The Effect of "Abortion Rights" on the Political Landscape

[jamil]

Just because a large group supports robbing banks doesn’t mean it’s a moral position to run on.

robbing banks taps into a more universally believed moral than abortion though. We're definitely discussing the boundaries of Overton's Window. What policies will society tolerate? Something America has going for it is a federation of states where the people of the state mostly decide the policies they live by, hopefully guided by objective morals.

Given we have this system and more than half the country is against banning abortion, obviously the lack of universality of "abortion is murder" is not within Overton's Window for the whole country. Let each state decide what laws are within Overton's Window for them.

But no. We have politico's that demand their prescription be applied to the whole country. Dems want a nationwide legalization of abortion on demand all the way up to birth. And that's just batshit crazy. That's a political turd. And Repubs want a national absolute ban of abortion. That's a political turd two. Neither position is in the national Overton's Window. Probably should let the states handle it. Although I think a federal law that bans abortion after the first trimester would fit Overton's Window at a national level, and then if states want to ban it earlier, so be it.

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

Stewardship of God's creation?

If you mow your lawn, you almost certainly kill dozens of seedling trees each spring and summer. I get mostly Silver Maples, but always some Pin Oaks too. I have one decent-sized Silver Maple and several smaller Pin Oaks that I saved from the mower to allow them to grow in my yard. Although the Silver Maple is really not in a good spot and I plan to cut it down this year.

We're all OK with the killing of mature trees when it suits our purpose of having a place to build our houses and grow our food, and we're OK with the continuing killing of seedling trees as we mow our yards and tend our gardens.

 

[jamil]

If you mow your lawn, you almost certainly kill dozens of seedling trees each spring and summer. I get mostly Silver Maples, but always some Pin Oaks too. I have one decent-sized Silver Maple and several smaller Pin Oaks that I saved from the mower to allow them to grow in my yard. Although the Silver Maple is really not in a good spot and I plan to cut it down this year.

We're all OK with the killing of mature trees when it suits our purpose of having a place to build our houses and grow our food, and we're OK with the continuing killing of seedling trees as we mow our yards and tend our gardens.

I have a section of my property where I'm letting parts of it grow naturally. About a half acre of it I want to make a wildflower field. I'm treating the soil to prepare it for planting maybe this fall. The rest, for I keep certain parts mowed where I don't want trees to grow. Eventually I'll cut trails through the wildflower meadow and trees. So some seedlings, I definitely want to murder with prejudice. I guess that means I'm going to hell for tree murder.

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

But no. We have politico's that demand their prescription be applied to the whole country. Dems want a nationwide legalization of abortion on demand all the way up to birth. And that's just batshit crazy. That's a political turd. And Repubs want a national absolute ban of abortion. That's a political turd two. Neither position is in the national Overton's Window. Probably should let the states handle it. Although I think a federal law that bans abortion after the first trimester would fit Overton's Window at a national level, and then if states want to ban it earlier, so be it.

I agree, and I think if it were possible to survey every voter in America about exactly how they feel about abortion, there would be more uniformity than the politicos would want to see. And the politico's discomfort about that is because that uniformity throws a monkey wrench into their operations.

Most of my life, Roe V Wade was the law. The line was drawn, with like a DMZ in the middle. There were hard-liners on both sides wanting to keep fighting, but the rest of the people just wanted to let the line stay the way it was.

Now, for some reason it's all changed. One side is saying "No abortions of any kind, for any reason, for anyone." and the other side is saying "Oh my gosh, I wish I was having one right now."

 

[jamil]

For the people who can’t vote for a candidate who doesn’t vow to ban abortion. Of course we’re talking about Trump. Well, 4 more years of Democrats and you won’t have the opportunity. With what they seem to be doing—ensuring one-party rule—I think they’re pretty close now. If they can get illegals a way to vote, it’s probably done. They won’t meed a lock on the black vote. The people who came here illegally will vote for them perpetually. If opposition never has the opportunity to take the presidency, Democrats sure won’t give you what you want.

 

[AndreusMaximus]

For the people who can’t vote for a candidate who doesn’t vow to ban abortion.

Who is that? I thought I was about the most anti-abortion guy on this board, except maybe Bug, but even I would vote for Trump again in a heartbeat (no pun intended.)

 

[AndreusMaximus]

My only interest in the "murder" subtopic is to explore the logical consequences.

If abortion is murder, then it's logical and realistic to assume that she and the practitioner should be charged as any murderer would be charged. If you say, I think it's murder, but I don't want the mother penalty to be as harsh as it is for any other murderer (outside of blue states, because they think murder is cool). If you call it murder, and you don't want the same penalties that murderers get, it seems logically inconsistent with believing abortion is murder.

You are correct. Above I said I would support a law that defines abortion as murder, but carves out an exception that precludes the death penalty for abortion. They only reason I would support such an exception, is because it at least moves the bar closer to what I would like to see, which is effectively the abolishment of the death penalty.

Okay, so let's get accurate. If you believe abortion is murder, what is a fair penalty for the mother? The practitioner? How would that work in the legal system? Would you want to create a special class of murder?

I do think it's fair to give at least some consideration to the circumstances. Not because any human life is more valuable than any other, but because the level of guilt. We already sort of have this with what are called, I think, "aggravating circumstances." If someone beats, mutilates, and tortures a child to death, we treat that differently than someone who puts a bullet in a grown man's head.

Also, I would support, at least temporarily, a system that imposes penalties on the person performing the abortion, but greatly reduces or eliminates penalties for the mother who sought the abortion. This is simply due to the fact of how so much of our culture today is engineered towards brainwashing women into thinking that if they can't get abortions is means they're enslaved by men. It is also extremely common for women to be manipulated and pressured to get an abortion. You can't just bring the hammer down full force and expect desirable results.

With the above caveats, I do think that life in prison is a fair sentence for murder, including murder of a pre-born child. In an ideal society, I believe this would be the default starting point, with allowance made that if the defense can prove extenuating circumstances that reduce the culpability of perpetrator, the sentence can be reduced accordingly.

 

[AndreusMaximus]

Mostly true.



If something has not seen universal belief as a moral standard, I’ll say it this way, its signal suggests the moral is relative. In contrast the universality of a moral gives a strong signal that a moral is objective.

We’re saying that an objective moral is always objectively true, always has been always will be, whether people recognize it or not. So then there should be evidence of that across time and cultures/religions. At least as far as we can tell. So then such evidence tends to prove there is a commonality to it that wouldn’t exist if it were subjective.

So one could say, eating pizza with pineapple is objectively immoral. I can go to the google machine, and yes. I see all through the results, across time, all the cultures have shunned people who ruin a good pizza with pineapples, since the beginning of time. In fact the ancient Minoans on Crete used to stone people for ruining pizza by sneaking slimy pineapples on it.

Okay, I'm still a bit confused.

So you agree with the statement that "an objective moral is always objectively true, always has been always will be, whether people recognize it or not."?

I thought being objective had to do with something that is able to be proved.

Pretend you lived however long ago that slavery was still a near-universal phenomenon across most cultures/regions. Under those circumstances, say you were to consider the moral statement "slavery is wrong." How would you prove such a thing back then under those circumstances? Back in those times, wouldn't it still be a subjective moral, instead of an objective moral, because of lack of a way to prove it?

 

[jamil]

You are correct. Above I said I would support a law that defines abortion as murder, but carves out an exception that precludes the death penalty for abortion. They only reason I would support such an exception, is because it at least moves the bar closer to what I would like to see, which is effectively the abolishment of the death penalty.

I do think it's fair to give at least some consideration to the circumstances. Not because any human life is more valuable than any other, but because the level of guilt. We already sort of have this with what are called, I think, "aggravating circumstances." If someone beats, mutilates, and tortures a child to death, we treat that differently than someone who puts a bullet in a grown man's head.

Also, I would support, at least temporarily, a system that imposes penalties on the person performing the abortion, but greatly reduces or eliminates penalties for the mother who sought the abortion. This is simply due to the fact of how so much of our culture today is engineered towards brainwashing women into thinking that if they can't get abortions is means they're enslaved by men. It is also extremely common for women to be manipulated and pressured to get an abortion. You can't just bring the hammer down full force and expect desirable results.

With the above caveats, I do think that life in prison is a fair sentence for murder, including murder of a pre-born child. In an ideal society, I believe this would be the default starting point, with allowance made that if the defense can prove extenuating circumstances that reduce the culpability of perpetrator, the sentence can be reduced accordingly.

I have to ask then. Are you sure it’s murder?

 

[jamil]

Okay, I'm still a bit confused.

So you agree with the statement that "an objective moral is always objectively true, always has been always will be, whether people recognize it or not."?

I thought being objective had to do with something that is able to be proved.

Pretend you lived however long ago that slavery was still a near-universal phenomenon across most cultures/regions. Under those circumstances, say you were to consider the moral statement "slavery is wrong." How would you prove such a thing back then under those circumstances? Back in those times, wouldn't it still be a subjective moral, instead of an objective moral, because of lack of a way to prove it?

I’ll get to this sometime this weekend. Too busy to out the time into it.

 

[jamil]

Okay, I'm still a bit confused.

So you agree with the statement that "an objective moral is always objectively true, always has been always will be, whether people recognize it or not."?

I thought being objective had to do with something that is able to be proved.

Pretend you lived however long ago that slavery was still a near-universal phenomenon across most cultures/regions. Under those circumstances, say you were to consider the moral statement "slavery is wrong." How would you prove such a thing back then under those circumstances? Back in those times, wouldn't it still be a subjective moral, instead of an objective moral, because of lack of a way to prove it?

Things can exist without before knowning about them. Otherwise many things we call discoveries, would be instead, inventions. Because things existed before they were discovered.

Drilling down into the role of proof in knowing truth, if we're being rational, proof escalates the confidence in the thing proven towards 100%. I didn't say that the objective moral truth that makes slavery wrong only became true when the early abolitionists decided it was wrong. The universal moral truths that made slavery wrong were there as soon as there are groups of people. It just took awhile for the truths that make enslavement wrong to become apparent.

Individual liberty was fleshed out in the Enlightenment but the idea existed prior. Like I said in an earlier post, anyone who has been a slave has known and felt the wrongness of their enslavement, ever since enslavement became a thing. People know when they're not free. And they know it's wrong.

Morals usually involve harm to others or oneself, or maybe more broadly relate to avoiding bad consequences. I also think there are branches of morality. So a root of many morals seems to be the golden rule. The morality of justice, fairness, responsibility, personal liberty, and so on. And then from those, they get more concrete as people apply the base morals. Slavery is morally wrong, because it violates other morals.

The concrete morals within the 10 commandments: Respect your parents, don't murder, don't commit adultery, don't steal, don't lie (which branches further to things like character assassination), don't be jealous of other people's stuff. If you violate these morals, people will be harmed. So maybe the thing that makes it objectively true, is that when morals are observed, it leads to less human suffering.

So the overly simplified version of how slavery became immoral: The first enslavement: Hey. Let's conquer that tribe over there and take all their stuff, and whoever we don't kill, we'll just make them do all the chores we don't like doing. Then after many thousands of years of the evolution of enslavement, someone says, hey wait a minute. Jesus said to love one another. This slavery thing doesn't feel like I'm loving them. Then someone else says, ya, I just read John Locke and Adam Smith. This slavery thing seems to be a pretty ****ed up idea. Maybe we should stoppit.

 

[jamil]

Here's another social construct which is morally wrong. Social canceling. Shunning isn't new. Social cancellation is shunning scaled up to societal level. It almost always involves character assassination through deception.

I hope someday discover all the morals it violates. But, to the progressives who started social cancellation, they say "traditional" morals are a tool of the white male patriarchy invented to oppress women, people of color, and LGBTQIA++++ people.

 

[AndreusMaximus]

Things can exist without before knowning about them. Otherwise many things we call discoveries, would be instead, inventions. Because things existed before they were discovered.

Drilling down into the role of proof in knowing truth, if we're being rational, proof escalates the confidence in the thing proven towards 100%. I didn't say that the objective moral truth that makes slavery wrong only became true when the early abolitionists decided it was wrong. The universal moral truths that made slavery wrong were there as soon as there are groups of people. It just took awhile for the truths that make enslavement wrong to become apparent.

Individual liberty was fleshed out in the Enlightenment but the idea existed prior. Like I said in an earlier post, anyone who has been a slave has known and felt the wrongness of their enslavement, ever since enslavement became a thing. People know when they're not free. And they know it's wrong.

Morals usually involve harm to others or oneself, or maybe more broadly relate to avoiding bad consequences. I also think there are branches of morality. So a root of many morals seems to be the golden rule. The morality of justice, fairness, responsibility, personal liberty, and so on. And then from those, they get more concrete as people apply the base morals. Slavery is morally wrong, because it violates other morals.

The concrete morals within the 10 commandments: Respect your parents, don't murder, don't commit adultery, don't steal, don't lie (which branches further to things like character assassination), don't be jealous of other people's stuff. If you violate these morals, people will be harmed. So maybe the thing that makes it objectively true, is that when morals are observed, it leads to less human suffering.

So the overly simplified version of how slavery became immoral: The first enslavement: Hey. Let's conquer that tribe over there and take all their stuff, and whoever we don't kill, we'll just make them do all the chores we don't like doing. Then after many thousands of years of the evolution of enslavement, someone says, hey wait a minute. Jesus said to love one another. This slavery thing doesn't feel like I'm loving them. Then someone else says, ya, I just read John Locke and Adam Smith. This slavery thing seems to be a pretty ****ed up idea. Maybe we should stoppit.

I greatly appreciated you explaining things at such length, but somehow I still feel like I'm missing something, so perhaps I'll try to ask differently.

Let's say AndreusMaximus and jamil are Roman citizens living in the year something something BC somewhere in the Roman Empire. One day as they are walking past the slave market, jamil says to AndreusMaximus, "You know, this slavery thing seems to me like it's objectively wrong." AndreusMaximus replies "Well, that's just your subjective moral. You can't prove it to be true, because slavery has been accepted across virtually every culture and society across all of history. This is a strong indication that it is not objectively immoral." What is jamil's answer to such an objection?

 

[AndreusMaximus]

I have to ask then. Are you sure it’s murder?

Yes. Very sure.

You're probably used to most conservatives leaning in the direction of inflicting very harsh punishments, especially for things like murder, so perhaps you think I'm being inconsistent. But my position on the punishment I believe should be meted out for abortion is consistent with the punishment I think should be meted out for any other type of murder. I tend to be more "liberal" on this question, for example, in my opposition to the death penalty.

Also, I am, despite all appearances to the contrary, a realist. I firmly believe in "Abortion is Murder" as an absolute moral position. But I can recognize that bringing the hammer down in Draconian fashion is not always the best immediate approach. I will support intermediate steps in the right direction, as long as we don't lose sight of where the end goal is.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

When everyone gets to claim "their truth" nothing can be immoral if whatever that action is conforms to that person's "truth".

 

[jamil]

I greatly appreciated you explaining things at such length, but somehow I still feel like I'm missing something, so perhaps I'll try to ask differently.

Let's say AndreusMaximus and jamil are Roman citizens living in the year something something BC somewhere in the Roman Empire. One day as they are walking past the slave market, jamil says to AndreusMaximus, "You know, this slavery thing seems to me like it's objectively wrong." AndreusMaximus replies "Well, that's just your subjective moral. You can't prove it to be true, because slavery has been accepted across virtually every culture and society across all of history. This is a strong indication that it is not objectively immoral." What is jamil's answer to such an objection?

Well first, like I said in an earlier post, the strong indicator (or signal) is universal acceptance across time and cultures/religions. The lesser signal is not having widespread acceptance. It's a signal, just not as strong. In yet other words, one can be most confident a moral is absolute if has universal acceptance. I think I must have stated some version of that at least a half-dozen times.

The signal is weaker to the contrary of universality. It's a signal. Just weaker.

So I think you may be asking the question wrong in your scenario. People already have a sort of moral basis. We know we don't want to be treated poorly and have discovered that we probably shouldn't treat others poorly then. That's got to be one of the oldest morals discovered in human interaction.

So in your scenario, it's more like I'd notice that a practice violates a moral concept. So I might say, you know, we both agree that we should treat others like we would want to be treated ourselves. How is that consistent with this slavery thing? So then if your rebuttal is logically valid and true, then I don't have much more to say. But if you justify it using faulty logic, but it sounds good, especially if I owned slaves and kinda like them doing my chores for me, well, it sounds right to me, so I don't have much more to say.

That's why I suspect the practice of slavery went on for many thousands of years until morality advanced to the point of recognizing the immorality of the practice. It's not so much that not enslaving people IS the objective moral. It's just the logical concrete application of moral principles makes it apparent.

So, we're back to the point where you make the logical case that abortion "from conception" violates an objective moral and is therefor objectively immoral itself. Is it really murder? I guess you could start by using some statements I've made to make your point. So I've said morals usually deal with harm, or at least harmful consequences. Who is harmed? And, is it harm if it isn't ever realized? It seems obviously true to you. How do you make it obviously true to me using only logic and knowledge of my secular views of morality? If you're saying it's murder to end a pregnancy at conception, why?

 

[jamil]

When everyone gets to claim "their truth" nothing can be immoral if whatever that action is conforms to that person's "truth".

That's true. But there are things that are near universally wrong that people recognize. Those are things we all agree on where our different world views don't collide. So what about the things we don't agree on? Progressives think that saying there are two genders is morally wrong. Well, that's like their opinion, man.

The question here. Is abortion literally murder? Beyond a certain point, yeah. I think it is. The main disagreement, unless one is an "up to birth" pro-abortion nutter, is the whole "from conception" thing. I can see why people who believe we have immortal souls would think that from the point of conception, abortion is murder. But then it's not true for people who don't believe in immortal souls. It's why we get caught up in the never ending "when is it a person" argument.

If there isn't an immortal soul, the fertilized egg develops into a person and isn't automatically one as soon as there is DNA distinct from the mother. I can't be sure of when, but I'd say certainly morality starts coming into play at least as soon as it can perceive pain. I don't see a secular reason before that why it's immoral prior.

But as I said, I'm not using just secular reasoning for my personal opinion. Which is, abortion is immoral at any point. I would not say to the point of calling it murder. But if we respect life and believe in personal responsibility, we don't **** around with life, casually. We should be serious and intentional about creating another life. Is that belief universally true? I dunno. Maybe someday after I'm long gone some wise person will convince everyone it is.

 

[jamil]

Yes. Very sure.

You're probably used to most conservatives leaning in the direction of inflicting very harsh punishments, especially for things like murder, so perhaps you think I'm being inconsistent. But my position on the punishment I believe should be meted out for abortion is consistent with the punishment I think should be meted out for any other type of murder. I tend to be more "liberal" on this question, for example, in my opposition to the death penalty.

Also, I am, despite all appearances to the contrary, a realist. I firmly believe in "Abortion is Murder" as an absolute moral position. But I can recognize that bringing the hammer down in Draconian fashion is not always the best immediate approach. I will support intermediate steps in the right direction, as long as we don't lose sight of where the end goal is.

If you're sure it's murder, why do you need to carve anything out? If this is premeditated murder, shouldn't the mother get the kind of jail time any other convicted intentional murderer would get?

The punishment doesn't need to be capital. And I agree with you we should abolish capital punishment, but not for a slam dunk guilty of heinously violent murders. Serial killers for example, who admit their guilt, I mean off to the gallows right after sentencing. Sycophantic murderers should be taken out.

But. Speaking of serial killers. Are abortion practitioners serial killers?

 

[AndreusMaximus]

Is it really murder?

Yes.

I guess you could start by using some statements I've made to make your point. So I've said morals usually deal with harm, or at least harmful consequences. Who is harmed?

The fetus.

And, is it harm if it isn't ever realized?

Yes, otherwise killing someone in a coma wouldn't be harm, either.

It seems obviously true to you. How do you make it obviously true to me using only logic and knowledge of my secular views of morality? If you're saying it's murder to end a pregnancy at conception, why?

Because that's the only concrete point at which we can define a human life as beginning. Also, while we're at it, I keep forgetting what the term is that you want to use. For me, human life=human person=someone with the same rights as anyone else. I think you said that you believe a human life begins at conception, but that life doesn't become a person until later on, is that correct? So maybe I need to phrase it that conception is the only concrete point at which we can define a human person as beginning. It makes no difference to me which way you phrase it; does it to you?

And this is the crux of my argument: taking some human lives*, and defining them as not human persons* is in itself harmful to society. One of the main reasons slavery was able to hang on so long was because long after humanity had mostly come to realize that enslaving other people is wrong, some clever folks decided to try to skirt this by claiming, oh, but even though blacks are humans, they're not really persons.

If you allow for the possibility of defining some humans as not being persons, that opens to door to anything.

(*Again, if I'm using the wrong terminology here for you, let me know. Here I am using "human life" to mean any living organism that is a homo sapiens", and "human person" to mean a being that has all the rights we ascribe to "normal" human beings, like the right to life, etc.)

The trouble is every time I bring this up, you keep going back to "but, abortion has been practiced so much throughout history, so it can't be objectively immoral." That's the notion I'm trying to dispel by using the slavery analogy. As you said above with slavery "It's not so much that not enslaving people IS the objective moral. It's just the logical concrete application of moral principles makes it apparent."

I'll turn that back to you and say: It's not so much that not aborting children IS the objective moral. It's just the logical concrete application of moral principles makes it apparent.

So of course we're back at the million dollar question: what is this logical, concrete application of moral principles that I'm speaking of?

Well, the moral principle we start from, and both agree on, is "Don't murder."

What is murder? Intentionally killing an innocent person. I think we agree on that.

So let's talk about an intentional abortion. It's definitely killing, I think we agree on that as well. Innocent would be pretty hard to dispute, I would think.

The point of disagreement is on how we define "person."

My contention; the very core of my argument, is that person must be defined as any living human: any living organism classified as homo sapiens. Any other definition that I have ever heard someone give is either a tautology, internally inconsistent, or it excludes certain people outside the womb who we ought to also consider human persons.

So, to counter my above claim, can you provide your own definition of "person"?

 

[AndreusMaximus]

If you're sure it's murder, why do you need to carve anything out? If this is premeditated murder, shouldn't the mother get the kind of jail time any other convicted intentional murderer would get?

Ultimately, yes, the mother should get the same jail time as any other convicted murdered. If you want to get more specific, I would say a mother who gets an abortion should received the same sentence as a mother who kills her newborn child, as those two things are just about exactly the same from a moral perspective.

The reason I allow for a carve out, which again I must emphasize should be only a temporary measure, is simply as a consequence of abortion having become so deeply ingrained in our culture. So, for instance, if I lived in a culture where infanticide had been largely accepted for almost the entirety of living memory, I would similarly think it reasonable to provide temporarily lighter penalties than other types of murder once infanticide were made illegal. You do have to give the wider culture time to adjust their moral compasses back to where they should be, and trying to use harsh penalties as a cudgel to make it happen instantly can backfire.

The punishment doesn't need to be capital. And I agree with you we should abolish capital punishment, but not for a slam dunk guilty of heinously violent murders. Serial killers for example, who admit their guilt, I mean off to the gallows right after sentencing. Sycophantic murderers should be taken out.

But. Speaking of serial killers. Are abortion practitioners serial killers?

Yes, abortion practitioners are serial killers. Kermit Gosnel, who practiced abortion by snipping babies' spines when they were mostly, or sometimes all the way, born, was literally convicted of being a serial killer under the laws of this country. That was the only difference; a few seconds and a few inches. If he had just been quicker with his scissors and got them all before they came fully out of the birth canal, he would've been 100% legal. Instead, he got a murder conviction. His case only went to trial because there were employees who took pictures and testified as to what he was doing. I have to wonder how many other times things like this went on but the evidence simply never came to light. Heck, a few years ago CMP got videos of prominent abortionists bragging about how they try to pull babies out as intact as possible in order to preserve organs for research. And did anything ever come of that? Oh yes, something did come of it, the people taking the videos were charged with violating the abortionists' privacy.

Sorry, I'm starting to go a bit down the emotional track here. I know you don't support those sorts of extremes. Anyways, to get back on point, yes, objectively speaking, I believe that if our laws were just, every abortion practitioner should be convicted of being a serial killer.

But I don't support the death penalty, even for serial killers. I realize this is something of a radical position to take, but perhaps we should save debating on that until we've reach some kind of stopping point for our debate about abortion.