Quote:
Originally Posted by Neapolitan
What point of view is that? That I believe a human fetus is a human being? That the life of a human fetus is just as important as the life of all human being? That a human fetus should not be terminated?
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That's all you could respond to? What you're asking for is actually answered in the post I wrote. There's some critique in there against what I think you believe. Maybe you should read it again :
Quote:
Originally Posted by toretorden
Neapolitan, if you value the human life over the ant life, you should make a point about it other than saying "life = life". We're not mind readers here.
I would still argue that your point of view makes no sense. I guess you know the utilitarian view, but I'll summarize for those who don't. From a utilitarian point of view, the right moral action/decision is the one that causes most happiness / least amount of suffering. By that logic, abortion is sometimes justified. Because none of us can read the future, we have to base moral decisions on the present. A fetus likely does not have the same capability of suffering as the mother, so it gets less moral consideration. It might have the same capability in the future, but we don't know that so that is irrelevant.
It's easy to see there's some kind of logic here - you want to ease suffering and make people happy - get the best results you can quality-of-life-wise. But what's the logic behind your moral stance? Okay, above all you want to preserve human life, but why? What makes it so holy? You say it's the same as killing a human, but abortion is legal in many places in the world where murder is outlawed so it's appearant that a lot don't agree with that "logic" either and there's a good reason. If you look at a fetus and then look at yourself, you'll see you're not the same. The fetus has potential, but having potential doesn't necessarily mean it should be protected like a person is.
I don't think human lives are any more special than those of animals. To me life is life and there's nothing holy about it. The difference is we generally have more emotional ties to people of our species. What matters are consequences. If someone was completely braindead and could only experience pain and the relatives thought it would be best if they were unplugged from the life support, I can see why that could be considered the right moral decision. It seems to me you could not support this because it would be murder.
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You'll see some points here that I think make more sense than what you're pushing. Such as :
- The right moral decision on wether or not abortion is right should be based on the consequences the decision will have, you should maximize happiness/minimize suffering
- A fetus should not have the same moral protection as a grown human because as far as we know, it doesn't have the same capabilities for happines, suffering, rational thought etc.
- Humans are animals and what makes their lives special is only that we generally have more family/emotional-ties to them. Human lives don't have to be preserved at all costs.
The last point I illustrated by the relatively braindead person on life support who could only experience pain and so you could argue ending his or her life would be the right moral decision, but you by your logic would have to think of that as murder.
I think you make much less sense because as far as I can tell :
- You see everything in black and white, there's only ever one answer (abortion is always wrong, no matter the circumstance)
- You sometimes think the right moral decision is the one that causes the most pain and suffering
- You think something that is not capable of emotions, sentience, pain or happiness should have more moral protection than a grown human being (mother)
I'd like to see the logic behind this, yes. I'm not asking why you think a fetus is human - thanks for the petty attempt at trying to make me look silly, but that's not what we're discussing. I want to know what it is about fetuses that they should be protected so to the point where you always take away the mother's freedom, even if she got pregnant by rape and gets beaten every day of her pregnancy. That makes no sense to me and I want to know what it is about it that makes sense to you.