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Originally Posted by tore
Actually, what I proposed is that when deciding whose interests you should protect, the fetus or the mothers, you should protect the interests of the mother because she is the one most capable of being affected by the decision (she is the one who potentially suffers the most for it). In other words, the mother should get to choose. I added that basing a decision on what the fetus could become is basing a decision on an assumption, something I think of as a weakness.
So, it's a utilitarian sort of idea, but it is also good for non-utilitarian reasons. It has good consequences which further validates it. I believe mothers, members of our society, will appreciate the freedom to make the decision and I believe it will lead to slightly happier, healthier families. It is good for society. So unlike you I actually do think it makes sense, even if utilitarianism isn't flawless in every instance. If you still disagree with that, then that's fine with me.
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...which is based on the premise that suffering is the reason killing is wrong. Otherwise it is irrelevant who potentially suffers the most. So I was giving examples of why I don't think that adds up as an explanation for why we find killing human beings to be wrong. I never said the practical reasons for supporting abortion don't make any sense.
Although, the interests of the mother vs interests of the fetus point brings up the question of justice. You say that morally we should always value the one that has the ability to suffer more/cause more suffering by proxy, but what about when one party is innocent and the other is directly responsible for the predicament? Would that principle extend to situations that involves weighing the interests of 2 adult humans, regardless of innocence or guilt?
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Actually, if people fundamentally value a human life, they will suffer more when a human life is taken. Imagine a chicken getting killed and a human getting killed. Both suffer equally. But the death of the human likely causes more suffering in others and so the death of the human is worse. For the death of a chicken to be as bad as the death of a human, you have to get a little creative.
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There's nothing that could make the death of a chicken worse than the death of an innocent human, in most people's eyes. No matter how you tilt the suffering scale in the chicken's favor. That's because people generally value human life beyond its ability to suffer.
edit - If you're saying that people value human life more
because it has the capacity to cause more suffering in others, then that seems to me to be circular reasoning.