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I agree with the result of your conclusion but I disagree with your central premise. We do have laws to protect rights in the future. Those laws, though, don't protect individual rights, they protect the rights of the society as a whole.
I the case of the fetus, it is arguable as to when the fetus gains rights of its own, but I don't think that a newly fertilized egg immediately gains rights. Something like the morning after pill, abortion at 6 weeks, or even abortion at 12 or 20 weeks doesn't constitute "murder in self defense" in my mind. I think there is a line to be drawn somewhere before that even becomes a consideration.
Once you do cross that line, though, we do get to your argument and your logic holds I think.
my body, my choice is all the logic we need. Don't try to argue or draw debates. It will only divide it will only give them some sort of sense that their argument holds water. There is nothing but 'my body, my choice.'
I don't think that your argument is going to win back women's right to choose. "My body my choice" in the way that you are using it, with no gray area or caveats, implies that abortion should be legal up to the time of birth. That's going to be a tough idea to get agreement on, even from many people who are pro-choice.
I am pro-choice but, if we want women to be able to choose for themselves, we do need to argue I good faith and make some reasonable compromises I think.
Who do you think is carrying a baby for nearly 9 months then saying "Well, I better get that abortion in now before it's too late!"
This doesn't happen the way you've implied. People who are aborting with no fault don't wait till near full term. And when an abortion does happens that late term, as rare as it is, it's always because of an unviable fetus or an at risk of death mother. We absolutely should help people in those situations, and any restrictions on abortion, any ambiguity or vagueness in terminology, even directed only at late term abortions, can and will be used to prevent care to those who really need it.
I actually thought about saying exactly what you're saying but didn't want to muddy my argument. My point is, even if it should be a choice between a mother and her doctor, that argument isn't going to win the day. Too many people will point to later term abortions as an argument against full-on "my body my choice". It is too easy to convince people that is allowing murder...
What is actually does is leave the choice of abortion up to birth between a pregnant person and their doctor, up until birth. I can't go into a doctor and demand whatever treatment I want because it's my body.
It really doesn't matter because doctors are not going to abort after viability because of their oath to do no harm. The only abortions at that time are a threat to the mother or the birth would be closely followed by death from a severe disease or defect.
Laws that require a second opinion are the only logical compromise because anything else will negatively impact many, many women with no positive outcome for the potential future person. Even that is a compromise and will have a negative impact, but at least it would still be limited to a medical decision and not some legal criteria written in a way that doesn't fit each pregnancy.
Doctors do no take an oath not to do harm. That's a myth:
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/first-do-no-harm-201510138421#:~:text=While%20some%20medical%20schools%20ask,the%20Hippocratic%20Oath%20at%20all.
That said, very few doctors actually perform late term abortions anyways (even though these are almost universally due to complicating medical scenarios and not for funsies).
Sure and I'm all for that - I just know that's a pervasive myth
That is a little nitpicky. The article you linked says medical schools do have doctors take the hippocratic or similar oath. The relevant part from the hippocratic oath is pretty much what people think of when they think “do no harm”:
"I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous."
Your stance is not incompatible with mine; my meta stance is solely that there is a discussion to have. As opposed to the person in this thread pretending like it's an objective fact instead of a societal judgement.
I do not specifically carve out an exception for late term abortion because no one is actually waiting 6 months before deciding whether to carry to term. The people getting late term abortions are doing it because they must due to medical reasons.
I’m not sure how there’s a discussion when you’re pitting a real-life person against a hypothetical future person. Your other examples (eg climate change) affect society as a whole. There is no hypothetical about it.
If hypothetically speaking I bury a land mine in a field-- does it matter if the person who eventually dies because of my actions was born before or after I buried the mine? Is when they were born in relation to my actions relevant at all?
We don't retroactively go and punish soldiers for setting mines, nor their commanders. So, no, it doesn't matter
I don't know if land mines are part of it, but there are munitions that are considered a war crime to be used because the are likely to harm someone in some unspecified future.
And people still use them when they see fit, with little repercussions.
I don't see your point, sorry.
I am not arguing against choice at all; I'm arguing that "it's just a clump of cells" is not a rational argument for whether or not it deserves protection under the law.
Can you do me a solid and quote the exact place where I did this? It wasn't my intent and I want to take care not to make the same error in the future.
Yes, I am saying that you can still be pro-choice while believing that a zygote has rights.
That hypothetical was to show that we do concern ourselves with the consequences of our actions, even if those consequences affect people who have not yet been born. And it's true. We do this. So saying "the zygote hasn't been born-- it doesn't matter what happens to it" (paraphrasing) is not a given statement-- it must be shown why we shouldn't care about what happens to it, when we do care about unborn or future people in other instances.
This can't be further from the truth. We make nuanced decisions about this all the time-- you're not allowed to kill someone, but if they're trying to kill you, you are then allowed to kill them to defend yourself. A person that punches a pregnant person in the stomach and causes them to miscarry can be charged with murder. It doesn't matter if the pregnant person was punched on the way to an abortion. The question isn't really (and never should have been) whether a zygote has rights. The question is defending why a pregnant person's rights should supersede the rights of the zygote.
I don't think a zygotes rights supersede the rights of any pregnant person. I'm pro choice with no qualifiers.
It sounds like you’re taking the pregnant person out of the equation as a thought experiment and then stating that this clump of cells that has the potential to become a person should have rights of its own. Even then it’s a little hard to argue since “potential” is abstract. And what is the value of potential? It’s human, so does that give it rights? Does it get rights as soon as an egg is fertilized? Or does its rights grow as it starts getting more human-like? Why should this clump of cells have more rights than, say, a full-fledged penguin? I don’t think this thought experiment is very useful to anyone without a religious belief in the specialness of human embryos.
As I've said, many, many, many times already, we already have a system in place to say that two people both have rights, but in some instances, one of those person's rights take precedence over another person's rights-- like in cases of killing in self-defense.
And we do give rights to animals. Just not the same we give to humans.
You know rights are just something humans made up, right?
I saw what you did. I've been saying over and over again that I am pro choice. I don't think the rights of a zygote supersede the rights of a pregnant person, without qualifier.
I'm unsure what you're referencing. Is it something I said? If so, can you point it out directly? I want to improve myself if I'm saying something that's causing confusion.
I don't think there needs to be a line at all. What pregnant person is waiting 4 months to decide to carry to term? If it's happening that late, it's because they've been forced to by medical circumstance, not idle fancy. Adding the line just makes it so there are edge cases where injustice can still occur. I suppose it would be just as effective to leave the late term stuff as "for medical purposes only" but I honestly don't think it's required.
And we’re saying that you can make the point without dog-whistling your republican friends.
Is my semen the land mine in this metaphor? And a vagina is the field? Or am I missing something here?
Yes but a mine can kill a real life person who can be injured or die which has a real world negative effect on society. A person having an abortion has no impact on society outside of some lame thought experiment. Have you read this famous essay about the morality of requiring someone to continue a pregnancy?
https://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.htm
I was only pointing out that we do care what happens to people even if they haven't been born at the time the actions take place. Because many people believe, in error, that "the zygote hasn't been born yet" is evidence that we should not care what happens to it.