which is perhaps a little more suited to his own community than to most modern communities, although a comparison of moral value with commercial value is very interesting and I'd like to see a modern parable that makes that comparison. What can never be denied about Christianity is that it's a religion for the poor and oppressed. The best that Christians can do to support that important idea is use their reason so to decide who or what has the higher claim.

[Walker]

Walker wrote:

Conception, Birth, Death.

What is their objective value? Look to how perception of each has been corrupted, e.g., the relative view of conception has been corrupted to mean that the result isn't even life, or part of the life cycle. Doublethink.

No event has objective value: human beings evaluate events.

Human beings recognize and discover the objective events of life that have value. The value is not conferred. The events are biological and universal, which is what makes them objective. No choice or volition is involved, all three are required for life: conception, birth, and death.

Objective value is not determined by say-so.

Objective value is determined by universality.

Every human is conceived, every human is born, and every human dies.

Thus, the universality of these events, which is the basis of objectivity, and not because anyone says so. Find an exception and you have invalidated the BTL (big three of life, lest you forget).

Qualitative value, which is relative and what you are referring to, applies to the nature of living, which varies and can be quite subjective, seeing as how ego has such a big say-so in defining quality of living.

[Belinda]

You make a good point Walker.

How would you differentiate between a universal and biological value on one hand , and a subjective human value on the other?

Would you say that universal and biological value is absolutely true, whereas subjective human value is only relatively true?

Would you say that universal and biological truth value (such as conception, birth, and death) are necessarily true, whereas subjective human truth value is only relatively true?

A problem about the three universal and biological truth values of conception, birth, and death is that there is no absolute moment in time when conception, birth, or death becomes a discrete event.

[Immanuel Can]

True. And God knows everything and cares about everything so He'd care for me, the sparrows, the foetus, and the pregnant woman.

Indeed so.

in addition to your quote above, Jesus added '"How much more does your Heavenly Father care for you o you of little faith". So God has gradations of values.

Well, it tells us that sparrows are a lot less valuable than human beings. And that is a hierarchy of values, though a limited one.

It's generally well known that Christianity values the poor, the diseased, the despised, the unfortunate, the vulnerable, over the rich and powerful.

Not "over," actually: but "equally to." The key thing Christ taught was that these things were not to be allowed to be an impediment to treating every person well, whether they were in excess or in deficit. In other words, riches, prosperity and health are not to become indicators of human value.

However, abortionists want to say that unless a woman wants a child, or unless it's in her pecuniary interests to have one, the child has no value. That's the exact opposite of what Christ said.

You may well now argue that in that case, which you cannot deny, the foetus is among the vulnerable of the Earth.

Indeed so.

That is true too. However so is the pregnant mother and so is the growing child among the vulnerable of the Earth.

Not so.

The prospective "mother" (who will not actually be a mother, since she will murder her female child: remember, we're considering "sex-selective abortion") is infinitely more powerful than her child in utero. The mother had the option to abstain, the option to use contraception or not, and the option to create the child in the first place, or not. The child has no choice about those things at all. The child has no ability to choose his/her sex, but the "mother" will murder her if she gets it "wrong". The woman has the option to give birth and then allow adoption, or to murder her child in a petulant fit of rage, lest a child of her body should survive her in the real world, making her "feel bad." In fact, the mother has the ability to destroy his or her life, and deny it to him/her entirely. The female child can only wait to be torn into pieces and sucked into a sink, or now, to be born and left to die on a shelf. The child could not be more helpless, nor the mother have more genuine choices.

You can't get a much bigger power imbalance than that.

[Sir-Sister-of-Suck]

You surely can't be saying that "anyone questioning the morality of abortion" has the right to say who's human and who's not.

No I'm saying that those questioning the morality of abortion have to look at why they value regular human beings, and see if those same underlying attributes can be applied to an embryo.

I mean, this is just a basic process of inductive reasoning as you've done below what you said here, isn't it? You've taken the standard for why people have value (e.g: they have value in the eyes of God) and have determined the same thing applies for an embryo.

The problem is that you think it's a clear line, but it's not.

Well no, it's not just me that sees a clear line between first and third trimester abortions - this is something that is self-apparent to most people. This is probably even part of your innate intuitions, but I think what you've done is reasoned outside of those intuitions to make a different conclusion.

So if there's a "clear" line there, what do you say it is?

I have a better idea of where the line is, then what it is..Well, it's not even that I don't know what it is - it's just a lot of factors. Comparative ones being the most obvious to me; I think there are also specific, cultural implications to late-term abortions.

That's a separate issue from the rightness or wrongness of what they did. Neither "consensus" nor the rigours of "punishment" tell us anything definitive about that.

Well, where do you stand on the issue? If you think abortion is infanticide, shouldn't people be judged as though it were infanticide?

I mean, I talk about how there is this camp of people, who talk about it as though it were infanticide, but don't actually want to demonstrate that they believe that it is in any tangible way. Seems very dishonest, to me. Where do you fall on this?

I've frequently been in the same room as convicts (no, not because I was sharing a cell; I've been involved in felon reintegration), and been totally fine with that. They've paid their due, and they've faced justice. Some of them are actually quite decent people, who only got caught in a bad situation once. But to sit in the room with an abortion doctor, and pretend what he repeatedly does for a living is okay? It's pretty clear to me which is worse.

...A guy who's murdered his own child?

I didn't mean any convict, I was talking about a convict that has committed legitimate infanticide; You'd feel better around that guy vs the abortion doctor? I mean, who'd you rather have watch your kids? Well, I guess you're entitled to that opinion and all, but most people would not feel they've committed comparable acts.

Actually, what's new is that the governor has come out in favour of allowing women to kill (at least by neglect) viable babies who've survived botched abortions. That's appalling.

Hmmm. Well, the reason why I'm under the impression that the fetus has to be non-viable is because I've heard Ralph Northam talk about his bill; Here is what was said.

"[Third trimester abortions are] done in cases where there may be severe deformities. There may be a fetus that's nonviable. So in this particular example, if a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen," Northam, a pediatric neurosurgeon, told Washington radio station WTOP. "The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that's what the mother and the family desired. And then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother."

He also gave a clarification - to vox I believe, stating that he was referring to a non-viable fetus. I have skimmed through the actual bill, and there is mention about the viability of the fetus but as you can imagine, it's hard to determine exactly what it means; This is usually the case for our bills. Again, don't get me wrong. The legal definition of what a non-viable fetus actually is needs to be examined, and there actually are other things about this bill.

Not quite so sure about the new york situation.

[Sir-Sister-of-Suck]

That's shallow bullshit. If most 'individuals' were against war then we wouldn't have wars. Very few people are genuinely anti-war. Politicians never seem to be short of suckers to do their dirty work. How are you defining 'atrocity'?

What do you mean by 'tribalistic way of thinking'? Or are you just being a yank and spewing out meaningless buzzphrases?

Oh, puhhhhhleeeeezzze. Wars never start because of a democratic vote, they happen under the leadership of a powerful few who have turned their backs to their constituents. You know this, you know how the game of politics works; People aren't voting to have declarations of war signed - there are far more people who would vote for the right to smoke weed and masturbate.

What do I mean? You take something my nation has done like the vietnam war and impute that to the conscious of every american; Well I wasn't even born when the vietnam war happened, vege. I don't have anything to do with that mess. In fact, I don't have anything to do with anything my country has ever done.

You're pulling the same crap out of your butt here. Time out.

Idiot.

Least I'm a step above the mustache-twirling bad guy who wants constant death and destruction, which is apparently most people according to you.

"How are you defining atrocity," give me a break... Why don't you go ahead and define a "pedantic faggot," for me?

[Sir-Sister-of-Suck]

Elective abortion is always horrible and immoral . Some elective abortions are the least worst choice of evils. Elective abortion on the basis of the sex of the foetus is particularly bad and I cannot think of any possible moral justification for it

Why do you think it's 'particularly' bad, though? What differentiates the actual substance of it from any acceptable abortion? We can impute a different motive onto the person, but nothing changes about the action itself.

You could have a schizophrenic person who's genuinely convinced of a potent delusion that there are tiny, invisible men inside his toaster; That doesn't mean he's doing something immoral when he decides to pop it down, anyway.

That hypothetical schizophrenic person is nowadays judged to be deluded to the extent that their moral judgement is impaired.What the person did to the little men in the toaster is immoral only if you are judging the madman to be morally responsible.

Well no, the point is he couldn't have done anything immoral, because what he actually did was use a toaster.

This is the conundrum here for people who want their cake; You can't say that abortion is okay, and then say that abortion is not okay if just the motivation is different. Just as with the toaster, unless little men are actually being burned alive - nothing different is actually being committed. As gary childress pointed out in the beginning of this thread, there are people who take more nuanced positions on abortion, and some acceptable responses can be found from them, as well.

[Immanuel Can]

You surely can't be saying that "anyone questioning the morality of abortion" has the right to say who's human and who's not.

No I'm saying that those questioning the morality of abortion have to look at why they value regular human beings, and see if those same underlying attributes can be applied to an embryo.

What makes us confident that the way to know the value of a human being is to look at his or her "attributes"?

I mean, this is just a basic process of inductive reasoning as you've done below what you said here, isn't it? You've taken the standard for why people have value (e.g: they have value in the eyes of God) and have determined the same thing applies for an embryo.

Yes, but not because of some "attribute" any of them have: rather, by dint of being someone created and loved by God.

it's not just me that sees a clear line between first and third trimester abortions - this is something that is self-apparent to most people.

Not at all. The "trimester" distinction is completely convenient, since the entire gestation is nine months. It's the easiest way to divide, but it's not profound in any way. A late-second trimester baby may well be more developed than an early-third trimester baby. In addition, many locales make no such distinctions, and abort babies up to full womb-exit. Canada, for example, does this.

Well, where do you stand on the issue? If you think abortion is infanticide, shouldn't people be judged as though it were infanticide?

In this case, as you pointed out earlier, we're talking about "sex-selective" abortions. That's pure murder. It should be absolutely banned, no question in my mind. And it doesn't even have any excuses going for it -- this is an instance wherein the mother would keep the baby if he were a boy, but would kill her if she is a girl. That's infanticide, plain and simple.

A guy who's murdered his own child?

That's like an abortionist -- except the abortionist kills other people's children.

Here's another interesting thing. Have you ever noticed that abortionists thrive on NOT providing women with information?

What I mean is this: if I go for a gall bladder operation, say, the doctor takes it as his sacred duty to make sure I'm fully informed before I agree to the procedure. He is certain to tell me ALL the possible negatives and positives. If anything, he paints the grimmest picture, so that I will be fully prepared for the consequences of my decision. Not only that, but he does an ultrasound, and shows me the pictures: he says, "Here is your gall bladder, and here is the tumour we have to excise, and here's where what scope we use, and this is how much pain you could potentially have, and here's how long it will take you to recover..." and so on. Not only that, but the doctor would likely show me the post-op results as well, to reassure me that the tumour had been properly diagnosed and excised.

If abortion is such a healthy procedure, why don't abortionists do the same? They should at least show the victim what her child looks like, and say, "Here's the fetus, and here's her hands and feet. Here's the instrument with which we will inject saline into her skull, here's where we will drive the scissors into the spine, here's where we will suck out the brain tissue, collapsing the skull, and here's what sort of counselling you'll need to recover from the procedure... etc. And by the way, before you leave we'll show you the remains of the operation, so you know we got all of her, and so you won't have to live in any fear of sepsis or residual decay as a result..."

Imagine that, eh? The fully-informed woman getting an abortion. And doctors could do that. But they don't. Because we all know what it is, and what would happen if we did that. Women would be horrified at what they are doing, and would not dare to harm the child anymore; and if one did, it would only be because she had become a psychopath of some kind. So the only way they can get normal women to do it is to preserve their ignorance of what is really going on.

So who's really standing up for women's rights: the person who wants them ignorant, or the one who wants them informed?

[vegetariantaxidermy]

If it were dead then there wouldn't be a problem would there? Duh! How stupid does that stupid religious fuck above think women are? The whole point is to get rid of it.

It also has no clue what abortion actually involves. Is it seriously saying women shouldn't even be allowed terminations in the first six or seven weeks, when all they need is a pill, and the FOETUS is about the size of a lentil? What's all that crap about 'sucking out brains'?
Is the 'tender-hearted kristian' also against the morning after pill?

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Oh, puhhhhhleeeeezzze. Wars never start because of a democratic vote, they happen under the leadership of a powerful few who have turned their backs to their constituents. You know this, you know how the game of politics works; People aren't voting to have declarations of war signed - there are far more people who would vote for the right to smoke weed and masturbate.

What do I mean? You take something my nation has done like the vietnam war and impute that to the conscious of every american; Well I wasn't even born when the vietnam war happened, vege. I don't have anything to do with that mess. In fact, I don't have anything to do with anything my country has ever done.

You're pulling the same crap out of your butt here. Time out.

Idiot.

Least I'm a step above the mustache-twirling bad guy who wants constant death and destruction, which is apparently most people according to you.

"How are you defining atrocity," give me a break... Why don't you go ahead and define a "pedantic faggot," for me?

,..,.,..,

[Walker]

You make a good point Walker.

How would you differentiate between a universal and biological value on one hand , and a subjective human value on the other?

Would you say that universal and biological value is absolutely true, whereas subjective human value is only relatively true?

Would you say that universal and biological truth value (such as conception, birth, and death) are necessarily true, whereas subjective human truth value is only relatively true?

A problem about the three universal and biological truth values of conception, birth, and death is that there is no absolute moment in time when conception, birth, or death becomes a discrete event.

The universality is not only that each milestone must be passed in order for Life to be, and to have been.

The greater universality which applies to all things is the impermanence of the passing by, of each milestone.

You are conceived only once and then it’s gone, but conception is not gone.
You are born only once and then it’s gone, but birthing is not gone.
You die only once and then it’s gone, but dying is not gone.

Losing all to gain all makes sense when you is all that gets lost, which means buh-bye solipsism and its supporting relativism. Nothing is never lost, for nothing is all.

Perhaps scientists make a huge assumption in assuming that conditions of the earth, which are required for life, which is required for consciousness, exist elsewhere in the universe, when all about the earth is not known, which implies unknown causations that could be contingencies for conception, birth, and death.

[Belinda]

Immanuel Can,

Needle's Eye, camel, rich man.
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Another point : the foetus is more vulnerable than the pregnant mother in the ways you described. However poor children born to poor or otherwise vulnerable mothers are in worse case than the foetus who has no or little awareness , and it's the lack of awareness of the foetus that matters when we are discussing the ethics of abortion. In all cases of medical ethics, awareness and sentience are very important variables.

If there it were true that the foetus suffers from the abortion operation then I'd condemn the operation.

[Immanuel Can]

Immanuel Can,

Needle's Eye, camel, rich man.

I know the passage, but I can't tell what you're trying to make of it. It's about pride.

... it's the lack of awareness of the foetus that matters when we are discussing the ethics of abortion.

Well, first, there's no reason to think that's true, even were it true. But it's not. Children in utero are aware, and we can see them react. We just don't know exactly what they are experiencing: for all we know, it might be far, far worse than we have ever imagined, especially, perhaps, in second and third trimester abortions, but even perhaps in first.

If there it were true that the foetus suffers from the abortion operation then I'd condemn the operation.

Well, I would argue we have pretty good evidence it does. In any case, the child belongs to God, not merely to the "mother." She has the child placed in her trust, but it's not simply "her child" to treat any way she pleases.

But what if it were just possible that horrible suffering was being visited upon the victim -- would you condemn the procedure if you thought it was just possible or probable you were doing something hideous? Because any good person should. To risk doing horrendous harm to a helpless infant is a pretty serious thing, as I'm sure you'd agree.

But as it is, we're talking about sex-selection abortion, so a number of variables are simply not in play: the "mother" is not at risk, the child is wanted (though not its sex), the foetus is examined and found healthy, and were it a boy it would be taken to term and raised.

This is pure murder-because-its-a-girl, and nothing else.