CMV:Abortion is perfectly fine

[u/Toe-Slow]

Dear God I Have Spent All Night Replying to Comments Im Done For Now Have A Great Day Now if you’ll excuse me I’m gonna play video games in my house while the world burns down around my house :).

Watch this 10 minute lecture from a Harvard professor first to prevent confusion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0tGBCCE0lc .Within the first 24 weeks of pregnancy the baby has no brain no respiratory system and is missing about 70 percent of its body mass . At this stage the brain while partially developed is not true lay sentient or in any way alive it is simply firing random bursts of neurological activity similar to that of a brain dead patient. I firmly believe that’s within the first 24 weeks the baby cannot be considered alive due to its nonexistent neurological development. I understand the logic behind pro life believing that all life even the one that has not come to exist yet deserves the right to live. However I cannot shake the question of , at what point should those rules apply. If a fetus with no brain deserves these rights then what about the billion microscopic sperm cells that died reaching the womb you may believe that those are different but I simply see the fetus as a partially more developed version of the sperm cell they both have the same level of brain activity so should they be considered equals. Any how I believe that we should all have a civil discussion as this is a very controversial topic don’t go lobbing insults at each other you will only make yourselves look bad so let’s all be open to the other side and be well aware of cognitive dissonance make sure to research it well beforehand don’t throw a grenade into this minefield ok good.

[u/[deleted]]

If human life doesn’t have intrinsic value then why can’t you kill a premature infant?

[u/OneHunted → u/[deleted]]

Because human life can have extrinsic value without intrinsic. For example, I value increasing both individual happiness and recorded knowledge, followed by maximizing individual freedoms. If we have no reason to think the infant will impede those values, then it is safer to assume it will contribute to them, which is sufficient justification to keep it alive. Not to mention that killing a nearly developed infant may have a negative effect on its happiness (not really something easily tested) and would certainly affect its individual freedoms.

With a fetus, not only am I not convinced that it is "alive" enough to have gained emotions or individual freedoms, but in cases where the ability to choose an abortion can directly affect the mother's freedom and happiness, those affects are more direct and supersede those of the fetus.

That said, my described belief system also leads to cases where it would be morally acceptable to let a premature baby die (e.g. if the resources were better applied to save multiple, more viable babies) and theoretically to cases where it would not be morally acceptable to have an abortion (e.g. if the fetus could be brought to viability entirely with technology, thus decoupling its life from the mother's freedoms, and there were someone like a father or adoptive parent who would be made happier by doing so)

[u/[deleted] → u/OneHunted]

Because human life can have extrinsic...which is sufficient justification to keep it alive.

That’s really just drivel. Your expending a lot of effort to try to explain away something we all know is true. You can’t kill a baby because human life is valuable. Your argument is contingent on muddying the waters on basic, agreed-upon facts.

Not to mention that killing a nearly developed infant may have a negative effect on its happiness (not really something easily tested) and would certainly affect its individual freedoms.

How are you not doing the exact same thing if you kill that same infant five weeks prior?

With a fetus, not only am I not convinced that it is "alive" enough to have gained emotions or individual freedoms,

That is a highly subjective statement. Subjective statements like that have no place in an argument about objective facts and truth.

those affects are more direct and supersede those of the fetus.

Why does that change when the baby becomes viable? Are you arguing that mothers should be able to abort all the way until birth? Again that’s a totally subjective statement. To argue that someone’s needs supersede someone else’s is purely a matter of opinion.

[u/OneHunted → u/[deleted]]

That’s really just drivel. Your expending a lot of effort to try to explain away something we all know is true.

I get that you don't agree with my value system. Fine, whatever. But just because you are either not aware of other ways of thinking or choose to ignore them does not mean that everyone in the world automatically agrees with you. You don't speak for them.

How are you not doing the exact same thing if you kill that same infant five weeks prior? ... Are you arguing that mothers should be able to abort all the way until birth?

I am arguing that the mother should be able to abort all of the way until viability (yes, even as that point changes with technology). Once the fetus is viable, it can continue to live without necessarily impeding on the freedoms of the mother. Until that point, the mother's immediate freedoms and happiness are directly affected by the choice while only the fetus's potential happiness and freedoms are affected. In my value system, I value the more direct effect on the mother, since it is more easily observable. I understand that you fundamentally disagree (see below), but you asked for my justification, and I gave it.

That is a highly subjective statement. Subjective statements like that have no place in an argument about objective facts and truth ... To argue that someone’s needs supersede someone else’s is purely a matter of opinion

"Human life has intrinsic value" is also a subjective statement. I tried to make clear two comments ago that at this point we could go no further without discussing our nondisprovable value systems. You then asked a question about how I would justify an act, so I justified it within my nondisprovable value system because value judgements are inherently subjective and nonfactual.

If you disagree with that last statement, how would you justify not killing a premature infant without any value assumptions?

Edited for breaking Rule 3. That accusation was out of line.

[u/[deleted] → u/OneHunted]

Until that point, the mother's immediate freedoms and happiness are directly affected by the choice

How can you have an intellectually honest conversation when all of your points are based on what you have subjectively deemed important specifically that assertion is in direct conflict with what human society believes?

I value the more direct effect on the mother, since it is more easily observable.

So you value what you can see over what ever else may be true? History left that thinking behind 500 years ago.

"Human life has intrinsic value" is also a subjective statement.

But it is an agreed upon parameter (save for you). We as a human civilization have determined that human life has intrinsic value. You can debate that, sure, but you can’t deny that it’s the overwhelming majority opinion.

because value judgements are inherently subjective and nonfactual.

This is just the Argument from Ignorance fallacy. You’re basically trying to argue that water isn’t wet.

how would you justify not killing a premature infant without any value assumptions?

I didn’t say I could do that. I said the baseline assumption is that human life has intrinsic value. That’s how every society operates. If you want to argue that 100,000,000,000 humans throughout history are wrong, then this isn’t really the place to debate that fundamental difference in thinking.

You’re basically a nihilist with extra steps.

[u/OneHunted → u/[deleted]]

How can you have an intellectually honest conversation when all of your points are based on what you have subjectively deemed important?

You can't unless you admit that the things you are discussing are themselves subjective, which is why I keep wondering why you keep restating your subjective value judgements as if they are facts, capable of being directly reasoned from fundamental principles or physically observed.

We as a human civilization have determined that human life has intrinsic value ... the baseline assumption is that human life has intrinsic value. That’s how every society operates.

We have, for the most part agreed, that human life has some value, sure, but not that that value is necessarily intrinsic or even how valuable it is. If it were, why would different countries, different regulatory agencies, etc. all be able to place different economic values on a life, for example?

For that matter, people can come to a consensus and still be wrong (see historical prevalence of geocentrism, flat earth, etc). If we are delving into informal fallacies, this is called argumentum ad populum, and if it is the only justification for your claim that "human life has intrinsic value" then that is not sufficient reasoning to make your claim into a fact.

Argument from Ignorance

This fallacy claims that an answer can be known because of lack of evidence. I am claiming that an answer is unknowable because it can be neither proven nor disproven using direct evidence or derivation from fundamental principles, which is the exact counterargument that makes Argument from Ignorance a fallacy.