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Apparently, the UKGBNI is set to completely decriminalize abortion in England and Wales when performed by the woman (not when performed by a doctor). According to Reuters and BBC, under existing law abortion by a doctor is legal up to 24 weeks and a woman can perform an abortion on herself with prescribed pills up to 10 weeks. In contrast, the new law—approved by 73 percent of the House of Commons—appears to permit abortion right up to the point of birth when it is performed by the woman.
Text of the law (on pages 108–109 of the PDF; part of a much larger bill):
Now, I am pro-choice and also one of these much hated Singerians who think that babies do not have more of an intrinsic right to life than other mammals of similar cognitive capabilities.
However, I also recognize that society really values babies, to the point where having surplus babies which nobody can be arsed to take care of is not a thing in the Western world. Thus babies have a large instrumental value.
I think if you have a fetus gestated to the point where it is viable outside the womb, with a skull and everything, then there is no way to get rid of it without giving birth to it or some surgical intervention. Killing it will not change the fact. Thus, it seems reasonable that society would ask a woman that she does not kill her pregnancy at this point.
seems like a very short term view to have. maybe you can argue that a baby is currently as cognitively capable as a gorilla, but within a year or two there is no comparison, a toddler that babbles dwarfs the gorilla in this realm. do you / singer not take this into account?
does peter singer even believe in intrinsic rights? utilitarianism is not really a rights based philosophy. if singer can be summed up as "actions should be judged by their consequences in terms of maximizing the satisfaction of interests and minimizing suffering", its not immideatly clear why or how rights are needed except for expediency.
even the idea of an "intrinsic right" is somewhat of an oxymoron. a "right" is a human construct. how can a human construct be intrinsic?
The problem with protecting the potential of personhood is that it starts even before conception.
If two people (of suitable fertility and biological sexes) have PIV sex, then in the ancestral environment, this has some probability of setting a chain in motion which will result in the creation of a person -- a being with the cognitive capabilities typical of a human. If instead they use some form of birth control, this will drastically lower that probability, so from the point of preventing a person to come into existence, it will be fractionally as bad as abortion or infanticide. (Being anti-birth control is still a position some people hold, but it is mostly more about being anti-sex.)
But we do not even have to stop there, because people having PIV sex does not just happen randomly. If birth control is bad because it prevents the creation of persons, then so is not asking out people on a date. (This is now very contrary to the RCC, which views abstinence as praiseworthy.)
The person too busy with Warhammer to date, the person who uses birth control, the person having abortions whenever she gets pregnant and the person who just murders her babies are all preventing new persons from coming into existence despite there being a potential if they made different choices.
I enjoy the cocktail party version of this argument: the logical conclusion of the "potential persons" line is that men don't have the right to refuse consent to potentially fertile women. Women, of course, have a limited number of possible pregnancies and as such can maintain some right to choose their partners. But men are capable of impregnating at least once a day, so unless he's saving it for someone else when a man is offered sex by a potentially fertile woman he is obligated to accept, as otherwise he is destroying the potential for human life.
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I mean, I would bite this bullet. Sex should result in children. People who disagree are discordant.
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I do not have a high opinion of NEET Otakus(which is what I consider warhammer fans to be, regardless of the japanese-ness of warhammer- it's nerd shit and that's that). Otherwise eligible men who are too busy with videogames should quit the gaming and start dating seriously. Married couples should be having regular sex unless medically contraindicated.
Religious and clergy are different, of course, but every society in history has had to deal with a class of men that would prefer cheap sexual vices(in our case, porn), gambling(on sports in our case), and entertainment(mostly videogames today) to marriage. The RCC has not, historically, had a high opinion of this class, and most societies in history have attempted to discourage it.
I think that my argument, which was clearly meant to highlight the absurdity of treating potential persons the same as actual persons, rhymes with beliefs of the pro-natalist crowd (which you hold for other reasons than wanting to maximize future persons). One man's modus tollens being another man's modus ponens and all that.
Let me rephrase my argument a bit. Our premise is that baby-killing is wrong because it denies the existence of a future person. As far as that reason is concerned, anything else which denies the existence of a future person should be just as wrong.
Take the perspective of a healthy female person, which turns out to be a bottleneck for making new homo sapiens persons. When she optimizes for the number of persons produced during her fertile life span, she can probably get pregnant 15 times or so, and given medical advances in treating underweight newborns I would assume that having twins each time (not hard to do with IVF) might give the highest expected value of babies which will live to personhood age, perhaps 28 kids or so.
So while both the conservative natalist and the future-persons-maximizer agree that a woman who decides not to have kids for personal reasons is wrong, their assessment of a woman who marries at age 25 and then proceeds to have six children would be very different. I am assuming that from a conservative perspective, that woman would be a role model. The future persons-maximizer would still consider her rather horrible. She wasted her first fertile decade, for one thing. "So you just did the equivalent of murdering 22 potential persons instead of 28. Do you want a medal for that?"
The utopia of the future-persons-maximizer is the repugnant conclusion, a world so overcrowded with human persons (and their babies) that their lives are barely worth living.
This is entirely fair- I do think unborn babies are people and not potential people. You caught me, my opposition to abortion is not about maximizing future population.
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You're defining "potential" very oddly here. Babies have the potential for sapience in the sense that, if things run their natural course, they will soon become sapient. There is no reference to probabilities or odds here--a baby in a very dangerous environment, with a 90% chance of getting killed before they turn 1, still has just as much "potential" for sapience as a safer baby. Similarly, someone under anesthesia has the same personhood no matter the caliber of the doctor operating on them.
I think his point here is that repeatedly having sex, if left to run it's natural course, will result in a baby.
So repeatedly having sex and always using birth control means you've deviated from the natural course in a way that prevents a baby from growing up
It doesn't prevent a baby from growing up though, it prevents a baby from being created in the first place.
"Natural course" is shorthand for a very complex concept I'll admit I can't rigorously define. But I do think it's intuitive that sex and embryos don't lead to babies in the same way. It's not just a question of progress, embryos being further along.
This is what I take issue with. "Potential" of personhood, as commonly used, does not start before conception.
Yeah fair enough, it's not the greatest argument
I was mostly playing devil's advocate because I found his line of thinking interesting and kind of a funny way to run an idea out to the extreme end
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Eh, this is a misrepresentation. The RCC views abstinence outside of marriage as not only praiseworthy but necessary - all sex outside of marriage is sinful. But, regarding "not asking someone out on a date", the whole idea is that God has an individual level plan for everyone to use their gifts - we need not all follow the same path. The point is to actively follow the path God has set before you and to do so faithfully. Perhaps you aren't meant to ask someone out, marry them, and procreate. Perhaps your role is more monkish. If you're playing too much Warhammer, you have to ask yourself if you're being slothful, negligent in your duties, or complacent and self-indulgent. I think you might be right that God isn't pleased with incels - who stew in their imagined slights by imagined women. But he isn't displeased with those who have actively chosen a celibate life (be they clergy or otherwise) - so long as its done with care, intent, and intention.
As an aside, I really do like your deconstruction of birth control as "fractionally as bad as abortion or infanticide."
My understanding of Catholic (and even more so Orthodox) teaching is that everyone is either called to marriage and family or to a religious life. "Religious life" includes lay and clerical members of religious orders (monks are only ordained if their work as a monk includes ministering the sacraments, and nuns are obviously never ordained) as well as the (for Catholics only) celibate parochial clergy.
In the RCC, You can live a consecrated single life that isn't religious. It takes discernment and represents a real commitment. If one doesn't go that route, doesn't join a religious order, and also doesn't have a family, I don't believe this is seen as inherently sinful, but the person should be honest with themselves about selfishness, laziness etc. As far as I can tell, discerning one's vocation should be very intentional and not accidental or emergent happenstance. If you know what you're doing and do it with good intention, there are many, many good ways to live.
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This entire line of argument relies heavily on some very specific definition of 'personhood' that I can't tease out from context. Would you mind?
Sure. Here is Practical Ethics (That PDF is kinda terrible, but it appears that libgen is down.).
On page 85 (pdf page: 98), Singer argues that people mean different things when they say human being. One meaning is
Then he goes (p.87):
In the following pages, he goes on about why being a person makes a difference for involuntary killing.
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In the context of the original comment, I am going to point out that a baby is not a potential person. A baby is a person. A gorilla will never be a person, and it will never be a potential person. But otherwise nice thanks, a pretty good way to take it into account.
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The United States is based on the idea that rights are bestowed by our Creator, but then I suppose Singer probably doesn't subscribe to that model.
The US is based on this idea yes. But the idea "rights are bestowed by our Creator" is not correct on its own terms. If those rights were bestowed by our Creator, then they would have had those rights. But they didn't. So they fought a war to get those rights. Saying "we actually have these rights, King George is just going against God" or whatever is unfalsifiable. Those rights didn't exist in a material, verifiable, empirical sense in 1770. And if the war was not fought, then those rights would not exist in a material, verifiable, empirical sense.
Hence the position that "right" is a human construct. It exists not as intrinsic, regardless of the claim, but because humans make it exist.
I just commented on this. A man drowning in the Pacific has the right to life in the sense that he should live. In this sense we have rights even if they are not respected, upheld, or even known of by anyone.
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Its a beautiful book, isn't it?
https://www.themotte.org/post/1208/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/259175?context=8#context
One of my favorites, my only complaint is his hard on for boot camp that makes it take up so much of the book (and after that's done he decides to go to OCS for even more training!).
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The word "right" is confusing because it refers to
We can argue about whether category #1 actually exists, or is just something that people define into existence, but the discussion will be hopelessly confused without this distinction.
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I believe that only applies to certain inalienable rights.
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TIL that "convict a woman of a crime carrying a maximum sentence of life in prison" is a synonym of the word "ask."
I think that you will find that "to ask" is frequently used in situations where it is clear that non-compliance with the demand will have adverse consequences. For example, if someone makes a fuss in a restaurant, they might be asked to leave. If they then refuse to leave, that is not the end of the story, instead, the restaurant will typically escalate to more coercive measures.
I do not think life in prison is a reasonable maximum sentence here, though. I am sure the judicial system can come up with disincentives which are less severe than "we lock you up forever" and more severe than "we politely asked".
For example, the punishment should be a lot more lenient than if someone killed the fetus against the will of the pregnant woman (to avoid having to pay child support or for inheritance reasons or whatever).
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I agree it's not the best usage of "ask", but I feel like it's not as unreasonable as you're implying either. One might also say "we ask people not to murder", even though that is also a crime punishable by life in prison.
I would object to that usage too! Rather say, the state commands people not to murder on pain of prison.
Okay. The state commands people to not murder on pain of prison. Problem solved?
Yes.
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Have any women been charged under late term abortion laws?
Even if none had been it is good to get rid of laws whose application would be unjust.
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Several are described in the debate transcript.
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Do you consider sleeping adults morally valuable? They have arguably worse cognitive capabilities than babies.
I've participated in some dynamic, interesting stories while dreaming. I've threatened imagined entities with destruction if I choose to wake.
Nevertheless I agree with your main point that cognitive ability at any given point in time is not the sole criteria for judging right to life. Many are capable but evil and should be killed.
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Your brain is not deactivated whilst sleeping. It is quite busy.
I take your point if applied to sci fi suspended animation or something very unlike sleep.
Busy is not the same as capable of thought. Whales' brains, for example, have much more total cognitive activity than our waking brains, but are less capable of thought.
We have some level of thought while sleeping too--I can remember reasoning some things out in dreams--but dreams/REM are the most mentally active part of sleep, and I'm not sure most of us are smarter than babies even in REM.
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Their capability isn't worse though, they just aren't utilizing it.
Well, no, as soon as they are utilizing it they're awake. A sleeping human does not have the capacity to think at all, they have the capacity to wake up. Some, like people in comas or under anesthesia, don't even have that. It's not that they aren't using their capacity for thought, it's that they literally can't use it, and therefore do not have any capacity for thought.
"Cognitive capabilities" sounds like a solid, principled way to define moral worth, but it hides endless moral complexity under the hood.
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