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Why is it hard to believe that pro-lifers really, honestly think that abortion is murder? If they believe that it really is murder, the level of restraint they've shown in sticking to lawfare and eventually succeeding in some limited fashion is a pretty remarkable story. I disagree with their starting point, but that's hardly the point when it comes to their actions.
I still have no idea how anyone can honestly believe that the Supreme Court has any meaningful role to play in this at all. I suppose penumbral emanations are powerful things, but it seems pretty obvious to me that there simply no Constitution-based policy to be had.
The fact that a lot of pro-lifers are reluctant to call for criminal penalties for the woman getting the abortion and instead place all liability on the doctor does make me think they don't really think it's equivalent to murder. That's certainly not how we would handle a woman who hired a doctor to euthanize her 3 month old baby. We would charge them both.
I do think they actually believe it's immoral and I don't expect the eugenic style arguments to convince any but the most confused pro lifers (ie people who are only defending the pro life side because it's the republican position who never really personally thought it through) but i think only a minority are consistent in their belief that it's 'murder'
I struggle with abortion. There does seem a time when the fetus isn’t a human (eg minutes after implantation). There does seem a time clearly when the fetus is a human (eg minutes prior to coming out of the birth canal). So there is a bit of a sorties paradox going on here that creates hard line drawing.
I also don’t really buy the arguments of bodily integrity. The woman (outside of rape) created the situation that creates the conflict of rights — indeed this is a unique situation where there is a conflict of rights and one party took zero action to create the conflict. So to me this is purely a line drawing exercise.
I imagine many Americans feel somewhat similar (at some point it is perfectly fine, at some point it is murder, and drawing where that crosses over is difficult).
I think abortion is one of those Necker cube, two ways of seeing the world things. If you can't see the two sides then you haven't really tried very hard or have some systemic condition such as black or white thinking.
Murder is the wrong word of course but we get the idea, someone is ending a potential human life.
But having the state force someone to carry through an event they're not in favour of and that has very real risks to health and even life is morally wrong if you believe in the sovereignty of the individual. It's not equivalent, or a real life scenario, but a thought experiment of forcing someone to take a vaccine with serious potential health impacts and a 9 month side-effect profile in order to save someones life wouldn't presumably get the same republican buy-in.
So at the least it is weighing up these morals. My take is that a liberal society can't force someone to do carry to term- it would be fine in a theocracy but we don't live in a theocracy. Frankly that's some cold-assed shit to put on someone who is at most 50% to blame.
At the same time I think culture needs to shift back the other way. There should be shame associated with abortion, the morning after pill is not contraception, a fetus is a potential human being, not just a bunch of cells.
I think the really interesting thing about abortion is how sui generis it is.
The vaccine example doesn’t really work. First, the vaccine may save a third party. Second, any life snuffed out by a party that isn’t vaccinated was snuffed out because the dying person choose to create the potential interaction. That is, A and B both have to choose to be in the same vicinity. A could solve the impasse by taking a vaccine (assuming the vaccine worked perfectly). B could solve the impasse by taking the vaccine or not being there.
It is thus hard to say B has a right to force A to take a vaccine. With abortion, the B (ie the fetus) can make no choice to prevent the conflict of rights.
Third, there is a difference morally between spreading unwittingly a virus and actively choosing to kill someone.
I think perhaps a better thought excitement is that you are doing a fun activity that you know will have a reasonably chance of causing a third party (who has zero control) to die unless you under take a 9 month uncomfortable period of physical stress and a slight up tick in risk that you’ll die. Phrased that way, I think even most Democrats would say yeah you are morally obligated to take the physical stress and slight uptick in death. How they get out of the implication is by saying the third party isn’t really a human (which is probably true at conception; less so the longer in the pregnancy).
Yes, the example wasn't very real and a bit half-baked but as a thought experiment youre obliged to take it as it is. The point is there's a compulsion element from the state on the individual in banning abortion. This kind of thing normally raises the hackles of an average republican but doesn't seem to register in this case. Murder is also a misframing because the cost of not committing murder is zero.
Compulsion is one way of seeing it. Another way is merely preventing someone from killing someone.
It all rests on personhood I suppose and the current social contract is pretty clear on what a person is as far as I can tell.
It seems most people draw the line around 15 weeks
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