Gyroscopic Investing

Pointedstick wrote: You can come at this from a religious, scientific, or philosophical point of view, but I doubt there will ever be real agreement on it. It's so highly personal.

Well, from a scientific standpoint (Embryologists), view human life as beginning at fertilization.  The religious viewpoint has a fairly well established consensus as well.  That leaves everyone else philosophizing a way to justify an action that has apparent benefits for themselves and, at the very least, massive potential detriment for someone else.  Not exactly an uncommon occurrence in our species.  We seem to be able to philosophize our way into any action if we can get something out of it given enough time to think about it.

Pointedstick wrote: All I can say is that I want to err on the side of less government control when I'm not sure of the answers.

You probably haven't considered erring on the side of the new human life being entitled to protection. After all...we have no proof...that the pre-born, even pre-3 months...is NOT a unique human being.

Shouldn't the burden of proof be that the so-called "product of conception" is NOT a unique human being entitled to protection?

This is somewhat rhetorical...just giving you another view to consider.

More government control rarely leads to better outcomes, IMHO.

Agreed. However, one of the (few?) actual legitimate roles of government is the protection of the innocent, in my view.

RuralEngineer wrote:   We seem to be able to philosophize our way into any action

***** (5 stars)

The mind can rationalize anything. 

MachineGhost wrote:
Why isn't it the young and uneducated or the young and poor or the poor and uneducated or whatever mix is relevant, cannot have a natural distaste for late-term abortions as they do for murder or cannibalism?  Late-terms abortions is not a huge problem in general, but it seems to be a huge problem for this particular demographic group.

I think one problem is that the young uneducated poor etc. DO have a distaste for abortion, but at all stages. As reality hits--constant pregnancy related illnesses, the crushing expenses of a pregnancy (not all of which are economic or financial) beyond prenatal care, the reality of an upcoming major life change, the lack of honest support, abandonment by loved ones--the pregnant woman finds that common inertia has led to actual decisions being put off until sometime after the magic third month. And because women's reproductive health in general has been reviled (no biology based sex education,  no access to contraception, reintroduction of religious "Curse-of-Eve" philosophies into public schools, no pre-pregnancy education about what it's really like to care for an infant, etc.), legit abortion clinics have closed, and it may take several more weeks to find a place that will perform any abortion. Hence, late term abortion.

Pregnancy has a ticking clock going from the time of conception until the end of the pregnancy.  During that ticking clock, lots of legal, economic, life, etc decisions have to be made, and many of them are irreversible. Most females don't realize they're pregnant until a month or two of that ticking clock time has elapsed. 

And then there's  that statistic--most employees are two paychecks away from destitution. Collecting the funds for an abortion may take weeks, hence long term abortion. In some areas politically powerful people have imposed their religious beliefs on everyone in that jurisdiction, and the process for actually getting an abortion once the woman decides to do it has many legal and social obstacles put in the way.
By the time she collects the funds and jumps through artificial hoops, it's too late for an early term abortion.

Hoops, as in, "You gotta look at this movie about how human your baby looks. Then you have to have an ultrasound and take the images home before you can call back in two days and make an appointment to come back and  talk to a doctor. And after you talk to the doctor, you need another appointment to have the procedure. There is a 3 week waiting list for that. Oh, and you have to pay cash for each mandated lab test, for each office visit, the procedure, and aftercare."


That's not including those who find out (in a totally wanted pregnancy) to their horror, that the fetus they're carrying is developing, for example, without a brain, or has died in utero. Or is developing in a way that continuing the pregnancy will endanger the woman's life (developing in a fallopian tube, for example, or in a pregnant woman who is developing an aortal tear--examples of situations that at any time can cause a rupture resulting in instant death). If the woman dies from this, the children she now has will be left without a mother, or even orphaned.  Hence late term abortion.

As RuralEngineer said about D1984, it is possible to be two standard deviations outside of the norm on an issue.  I would sat that would apply at both ends of the bell curve.  That means the majority of people--including the women who find themselves having to make a heartbreaking decision--don't "like" abortion, late-term or early-term, and don't view the prospect of bringing a human being  into the world with the same stark vision as D1984 expressed.  That fact alone should be reason for hope.

The economic consequences of having an unwanted child must truly be soul-crushing.

Not all the soul-crushing stuff surrounding an unwanted pregnancy is economic or financial.

If one is a rape victim, for example, the prospect of carrying the rapist's fetus is soul-crushing, and the knowledge that for the rest of the woman's life she has to look into the face that reminds her of her attacker and KISS, CUDDLE AND SMILE at it, is soul crushing. (BTW, since only a minority of rapes are reported and only a few are ever adjudicated, the likelihood that this situation enters into an abortion decision is high. This includes rapes that occur within a marriage.)

Being abandoned by family members, the father, even society, is soul crushing. Don't forget we live among many cultures, some with traditions that may permit or even compel certain family members to defend the family honor by killing an unmarried pregnant female, or a female who marries the "wrong" person and compounds the "dishonor" by getting pregnant. Adoption is not what it used to be (secret), and with good reason, but the new rules increase the possibility for additional soul crushing--including for the innocent person who learns he or she resulted from rape, or from the kinds of intrafamilial sexual abuse that leads to an incest pregnancy before the abuser is locked up.  Other examples are a lot less dramatic but no less real.

It's also soul-crushing to have to terminate a pregnancy when you were really ecstatic about welcoming a new person to your family.

RuralEngineer wrote:

Pointedstick wrote: You can come at this from a religious, scientific, or philosophical point of view, but I doubt there will ever be real agreement on it. It's so highly personal.

Well, from a scientific standpoint (Embryologists), view human life as beginning at fertilization.  The religious viewpoint has a fairly well established consensus as well.  That leaves everyone else philosophizing a way to justify an action that has apparent benefits for themselves and, at the very least, massive potential detriment for someone else.  Not exactly an uncommon occurrence in our species.  We seem to be able to philosophize our way into any action if we can get something out of it given enough time to think about it.

The human inside a womb requires the mother's body and effort to survive, though.  It is not a fully sovereign human life.  In fact, of course an embryologist is going to see life as starting at conception... It is a triggering event for all that they study.  Just like a marathon trainer is going to see the marathon as starting 6 months earlier during training.

A clump of liver cells in a petri dish is going to appear as "life" to a cell biologist.  Neither a liver cell or an embryo is able to survive independently outside a human body.  So this is hardly settled science. 

In fact, most conservatives only see there being a negative right to life, not a positive one.  Since a fetus relies on the human host for sustenance, it would seem to me this is a situation where, looked at coldly, a pregnant woman would have every right to do what she needs to to live without being controlled by another who requires her body for sustenance.

Of course, this is a partcularly cold and disconnected way to look at it, but if someone was stealing food from your fridge and invading your body, their right to life doesn't prevent you from taking action to prevent the intrusion on your sovereignty.

So it's all still very muddy to me, despite what some embryologist might interpret things as.

moda0306 wrote: So it's all still very muddy to me, despite what some embryologist might interpret things as.

It seems reasonable to me to draw the moral line at where out technology cannot sustain the lifeform of the "parasite" outside of the host.  Before that point, it is the host's private property to do with as the host sees fit.  Doesn't that just happen to coincide with the third trimester?

moda0306 wrote:...a pregnant woman would have every right to do what she needs to to live without being controlled by another who requires her body for sustenance.

I think there are actually very few who would disagree with you on that one.  The key phrase being "what she needs to do to live" rather than "just didn't want to have a baby".

MachineGhost wrote:

moda0306 wrote: So it's all still very muddy to me, despite what some embryologist might interpret things as.

It seems reasonable to me to draw the moral line at where out technology cannot sustain the lifeform of the "parasite" outside of the host.  Before that point, it is the host's private property to do with as the host sees fit.  Doesn't that just happen to coincide with the third trimester?

MG,

Uncomfortable language you use, but I see the need for it... I would definitely say that there is a line somewhere between the beginning and end of the second trimester that has to be drawn to avoid the ridiculous extremes of killing what is essentially the most precious form of life and killing a small clump of cells that haven't even turned into anything yet.

But of course if you're dealing with issues of rape or health, we're in a whole new scenario altogether. 

MachineGhost wrote: It seems reasonable to me to draw the moral line at where out technology cannot sustain the lifeform of the "parasite" outside of the host.  Before that point, it is the host's private property to do with as the host sees fit.  Doesn't that just happen to coincide with the third trimester?

That's pretty much arbitrary too.  You could say that the kid will be dependent on his mom for 18 years, and that he's therefore her "private property".  When in fact, a child is NEVER considered to be property.

Xan,

Not really dependent on a biological level.  A mother could leave her child and society would care for it.

moda0306 wrote:

RuralEngineer wrote:

Pointedstick wrote: You can come at this from a religious, scientific, or philosophical point of view, but I doubt there will ever be real agreement on it. It's so highly personal.

Well, from a scientific standpoint (Embryologists), view human life as beginning at fertilization.  The religious viewpoint has a fairly well established consensus as well.  That leaves everyone else philosophizing a way to justify an action that has apparent benefits for themselves and, at the very least, massive potential detriment for someone else.  Not exactly an uncommon occurrence in our species.  We seem to be able to philosophize our way into any action if we can get something out of it given enough time to think about it.

The human inside a womb requires the mother's body and effort to survive, though.  It is not a fully sovereign human life.  In fact, of course an embryologist is going to see life as starting at conception... It is a triggering event for all that they study.  Just like a marathon trainer is going to see the marathon as starting 6 months earlier during training.

A clump of liver cells in a petri dish is going to appear as "life" to a cell biologist.  Neither a liver cell or an embryo is able to survive independently outside a human body.  So this is hardly settled science. 

In fact, most conservatives only see there being a negative right to life, not a positive one.  Since a fetus relies on the human host for sustenance, it would seem to me this is a situation where, looked at coldly, a pregnant woman would have every right to do what she needs to to live without being controlled by another who requires her body for sustenance.

Of course, this is a partcularly cold and disconnected way to look at it, but if someone was stealing food from your fridge and invading your body, their right to life doesn't prevent you from taking action to prevent the intrusion on your sovereignty.

So it's all still very muddy to me, despite what some embryologist might interpret things as.

Your argument is not sound. There is a difference between a living cell and a living organism that is readily and easily defined by science. It's why Embryologists consider a fetus an organism but not a liver biopsy.

The "parasite" argument is countered by the fact that newborns are also reliant on their mother's resources to survive. Additionally, we don't declassify coma patients as human beings despite having lost independence and volition.

Biological dependence and social dependence are two very different things.  The fetus is inside the body and growing, fully biologically dependent on the mother. Neither The mother, nor any doctor who might try, can change that. We as a society take care of motherless children all the time.

And what qualifies as an "organism" is simply science drawing an arbitrary line as well. For the purposes of deciding what is a legally protected life form. Even though I'm very capable of knowing right from wrong at age 15, the law rightfully draws lines around what the age of being able to make legally binding decisions should be.

We have a fully dependent "entity" that in a perfect world might have legal protection but for the tremendous amount of convolution that's caused by both this dependency and the embryo's lack of any sort of consciousness.

MediumTex wrote:

Xan wrote:

D1984 wrote:I cannot begin to understand how anyone could feel this way. My first instinct in such a situation would be "flush the little parasite before it can be born and end up costing me tens (or hundreds) of thousands of dollars in child support".

"It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish." - Mother Teresa

I guess D1984 is fortunate that his parents were more generous with him during his earliest days than he seems to be with respect to his potential progeny.

It's cool not to want kids, but if a kid is already in the oven I think that some level of generosity of spirit ought to kick in at some point.

Mother Teresa was a religiously delusional two-faced hypocrite; I wouldn't put much stock into anything she said; Hitchens has done some excellent work on how she truly was.

But assuming for the sake of argument that she WAS correct and that what she said was true, then doesn't that make us all moral lepers for not contributing as much as we can to charities that save children's lives (or feed them and provide them with lifesaving medical care that they couldn't afford otherwise) and only keeping enough for ourselves to live at the poverty level? After all, in doing so we have chosen to take a course of action that means more children will die and we have chosen said action so that we can consume more and live at a more comfortable level (i.e. so that we may "live as we wish" ).

I'm sorry but I don't see it that way. My job in this life is not to burn myself up on the altar of self sacrifice so that some little moocher can live off what I earn. To me, it's no morally different than shooting a burglar who comes into your house at night and tries to take money or your wallet off your nightstand. Even if there were only a few coins on there, to me those coins (my property) become worth more than the other person's property (their life) the minute they try to take them (because they were my property to begin with and not someone else's to take, just like my earnings are my own and not some child's to take in child support or the like). In such a situation, were it legal, I would have no qualms about shooting someone over the few cents they were attempting to steal and I wouldn't lose any sleep over the fact that I killed them over less money than it takes to buy a Coke.

Oh, and as regards generosity of spirit towards any potential progeny vs how my own parents were towards choosing not to have me aborted: It's a moot point because it assumes I would exist and be able to make the choice in the first place; if I were aborted then I wouldn't be here to make the choice to begin with. The choice of existence vs non-existence is only a valid comparison when looked at from the perspective of one who already exists. While looking at it from my vantage point NOW I am glad that they chose not to "flush me" but if they HAD indeed chosen to abort me then I wouldn't be here to reflect on it because I wouldn't exist in the first place so it would have been no great loss from my perspective.

moda0306 wrote: Biological dependence and social dependence are two very different things.  The fetus is inside the body and growing, fully biologically dependent on the mother. Neither The mother, nor any doctor who might try, can change that. We as a society take care of motherless children all the time.

And what qualifies as an "organism" is simply science drawing an arbitrary line as well. For the purposes of deciding what is a legally protected life form. Even though I'm very capable of knowing right from wrong at age 15, the law rightfully draws lines around what the age of being able to make legally binding decisions should be.

We have a fully dependent "entity" that in a perfect world might have legal protection but for the tremendous amount of convolution that's caused by both this dependency and the embryo's lack of any sort of consciousness.

The scientific definition of an organism is anything but arbitrary, you may want to do more research.

Responsibility lies with the parents, not society, and denial of care is universally regarded as murder, unless you disagree I see no basis for any argument in your post.

Oh, and as regards all the posters who have said that I am "several standard deviations outside the norm" or that my beliefs are "stark", or "unusual" or imply that (thankfully) such views are incredibly rare (I'm trying to remember back to my Six Sigma training to determine how many standard deviations from the norm would make something unusual enough to be fairly classed as "incredibly rare" but inevitably it's a subjective standard):

Perhaps they aren't all that common but I'm not sure they are so unique as to be classed as incredibly rare. Go to any of the more popular childfree blogs online or even to one of the "anonymous true mommy confessions" type of sites and you will see (on the former) plenty of people who express sentiments that make me sound like a fuzzy-minded bleeding heart; go to the latter and you'll see more than a few confessions the gist of which are "I hate my kids...it was a mistake to ever have them...they're ruining my life...I wish I could put a pillow over my crying baby's head; he just won't SHUT UP after seven hours of wailing all night...etc etc". It's amazing how when people are anonymous they feel free to tell the truth as they really see it and not give "politically correct" and "socially acceptable" pap as answers. For that matter, what about the Ann Landers survey that said 70% of parents if given a choice would say it WASN'T worth it (I know sample selection may have played a part is biasing the answer because people who are satisfied with being parents were less likely to respond whereas those who wish they had never had kids were.....but even if this bias meant the responses that said "not worth it" were overly represented by an order of magnitude then that means that 7% of American parents--potentially millions of people--would agree with what I think about children and how they are more of a useless pain-in-the-a**-burden than any kind of blessing)?

Responsibility lies with the parents, not society, and denial of care is universally regarded as murder, unless you disagree I see no basis for any argument in your post.

Actually, several anarcho-capitalist libertarian philosophers (Murray Rothbard being the most famous) pretty much believed that as long as parents didn't abuse or murder the kids then they were free to abandon them or not feed them if they wanted to (of course he also stated that others who would treat the children better should be free to purchase them from the parents if said parents treated their kids in such a manner).

D1984 wrote:For that matter, what about the Ann Landers survey that said 70% of parents if given a choice would say it WASN'T worth it (I know sample selection may have played a part is biasing the answer because people who are satisfied with being parents were less likely to respond whereas those who wish they had never had kids were.....but even if this bias meant the responses that said "not worth it" were overly represented by an order of magnitude then that means that 7% of American parents--potentially millions of people--would agree with what I think about children and how they are more of a useless pain-in-the-a**-burden than any kind of blessing)?

Whoa, now; we're straying way into a completely different topic.  This isn't an argument about whether or not it's a good idea to have children, or whether you, I, or anybody else enjoys being a parent, should or should not be a parent, etc.

We're talking about whether or not it's okay to kill your baby.  I'm assuming you didn't tell the mother who wanted to put a pillow over her screaming baby's face that that would be A-OK with you.

D1984 wrote:

Responsibility lies with the parents, not society, and denial of care is universally regarded as murder, unless you disagree I see no basis for any argument in your post.

Actually, several anarcho-capitalist libertarian philosophers (Murray Rothbard being the most famous) pretty much believed that as long as parents didn't abuse or murder the kids then they were free to abandon them or not feed them if they wanted to (of course he also stated that others who would treat the children better should be free to purchase them from the parents if said parents treated their kids in such a manner).

Thanks for providing supporting examples for my point about humans and philosophy.

D1984 wrote: Oh, and as regards all the posters who have said that I am "several standard deviations outside the norm" or that my beliefs are "stark", or "unusual" or imply that (thankfully) such views are incredibly rare (I'm trying to remember back to my Six Sigma training to determine how many standard deviations from the norm would make something unusual enough to be fairly classed as "incredibly rare" but inevitably it's a subjective standard):

Perhaps they aren't all that common but I'm not sure they are so unique as to be classed as incredibly rare. Go to any of the more popular childfree blogs online or even to one of the "anonymous true mommy confessions" type of sites and you will see (on the former) plenty of people who express sentiments that make me sound like a fuzzy-minded bleeding heart; go to the latter and you'll see more than a few confessions the gist of which are "I hate my kids...it was a mistake to ever have them...they're ruining my life...I wish I could put a pillow over my crying baby's head; he just won't SHUT UP after seven hours of wailing all night...etc etc". It's amazing how when people are anonymous they feel free to tell the truth as they really see it and not give "politically correct" and "socially acceptable" pap as answers. For that matter, what about the Ann Landers survey that said 70% of parents if given a choice would say it WASN'T worth it (I know sample selection may have played a part is biasing the answer because people who are satisfied with being parents were less likely to respond whereas those who wish they had never had kids were.....but even if this bias meant the responses that said "not worth it" were overly represented by an order of magnitude then that means that 7% of American parents--potentially millions of people--would agree with what I think about children and how they are more of a useless pain-in-the-a**-burden than any kind of blessing)?

Hey, D1984. You have some really cool ideas. Do u live any where near Tampa? If so, let's go out and have a beer sometime.