The post birth abortion debate has started
#1
Is anyone really surprised that those that support abortion union demand at any time during a pregnancy are now talking about allowing post birth abortions?

Quote:After-Birth Abortion
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The pro-choice case for infanticide.

By William Saletan



Just when you thought the religious right couldn’t get any crazier, with its personhood amendments and its attacks on contraception, here comes the academic left with an even crazier idea: after-birth abortion.

No, I didn’t make this up. “Partial-birth abortion” is a term invented by pro-lifers. But “after-birth abortion” is a term invented by two philosophers, Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva. In the Journal of Medical Ethics, they propose:

[W]hen circumstances occur after birth such that they would have justified abortion, what we call after-birth abortion should be permissible. … [W]e propose to call this practice ‘after-birth abortion’, rather than ‘infanticide,’ to emphasize that the moral status of the individual killed is comparable with that of a fetus … rather than to that of a child. Therefore, we claim that killing a newborn could be ethically permissible in all the circumstances where abortion would be. Such circumstances include cases where the newborn has the potential to have an (at least) acceptable life, but the well-being of the family is at risk.


Predictably, the article has sparked outrage. Last week, Reps. Joe Pitts, R-Pa., and Chris Smith, R-N.J., denounced it on the House floor. But it isn’t pro-lifers who should worry about the Giubilini-Minerva proposal. It’s pro-choicers. The case for “after-birth abortion” draws a logical path from common pro-choice assumptions to infanticide. It challenges us, implicitly and explicitly, to explain why, if abortion is permissible, infanticide isn’t.

Let’s look at some of those assumptions.

1. The moral significance of fetal development is arbitrary. I often hear this argument from pro-choicers in the context of time limits on abortion. In a debate last fall, I drew up a timeline of fetal development, week by week. The response from Ann Furedi, chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, was that it would be arbitrary to use any point in that timeline to draw a legal limit on abortion rights. Giubilini and Minerva seem to share this view. “Abortions at an early stage are the best option, for both psychological and physical reasons,” they write, conspicuously omitting the idea that abortions at an early stage are better than late ones for moral reasons. “Merely being human is not in itself a reason for ascribing someone a right to life,” they write. “Indeed, many humans are not considered subjects of a right to life,” such as “spare embryos where research on embryo stem cells is permitted” or “fetuses where abortion is permitted.”

Furedi accepts birth as the first logical time limit, though not for reasons of fetal development. (See her comments 44 minutes into this video.) But Giubilini and Minerva push beyond that limit. They note that neural development continues after birth and that the newborn doesn’t yet meet their definition of a “person”—“an individual who is capable of attributing to her own existence some (at least) basic value such that being deprived of this existence represents a loss to her.” Accordingly, they reason, “The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus, that is, neither can be considered a ‘person’ in a morally relevant sense.”

2. Prior to personhood, human life has no moral claims on us. I’ve seen this position asserted in countless comment threads by supporters of abortion rights. Giubilini and Minerva add only one further premise to this argument: Personhood doesn’t begin until sometime after birth. Once that premise is added, the newborn, like the fetus, becomes fair game. They explain:

[I]n order for a harm to occur, it is necessary that someone is in the condition of experiencing that harm. If a potential person, like a fetus and a newborn, does not become an actual person, like you and us, then there is neither an actual nor a future person who can be harmed, which means that there is no harm at all. … In these cases, since non-persons have no moral rights to life, there are no reasons for banning after-birth abortions. … Indeed, however weak the interests of actual people can be, they will always trump the alleged interest of potential people to become actual ones, because this latter interest amounts to zero.

You may find this statement cold, but where’s the flaw in its logic? If the neurally unformed fetus has no moral claims, why isn’t the same true of the neurally unformed newborn?

3. Any burden on the woman outweighs the value of the child. Giubilini and Minerva note that philosophers such as Peter Singer have presented arguments for neonaticide for many years. Until now, these arguments have focused on what’s best for the baby—in the words of recent Dutch guidelines, “infants with a hopeless prognosis who experience what parents and medical experts deem to be unbearable suffering.” Giubilini and Minerva merely push this idea one step further, calling their proposal “‘after-birth abortion’ rather than ‘euthanasia’ because the best interest of the one who dies is not necessarily the primary criterion for the choice.”

“Actual people's well-being could be threatened by the new (even if healthy) child requiring energy, money and care which the family might happen to be in short supply of,” they observe. Accordingly, “if economical, social or psychological circumstances change such that taking care of the offspring becomes an unbearable burden on someone, then people should be given the chance of not being forced to do something they cannot afford.” An after-birth abortion might be warranted by any “interests of actual people (parents, family, society) to pursue their own well-being”—including “the interests of the mother who might suffer psychological distress from giving her child up for adoption.”

4. The value of life depends on choice. Pro-choicers don’t accept the idea that the path from pregnancy to maternity, being natural, must be followed. They argue that the choice is up to the woman. Some assert that the life within her has no moral status until she chooses to give birth to it.

Again, Giubilini and Minerva simply extend this logic beyond birth. Since the newborn isn’t a person yet, its significance continues to hinge on its mother’s decision. Neonates “might or might not become particular persons depending on our choice,” the authors argue. Until then, the newborn imposes no obligations on us, “because we are not justified in taking it for granted that she will exist as a person in the future. Whether she will exist is exactly what our choice is about.”

5. Discovery of a serious defect is grounds for termination. Fetal development can turn tragic at any point. Most people agree that abortion should be permitted when a grave defect is discovered at amniocentesis. In the partial-birth abortion debate, pro-choicers extended this rationale, arguing that abortions in the third trimester should be permitted when horrible defects were identified at that stage. Giubilini and Minerva take this argument to the next level, noting that defects often remain undiscovered until birth:

An examination of 18 European registries reveals that between 2005 and 2009 only the 64% of Down's syndrome cases were diagnosed through prenatal testing. This percentage indicates that, considering only the European areas under examination, about 1700 infants were born with Down's syndrome without parents being aware of it before birth. Once these children are born, there is no choice for the parents but to keep the child, which sometimes is exactly what they would not have done if the disease had been diagnosed before birth.

The authors conclude that “if a disease has not been detected during the pregnancy, if something went wrong during the delivery, or if economical, social or psychological circumstances change such that taking care of the offspring becomes an unbearable burden on someone, then people should be given the chance of not being forced to do something they cannot afford.” And it isn’t clear where the line against infanticide would be drawn. “We do not put forward any claim about the moment at which after-birth abortion would no longer be permissible,” Giubilini and Minerva write. They doubt that “more than a few days would be necessary for doctors to detect any abnormality in the child.” But critics are already noting that many defects are discovered later.

In sum, the authors argue:

If criteria such as the costs (social, psychological, economic) for the potential parents are good enough reasons for having an abortion even when the fetus is healthy, if the moral status of the newborn is the same as that of the infant and if neither has any moral value by virtue of being a potential person, then the same reasons which justify abortion should also justify the killing of the potential person when it is at the stage of a newborn.

I don’t buy this argument, in part because I agree with Furedi that something profound changes at birth: The woman’s bodily autonomy is no longer at stake. But I also think that the value of the unborn human increases throughout its development. Furedi rejects that view, and her rejection doesn’t stop at birth. As she explained in our debate last fall, “There is nothing magical about passing through the birth canal that transforms it from a fetus into a person.”

The challenge posed to Furedi and other pro-choice absolutists by “after-birth abortion” is this: How do they answer the argument, advanced by Giubilini and Minerva, that any maternal interest, such as the burden of raising a gravely defective newborn, trumps the value of that freshly delivered nonperson? What value does the newborn have? At what point did it acquire that value? And why should the law step in to protect that value against the judgment of a woman and her doctor?
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and...cide_.html
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#2
What do you expect? More black babies aborted than born in New York and the leftists celebrate. They vow to push for more.
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#3
Pretty much a straw man argument since what is proposed in the article has nothing to do with what the average right to choice person is thinking.
But SF and OL both want to act as if this is how leftists or libs all think.

BTW If I had a child who was born alive but didn't have a brain I would hope to hell I wouldn't HAVE to raise it. Which seems to me is what this article is about.
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#4
I think we should have post birth aborted GW Bush
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#5
(02-24-2014, 01:47 PM)chuck white Wrote: I think we should have post birth aborted GW Bush

Retroactive abortion, an idea whose time has come.
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#6
(02-24-2014, 12:02 PM)tvguy Wrote: Pretty much a straw man argument since what is proposed in the article has nothing to do with what the average right to choice person is thinking.
But SF and OL both want to act as if this is how leftists or libs all think.

BTW If I had a child who was born alive but didn't have a brain I would hope to hell I wouldn't HAVE to raise it. Which seems to me is what this article is about.

If every child without a brain was aborted or euthanized you libbies wouldn't exist.Laughing
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#7
(02-24-2014, 12:02 PM)tvguy Wrote: Pretty much a straw man argument since what is proposed in the article has nothing to do with what the average right to choice person is thinking.
But SF and OL both want to act as if this is how leftists or libs all think.

BTW If I had a child who was born alive but didn't have a brain I would hope to hell I wouldn't HAVE to raise it. Which seems to me is what this article is about.

No it's not. You have people like MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry who has said that life begins when the parents feel like life begins, and Alisa Lapolt Snow, the lobbyist representing the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates who has publicly said that a baby who survives a botched abortion the decision to care for that baby (yes, it is a human life at that point by even those that are pro-choice) belongs to the parents: “We believe that any decision that’s made should be left up to the woman, her family, and the physician. That decision should be between the patient and the health care provider." You also have progressive pro-choicers that advocate that post birth abortion should be allowed up to 2 years after birth, even for babies that are not disabled (Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva, University of Melbourne paper). Then you have John Holdren, is the senior advisor to President Barack Obama on science and technology issues, who co-authored a paper called ECOSCIENCE: Population, resources, environment, stating the same thing, that abortion's should be allowed throughout the entire pregnancy and that people should be allow to terminate unwanted children up to two-years of age because they (the children) are not really aware of their surroundings and can't be considered people.

So don't say it is a straw man argument.
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#8
(02-24-2014, 01:56 PM)Prospero Wrote:
(02-24-2014, 01:47 PM)chuck white Wrote: I think we should have post birth aborted GW Bush

Retroactive abortion, an idea whose time has come.

You first?
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#9
(02-24-2014, 02:02 PM)SFLiberal Wrote:
(02-24-2014, 12:02 PM)tvguy Wrote: Pretty much a straw man argument since what is proposed in the article has nothing to do with what the average right to choice person is thinking.
But SF and OL both want to act as if this is how leftists or libs all think.

BTW If I had a child who was born alive but didn't have a brain I would hope to hell I wouldn't HAVE to raise it. Which seems to me is what this article is about.

No it's not. You have people like MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry who has said that life begins when the parents feel like life begins, and Alisa Lapolt Snow, the lobbyist representing the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates who has publicly said that a baby who survives a botched abortion the decision to care for that baby (yes, it is a human life at that point by even those that are pro-choice) belongs to the parents: “We believe that any decision that’s made should be left up to the woman, her family, and the physician. That decision should be between the patient and the health care provider." You also have progressive pro-choicers that advocate that post birth abortion should be allowed up to 2 years after birth, even for babies that are not disabled (Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva, University of Melbourne paper). Then you have John Holdren, is the senior advisor to President Barack Obama on science and technology issues, who co-authored a paper called ECOSCIENCE: Population, resources, environment, stating the same thing, that abortion's should be allowed throughout the entire pregnancy and that people should be allow to terminate unwanted children up to two-years of age because they (the children) are not really aware of their surroundings and can't be considered people.

So don't say it is a straw man argument.
Quote:No it's not. You have people like MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry who has said that life begins when the parents feel like life begins

Right which is just as silly as saying life begins as is to sacred to end when we are talking about something as small as the period at the end of this sentence. Or that it's wrong to take a day after pill.
It's extremism on both sides.

To enter either one of these EXTREMES to the abortion issue is introducing a strawman.
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#10
If you don't want people to have abortions, why not support programs that have been proven to reduce unwanted pregnancies?

How about comprehensive sex ed classes? How about mandating birth control in employer health care plans, no religious exemptions? How about publicly funded birth control, for that matter? Free long-acting reversible contraception?
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#11
(02-24-2014, 03:27 PM)csrowan Wrote: If you don't want people to have abortions, why not support programs that have been proven to reduce unwanted pregnancies?

How about comprehensive sex ed classes? How about mandating birth control in employer health care plans, no religious exemptions? How about publicly funded birth control, for that matter? Free long-acting reversible contraception?

Because they're too stupid. That would take rational thought... something they are severely lacking. And... then they would have to come up with something else to whine about. It's just easier for them to continue to whine about abortions.
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#12
A couple of the members here seem to be quite naive when it comes to sex education in government schools. Planned Parenthood was actively engaged in visiting health classes at Eagle Point high school when my children attended there in the 1980s. So, unless you know otherwise, don't tell me about how we need comprehensive sex ed classes. We've had it for years, and at the tax payer's expense. Planned Parenthood should be banned from setting foot on public school grounds. Planned Parenthood should not receive on cent from American's wallets; unless they choose to voluntarily donate.

Case in point:

Planned Parenthood Produces Video Promoting Bondage and Sadomasochism to Teens http://cnsnews.com/news/article/barbara-...paign=BDSM

(CNSNews.com) -- Planned Parenthood of Northern New England (PPNNE)--which received more than $2.75 million in government funding in 2012--has produced and posted online a video specifically aimed at teenagers that promotes bondage and sadomasochism (BDSM) and proposes "rules" to follow when engaging in these activities.
“People sometimes think that those who practice BDSM are emotionally scarred or were once abused—not true, it’s a total myth," the host of the video, Laci Green, informs its intended audience of teens.
"BDSM relies upon and creates trust," she says.
In a message published at the beginning of PPNNE's 2012 annual report, PPNNE President Meagan Gallagher described the genesis of the project that produced the video on bondage and sadomasochism.
"We continued to grow our online presence, and launched an innovative social education project called 'A Naked Notion' (www.anakednotion.org)," wrote Gallagher. "The numbers show that young people took notice--PPNNE’s 'A Naked Notion' YouTube channel has been viewed more than a million times!"
The homepage of PPNNE's website includes a menu of tabs that lead to internal pages. One of these is entitled "For Teens."
"We are dedicated to protecting the sexual health of teens by providing accurate information, opportunities to explore and establish beliefs and attitudes, and the skills to communicate their needs," says PPNNE's "For Teens" page.
"For teens who are sexually involved, Planned Parenthood is committed to providing resources for safeguarding their emotional and physical health," it says.
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#13
BDSM includes things like spankings, spicing up your love life by doing some role play, maybe bringing out some ropes or scarves and tying up your partner. It doesn't have to be whips and chains and hot wax dripping on your testicles, you know. Or maybe you don't.

But regardless, it's a good idea to communicate with your partner beforehand, to have a good idea about what you are doing, to make sure there are open lines of communication throughout the entire event, and to make sure that everyone involved (whether it's two people who've been happily married and monogamous for decades or a dozen who barely know each other) knows what's going on and what the rules are, and what everyone else's particular rules are.

Teaching kids the rudimentary basics of consent, respect, and being safe if you're going to experiment with any form of kink sounds like a good idea to me.

And BDSM isn't "bondage and sadomasochism". It's bondage, domination, sadism, and masochism. There can be separation or overlap. You can also pull it apart into B (bondage), B/D (bondage/domination), D/s (Domination/submission), S&M (sadism and masochism), and of course, simply M (masochism).

You won't find just sadism as part of BDSM, because sadism without masochism isn't consensual, and therefore isn't acceptable.

Of course, I highly doubt the video even went into that much detail. I could be wrong, though. More likely, it was just about safety and communication.
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#14
[Image: 1900121_787329997962258_1252856148_n.jpg]
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#15
(03-03-2014, 10:19 AM)Scrapper Wrote: [Image: 1900121_787329997962258_1252856148_n.jpg]

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach him to fish and you feed him for life.

Progressives have created a generation of people waiting in line for a fish.

Your argument is a:

[Image: Red+Herring.gif]
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#16
(03-03-2014, 10:19 AM)Scrapper Wrote: [Image: 1900121_787329997962258_1252856148_n.jpg]

I see the point Scrapper, but wonder if that's really fair.

People who really believe life starts at conception are responding to a genuine belief (emotion?) that should be respected. The science is still murky, and even when one dismisses the religious overtones it is something to seriously consider. In a perfect world we would hope abortions would be unnecessary.

And it's true that when that life is allowed to come into this imperfect world we (the entire society) should make sure that all the young are given the basic needs children require.

We should be able to embrace both concepts. Feed the little ones and protect them during childhood or accept that there are times when stopping the growing of that seed is the humane and right thing to do.

Not easy, this stuff.
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#17
Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood said this a few days ago:

Quote:It (when life begins) is not something that I feel is really part of this conversation I don’t know if it’s really relevant to the conversation (abortion).”

She's wrong. It is relevant.

[Image: 1800188_10151946816032596_762107896_n.jpg]
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#18
It's called "body autonomy".

You can't force a woman to donate a kidney, even to save someone's life. You can't even force her to donate a pint of blood or a lobe of liver, and those will be replaced in time. Neither can you force her to donate her womb for nine months if she doesn't want to—even if it will save a life.
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#19
(03-03-2014, 10:38 AM)SFLiberal Wrote: Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach him to fish and you feed him for life.

Progressives have created a generation of people waiting in line for a fish.

Your argument is a:

Teach a man to fish and you're a socialist.
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#20
(03-03-2014, 01:23 PM)Willie Krash Wrote:
(03-03-2014, 10:38 AM)SFLiberal Wrote: Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach him to fish and you feed him for life.

Progressives have created a generation of people waiting in line for a fish.

Your argument is a:

Teach a man to fish and you're a socialist.


“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”

? Hélder Câmara
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