Pro-Life and Anti-Regulation

[Akhlut]

Firstly, I thought of this as more of a moral issue, but if the mods feel it fits better in politics, I won't be opposed to it being moved there.

Anyway, onto the topic at hand: I was reading my local paper's Letters to the Editor blog, and was amazed by the volume of pro-life letters there, and it got me to thinking: most of these people are doubtless opposed to regulations on big business and the free market.

But, how can these people be opposed to environmental legislation with regards to pollution? Are most of these people ignorant of the vast harm to fetuses and embryos that pollution can do? Or are they only anti-abortion because they are told to be so and/or are anti-feminist?

It just makes me wonder how people can live with such a vast contradiction in their thinking: that they are pro-fetus, yet they can't regulate things which are known or suspected to harm those same fetuses tremendously (heavy metals in the air from coal-burning, industrial solvents, plasticizers like bis-phenyl A, etc.).

So, as I asked above, how can people hold such mutually exclusive opinions? Further, despite one's feelings on abortion, how can any moral person support anti-regulation ideas with regards to industrial pollution when it is known to have severe harm on human life in its most fragile period, namely, during organogenesis and early development?

[Alyrium Denryle]

The key is that they are not pro-life for the reason you think they are. They dont actually give a shit about the fetus per se(at least pro-life men dont). What they care about is regulating sex and sexual behavior. There are a lot of reasons for this, but in the end it boils down to sexually antagonistic selection. In an evolutionary sense Men want paternal certainty and they dont want the vehicle of their genes being aborted. Anti-abortion memes get generated in the population and the reproductive control the males gain is increased, and thus their fitness is increased at the expense of women (who optimize their fitness through reproductive control rather than frequency of childbearing). Different strains of it being adapted for different types of hosts (just like a parasite).

[Junghalli]

Because I'll bet in most cases they don't really give a shit about the fetus. They think abortion is bad because the Good Book tells them so, and that's the end of it. They'll bring in appeals to the poor babies being slaughtered and to a certain extent probably believe it themselves but at root their opposition to abortion is based in conformity to their religion, just like all the rest of their ethics. The Good Book doesn't say anything about pollution being bad so they don't get too worked up about it, and besides the politicians who promise to give them the policies they want are anti-regulation so tribalism demands they be anti-regulation too.

[NoXion]

Because I'll bet in most cases they don't really give a shit about the fetus. They think abortion is bad because the Good Book tells them so,

Now colour me ignorant, but exactly what verses do they use to justify their anti-abortion stance? I don't remember ever seeing anti-choicers using lines from the Bible, only they waffle on about the "sanctity of life" or whatever.

[The Spartan]

Because I'll bet in most cases they don't really give a shit about the fetus. They think abortion is bad because the Good Book tells them so,

Now colour me ignorant, but exactly what verses do they use to justify their anti-abortion stance? I don't remember ever seeing anti-choicers using lines from the Bible, only they waffle on about the "sanctity of life" or whatever.

The "thou shalt not kill" bit at the very least. There's other parts they can use to justify it but that's the big one. Remember, for the average anti-choicer life begins at conception, if not ejaculation.

[Teleros]

It just makes me wonder how people can live with such a vast contradiction in their thinking: that they are pro-fetus, yet they can't regulate things which are known or suspected to harm those same fetuses tremendously (heavy metals in the air from coal-burning, industrial solvents, plasticizers like bis-phenyl A, etc.).

So, as I asked above, how can people hold such mutually exclusive opinions? Further, despite one's feelings on abortion, how can any moral person support anti-regulation ideas with regards to industrial pollution when it is known to have severe harm on human life in its most fragile period, namely, during organogenesis and early development?

If they're very strongly in favour of free markets, then presumably consumers choosing eco-friendly rivals or a view to very-long-term profits will encourage a company to regulate itself. Otherwise, I suspect they're just opposed to what they see as "unnecessary" regulation, or regulations that aren't cost-effective (or that they don't think are - I doubt many of the writers actually know if regulation XYZ is cost-effective or not).
That's assuming they see the link between being pro-life and being at least a little eco-friendly of course .

[Covenant]

Because I'll bet in most cases they don't really give a shit about the fetus. They think abortion is bad because the Good Book tells them so,

Now colour me ignorant, but exactly what verses do they use to justify their anti-abortion stance? I don't remember ever seeing anti-choicers using lines from the Bible, only they waffle on about the "sanctity of life" or whatever.

The "thou shalt not kill" bit at the very least. There's other parts they can use to justify it but that's the big one. Remember, for the average anti-choicer life begins at conception, if not ejaculation.

They seem to love Genesis, so they probably read 38:7-11 a bit--which is the section in which a dude is commanded to knock up his dead brother's wife, and pulls out instead "spilling his seed" and then gets smote by an angry God. It's not specific, some say it's an injunction against masturbation or any sort of sex without the shot at pregnancy, and some say it's just a general response from God whenever you ignore a crazy sky-god whim. But knowing the way most Evangelicals interpert it, I wouldn't be suprised if they probably do believe in life beginning at the moment of coitus. They say that every baby is a gift from God, sent when you're ready and when he wants you to have one, so by that definition an abortion (or even Birth Control) is a form of avoiding your "Obligation to God." So like with the guy who pulled out, and got smote, someone who uses a condom or birth control or an abortion would probably get smote too... in their estimation, anyway.

[Wicked Pilot]

So, as I asked above, how can people hold such mutually exclusive opinions? Further, despite one's feelings on abortion, how can any moral person support anti-regulation ideas with regards to industrial pollution when it is known to have severe harm on human life in its most fragile period, namely, during organogenesis and early development?

Here's a thought, ask them, not us. Seriously, there aren't any Pro-Life message boards, blogs, etc, on the internet where you could ask one of them directly? Hey, perhaps you could ask not just one, but many of them, because not everybody holds the same beliefs and not everyone holds them for the same reason. Maybe if we had a significant Pro-Life number of posters here this thread might be of some worth, but we don't. If an honest conversation is what you really desire then go out and have it.

Because I'll bet in most cases they don't really give a shit about the fetus. They think abortion is bad because the Good Book tells them so,

Now colour me ignorant, but exactly what verses do they use to justify their anti-abortion stance? I don't remember ever seeing anti-choicers using lines from the Bible, only they waffle on about the "sanctity of life" or whatever.

The "thou shalt not kill" bit at the very least. There's other parts they can use to justify it but that's the big one. Remember, for the average anti-choicer life begins at conception, if not ejaculation.

The Bible's a pretty big book so it's fair to say that if the author (God maybe?) had a problem with abortion it would be spelled out like quite clearly. If they (He maybe?) can make room for stupid shit like prohibitions on shellfish and multifiber clothing then there shouldn't have been a problem fitting fetus rights in there somewhere.

[General Zod]

Because I'll bet in most cases they don't really give a shit about the fetus. They think abortion is bad because the Good Book tells them so,

Now colour me ignorant, but exactly what verses do they use to justify their anti-abortion stance? I don't remember ever seeing anti-choicers using lines from the Bible, only they waffle on about the "sanctity of life" or whatever.

The hilarious thing is the Bible seems to condone abortion in some instances, and even paint a fetus as worth less than a regular child. Examples:

Number the children of Levi after the house of their fathers, by their families: every male from a month old and upward shalt thou number them. And Moses numbered them according to the word of the LORD.

Apparently fetuses don't matter enough to take census.

And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? ... Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.

Where's the sanctity of the fetus here?

Yea, though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb.

Sounds like approval of abortion in specific instances here.

Because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die.

It's okay to kill infants in order to punish someone. Wee.

Tamar thy daughter in law hath played the harlot; and also, behold, she is with child by whoredom. And Judah said, Bring her forth, and let her be burnt.

Killing a child while it's still in the womb because the mother's a "slut"? I'm sure you'll find a lot of Christians who would argue that it just ain't Christian, or that it doesn't matter because it was in the Old Testament.

[Metatwaddle]

We've been studying arguments for and against abortion in one of my philosophy classes, and I think I can give you the perspective of younger pro-lifers. It seems to me that most of the rank-and-file pro-lifers seem to sincerely think that abortion is wrong because a fetus is the sort of thing that it's seriously wrong to kill. Some of them will tell you it's wrong because biological humanity is sufficient to be considered a person. Some of them will tell you it's wrong because a potential human being should be treated the same way as an actual person, or at least close to it. Others will be honest about their religious motivations and say that the reason abortion is wrong is because an embryo has a soul, and it's wrong to kill anything with a soul.

The problem is, most of them just haven't thought about it very much. Most of them, I think, have been told by their pastors that to be a real Christian, you have to oppose abortion. They'll grasp at any argument they can get to. Do they really have independent reasons for thinking biological humanity is sufficient to be considered a person, or that potential humans are the same as real humans? Probably not. A lot of them seize on Don Marquis's "future like ours" argument before realizing that if you're a theist, the argument doesn't work, because if you believe that a fetus's soul goes to heaven, then that fetus actually has a very good future, filled with the goods of consciousness. They'll seize on whatever argument allows them to treat fetuses like adult humans.

There is an element of oh-noes-irresponsible-sex, too. But it's not as strong as the save-the-embryos attitude. It's also not limited to pro-lifers; I've seen quite a few pro-choicers claim that they think abortion should be legal, but they're "opposed to people who use it as a form of birth control". This is obviously a stupid argument, and I think I've done a decent job at arguing against it at SDN and elsewhere.

OK, so what does that have to do with environmental regulation? Well, for one thing, a lot of the evangelicals I know don't take their economic conservatism as seriously as their concern for fetuses. I would guess that if I asked them, they would be fairly willing to consider environmental regulation if studies showed that it really did help fetuses. But if you asked an older pro-lifer, I think he would be more set in his thinking. Somewhere in between, you'd probably get them trying to twist their brains into some sort of crappy justification, like the idea that lack of regulation creates jobs, which helps the economy, which helps people make enough money to keep their kids alive, so regulation would... actually cause more loss of life than it prevents. Or something.

Oh, and finally, I've seen people claim that Jeremiah 1:5 is claim that God opposes abortion. The most-often quoted part is "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you." (This quote and all the others I'll provide in this post are from the NIV.) But the entirety of Jeremiah 1:5 is "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations." And if you take Jeremiah 1 as a whole, you'll see that it has nothing the fuck to do with abortion.

[Posner]

If you can convince an otherwise reasonable person that 6 hour, 6 week and 6 month old fetuses are all equivalent to a newborn baby, then that person will be willing to regulate it. Who wouldn't want to stop infanticide. The problem is, of course, that a fetus is not the same as a newborn and pro-lifers are willing to trample over any right and sometimes to commit murder in order to stop it. Only relgion can offer such moral certainty to a complex problem.

[Count Chocula]

Hoo boy, deep waters here.

I knew my son was a human being at three months' gestation when we saw the second ultrasound, and he had clearly begun developing identifiable human physiognomy (including the third leg - color me proud!) and moving. It was an eerie, but way cool, sight at the same time. At six weeks, he looked like a tadpole. After three months, or at most 22 weeks (IIRC the earliest time when a preemie has a chance of survival) I hold the opinion that abortion is indeed the taking of a human life. By the way, this is a different opinion than I had before my son was born. Abortion before the fetus has grown enough to look like a little human seems to me repugnant, but not necessarily amoral or illegal. I see it as robbing a potential person of their future, and now know that my life would a poorer place if my wife and I had aborted our son as a fetus. However, these are my experiences, and YMMV.

I consider something like 'late term' or 'partial birth abortion' to be nothing short of murder, and fail to understand how a pro-choicer could support such a heinous practice.

It sounds like I fall in the Pro-Life and Anti-Regulation crowd here.

Back to the point, Akhlut, it seems that you inferred the other side of your argument from reading the Letters to the Editor, rather than confirming it to be the case. One good way to confirm your hypothesis that pro-lifers are anti-regulators would be to talk to people you know are pro-lifers. In the political arena, it appears that your standard-issue Democrat is pro-choice and pro-regulation, while your standard-issue Republican is indeed pro-life and anti-regulation.

[General Zod]

I consider something like 'late term' or 'partial birth abortion' to be nothing short of murder, and fail to understand how a pro-choicer could support such a heinous practice.

The vast majority do not support partial birth or late term abortions barring medical emergencies. Quite frankly this is a common strawman used by the anti-choice crowd to demonize anyone that would dare support abortion.

[Count Chocula]

No strawman intended.

[Darth Wong]

Hoo boy, deep waters here.

I knew my son was a human being at three months' gestation when we saw the second ultrasound, and he had clearly begun developing identifiable human physiognomy (including the third leg - color me proud!) and moving.

Of course he was human. He was human 10 seconds after conceiving. But he didn't have any real brain activity yet. Earthworms move and react to stimuli too.

It was an eerie, but way cool, sight at the same time. At six weeks, he looked like a tadpole. After three months, or at most 22 weeks (IIRC the earliest time when a preemie has a chance of survival) I hold the opinion that abortion is indeed the taking of a human life.

I think the best way to resolve the point of no return is to do more research on the point at which a fetus has a functioning brain.

By the way, this is a different opinion than I had before my son was born. Abortion before the fetus has grown enough to look like a little human seems to me repugnant, but not necessarily amoral or illegal. I see it as robbing a potential person of their future, and now know that my life would a poorer place if my wife and I had aborted our son as a fetus. However, these are my experiences, and YMMV.

A lot of people find the "potential life" argument to be very compelling, but they usually don't realize that it applies just as much to people who simply decide not to have children. Who knows what their children would have been like? By deciding not to have children, they robbed those "potential children" of their opportunity for life just as much as they would have if they aborted live fetuses.

I consider something like 'late term' or 'partial birth abortion' to be nothing short of murder, and fail to understand how a pro-choicer could support such a heinous practice.

Except that such abortions are usually performed only in cases where the mother's life is at risk. Think about this: if it was just a woman who didn't want to have kids, why the fuck would she carry the baby around for eight months before finally aborting it?

This whole late-term abortion argument is nothing more than a disgusting attempt by anti-abortion forces to frame the debate by focusing it around a bogeyman. Specifically, a bizarre bogeyman of promiscuous women who sleep around and get pregnant and then casually abort the fetuses, but for some reason decide to wait through eight months of morning sickness, mood swings, weight gain, and other side effects before actually doing it.

[Covenant]

I find the "potential person" arguement uniquely uncompelling. It's a case of a Schrödinger's Person. You cannot know if the woman's body will carry the cells to term, if it will successfully gestate, or what the person's quality of life will be like. Being beholden to a fiction is the height of irresponsibility when the only concrete truth is that when you have a child, for the next 16 or so years that decision the parents made to carry it to term will dictate every element of this other person's life. If one is not ready to be loving and committed, not able to be financially supportive, then it's not really the parent who suffers as much as it is the child. To whose benefit is a full term pregnancy then?

What about the other Schrödinger's People, the ones these parents could have in two or three years? What could they learn from this, perhaps? What beneficial maturity would they gain, what helpful financial security? A woman who gets an abortion at 20 in college but chooses to have her first baby at 24 are entirely different people, and how is it any more fair to force her and her potential People to choose the avenue least desireous? Do you not have a responsibility to provide the best possible environment for your children? If you think of these potential people as diverging timelines along potential future tracks, why is one favorable over another? Why the child of a young, scared, inexperienced mother over the child of a married, happy couple into a suburban home and a good school district? This is not the only choice of course, but when a woman seeks to end her own pregnancy, who are we to say we know better her ability to care for her child?

How is this any different than forced adoption as chosen by state lottery?

I can see no other distinction except sex, and the destruction of a small number of cells. Must we always seek to punish people, and their children, for careless sex?

[General Zod]

The potential person argument is rather hilarious, really. Logically following it through it means that every time I wank I'm guilty of mass murder.

[Count Chocula]

And every woman's period is another life...flushed down the drain!

[Akhlut]

Here's a thought, ask them, not us. Seriously, there aren't any Pro-Life message boards, blogs, etc, on the internet where you could ask one of them directly? Hey, perhaps you could ask not just one, but many of them, because not everybody holds the same beliefs and not everyone holds them for the same reason. Maybe if we had a significant Pro-Life number of posters here this thread might be of some worth, but we don't. If an honest conversation is what you really desire then go out and have it.

As I recall, though few and far between, there are pro-life religious people on this board, and they might be able to produce a sentence that uses punctuation and is at least halfway coherent. While it is a blanket generalization, far too many of those sorts of boards are populated by the type of people who make liberal use of aolspeak and otherwise butcher the language and make it nigh unreadable.

Further, I don't particularly like signing up for forums simply to ask one or two questions. If I'm going to sign onto a forum, I would like to actually make use of it.

Plus, looking at all the replies after yours, even if a lot of people here aren't pro-life, my question is at least stimulating some level of discussion, so it does have some validity being posted on this board.

[Zablorg]

The potential person argument is rather hilarious, really. Logically following it through it means that every time I wank I'm guilty of mass murder.

I pointed this out to a person on the internet I was debating one time. He said it didn't count becaus it's only after an egg becomes fertilized that it has the potential to be a human.

Yeah, I don't get it either.

[General Zod]

I pointed this out to a person on the internet I was debating one time. He said it didn't count becaus it's only after an egg becomes fertilized that it has the potential to be a human.

Yeah, I don't get it either.

You should point him to a dictionary then, because he clearly doesn't understand what the word "potential" means.

[Covenant]

I pointed this out to a person on the internet I was debating one time. He said it didn't count becaus it's only after an egg becomes fertilized that it has the potential to be a human.

Yeah, I don't get it either.

You should point him to a dictionary then, because he clearly doesn't understand what the word "potential" means.

You could also ask him if he'd support stem cell research if we only destroy unfertilized human eggs and not any fertilized ones, since as nonpotential people, they really should just be cells, right?

[Korto]

I draw the line that it's morally not an actual living human being until it is actually living physically seperate from the mother; that is, at birth. Before then, it's just a parasitical growth inside the mother, and damn short of rights. No, I don't like late abortions, but as Wong points out, they're not performed on a whim.
Any argument that the severely defective fetus should be kept because "it's a life" could be (hypothetical following) ruining multiple lives in favour of a half-life of misery, when an abortion and another try could have a healthy, happy child and a marriage that stays together.
Anyone arguing that "tens of thousands more people would be alive today if abortion was banned" needs to tell us if they plan to be the one to carry them to term, birth them, and then look after the little sods for the next 20 or so years. And since when has there been a particular shortage of people anyway?

[Alyrium Denryle]

I knew my son was a human being at three months' gestation when we saw the second ultrasound, and he had clearly begun developing identifiable human physiognomy (including the third leg - color me proud!) and moving.

A human being is different from a person. Just because it looks like one, does not mean it acts or is able to perform like one. There is nothing special about the human genome that gives us special moral weight, so we have to go with functional characteristics like brain development. And I hate to say it, because you will hate me, but at that stage logical consistency would require that you have more ethical issues stepping on a gecko than killing the fetus. The gecko is a semi-thinking being, it can feel pain, make decisions etc. Something that even at 22 weeks, a fetus cannot do.

Now, I can understand the response, but it is is not consistent with what we know of the universe.

After three months, or at most 22 weeks (IIRC the earliest time when a preemie has a chance of survival) I hold the opinion that abortion is indeed the taking of a human life.

Again, killing human life is different from the killing of a person. See above. This response while understandable is not consistent with reality.

By the way, this is a different opinion than I had before my son was born. Abortion before the fetus has grown enough to look like a little human seems to me repugnant, but not necessarily amoral or illegal.

Why is looking like a little person a morally relevant characteristic? Shouldn't something like the feeling of pain (30 weeks at the earliest), or the ability to form two-way relationships (birth) be more relevant?


To put it another way:

Prior to a certain point, probably birth, the fetus does not have any independent moral worth. If I kill it, I am not victimizing it. I am victimizing the parents if I do it without consent. But the fetus has less moral worth than a lizard (the lizard can at least suffer for a few seconds if I step on it...) on its own. Its moral worth is contingent upon you wanting to keep it alive.

I see it as robbing a potential person of their future

Then to be consistent you may never, ever refuse to have sex or use protection because you are robbing a potential person of their future.

I consider something like 'late term' or 'partial birth abortion' to be nothing short of murder, and fail to understand how a pro-choicer could support such a heinous practice.

By the logic I use above, abortion up to the point of birth is OK. Now, not necessarily preferable, because after the point of viability if removed without death from the womb the certainty regarding the non-personhood of the fetus begins to drop off, and certainly after the point where it feels pain it starts having independent worth equivalent to that of a lizard or so(and thus should not be killed wantonly). But late term abortions are never done because the mother wants to. They are done out of medical necessity and when I am making decisions I tend to err on the side of those that I KNOW have independent moral worth.

Hence the reason I can be pro-late-term-abortion.

[Count Chocula]

Alyrium Denryle wrote:

A human being is different from a person. Just because it looks like one, does not mean it acts or is able to perform like one. There is nothing special about the human genome that gives us special moral weight, so we have to go with functional characteristics like brain development. And I hate to say it, because you will hate me (emphasis added), but at that stage logical consistency would require that you have more ethical issues stepping on a gecko than killing the fetus. The gecko is a semi-thinking being, it can feel pain, make decisions etc. Something that even at 22 weeks, a fetus cannot do.

No hatred involved in this discussion - there's plenty of that from the True Believers® to go around. Yes, I was probably projecting traits of personality and awareness that my son, from what we know, didn't have at three months - oh well! I suspect it's a species survival trait for parents to bond with their children and vice versa at an early age. Ethically, I suspect you are correct: terminating a fetus could be construed as more 'permissible' if you follow the logic that a fetus is not self-aware. As far as moral weight goes, well hell, we're the top of the food chain! The rule of claw and fang gives us all the moral weight the natural world requires. All else is our invention.