Is sex-selective abortion an immoral thing to do?

Anything to do with gender and the status of women and men.

Moderators: AMod, iMod

User avatar
Immanuel Can
Posts: 22257
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2013 4:42 pm

Re: Is sex-selective abortion an immoral thing to do?

Post by Immanuel Can »

Belinda wrote: Thu May 09, 2019 9:39 am Regarding foetuses, personhood is not biological but cultural.
If so, then when a society declares you "not a person," (because, say, you're a slave, or a woman, or a child, or of a minority group, or of the wrong religion...) then you are not a person. End of story, because personhood is cultural, not biological.

Happy with that?
Henry and Immanuel claim that foetuses should be granted the status of persons.
Not at all.

What I say is that they have that status, whether anybody wants to grant it or not.

And those who do not are complicit in murder, just as those who did not grant personhood to women were sexist and those who did not grant it to slaves or Jews were racist. Children are children: nothing another person decides will change that; and if they are not, no wish of mine will make them into persons.

They are what they are.
It's not helpful that some religionists sacralise "life" in the simplistic way they do.

I wonder what the God who created children thinks of your last statement.
The foetus's living siblings have higher statuses than their foetal brother because the former have mutual emotional bonds with their mother who has a unique relationship with each of them.

How odd. Women tell me they have a very special and precious relationship with the wanted child in their womb. One of my friends is seven months along, and she glows with delight, and tells me how she feels the baby move, and how she sings to it, and how it reacts to her...How does this relationship suddenly evaporate when the woman says she doesn't want the child?

But let's get serious here: all of this is simply dodging the topic. It's not just abortion we're on here: look at the OP. It's "sex-selection" abortion. So the wanted baby is male, and the unwanted one is female (in the vast majority of cases). And it's that you have to justify, not just abortion per se.
Nobody approves of abortion
Sure they do.

And if you say some don't, then why would it be "bad" if they did? Since it's an optional act, why would it be "bad" if a woman had ten pregnancies, and killed every female one? They're all worth nothing anyway, unless the women wants them, you say.

I thought you said it was not an immoral procedure...are you now saying it is? I thought you said it was a woman's choice...are you now saying it's a bad or even regrettable choice?
User avatar
henry quirk
Posts: 14706
Joined: Fri May 09, 2008 8:07 pm
Location: Right here, a little less busy.

"What I say is that they have that status (personhood), whether anybody wants to grant it or not."

Post by henry quirk »

Yeah, Mannie, that's my thinkin' as well.

It's what I claim for myself, so: naturally, it applies to everyone, including those who haven't been born yet.
Dachshund
Posts: 324
Joined: Wed Nov 29, 2017 6:40 pm

Re: "What I say is that they have that status (personhood), whether anybody wants to grant it or not."

Post by Dachshund »

henry quirk wrote: Thu May 09, 2019 2:53 pm Yeah, Mannie, that's my thinkin' as well.

It's what I claim for myself, so: naturally, it applies to everyone, including those who haven't been born yet.
Personhood, as far as I know, is an incredibly complex and "messy" metaphysical concept that has not ever been decisively defined by philosophy to date.

Dachshund.
User avatar
henry quirk
Posts: 14706
Joined: Fri May 09, 2008 8:07 pm
Location: Right here, a little less busy.

Dac

Post by henry quirk »

All more the reason to tread lightly and err on caution's side.

If we can't cleanly say what a person is: then mebbe we ought not be killin' 'things' that just might be people.
uwot
Posts: 6093
Joined: Mon Jul 23, 2012 7:21 am

Dic

Post by uwot »

henry quirk wrote: Thu May 09, 2019 3:51 pm All more the reason to tread lightly and err on caution's side.

If we can't cleanly say what a person is: then mebbe we ought not be killin' 'things' that just might be people.
Who is "we"? Sounds awfully communitarian, as if the demands of the collective usurp individual decisions.
User avatar
henry quirk
Posts: 14706
Joined: Fri May 09, 2008 8:07 pm
Location: Right here, a little less busy.

"Who is "we"?"

Post by henry quirk »

Human beings.

#

"Sounds awfully communitarian"

Just the opposite.

#

"as if the demands of the collective usurp individual decisions"

Nope: it's all about the individual (in this case the vulnerable one), and his/her self-ownership in the face of a mob that would deny that self-ownership.

Again: if we can't agree on what constitutes 'person', then mebbe we ought not be killin' sumthin' that just might be a person.

#

"Dic"

Right back at ya, pal.
Belinda
Posts: 8034
Joined: Fri Aug 26, 2016 10:13 am

Re: Is sex-selective abortion an immoral thing to do?

Post by Belinda »

Immanuel Can wrote:
I thought you said it was not an immoral procedure...are you now saying it is? I thought you said it was a woman's choice...are you now saying it's a bad or even regrettable choice?
Women who have abortions have deep regrets especially if they have been subjected to sentimental havering about how they love their embryo.

Regrets about abortions increase with the age of the embryo or foetus. I keep telling you that real life choices are often founded upon relative values, and that God or nature has not enlightened us as to which precise value is the best one.

Some cultures of belief are better than other cultures of belief , and sometimes we have to assert which is best. The better sort of value assertions are supported by knowledgeable judgements. Your judgement regarding all abortion in general is based upon the authority of your version of God which , as you seem to be unaware, personifies secular authority.

Immanuel:
If so, then when a society declares you "not a person," (because, say, you're a slave, or a woman, or a child, or of a minority group, or of the wrong religion...) then you are not a person. End of story, because personhood is cultural, not biological.
That's correct. My own cultural belief is that all humans including felons in prison for murder, and including rapists, are persons who should be allocated human rights. I also believe that for some purposes the great apes should be regarded as persons with rights. The foetus is an adjunct of the pregnant person and is not able assume personhood rights
Dubious
Posts: 4000
Joined: Tue May 19, 2015 7:40 am

Re: Dub

Post by Dubious »

henry quirk wrote: Thu May 09, 2019 1:39 am "I responded that we're both"

Okay...me, dumb: didn't see that.

But, based on this...

"Our brains too consists of meat which, not being satisfied with that outcome, creates all sorts of soul complexes. After all what's more degrading to our sensibilities than simply existing as a piece of meat, of being nothing more than we seem to be? So to enhance our value in the great chain of being we apply miscellaneous layers of metaphysics and invent gods concerned with our welfare. This is how we make intelligence proprietary. Yes, we're meat containing around 30 pounds of gut bacteria producing a Himalayan amount of shit each day."

...I'm thinkin' you see personhood as just self-assessement, that there's nuthin' intrinsically unique about a human being, yeah?
What is "personhood"? For me, maybe for you as well, personhood defines all the ingredients mental and physical that go into the making of an individual. Humans are just another life form on the planet but to say we're not unique is erroneous. Obviously we are, not that nature would know the difference. We are unique in our creativity and at least as much for our astonishing stupidity and corruption which is now reaching a crescendo when considering the state of the world and the human activities which caused it. Had he from the beginning separated himself less from nature by endowing himself with soul and other god appurtenances in an egotistical desire to lord it over the planet on which, like all its other citizens, his life depends then certainly humans would be more in tune with the way things actually are and likely to have enhanced his future. As Nietzsche said, "man is a sick animal", infested with mental viruses of his own making. We have created gods and in turn whatever the gods have supposedly created in humans and yet we are still desperate to discover intelligent life in the universe. Amazing! "The riddle of the world" as Pope put it. But if he can't figure himself out in time or what's good for him he won't have one or one he wants to live on.
User avatar
Immanuel Can
Posts: 22257
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2013 4:42 pm

Re: Is sex-selective abortion an immoral thing to do?

Post by Immanuel Can »

Belinda wrote: Thu May 09, 2019 5:38 pm Immanuel Can wrote:
I thought you said it was not an immoral procedure...are you now saying it is? I thought you said it was a woman's choice...are you now saying it's a bad or even regrettable choice?
Women who have abortions have deep regrets...
Indeed they do. http://afterabortion.org/wp-content/upl ... dings1.jpg

But that raises a very important question: why do abortionists hide practically everything about the procedure -- what it is, what the baby looks like, what her vital statistics are, what will be done with the remains of the child and what will happen to the woman both physically and psychologically -- from their victims? There are laws mandating that pharmaceutical ads and regular doctors fully inform all their patients of possible indications and side effects, and fully describe any procedures. But that's not how it plays with abortionists.

For them, the less a woman ever knows about what she's doing, the better it is. Why is that?
Regrets about abortions increase with the age of the embryo or foetus.
Why would that be? It should make no difference. It's just a "cluster of cells," the abortion propagandists tell us. And it's a morally-neutral "procedure," they say.
I keep telling you that real life choices are often founded upon relative values, and that God or nature has not enlightened us as to which precise value is the best one.
And you keep being wrong: "Thou shalt not commit murder." It could not be clearer.

Immanuel:
If so, then when a society declares you "not a person," (because, say, you're a slave, or a woman, or a child, or of a minority group, or of the wrong religion...) then you are not a person. End of story, because personhood is cultural, not biological.
That's correct.
Wow. I didn't think you'd have the nerve to swallow that pill.

So before women got the vote, they didn't deserve it, because they were not persons. And before the slaves were freed, slavery wasn't wrong, because they weren't persons. If the Germans killed Jews, they were only defining "their own" people "their own" way, and they weren't persons. And if people in Islamic lands today round up "heretics" and "infidels" and decapitate them, that's okay with you too...because the definition of the value of these people is defined by their society, and they are not persons.

Seriously? You want to defend that?

And you're affronted that we want to protect babies?
The foetus is an adjunct of the pregnant person and is not able assume personhood rights
Factually false, of course. The in utero infant has its own heartbeat, circulation, fingerprints, will, and unique genetic identity. And if it is "terminated," what will happen is that a unique and precious human being will be erased from the planet.

But you know that. Nobody could not know what they are doing when they rip a child out of a womb.

But I can't help but note how you keep evading the OP desperately, trying to turn the discussion into a more general one about the legitimacy of abortion...you're running away from a question that shows how twisted and wrong your logic actually has become. And that is, why are male fetuses valuable, and women have rights to have them, but female fetuses are nothing, and women have a right to murder them?

And that's what you really have to answer...for yourself.
User avatar
vegetariantaxidermy
Posts: 13983
Joined: Thu Aug 09, 2012 6:45 am
Location: Narniabiznus

Re: Is sex-selective abortion an immoral thing to do?

Post by vegetariantaxidermy »

Immanuel Can wrote: Thu May 09, 2019 7:35 pm
Belinda wrote: Thu May 09, 2019 5:38 pm Immanuel Can wrote:
I thought you said it was not an immoral procedure...are you now saying it is? I thought you said it was a woman's choice...are you now saying it's a bad or even regrettable choice?
Women who have abortions have deep regrets...
Indeed they do. http://afterabortion.org/wp-content/upl ... dings1.jpg

But that raises a very important question: why do abortionists hide practically everything about the procedure -- what it is, what the baby looks like, what her vital statistics are, what will be done with the remains of the child and what will happen to the woman both physically and psychologically -- from their victims? There are laws mandating that pharmaceutical ads and regular doctors fully inform all their patients of possible indications and side effects, and fully describe any procedures. But that's not how it plays with abortionists.

For them, the less a woman ever knows about what she's doing, the better it is. Why is that?
Regrets about abortions increase with the age of the embryo or foetus.
Why would that be? It should make no difference. It's just a "cluster of cells," the abortion propagandists tell us. And it's a morally-neutral "procedure," they say.
I keep telling you that real life choices are often founded upon relative values, and that God or nature has not enlightened us as to which precise value is the best one.
And you keep being wrong: "Thou shalt not commit murder." It could not be clearer.

Immanuel:
If so, then when a society declares you "not a person," (because, say, you're a slave, or a woman, or a child, or of a minority group, or of the wrong religion...) then you are not a person. End of story, because personhood is cultural, not biological.
That's correct.
Wow. I didn't think you'd have the nerve to swallow that pill.

So before women got the vote, they didn't deserve it, because they were not persons. And before the slaves were freed, slavery wasn't wrong, because they weren't persons. If the Germans killed Jews, they were only defining "their own" people "their own" way, and they weren't persons. And if people in Islamic lands today round up "heretics" and "infidels" and decapitate them, that's okay with you too...because the definition of the value of these people is defined by their society, and they are not persons.

Seriously? You want to defend that?

And you're affronted that we want to protect babies?
The foetus is an adjunct of the pregnant person and is not able assume personhood rights
Factually false, of course. The in utero infant has its own heartbeat, circulation, fingerprints, will, and unique genetic identity. And if it is "terminated," what will happen is that a unique and precious human being will be erased from the planet.

But you know that. Nobody could not know what they are doing when they rip a child out of a womb.

But I can't help but note how you keep evading the OP desperately, trying to turn the discussion into a more general one about the legitimacy of abortion...you're running away from a question that shows how twisted and wrong your logic actually has become. And that is, why are male fetuses valuable, and women have rights to have them, but female fetuses are nothing, and women have a right to murder them?

And that's what you really have to answer...for yourself.
Know-nothing pervert.

How many women have you spoken to who have told you they 'regret' having an abortion? Why would they? It doesn't even make any sense. And why would that concern you anyway?

All you are doing is spewing out anti-choice propaganda garnered from their numerous websites. You are so transparent it's almost embarrassing to watch. People are a lot more sophisticated now. Your highly-paid spindoctors have an increasingly uphill battle, just like the ones the creationist movement employs to do its dirty work. The two are interchangeable.
Belinda
Posts: 8034
Joined: Fri Aug 26, 2016 10:13 am

Re: Is sex-selective abortion an immoral thing to do?

Post by Belinda »

And you keep being wrong: "Thou shalt not commit murder." It could not be clearer.
Murder is killing that's against the law, so abortion is murder only where abortion is against the law. The Commandment was actually Thou Shalt not Kill. Did Moses even think about elective abortion ? Who knows?

Some fathers or mothers have been forced to choose between one or other of their children and so that they could continue to feed some of their children they have sold one of them. What would you do, Immanuel, in this situation?
User avatar
vegetariantaxidermy
Posts: 13983
Joined: Thu Aug 09, 2012 6:45 am
Location: Narniabiznus

Re: Is sex-selective abortion an immoral thing to do?

Post by vegetariantaxidermy »

Belinda has blown ick right out of the water several times with her well-reasoned posts. Unfortunately he's like the living dead--he just doesn't know when to give up.
Dachshund
Posts: 324
Joined: Wed Nov 29, 2017 6:40 pm

Re: Is sex-selective abortion an immoral thing to do?

Post by Dachshund »

Belinda wrote: Thu May 09, 2019 8:41 pm
Murder is killing that's against the law, so abortion is murder only where abortion is against the law. The Commandment was actually Thou Shalt not Kill. Did Moses even think about elective abortion ? Who knows?
Forget about the law for a minute and consider this, Belinda...

If there is no God who says do not murder, murder is not wrong. Murder as wrong is a VALUE. If you happen to think that murder is right, I can not prove to you that it is wrong.

Every secular moral philosopher must concede that if there is no God, ethics is subjective, meaning that you or I or society simply makes it up. For the secular thinker, there is no other basis to say that murder is wrong, which ultimately means there is no secular argument against murder. Right, Belinda ?

Regards

Dachshund
User avatar
vegetariantaxidermy
Posts: 13983
Joined: Thu Aug 09, 2012 6:45 am
Location: Narniabiznus

Re: Is sex-selective abortion an immoral thing to do?

Post by vegetariantaxidermy »

Slimed your way over to this thread now.
Dachshund
Posts: 324
Joined: Wed Nov 29, 2017 6:40 pm

Re: Is sex-selective abortion an immoral thing to do?

Post by Dachshund »

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: Thu May 09, 2019 8:47 pm Belinda has blown ick right out of the water several times with her well-reasoned posts. Unfortunately he's like the living dead--he just doesn't know when to give up.
Yeah, I guess you'd know all about zombies, Veggie. You're pretty brain-dead by the sound of your posts. Maybe you should just get married and become a busy housewife, then you'd be too busy ironing jocks and doing the dishes and hoovering to be bothered sending your schizo, histrionic/hysterical commentry to this forum. I mean I'm sure you'd be able to find some suitable Kiwi boy (IQ around 75 points) who is willing to take you up the "aisle" :shock: :shock: , and I'm sure you'd love it. :P :P

Regards

Dachshund
Last edited by Dachshund on Thu May 09, 2019 11:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Post Reply