If I dont go visit my frozen embryo..

[JECE]

Your implicit defense of Soviet and CCP communism is also silly lol. There should just be a separate thread where you all throw random numbers at one another and wait to see whether it changes anyone's mind.

What implicit defence? I did not mention any specific country or party.

You defended communism in response to a post that includes numbers of dead that clearly relate to mismanagement/atrocities committed by the CCP and USSR.

But of course there's fine print you didn't write lol. You somehow didn't mean your comments should apply to either of the two major examples of real life communism that the original post was clearly referring to. You probably also don't mean to defend Cuba or Venezuela...or really any actual communist government. But capitalism is bad too and you've got the *numbers* to prove it lol.

It's just dumb on both sides.

Sure, but his main thrust isn't a numbers game: "capitalists value money over life. Capitalism commoditises human life."

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

What implicit defence? I did not mention any specific country or party.

You defended communism in response to a post that includes numbers of dead that clearly relate to mismanagement/atrocities committed by the CCP and USSR.

But of course there's fine print you didn't write lol. You somehow didn't mean your comments should apply to either of the two major examples of real life communism that the original post was clearly referring to. You probably also don't mean to defend Cuba or Venezuela...or really any actual communist government. But capitalism is bad too and you've got the *numbers* to prove it lol.

It's just dumb on both sides.

Sure, but his main thrust isn't a numbers game: "capitalists value money over life. Capitalism commoditises human life."

I estimate we're at about the half way point of the cul-de-sac. We've got the dumb numbers out of the way. We've made sweeping and useless generalizations about the relative value of political-economic systems. Soon we'll find out that we all actually just like social welfare supporting democracies, which can be more or less capitalist/collectivist. Then hopefully the convo turns back to abortion and IVF lol.

[CaptainFritz28]

You're conflating science with morality. It's true that a zygote creates a genetically unique form. It does not obviously follow that the zygote therefore has personhood and all the moral obligations that come with that.

Qualities such as sentience, the capacity to feel pain, consciousness, etc., are often cited as criteria for moral consideration. By these standards, the early stages of embryonic development — prior to the development of the central nervous system and the capacity for sentience — may not meet the criteria for personhood. It's not a scientific question, but an ethical/moral one. None of us will have a definitive, provable answer about when personhood starts.

By your criterion, someone in a coma who is paralyzed is not a human life, but a robot with the ability to rationalize and feel is.

You've just made a claim without a warrant. Why is there no correlation between the scientific creation of a new human and the moral being of that new human?

Basically, what you've said is just that "yeah, sure, scientifically, life begins at conception." And then disconnected that from morality. Since when did science and morality exist separately? No. They go hand in hand. A new human, made at conception, deserves the right to live, just as anyone else does. You have provided no reason to the contrary.

The rest of your post is just a series of slippery slope fallacies. Widespread, early-term abortion is most available in democratic and liberal societies. The harshest prohibitions on abortion exist in human-rights-abusing theocracies. It's obviously not the case that our stance towards abortion is a critical factor in determining our views on the value of other human lives.

It is a slippery slope, yes. And it is a historically proven one. When people say that some lives are valuable but that others aren't, genocide follows. As Brian pointed out, that was the whole intention for abortion in the first place.

[CaptainFritz28]

I don't think pregnancy is a necessary consequence of sex in 2024. An IUD almost perfectly prevents pregnancy. I don't think it's wrong for women to use IUDs. Some woman can't use an IUD and instead use other, less reliable methods of birth control and I don't consider it their fault when alternative methods fail.

The smoking analogy is actually a great one, because we do basically have consequence-free nicotine products now. Smoking an unfiltered cigarette is the same as raw dogging it in the middle of your fertile window. Vaping might be like condomed sex. Nicorette gum is like an IUD.

Natural processes have natural outcomes. You're conflating what we can do with what we should do.

So we agree that a fetal life is not exactly as valuable as any other human life.

No. I believe that both lives are equally valuable, such that if, and only if, one life must be sacrificed, it is equally a tragedy for either to die. However, often when the mother dies, the child does too, making it twice the tragedy. Also, while we can consult the mother on whether she is willing to give up her own life, we cannot consult the child. Thus, we must make a decision based on only one opinion. However, because the lives are equally valuable, it doesn't matter who dies, just that someone did die, and either way it is a tragedy.

Nope, that's definitely not what I said. My logic here is that forcing unwilling parents to raise unwanted children is going to reliably produce bad results for parents, children, and society.

And your solution is to kill all the unwanted children.

Sure, for some people abstinence might be a good solution. But experience suggests that abstinence-first isn't a very useful way to prevent unwanted pregnancies. I think human sexuality is a natural part of most peoples lives. I don't think it's outrageous for men and women take preventative measures that limit the risk of pregnancy and STIs from sex. And I don't think that the failure of these reasonable preventative measures necessarily puts a woman on the hook to carry a baby to term. A safe, early-term abortion doesn't strike me as much more morally meaningful than just having successfully used birth control in the first place. But, more and better birth control would mean fewer abortions, which is something I think everyone would like.

So basically, "oh, don't fix the problem, just try to find another solution." Forgetting that that other solution causes the death of millions.

[CaptainFritz28]

Just as Christians proclaim that they "don't hate the sinner, just the sin", I do not hate the religious, just the religion.

So, then, you hate the teachings that all are created equal, that we should love even our enemies, that we should be charitable whenever possible, that we should aid the widowed and poor?

These are the teachings of Christianity, the religion. If you hate the religion, I will presume you mean it in its entirety.

Unless you mean to clarify that you hate the amalgamation of Christianity which people use to justify acts of violence, which are contrary to the religion itself?

Acts of violence are contrary to the religion itself?

https://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/cruelty/long.html

It's pretty clear. Love your neighbor as yourself. Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

A) Not every act of violence in the Bible was good. The history of Israel is just that: a history. It tells of the good and the bad. So when David commits adultery and then kills the man whose wife he just stole, the Bible is not telling us to do the same.

B) Everything else was either done directly by God or commanded specifically by God. Notably, God is the creator of the universe, and also notably, the wages of sin is death. In the Old Testament, the promised gift of salvation had not yet come, which is why the Gospels are so important. Now that we have that gift, given to us purely because of the love of God, we are told to share that love with everyone else.

So yes, if I go attack or kill someone because they are Muslim, I am committing an act of violence that is contrary to what the Bible instructs me to do.

[CaptainFritz28]

Why is the meeting of egg and sperm the definitive start of life?

Half of fertilized eggs fail to implant on a woman's uterus.

About a fifth of pregnancies end in an early miscarriage within the first five weeks ("chemical pregnancies").

For pregnancies that are clinically validated the miscarriage rate is about 15-25%.

A fertilized egg has about a 1/3 chance of becoming a human baby. Is having procreative sex wrong if, on average, it's "killing" 2 potential humans for each viable human it produces?

There have been times throughout history when infant deaths were greater than 50%. All you have said is that a fertilized egg has a 66% mortality rate.

The fact that a child is not born for every instance of conception does not mean that a life is not created at conception, just as the fact that a child does not survive infancy for every birth does not mean that they are not alive.

I was pushing back against your claim that "But once it (sperm) meets the egg, the process of life begins. If cared for as necessary, by natural means, a baby will be born", which is just factually untrue 2/3rds of the time.

It's not my contention that survivability determines moral worth. 100% of humans die but our lives have value anyhow.

That still doesn't disprove my claim. If survivability has nothing to do with moral worth, then the fact that 2/3 of humans don't survive to birth has nothing to do with the fact that they are still humans.

[CaptainFritz28]

There are two closely related issues here:
1. The Science of Life
2. The Value of Life

1. The Science of Life
Science shows that human life begins at the fertilization of a human egg. From the moment of conception, the fertilized egg is a living, unique, and growing human. When fertilization is complete, a unique genetic human entity exists. To say that the beginning of human life cannot be determined scientifically is utterly ridiculous.
a. Upon fertilization, a new organism exists after fertilization that did not exist before conception. That new life is not simply a continuation of the life of the sperm or egg cell. Rather, it is the life of a distinct, unique, new individual who has never existed before in history and will never exist again.
b. Nothing will be added to this new organism except nutrition. This new organism has its own human DNA that is distinct from the mother and father, meaning that it is a unique human person. From fertilization onward, it is a new organism that is unique, alive and growing.
c. Cells start dividing within an hour of fertilization This new life continues to grow and develop until death occurs due to injury or illness.
d. Every fertilized human egg dies, or grows into a human
e. This new human life will continue to grow and develop as long as nutrition is provided and its life is not ended through violence or illness.
f. Human Life changes continuously - A human is very different at age 85 than at 40. By age 16, the development of the brain allows for most adolescents have fully developed abstract reasoning, which is why it is difficult to teach calculus in grade school. Five year olds cannot survive on their own. One year olds have just learned to walk. Humans have a long period of development. That does not mean they are not humans from conception on.

2. The Value of Life
Preborn babies are the most vulnerable and helpless members of our society. The value of a human being does not depend on where they live, physical shape, what race they are, what they look like, or how old they are. Each person has inherent worth because of who and what he or she is - a member of the human species. Bad things happen when we don’t recognize the value of human life.
a. The National Socialists of Germany did not value certain lives, which led to the death of homosexuals, Slavs, Roma and 6 million Jews.
b. Margaret Sanger did not value Negro lives, and founded what became Planned Parenthood to discourage and eventually eliminate, “the defective and diseased elements of humanity” and eliminate the “dysgenic horror story” of blacks who reproduced “carelessly and disastrously.” We now have seen over 60 million abortions in the USA, 4 out of 10 Black pregnancies aborted, and Planned Parenthood puts 86% of its Abortion Facilities in minority neighborhoods
c. The Communists value power over life. The 20th century saw over 200 million killed by the communists, not counting wars.

The Declaration of Independence in the USA says “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The founding Fathers saw the clear relationship between the Right to Life and Liberty. A really slippery slope when life is devalued.

If all of the above is true, why does Alabama have the death penalty?

Because people murder.

Also, just because we agree with them on one issue doesn't mean we agree with them on all issues.

[CaptainFritz28]

c. The Communists value power over life. The 20th century saw over 200 million killed by the communists, not counting wars.

As a communist I must respond to this particular point.

First of all I'm not sure where you're getting the 200 million figure from but I expect it is an exaggeration.

Second of all, capitalists value money over life. Capitalism commoditises human life. The 20th century saw over 100 million killed by capitalism.

We're getting back into the debate of two extremes. Extreme communism leads to the end that the leaders value power over life. Extreme capitalism leads to the end that the leaders value money over life. Both of these are wrong, duh.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

You're conflating science with morality. It's true that a zygote creates a genetically unique form. It does not obviously follow that the zygote therefore has personhood and all the moral obligations that come with that.

Qualities such as sentience, the capacity to feel pain, consciousness, etc., are often cited as criteria for moral consideration. By these standards, the early stages of embryonic development — prior to the development of the central nervous system and the capacity for sentience — may not meet the criteria for personhood. It's not a scientific question, but an ethical/moral one. None of us will have a definitive, provable answer about when personhood starts.

By your criterion, someone in a coma who is paralyzed is not a human life, but a robot with the ability to rationalize and feel is.

You've just made a claim without a warrant. Why is there no correlation between the scientific creation of a new human and the moral being of that new human?

Basically, what you've said is just that "yeah, sure, scientifically, life begins at conception." And then disconnected that from morality. Since when did science and morality exist separately? No. They go hand in hand. A new human, made at conception, deserves the right to live, just as anyone else does. You have provided no reason to the contrary.

The rest of your post is just a series of slippery slope fallacies. Widespread, early-term abortion is most available in democratic and liberal societies. The harshest prohibitions on abortion exist in human-rights-abusing theocracies. It's obviously not the case that our stance towards abortion is a critical factor in determining our views on the value of other human lives.

It is a slippery slope, yes. And it is a historically proven one. When people say that some lives are valuable but that others aren't, genocide follows. As Brian pointed out, that was the whole intention for abortion in the first place.

Yes, I do think that a human's capacities are part of what determines their moral worth. If someone were to end up in an inescapable comma and we knew for sure they can't think or feel, then I no longer regard them with the same moral attention I would give another person - they'd be morally more like a deceased person than a living one. Of course, in real life there is almost always uncertainty about how much a person in that state can experience and there's always a chance for some miraculous cure. This humility applies in all real-life cases - I would not presume the lights are off for anyone unless they'd been clinically brain dead for a while, or unless they never developed the brain in the first place (i.e., those lil' zygotes).

Likewise, if we made a robot or bred some new creature that really did seem to be experiencing, I would afford it some moral consideration. I suspect most animals are deserving of at least some moral attention.

If you could contrive some thought experiment where I could only dedicate scarce resources to improve the life of a ragtag group of moral examples, I would help, in order: a human with terminal cancer, a cat, and I'd end with a tie for last between a two week-old human zygote and a person who has been brain dead for two weeks.

Basically what you're doing is asserting, for no good reason, that conception is the start of personhood.

Nothing about this slippery slope is historically proven. It's already been noted that abortion access is actually correlated positively with concern for human rights. We've had legal abortion for decades in North America and don't seem to be on the cusp of genociding folks. Equating an elective medical procedure to genocide is a little silly.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

I don't think pregnancy is a necessary consequence of sex in 2024. An IUD almost perfectly prevents pregnancy. I don't think it's wrong for women to use IUDs. Some woman can't use an IUD and instead use other, less reliable methods of birth control and I don't consider it their fault when alternative methods fail.

The smoking analogy is actually a great one, because we do basically have consequence-free nicotine products now. Smoking an unfiltered cigarette is the same as raw dogging it in the middle of your fertile window. Vaping might be like condomed sex. Nicorette gum is like an IUD.

Natural processes have natural outcomes. You're conflating what we can do with what we should do.

So we agree that a fetal life is not exactly as valuable as any other human life.

No. I believe that both lives are equally valuable, such that if, and only if, one life must be sacrificed, it is equally a tragedy for either to die. However, often when the mother dies, the child does too, making it twice the tragedy. Also, while we can consult the mother on whether she is willing to give up her own life, we cannot consult the child. Thus, we must make a decision based on only one opinion. However, because the lives are equally valuable, it doesn't matter who dies, just that someone did die, and either way it is a tragedy.

Nope, that's definitely not what I said. My logic here is that forcing unwilling parents to raise unwanted children is going to reliably produce bad results for parents, children, and society.

And your solution is to kill all the unwanted children.

Sure, for some people abstinence might be a good solution. But experience suggests that abstinence-first isn't a very useful way to prevent unwanted pregnancies. I think human sexuality is a natural part of most peoples lives. I don't think it's outrageous for men and women take preventative measures that limit the risk of pregnancy and STIs from sex. And I don't think that the failure of these reasonable preventative measures necessarily puts a woman on the hook to carry a baby to term. A safe, early-term abortion doesn't strike me as much more morally meaningful than just having successfully used birth control in the first place. But, more and better birth control would mean fewer abortions, which is something I think everyone would like.

So basically, "oh, don't fix the problem, just try to find another solution." Forgetting that that other solution causes the death of millions.

And you're engaged in the naturalism fallacy. Just because eating raw meat makes me sick doesn't mean I can't safely eat cooked meat lol.

And I want to give mothers the choice to determine when they have children. That means the right to choose a partner, use birth control and, when birth control fails, have access to a safe abortion.

Your solution is to force women to carry unwanted children to term. Then what? Hope they suddenly become willing and capable mothers? Foist them onto an overburdened foster care system?

If human lives are so valuable even when they're not wanted, why not ban birth control? Or even start a breeding program? Collectivize childcare and start pumping out test tube babies?

I don't count the deaths of zygotes as murder, because they're a being with the capability of a cup of yogurt who is not far removed from the sperm and eggs we dump down the toilet / into the garbage all the time.

[CaptainFritz28]

We have now entered into the territory of assigning value to life based not on intrinsic worth but on ability. You have openly admitted that you believe that not all human life deserves the same value, and that some scientifically proven life, such as babies before they are born, deserve no value.

You talk about babies being unwanted, and how mothers shouldn't be forced to carry an unwanted baby to term. What you are saying here is that we should allow people to kill other lives for the sake of their own comfort.

When we disregard the fact that all human life has inherent worth, we get into the rationale behind the Nazis, the Southern slave owners, and their ilk. When you claim that life has worth based on its ability, you are claiming that some lives are more important than others, that certain groups of people have more value than others, etc. I'm not saying that you are a Nazi or advocating for slavery, but what I am saying is that the principles you advocate for lead to those outcomes.

In regards to genocide, if 73 million deaths per year (according to the WHO) and being the greatest cause of death by far doesn't meet that definition, I don't know what does.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

Maybe I can clarify my position with a story:

My grandmother had a child when she was too young as the result of a sexual assault, was forced to carry it to term, and was sent away to a Catholic boarding house for "wayward women" to hide the birth.

Regardless, the fact she was sent away marked her as an undesirable woman. So she ended up with an undesirable husband, who was abusive.

My grandmother and grandfather went on to have 9 live births, and probably several miscarriages. This was his choice, not hers. They were all big babies - she easily birthed 100lb of baby cumulatively. They lived in a shack on government assistance. She could not abort any of these pregnancies. She could not divorce her husband. She was not allowed to get birth control without her husband's consent.

In desperation my grandma took four of her youngest kids to the doctors office and said she would not leave until the doctor gave her birth control without my grandpa's signature. It worked. It helped that, soon after, my grandpa died of a brain tumour.

There are so many ways this could have turned out better.

My grandma should have been protected from predatory men as a child/teenager. She should have had access to reliable birth control. If that failed, she should not have been forced to carry an unwanted baby to term as a teenager.

She should have been allowed to easily end a marriage with an abusive partner. She should have been allowed to say "no" to sex within the marriage. She should have been allowed to access birth control while married without her husband's consent. If that birth control failed, she should have been allowed to terminate some pregnancies.

If my grandma had access to these benefits, I almost certainly wouldn't be alive because my mom wouldn't have been alive. Many of my aunts and uncles wouldn't be alive. But that's an extremely narrow way of looking at it. My grandma would have had a much more dignified life. She may have ended up with a partner who wasn't a piece of shit. Her and that better partner may have gone on to have totally different kids who would have had better lives. If you ask me which world is better (a) abused grandma with a neglectful number of kids or (b) happy grandma with wanted children, I'm picking (b). To get (b) instead of (a) women need reproductive rights that include right to birth control and, where that fails, a right to abortion.

[CaptainFritz28]

Here's the thing. Let's say those 73 million abortions were not actually killing people. Let's say that the 73 million lives eliminated last year didn't deserve personhood. Let's say that human life doesn't have value intrinsically, but instead that value is based on ability.

In that case, none of us had any value when we were in the womb. If we had been killed then, it would have been fine. But right now, we, who I'm sure Bert would agree have value, would also not exist. So by killing our lives, and ending the natural process that leads to birth, even if you say that that life has no value, is not just destroying that life. It is eliminating the personhood and value that would be. It is destroying the value that would naturally occur.

This means that even if those 73 million lives had no value, even if they didn't deserve personhood, by killing them when they were yet unborn, you have destroyed all 73 million persons that would have been born. You are eliminating value from all 73 million of those lives that would be. You are still murdering 73 million people.

But then, you might say, what about the sperm and the egg? Destroying one of them would have the same effect, so why is it not murder to destroy them individually?

Well, consider this. An egg, if left alone, will never become a life. Same with a sperm. There is no natural process that will lead to life. However, when they come together, when the necessary DNA and process for life is begun, that zygote will become a life. This is why the morality of one's value and the science of one's life are directly related. Because the natural process of life is begun at conception. Before then, there is no separate being, there is no new creature, there is no life. At conception, however, there becomes a new human. A new life is begun, and even if, as Bert claims, that life has no value, it will. Even if, as Bert claims, that life is not deserving of personhood, it will be.

Destroying an acorn is not destroying a tree, no. Why? Because the natural process of a tree's life has not begun. But once that acorn germinates, and the tree begins to grow, even though it has no value, even though it can provide no shade, even though it can yield no fruit, to destroy it is to destroy a tree, one that will give shade and fruit. To destroy it is to remove all of the value from its future and crush it into nothingness. The same applies to human life.

[JECE]

There are two closely related issues here:
1. The Science of Life
2. The Value of Life

1. The Science of Life
Science shows that human life begins at the fertilization of a human egg. From the moment of conception, the fertilized egg is a living, unique, and growing human. When fertilization is complete, a unique genetic human entity exists. To say that the beginning of human life cannot be determined scientifically is utterly ridiculous.
a. Upon fertilization, a new organism exists after fertilization that did not exist before conception. That new life is not simply a continuation of the life of the sperm or egg cell. Rather, it is the life of a distinct, unique, new individual who has never existed before in history and will never exist again.
b. Nothing will be added to this new organism except nutrition. This new organism has its own human DNA that is distinct from the mother and father, meaning that it is a unique human person. From fertilization onward, it is a new organism that is unique, alive and growing.
c. Cells start dividing within an hour of fertilization This new life continues to grow and develop until death occurs due to injury or illness.
d. Every fertilized human egg dies, or grows into a human
e. This new human life will continue to grow and develop as long as nutrition is provided and its life is not ended through violence or illness.
f. Human Life changes continuously - A human is very different at age 85 than at 40. By age 16, the development of the brain allows for most adolescents have fully developed abstract reasoning, which is why it is difficult to teach calculus in grade school. Five year olds cannot survive on their own. One year olds have just learned to walk. Humans have a long period of development. That does not mean they are not humans from conception on.

2. The Value of Life
Preborn babies are the most vulnerable and helpless members of our society. The value of a human being does not depend on where they live, physical shape, what race they are, what they look like, or how old they are. Each person has inherent worth because of who and what he or she is - a member of the human species. Bad things happen when we don’t recognize the value of human life.
a. The National Socialists of Germany did not value certain lives, which led to the death of homosexuals, Slavs, Roma and 6 million Jews.
b. Margaret Sanger did not value Negro lives, and founded what became Planned Parenthood to discourage and eventually eliminate, “the defective and diseased elements of humanity” and eliminate the “dysgenic horror story” of blacks who reproduced “carelessly and disastrously.” We now have seen over 60 million abortions in the USA, 4 out of 10 Black pregnancies aborted, and Planned Parenthood puts 86% of its Abortion Facilities in minority neighborhoods
c. The Communists value power over life. The 20th century saw over 200 million killed by the communists, not counting wars.

The Declaration of Independence in the USA says “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The founding Fathers saw the clear relationship between the Right to Life and Liberty. A really slippery slope when life is devalued.

1. What you call "nutrition" can only be gained through what science calls "parasitism". You are moving goalposts here compared to your previous justification for infringing on women's freedom to choose what to do with their own bodies:

Yes and an even earlier stage of development is the spermatozoa. Should each one of the sperm I produce be given specific legal rights and protections?

An unfertilized human egg or sperm is not a human life. A sperm or egg on its own does not grow into a human. Only the fertilized egg does.

A fertilized egg on its own doesn't grow into a human either.

2. Cherishing the value of human life is fundamental to my political beliefs and moral compass. That's why I oppose capital punishment (1), torture (2), enforced disappearances (3), war crimes (4), poverty (5), maternal mortality (6), gun ownership (7), police brutality (8), structural racism (9) and the current genocide in Gaza (10). Abortion doesn't make the cut.

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_United_States
(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_interrogation_techniques
(3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition
(4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes
(5) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_and_health_in_the_United_States
(6) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternal_mortality_in_the_United_States
(7) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States
(8) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_brutality_in_the_United_States
(9) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societal_racism#In_the_United_States
(10) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_genocide

[CaptainFritz28]

Maybe I can clarify my position with a story:

My grandmother had a child when she was too young as the result of a sexual assault, was forced to carry it to term, and was sent away to a Catholic boarding house for "wayward women" to hide the birth.

Regardless, the fact she was sent away marked her as an undesirable woman. So she ended up with an undesirable husband, who was abusive.

My grandmother and grandfather went on to have 9 live births, and probably several miscarriages. This was his choice, not hers. They were all big babies - she easily birthed 100lb of baby cumulatively. They lived in a shack on government assistance. She could not abort any of these pregnancies. She could not divorce her husband. She was not allowed to get birth control without her husband's consent.

In desperation my grandma took four of her youngest kids to the doctors office and said she would not leave until the doctor gave her birth control without my grandpa's signature. It worked. It helped that, soon after, my grandpa died of a brain tumour.

There are so many ways this could have turned out better.

My grandma should have been protected from predatory men as a child/teenager. She should have had access to reliable birth control. If that failed, she should not have been forced to carry an unwanted baby to term as a teenager.

She should have been allowed to easily end a marriage with an abusive partner. She should have been allowed to say "no" to sex within the marriage. She should have been allowed to access birth control while married without her husband's consent. If that birth control failed, she should have been allowed to terminate some pregnancies.

If my grandma had access to these benefits, I almost certainly wouldn't be alive because my mom wouldn't have been alive. Many of my aunts and uncles wouldn't be alive. But that's an extremely narrow way of looking at it. My grandma would have had a much more dignified life. She may have ended up with a partner who wasn't a piece of shit. Her and that better partner may have gone on to have totally different kids who would have had better lives. If you ask me which world is better (a) abused grandma with a neglectful number of kids or (b) happy grandma with wanted children, I'm picking (b). To get (b) instead of (a) women need reproductive rights that include right to birth control and, where that fails, a right to abortion.

None of that has anything to do with abortion. The fact that people are forced into unwanted pregnancies is terrible, and the fact that rape is a real problem is truly tragic.

I'm not saying those issues shouldn't be solved. What I'm saying is that it isn't an excuse to murder. When a life is begun, no matter the circumstances it is begun under, it is still a life.

Was it her child's fault that she was considered an outcast? Was it the child's fault that her life went the way that it did?

Why should new life be destroyed to punish the actions of someone else?

[CaptainFritz28]

1. What you call "nutrition" can only be gained through what science calls "parasitism". You are moving goalposts here compared to your previous justification for infringing on women's freedom to choose what to do with their own bodies:

So what you are telling me is that new life is a disease. Gotcha.

A baby, already born, cannot survive without outside aid. A child in the womb cannot survive without outside aid. Most kids in America cannot survive without outside aid. What you call parasitism I call the necessity for support from others. That doesn't mean that a child in the womb isn't still a separate life.

2. Cherishing the value of human life is fundamental to my political beliefs and moral compass. That's why I oppose capital punishment (1), torture (2), enforced disappearances (3), war crimes (4), poverty (5), maternal mortality (6), gun ownership (7), police brutality (8), structural racism (9) and the current genocide in Gaza (10). Abortion doesn't make the cut.

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_United_States
(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_interrogation_techniques
(3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition
(4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes
(5) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_and_health_in_the_United_States
(6) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternal_mortality_in_the_United_States
(7) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States
(8) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_brutality_in_the_United_States
(9) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societal_racism#In_the_United_States
(10) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_genocide

I don't care what makes the cut or not. Your list of social justice issues is irrelevant to the fact that new life is new life.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

Here's the thing. Let's say those 73 million abortions were not actually killing people. Let's say that the 73 million lives eliminated last year didn't deserve personhood. Let's say that human life doesn't have value intrinsically, but instead that value is based on ability.

In that case, none of us had any value when we were in the womb. If we had been killed then, it would have been fine. But right now, we, who I'm sure Bert would agree have value, would also not exist. So by killing our lives, and ending the natural process that leads to birth, even if you say that that life has no value, is not just destroying that life. It is eliminating the personhood and value that would be. It is destroying the value that would naturally occur.

This means that even if those 73 million lives had no value, even if they didn't deserve personhood, by killing them when they were yet unborn, you have destroyed all 73 million persons that would have been born. You are eliminating value from all 73 million of those lives that would be. You are still murdering 73 million people.

But then, you might say, what about the sperm and the egg? Destroying one of them would have the same effect, so why is it not murder to destroy them individually?

Well, consider this. An egg, if left alone, will never become a life. Same with a sperm. There is no natural process that will lead to life. However, when they come together, when the necessary DNA and process for life is begun, that zygote will become a life. This is why the morality of one's value and the science of one's life are directly related. Because the natural process of life is begun at conception. Before then, there is no separate being, there is no new creature, there is no life. At conception, however, there becomes a new human. A new life is begun, and even if, as Bert claims, that life has no value, it will. Even if, as Bert claims, that life is not deserving of personhood, it will be.

Destroying an acorn is not destroying a tree, no. Why? Because the natural process of a tree's life has not begun. But once that acorn germinates, and the tree begins to grow, even though it has no value, even though it can provide no shade, even though it can yield no fruit, to destroy it is to destroy a tree, one that will give shade and fruit. To destroy it is to remove all of the value from its future and crush it into nothingness. The same applies to human life.

The math on this is silly.

A woman who aborts her rapist's child at age 17 may go on to have different, wanted children. An unwanted rape baby foisted on a young woman will take away resources that may have otherwise been dedicated to her wanted kids in the future. Even if she doesn't choose to have kids later, it seems evil to make her take care of this one.

A world where 73 million women per year are required to carry 73 million unwanted babies to term sounds sickening. What the hell are we going to do with that many unwanted children? Can you imagine the anguish of a woman forced to carry an unwanted child to term? It's not a comfort thing, it is the most important decision of her life and it comes at a huge cost to her own wellbeing, her ability to have other children in the future, etc.

Nothing about your description of conception convinces me that it's the morally relevant starting point for personhood. If so then IVF is the worst crime ever committed. I think IFV isn't evil, because there is no moral agent who suffers the harm of unused IVF zygotes.

The whole acorn thing is weird lol, maybe I just don't understand. If tree lives are so intrinsically good then we should make a point of planting as many acorns as possible. If not, then I'm not particularly fussed about tearing up a seedling if it's growing in an area unsuitable to oak trees.

[CaptainFritz28]

A woman who aborts her rapist's child at age 17 may go on to have different, wanted children. An unwanted rape baby foisted on a young woman will take away resources that may have otherwise been dedicated to her wanted kids in the future. Even if she doesn't choose to have kids later, it seems evil to make her take care of this one.

So we throw away a life, a real life currently living, for the hypothetical of other lives? No, it has nothing to do with what might happen. It has to do with the fact that there is currently a living human, and that that human deserves the right to live just as much as anyone else.

A world where 73 million women per year are required to carry 73 million unwanted babies to term sounds sickening. What the hell are we going to do with that many unwanted children? Can you imagine the anguish of a woman forced to carry an unwanted child to term? It's not a comfort thing, it is the most important decision of her life and it comes at a huge cost to her own wellbeing, her ability to have other children in the future, etc.

From this I presume that you believe that the quality of one's life is more valuable than your life itself.

As I've already said, the fact that this is an issue in the first place is terrible. I don't want it as much as anyone else (which is notably a reason I advocate for Biblical marriage, because it avoids these issues and creates a society that actually works). But there is no good option. Either we murder the child or we dramatically decrease the well-being of the mother. I don't like either of those options, but the former is the more evil.

In addition, and I said this before, I think a key part of being pro-life means being for the lives of the mothers and their newly born child. We shouldn't just force the mother to have a child and then throw her out onto the streets, no. Rather, she should have the child, and then we should support them both. the world has more than enough resources to support 73 million children. It's just a matter of actually doing it.

Nothing about your description of conception convinces me that it's the morally relevant starting point for personhood. If so then IVF is the worst crime ever committed. I think IFV isn't evil, because there is no moral agent who suffers the harm of unused IVF zygotes.

I'm a bit confused by your point here, I think I may be missing an important piece of information regarding the IVF though. Are you saying that it is a crime committed against the zygotes themselves?

The whole acorn thing is weird lol, maybe I just don't understand. If tree lives are so intrinsically good then we should make a point of planting as many acorns as possible. If not, then I'm not particularly fussed about tearing up a seedling if it's growing in an area unsuitable to oak trees.

The analogy of the acorn is to compare it to human life. Tree lives are, while generally good, not morally intrinsically good. But human lives are morally intrinsically valuable.
So, just as an acorn by itself is not a tree, until the process is begun which will end with it as a full grown tree, an egg and a sperm are not themselves lives, until the process is begun, at conception, which will end with a full-grown human. And just as not every germinated acorn naturally makes it to a full tree, not every zygote naturally makes it to a born baby. This doesn't make the seedling any less of a tree or the zygote any less of a life.


Ultimately, from there it comes down to a question of whether you believe that life holds intrinsic value or not. You have made it clear that you don't, by stating that the value of one's life is directly dependent on their abilities. I believe that it is, and that, just as the Declaration of Independence states, all life is created equal and endowed by its creator with unalienable rights.

I believe that no matter the circumstance, or the usefulness, or the size, or the stage of development, all life is equally valuable. That, ultimately, is why I am pro-life, from conception to natural death.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

So in summary: Force women to carry rape babies to term, because that 'lil zygote who could have been prevented with birth control simply must be carried to term now that it exists - it's a human life. And try your best to just ignore the reality that most women will only have a certain number of kids in their life and that an unwanted child supplants a wanted one, because that makes it harder to justify extreme concern for existing zygotes at the clear expense of future ones.

There are plenty of practical options we have to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Evidence-based sexual education. Accessible birth control. And yes, some nudges towards stable long-term partnerships that plan their paternity. These are the things that will practically reduce the number of abortions.

If the zygote is a human then IVF is creating then murdering hundreds of humans. I think that's a silly way to look at it. No one suffers the supposed "harm" or letting a zygote whither away unused in a tube. I think the same is true for a 4-week abortion.

I think living beings have value to the extent they can experience things. Their potentiality to experience things matters too - we're not worthless when we're deeply sleeping, then valuable when we wake up. I just don't think that living beings' value is a magical property that emerges the second they have a unique genetic strand - not if it's created in a tube, and not even if that strand gets implanted in a fertile womb.

[JECE]

1. What you call "nutrition" can only be gained through what science calls "parasitism". You are moving goalposts here compared to your previous justification for infringing on women's freedom to choose what to do with their own bodies:

So what you are telling me is that new life is a disease. Gotcha.

A baby, already born, cannot survive without outside aid. A child in the womb cannot survive without outside aid. Most kids in America cannot survive without outside aid. What you call parasitism I call the necessity for support from others. That doesn't mean that a child in the womb isn't still a separate life.

No, I was not telling you that your so-called "new life" is a disease. Parasitism is a biological term for a certain type of symbiotic relationship. This isn't about "outside aid" or the "the necessity for support from others". (As a socialist, I believe in the moral imperative for society to support and aid children.) Your so-called "new life" isn't a child; it can only turn into a child in the womb of a single individual, who should be free to choose whether or not they want a child.

2. Cherishing the value of human life is fundamental to my political beliefs and moral compass. That's why I oppose capital punishment (1), torture (2), enforced disappearances (3), war crimes (4), poverty (5), maternal mortality (6), gun ownership (7), police brutality (8), structural racism (9) and the current genocide in Gaza (10). Abortion doesn't make the cut.

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_United_States
(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_interrogation_techniques
(3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition
(4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes
(5) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_and_health_in_the_United_States
(6) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternal_mortality_in_the_United_States
(7) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States
(8) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_brutality_in_the_United_States
(9) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societal_racism#In_the_United_States
(10) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_genocide

I don't care what makes the cut or not. Your list of social justice issues is irrelevant to the fact that new life is new life.

Social justice issues? I'm pointing to the fact that life is life. It's curious how you seem to care so much about what you call "new life" but choose to label the prevention of unnecessary deaths as "social justice issues".