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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   25569 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 18, 2024

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I guess I'll start us off with a quick one:

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2024/03/17/trump-gop-must-endorse-three-exceptions-for-abortion-to-get-elected/

This isn't an article so much as a clip-n-quote of something Trump said. I'll copy paste here because it's not long and this way you won't have to click the link:

When asked about the rape, incest and life of mother exceptions, Trump said, “If you look at France, if you look at different places in Europe with, if you look at a lot of the civilized world, they have a period of time. But you can’t go out seven months and eight months and nine months. If the Republicans spoke about it correctly, it never hurt me from the standpoint of elections. It hurt a lot of Republicans. I think you have to have, you have to have the three exceptions.”

He added, “I tell people, number one, you have to to with your heart. You have to go with your heart. But beyond that you also have to get elected, OK? And if you don’t have the three exceptions, I think it’s very, very hard to get elected. We had a gentleman from Pennsylvania who was doing pretty well. He refused to to go with the exceptions, and he lost in a landslide for governor. Nice man lost in a landslide. You have to go with the exceptions. The number of weeks, I’ll be coming out with a recommendation fairly soon. I think it’ll be accepted.”

I'm pro-life and believe life begins at conception, not just as a Christian, but much more importantly because I consider it the cleanest and most sane policy from a secular perspective. Because to me it seems obvious the only way to avoid making Tenochtitlan-sized mistakes at some point along our path is to avoid meddling with the primeval forces of nature and attempting to play God in the first place.

Once you start introducing 'exceptions,' you're just immediately back to condoning all abortion. "My health is at risk because if I'm not permitted to abort I might harm myself" is a free at-will golden ticket as long as you're able to memorize and repeat a sentence of that length.

Trump, quite obviously, doesn't really feel strongly about abortion and is attempting to pick the most palatable position. That's the problem about integrity in politics - none of the voters have any so it's almost always counterproductive for your electability if you do.

But taking the tack that "the GOP must accept exceptions" instead of "the issue must be returned to the states" is another huge own goal from the New York liberal Trump. If you're going to have a slippery real estate mogul as your standard bearer, you're going to end up with some very ugly and counterproductive wheeling and dealing for the movement.

The problem with 'returning it to the states' is if you're a purple state Republican, you get questions about what Alabama is doing, and how can we trust you not to do the same?

The normal voter does not care about federalism.

All they know is they hear a lot about Republican's wanting to ban abortion, and perhaps more importantly, every prominent Republican, outside of the 10 most liberal states, have talked their whole careers about abortion. It's kind of hard for a voter to suddenly believe candidates they only want reasonable exceptions when they've desperately tried to get the endorsement from every organization that talks about all abortions being murder since Roe v Wade.

It also doesn't help that those restrictions may be popular in theory, but not when people believe they're the first step to total bans.

avoid meddling with the primeval forces of nature and attempting to play God in the first place

I truly believe that God wants us to play God. We didn't get a paradise on earth. There are all kinds of blind chance BS that wrecks people - cancer, random accidents, horrible parasites from the rainforest, earthquakes and volcanoes. I don't think God is benevolent in an earthly, human sense and I lean towards Deism rather than Christianity. You don't leave your beloved children in the snake pit and watch as some inevitably get eaten by snakes, you wouldn't structure the universe that way - just don't make the snakes in the first place! You wouldn't send an earthquake against your devout Lisbon Christians on a feast day: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1755_Lisbon_earthquake

But we do have the tools to fix our problems, if we are determined and committed. There's no law of the universe that says cancer remains forever. If we're wise and efficient, we could cure it. Mole rats live without cancer, it's not impossible. For earthquakes, we could still the Earth's core or disassemble the planets and stars directly.

If God didn't want us to kill, he wouldn't have allowed for weapons, strangulation, bone-breaking... Our skin could be infinitely tough. If God didn't want us to live forever, he could have some mechanism that annihilates souls at a predetermined age. If God didn't want people to sin, he could send down legions of angels or lightning bolts. If God didn't want abortion, he could render fertilized embryos invulnerable.

In reality we have incredible freedom of action, the physical properties of the universe are very permissive. We are encouraged to advance down certain pathways, those who advance are rewarded with wealth and power while those who lag behind are rewarded with humiliation and expropriation. Some choices are of course dead ends - Aztec sacrifice was uncompetitive. These choices are where God's will is most apparent. Our role is to accept the challenge and choose wisely, we can't shrink away from the powers already within our control.

Abortion isn't going away, we can't uninvent the pill, retroactive action may be one of the few things that God really doesn't want. We need to choose how to use this technology such that it improves rather than detracts. You know that it can't be effectively banned, people don't want it, countries can't coordinate on this for a global and effective ban. US states can't even coordinate on banning it, it makes only a marginal difference in outcomes if it's legal in one state, illegal in another. Better to manipulate structures so that children are valued more, that people don't end up in situations where they want to abort, that the abortions that do take place get rid of antisocial or unhelpful people.

That is still more religion than I'm comfortable with, but I agree with your sentiments.

The putative Abrahamic God is god-awful at his job. Leaving aside it doesn't exist, we're better served by Man creating our own Gods in Our image.

One reason I'm so antitheistic is because it's a soporific musk that dulls people to very real pain and suffering and makes them attribute it all to a higher, inscrutable purpose.

What. The. Fuck.

Solve your damn problems. Only if all else fails is choosing to accept them the valid option.

As I've said before, Marx was correct in calling religion the opiate of the masses. I can't knock it on those grounds because I certainly prescribe my own share of opioids, but as always, our intent is to cure, and keeping someone in a morphine haze indefinitely is acceptable only when all efforts fail.

And we're working on that. An actual cure for cancer, aging and other diseases that have plagued us for all of history is in sight, I'd expect it to happen in my lifetime even in the counterfactual world where we weren't making our own superhuman deities that could (if they don't kill us) solve most of our problems. Efforts to make peace with that which should be put down with all the force we can muster is a crime against humanity itself. All the worse that this peace is built off the assumption that the torture and suffering we undergo is because of hidden benevolent meddling.

I'm doing my part. Are you?

Solve your damn problems.

The Gay Science, I.24:

Different forms of dissatisfaction. - The weak and, as it were, feminine discontented types are those who are innovative at making life more beautiful and profound; the strong discontents - the men among them, to stick with the metaphor - are innovative at making it better and safer. The former show their weakness and femininity by gladly letting themselves be deceived from time to time and occasionally resting content with a bit of intoxication and gushing enthusiasm, though they can never be satisfied entirely and suffer from the incurability of their dissatisfaction; they are also the promoters of all who know how to procure opiates and narcotic consolations, and consequently they resent those who esteem physicians above priests - thus they assure the continuance of real distress! Had there not been a surplus of these discontents in Europe since the middle ages, the celebrated European capacity for constant transformation might never have developed, for the demands of the strong discontents are too crude and basically too undemanding not eventually to be brought to a final rest. China, for example, is a country where large-scale discontentment and the capacity for change became extinct centuries ago; and in Europe too the socialists and state idolaters, with their measures for making life better and safer, might easily establish Chinese conditions and a Chinese 'happiness', provided they are first able to extirpate that sicklier, more tender, more feminine discontentment and romanticism that is for the moment still superabundant here. Europe is a patient who owes the utmost gratitude to his incurability and to the perpetual changes in his affliction: these incessantly new conditions, these no less incessantly new dangers, pains, and modes of information have finally generated an intellectual irritability that approximates genius and that is in any case the mother of all genius.

I guess I'm more Deist-by-Simulation-Hypothesis, though I've been wrestling with what simulation means for our ability to understand reality.

putative Abrahamic God is god-awful at his job

In a literal sense, sure he's terrible as an omnibenevolent omnipotent being, as Lisbon discovered. But in a practical sense, He has His uses! A God that suppresses marriage between relatives, a God that demands monogamy, a God expected to uphold oaths and enforce pro-social behaviour via punishment in the afterlife, that deity has great power. We could easily list the flaws too. Like all other technologies, religion has pros and cons depending on how it's configured. Many Christians do good work in charity, others do bad work. The suppression of incest alone might have pushed up IQ a couple of points, an inestimable boon for the devout! Anyway, the Christian God is dying, other deities are emerging, including god-machines.

I think there might be some kind of conservation of religiosity going on. Religion is such a powerful entity. Traditionally people had religious feelings about celestial bodies, their dead ancestors and spiritual entities. Environmentalists have religious feelings about plants, animals and industry. Nationalists have religious feelings about their co-ethnics.

You and I have vaguely religious feelings about trends in computing and scientific development. They provide eschatology. There will be semidivine beings soon capable of reading our thoughts and memories (plus trawling through our digital history), capable of vast cruelty or benevolence. We're actually right and have by far the strongest physical/technical forces on our side.

But most people find this laughably silly. I tried to convince some friends of mine about this stuff and they politely suggested I was mentally ill. I'll enjoy gloating to them later on. Most people don't think like we do, they're rooted in aesthetics. They see soy-looking techbros and are repulsed. It's like that cringey kid with the 'In this moment I am euphoric, I am enlightened by my own intelligence' quote that did such terrible damage to atheism. It had nothing to do with metaphysics, yet it was more powerful than 10,000 logical arguments. Even Marxism-Leninism has more pull than our AI-singularitarian beliefs have, it speaks to most people far better than we do. There's great power in these social forces that I wish understood.

Most people don't think like we do, they're rooted in aesthetics.

I accept the premise that some people are more motivated by aesthetics than others, but I also think that many of those who claim to "not care about aesthetics" aren't as entirely free of of the grasp of aesthetics as they imagine themselves to be. If you resonate with this particular vision of infinite power, as opposed to all other competing visions of infinite power, then that clearly reveals an aesthetic preference on your part.

There's great power in these social forces that I wish understood.

I experience the revulsion you noted quite strongly, so I'm happy to answer questions about it.

It's broadly caused by some combination of 1) the general smugness that often accompanies techno-optimism, and 2) the content of the beliefs themselves. I can tolerate somewhat more arrogance from people I already agree with, but even then there's a limit, and past that limit I start to sour quickly. You chose a fitting example - I'm an atheist, but if an atheist starts getting too euphoric in an internet argument then I absolutely start to root against him. I have an instinctual aversion to people who lack humility and I imagine I'm not alone in that.

When Sam Altman styles himself as being at the center of the most important events in human history, all I can think is... dear God, please don't let these people win. Don't let reality be like that.

As for the actual object-level issues, opinions will vary widely, but you should at least be aware that not everyone will find your personal vision of utopia to be very utopian.

as opposed to all other competing visions of infinite power, then that clearly reveals an aesthetic preference on your part

The key thing is that there are no other competing visions of immense power, not in the material physical sense.

I can appreciate the aesthetics of other scenarios and yet I know they won't come about just because I find them cool and superior. I said this before and I'll say it again, the tradbros who say stuff like 'Cool story Roko but your vision of an earth populated by trillions of bugmen has no relevance - the good life is best achieved by an aristocratic band of horseback warriors riding out on the plains'. There is a certain aesthetic quality to the trad lifestyle. I believe it fits human needs quite well. But if it goes up against self_made_human's vision, it gets smashed into paste and trivialized to the point of being pathetic, surviving only on reservations if that. Hey, it already got smashed into paste by 19th century armies.

Imagine the Qing courtier who deeply resented the foreign devils, bringing disharmony with their weird gadgets and disrespectful mercantile practices. Surely China knew better, with all the millennia of philosophy? Well, no they didn't. They fell behind and suffered severely for it. China learnt a very valuable lesson that I fear we've neglected.

Humility and subjective ideas of moral virtue can't save you from superior firepower. I think the greatest kind of humility is respecting the structure of the universe. If the universe favours the cruel, brutish, horseback archer to the hard-working, peaceful peasant - there's nothing we can do about it, the rules hold. If the regimented, robotic columns of riflemen beat the noble, free horsemen, then so be it. If swarms of tiny robots overmatch the manly courage and patriotic zeal of all human warriors, that's that. There can be change on the margins (who gets uploaded, what distribution of resources happens) and these changes are supremely important! But we still go through the phase-change even if we think it's ugly and depraved that clusters of jumped-up graphics cards become so powerful.

The key thing is that there are no other competing visions of immense power, not in the material physical sense.

A literal god wouldn't have to engage in deep space exploration, if he didn't want to. He could furnish himself whatever sort of environment he wanted, for whatever activities he wanted. That's what I meant by competing visions.

The preoccupation with planets and supernovae and immense distances reveals, as I said, an aesthetic preference.

Humility and subjective ideas of moral virtue can't save you from superior firepower.

Your use of this sort of language may be related to why your ideas aren't "speaking to people" the way you want them to.

But we do have the tools to fix our problems, if we are determined and committed. There's no law of the universe that says cancer remains forever. If we're wise and efficient, we could cure it. Mole rats live without cancer, it's not impossible.

Not directly related to your post but this part made me think of one of my favorite blog posts (about small pox eradication): 500 million but not a single one more.

Is that Jaibot? Did they move away from their own blog and onto Substack?

It is! I suspect so. I recall the original link I had to the article on their blog went dead some time ago but I found the link to the substack via an EA forum post.

Americans like abortion. They don't like extreme cases where kooky feminists are getting a dozen per while doctors kill viable fetuses. But Americans really don't like restrictions on illness or rape.

If you're an American politician who wants to restrict abortion, you have two options: talk about moderate restrictions Americans like, or stand principled and lose.

Once you start introducing 'exceptions,' you're just immediately back to condoning all abortion. "My health is at risk because if I'm not permitted to abort I might harm myself" is a free at-will golden ticket as long as you're able to memorize and repeat a sentence of that length.

This is completely incoherent and, though I hope to not fall afoul of the rules, inhumane to me. "Zero exceptions" means that you're going to have to own every single one of the nasty and truly horrific instances that show up. When an 11 year old girl shows up pregnant because she was raped by her uncle, you're going to have to look her in the eyes and tell her that actually if we abort the deformed and most likely non-viable foetus that's going to have a 100% chance of killing her upon delivery it might encourage other people to have unnecessary abortions - so she should write her will now. This isn't a hypothetical I plucked out of the ether, either - I feel like it is important to point out that the three exceptions are generally understood to be rape, incest and the life of the mother. That's what you're ruling out when you say no exceptions - that it is better for an underaged rape victim to pointlessly suffer and die because to do otherwise would be "meddling with the primeval forces of nature and attempting to play God".

Of course the issues don't end there - when you actually have a "no exceptions" policy, you're going to have to do some vigorous enforcement. Whenever a woman miscarries or has a stillbirth, you're going to have to send the police in while she grieves to make sure she didn't do anything untoward - after all, maybe that miscarriage was the result of taking a herbal abortifacient or engaging in risky behaviour to induce the death of the child. Every stillbirth and miscarriage becomes a potential crime scene, and if you're serious about "no exceptions" then you're going to have to have a police investigation every single time.

For the record, I'm personally a traditionalist when it comes to abortion - i.e. it is totally fine to get an abortion or simply leave the baby on the side of a wolf-covered mountain until they're a few years old (if they survive, great. if not, the gods didn't favour them anyway).

When an 11 year old girl shows up pregnant because she was raped by her uncle, you're going to have to look her in the eyes and tell her that actually if we abort the deformed and most likely non-viable foetus that's going to have a 100% chance of killing her upon delivery

How do you know it's deformed? You can't assume problems down to inbreeding if the parties are not the result of inbreeding themselves, it takes a few generations to reach Spanish Habsburg levels.

Also it isn't 100% likely to kill her, while this story seems very dubious, maybe it's true. If a precocious puberty five year old could survive, so can an eleven year old.

I am now going to sit back and wait for the mods to scold you for using emotive language and being heated and obsessed with this topic. I've gotten rebukes before for my hobbyhorses, so let's share the love.

EDIT: If pro-abortion types would stick to "abortion for incestuously raped 11 year olds", I'd take that bargain. But they don't and they won't. How many of the people having conniptions over "forced birth" in Texas are at risk of being incestuously raped 11 year olds? But those are the cases that get trotted out when it comes to legal abortion, the same way that trans activists use intersex people as "there is no gender binary, bigot" shields.

This survey comes from 2005, I'd really like to see an updated version, but the vast majority of abortions are for financial reasons. Rape/incest are so miniscule, if we only permitted abortions for those reasons, that would be 1% of all abortions carried out. This is why the pro-abortion side are so hysterical; if the bargain was "we pro-lifers will give in on rape/incest/life of the mother, if you pro-abortion say those are the only permitted abortions", then they would lose the majority of the abortions carried out. No more "oops, I got drunk and we fucked without precautions, I'm not ready for a baby" fix-ups.

The reasons most frequently cited were that having a child would interfere with a woman's education, work or ability to care for dependents (74%); that she could not afford a baby now (73%); and that she did not want to be a single mother or was having relationship problems (48%). Nearly four in 10 women said they had completed their childbearing, and almost one-third were not ready to have a child. Fewer than 1% said their parents' or partners' desire for them to have an abortion was the most important reason. Younger women often reported that they were unprepared for the transition to motherhood, while older women regularly cited their responsibility to dependents.

•Reasons in 2004. Among the structured survey respondents, the two most common reasons were "having a baby would dramatically change my life" and "I can't afford a baby now" (cited by 74% and 73%, respectively—Table 2). A large proportion of women cited relationship problems or a desire to avoid single motherhood (48%). Nearly four in 10 indicated that they had completed their childbearing, and almost one-third said they were not ready to have a child. Women also cited possible problems affecting the health of the fetus or concerns about their own health (13% and 12%, respectively).‡ Respondents wrote in a number of specific health reasons, from chronic or debilitating conditions such as cancer and cystic fibrosis to pregnancy-specific concerns such as gestational diabetes and morning sickness.

The most common subreason given was that the woman could not afford a baby now because she was unmarried (42%). Thirty-eight percent indicated that having a baby would interfere with their education, and the same proportion said it would interfere with their employment. In a related vein, 34% said they could not afford a child because they were students or were planning to study.

In the in-depth interviews, the three most frequently stated reasons were the same as in the structured survey: the dramatic impact a baby would have on the women's lives or the lives of their other children (32 of 38 respondents), financial concerns (28), and their current relationship or fear of single motherhood (21). Nine women cited health concerns for themselves, possible problems affecting the health of the fetus or both as a reason for terminating the pregnancy.

And it's why I won't give an inch on any "but surely only a monster could object" appeals, because I've seen it doesn't stop there. "Oh, life of the mother, but what if it's not an immediate physical risk? Okay, what if it's not physical, how about mental? Okay, what about if the mother threatens suicide? Okay, what if the mother threatens suicide because she would have to drop out of college to have the baby?" and every time the new "just this one little concession" is given, then the next "just this one little concession" is immediately on the table for "but surely only a monster could object".

Apologies for the late reply - I've been busy with work recently.

How do you know it's deformed?

Because this is a hypothetical example meant to show the absolute worst case for a "no exceptions" policy. I'm not an expert but I believe we do have tests for this kind of thing - and in this particular case it'd just be something easily visible on an ultrasound.

I am now going to sit back and wait for the mods to scold you for using emotive language and being heated and obsessed with this topic. I've gotten rebukes before for my hobbyhorses, so let's share the love.

I didn't feel particularly heated or emotive - it's just that when you say "no exceptions" you open the door to every single horrifying outcome that can result from a policy like that. I chose my example as one that would be allowed if any of those three exceptions were being used, and less so for emotional reasons. But that said, if you think that victims of incestuous rape should carry their trisomy-18 foetus to term and risk their life delivering it, you should come out and say it - because that's what no exceptions means.

EDIT: If pro-abortion types would stick to "abortion for incestuously raped 11 year olds", I'd take that bargain.

I personally am not hiding or trying to be deceptive about my position - I flat out said that I personally believe that abortion should be legal. It isn't a particularly nice thing to have happen, but there are absolutely times when a couple is better off not having a child (especially if said child ended up with a debilitating and permanent medical condition) or delaying having a kid until they're in a less tenuous position. I'll even agree with the pro-lifers that abortion is effectively an evil - but it is in some cases a lesser evil compared to the alternative.

This is a very touchy topic and one where I do have strong opinions, so I'm so hardened by the fake-sobbing "only a monster could possibly object!" emotional manipulation over the decades, that I go "Very well then, I'll be that monster".

I think it's human life. I think we don't have a right to kill humans (self-defence is a different matter, and there we're talking about the lesser of two evils). I don't think abortion is self-defence. The cases most touted are rape/incest/life of the mother. They are also the rarest, maternal mortality is the largest one here, and we've already had a post on how maternal mortality is calculated where figures might be too great.

There are people willing to go online and shout about how abortion is safer than pregnancy. When did we start treating being pregnant like a deadly disease, you want to avoid it the same way you'd try to avoid cancer or being sliced up in a woodchipper?

Hard cases make bad law, and the hard cases are never going to be the stopping point, they're the shield for "I'm healthy, I could have a baby, I could afford to have a baby, it just doesn't suit my plans right now". And as I've said, the mood has changed so drastically on abortion, due to the work of the pro-abortion advocacy over the decades. It truly did start out as "this is something very extreme that should be rare and only a last-ditch approach", and is now "no different to getting your tonsils out".

It truly did start out as "this is something very extreme that should be rare and only a last-ditch approach", and is now "no different to getting your tonsils out".

I can understand the impetus behind destigmatizing abortion, to some extent, even absent any political or ideological motivation. Stigmatize too much and the hard cases you outlined above have their lives ruined, but stigmatize too little and people treat it as form of delayed contraception. There's probably no practical optimal level of stigmatization.

I mean, the problem for pro-lifers is the vast majority of moderates are OK with "oops, the condom broke or I forgot my birth control" when it's their daughter, sister, et al whose about to go to college, and tells them they missed their period. Which is why in every single vote on the matter, no matter how extreme the pro-choice bill is written, it passes. Even in places like Kentucky, Kansas, and Montana.

Because yes, American's may not like 'up 'til birth' extremists like me (because I trust women and doctors not to be crazy), but if given a choice between me or the median pro-lifer who wants to ban abortion after six weeks, they'll choose no limits every damn time.

Because to me it seems obvious the only way to avoid making Tenochtitlan-sized mistakes at some point along our path is to avoid meddling with the primeval forces of nature and attempting to play God in the first place.

This is not as consistent a position as you imagine, unless you intend to bite the bullet all the way to rejecting the polio vaccine.

Polio vaccine was contaminated with a potentionally carcinogenic monkey virus.

Population level studies show no evidence of any increase in cancer incidence as a result of exposure, though SV40 has been extensively studied. A thirty-five year followup found no excess of the cancers commonly associated with SV40.

Emphasis on "potentially" I guess.

It causes cancers in other animals for sure.

but much more importantly because I consider it the cleanest and most sane policy from a secular perspective.

Clean yes, sane no.

Most fertilized eggs never make it to the blastocyte stage, just by the totally natural functioning of the body. If you actually count every one of those as a full human with full rights and moral consideration, that's a single cause of death prematurely killing over 50% of the entire human population worldwide, every generation. The only morally sane thing to do if you accepted that premise is to stop all other forms of humanitarian programs and focus the entire world's resources on saving those lives.

That's not a sane outcome.

And that's to say nothing of more practical stuff like IVF, or whether it's negligent homicide to drink when conception happened yesterday and you have no possible way to know that and what that would mean for society, or etc.

Absolutist stances are often the most clean, yes, but they're rarely the most sane.

One thing that bothers me in the abortion debate is that I personally see a lot of granularity within the worth of a human life. If I imagine a hypothetical where I have to pick between saving two eighty-year old men or one eight-year old boy, I will save the boy every time. More over, I would honestly think less of the two men if they advocated for their own lives while understanding the full situation. I do not see any incongruity with my moral intuitions as outlined above, and the moral intuition that it would be wrong to kill one of those eighty year old men. Similarly, I think a fertilized egg is a human life in a very straightforward and technical sense such that I think it is wrong to kill it, but I would not pick to save a fertilized egg over saving the eight year old boy, either(I also wouldn't pick it over the eighty-year old man). As such I generally find most of the extreme claims about the implications of treating a fertilized egg as a life overblown. I am fine with having a category of thing where I think it is wrong to kill it but which I do not think our entire society must upend itself in an effort to protect. Especially not when that protection would be against what would commonly be understood as the 'natural order' of things.

We currently think of full humans as being ... full humans, and yet 100% of them die. How much of our humanitarian efforts are dedicated to immortality research? I think your hypothetical reflects more than anything a poor understanding of how humans actually behave and the kinds of moral intuitions people are mostly running on. I would propose that a huge number of people would see nothing incongruous in holding a funeral for a miscarriage while simultaneously not donating 50% of their income to R&D on how to reduce the number of fertilized eggs that fail to attach.

Ultimately I find health of the mother concerns to be valid, but I can understand why some would worry about the category being stretched too far. Beyond that, I think abortion is very popular and the best case real world policy I could hope for would be something like, safe, legal, and rare.

And of course, I am a hypocrite who purchased a morning after pill for my girlfriend one time after a broken condom, such is life.

So I think in a perfectly sane world it would be safe to say 'Yes, this is murder, but it's the type of murder that's not a very big deal compared to other types of murders, so we can rationally trade it off against other interests at a reasonable rate'.

But in the actual world we live in, I think once you've agreed to call a thing 'murder,' any hope of rational policymaking is pretty much DOA. Anyone who disagrees with anything you propose, no matter how reasonable or attenuated, can just say 'oh you SUPPORT MURDER' and rely on the context of the word to do their work for them.

I am not sure I buy it.

It seems to me that almost every government that was able to pass pro-abortion laws did so directly in the face of this accusation and under the exact same framing you outlined above. That is, they thought abortion was 'wrong' in some sense but the lesser of two evils and advocated for it specifically by presenting it as a rational trade off against other interests.

The recent spread of euthanasia laws seem to have also come about under similar circumstances.

I think the, abortion is a necessary evil, framing was pretty much universal until relatively recently when the ever ratcheting up US centric culture war got to the point that pro-abortion advocacy was specifically calling for no questions asked, no shame or stigma attached, infinite access to abortion, in response to conservative states trying to limit access. If by real world you mean, current moment, then I agree in the abstract that it would be hard to pass national abortion laws as restrictive as the median EU member state (and said as such), but I suspect this has almost nothing to do with the rhetorical tactic of accusing people of supporting murder.

I guess a lot of this hinges on what you mean by 'calling it murder', but the impression I get is that people are very good at and comfortable using euphemisms for murder.

If I imagine a hypothetical where I have to pick between saving two eighty-year-old men or one eight-year-old boy, I will save the boy every time. Moreover, I would honestly think less of the two men if they advocated for their own lives while understanding the full situation.

I think a fertilized egg is a human life in a very straightforward and technical sense, such that I think it is wrong to kill it, but I would not pick to save a fertilized egg over saving the eight-year-old boy, either. (I also wouldn't pick it over the eighty-year-old man.)

What does your function for the "default value" of a human look like? (Time since conception) × (time until natural death as estimated by a neutral doctor), generally measured in units of daa2 (decayears squared)?

While I am generally in favor of consequentialist reasoning and am I fan of utilitarianism as a way to think about morality, I am pretty far from having rigorously mathed out my various moral/ethical beliefs.

Something like the formula you outline seems at least directionally similar, but insufficient. I tend to value women over men, children over adults (for reasons not fully captured in age), good people over bad people, etc. While I endeavor to formulate principals and consistency in my thinking around issues of morality, I often feel like the complexities of reality are such that I do not trust my ability to construct a formula that would properly capture the shape of my preferences.

I wonder if this turns out to be good electoral politics or not. Abortion compromises always strike me as a trust question. What line you draw is just the first step in the game, the far more important question is do I trust you not to take more?

Medical exceptions are often non-starters for Pro-Life activists because they don't trust doctors to draw the line narrowly as to what is an acceptable exception. They are fine, conceptually, with an abortion to actually save the life of the mother, but they worry that medical exceptions will be expanded to the point where it becomes a rubber stamp allowing an abortion wherever requested, regardless of any actual risk to the life of any actual mother. Equally rape, what's to stop any woman from claiming she was raped to abort a child she doesn't want? Because, in all honesty, requiring a conviction before an abortion is so stupid that I don't think anyone can get behind it.

Pro-Abortion types won't trust Republican admin teams to not try and restrict abortion further once they get their foot in the door.

Trump has the advantage that his base trusts him to an absurd extent, probably more than anyone has trusted any American politicians since, what JFK? So even if Pro-Lifers oppose this compromise, they're more likely to turn out and vote for him anyway figuring he won't do it. But will this stop the bleeding among people who are pro-Abortion? Do they trust Trump to pursue a limited compromise?

Equally rape, what's to stop any woman from claiming she was raped to abort a child she doesn't want? Because, in all honesty, requiring a conviction before an abortion is so stupid that I don't think anyone can get behind it.

You don’t need to require conviction, just an accusation to the police. Most supposed rape victims aren’t even willing to do that, which makes their claims slightly suspicious.

"I was raped by a stranger entering my home last night. He wore a ski mask, put a bag over my head immediately, was approximately average height and build."

Does she get the abortion?

Sure, and the police should be able to use the DNA to track down the supposed rapist. If it turns out she lied, then she can face the legal consequences for filing a false police report. Looks like up to a year in prison in my state, plus whatever additional penalty she may face for getting an illegal abortion.

Ok, so I'm dating my girlfriend, she gets raped, gets pregnant. Do I have to hazard the odds that I'm raising the rapist baby at risk of sending my girlfriend to prison?

In a certain sense, yes, but only insofar as our legal system isn’t perfect. You also have to hazard the odds that your girlfriend will die from complications arising out of the abortion.

Edit: Of course, even should she choose not to abort the baby, there’s nothing forcing her (or you) to raise it. Adoptions are a thing.

But will this stop the bleeding among people who are pro-Abortion? Do they trust Trump to pursue a limited compromise?

Re-phrased slightly: Will people who are pro-abortion trust the guy who appointed three of the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe? I'm thinking the answer is no.

Trump doesn't have to persuade blue abortion voters who were never going to vote for him, he just has to avoid alienating voters who might vote for him but like abortion. This is probably actually a lesson the GOP could learn from Trump.

Sure, big is the target population here? My impression is this only works for people who think (1) Roe was too permissive on abortion and (2) many Republican proposals are too strict. Not sure how many people that describes.

Pro-Abortion types won't trust Republican admin teams to not try and restrict abortion further once they get their foot in the door.

I'll toss in another one - I don't trust pro-choice hospital attorneys to not just lie about what they think the medical exemption constitutes in order to make their opponents look bad for political reasons. If this sounds unbelievably evil, I am willing to bite that bullet when it comes to my opinion of hospital attorneys.

But yeah, I concur, the chances of getting anyone even slightly to the left of center to trust Trump is very low, and they're not even wrong to think he's a flimflam man that'll say whatever he thinks is popular.

We don't "attempt" to play god. We are really really really good at it! You can chose to go live in a state of nature any time you wish. It is pretty terrible. Infanticide used to be pretty popular back then.

I'm pro-life and believe life begins at conception, not just as a Christian, but much more importantly because I consider it the cleanest and most sane policy from a secular perspective.

I don't think there is a perfectly clean policy here.

There are many evils in the world which due to prudence may not be made illegal, either because the state is not the correct level at which to deal with the problem; or because the state simply lacks the capacity to enforce the law; or because the state lacks the legitimacy to enforce such a law.

I believe that life begins at conception, but I think that the parents have sovereignty over the child while it is in the womb. Murder is evil, but there is no international law or federal law against murder, because we believe that the state government has sovereignty over murder committed within a single state. If the state does not want to punish someone, or wrongfully punishes someone, there is no recourse to a higher sovereign. Analogously, I think that the parents have sovereignty over the unborn child. To kill the child is evil, but they answer to God for that evil, not to the state. However, I am ok with regulating what doctor's can do, since they are already regulated by the state in every aspect. So I think it would be reasonable to rescind the medical license of doctor's who perform D&E's for women with non-medical reasons for wanting an abortion. Doctors have their license to heal, not to kill. But I don't think it would be prudent to pass a law mandating life-in-prison for women who take an abortion pill.

The problem with legally treating the unborn child the same as a two-year-old child is that it opens up a whole can of worms of "child protective services" over-reach. It's not crazy to image a a world where a mother who is on a carnivore diet, or doing something else medically controversial and unconventional gets prosecuted for negligent homicide if she has a miscarriage. Or we could imagine the state simply micromanaging what pregnant women do and eat, the same way the state micromanages what kinds of cribs and baby formula and cars-seats you can buy. (Did you know its basically impossible in America to buy baby formula with animal fat instead of seed oil fat in it, due to government regulation?). There are also some more far out philosophical and legal questions -- for instance imagine a woman who's uterus simply cannot support a baby so all fertilized eggs fail to attach and are passed out of system. Is she committing crimes by having sex since it will result in fertilized eggs that are certain to just die? Catholic morality has some well-developed answers here, but the government bureaucracy does not run on Catholic morality.

Once you start introducing 'exceptions,' you're just immediately back to condoning all abortion. "My health is at risk because if I'm not permitted to abort I might harm myself" is a free at-will golden ticket as long as you're able to memorize and repeat a sentence of that length.

I think it is better to be prudent and play the long game. I think it would be better to have more lose laws that minimize the chances of cases that produce really bad PR. Cases that produce really bad PR are going to undermine support the law and ultimately produce more abortion. There is only so much you can do to prevent evils that happen in private.

Well, I have to congratulate the success of the abortion movement. In my own life time I've seen the change from "the unborn child in the womb" to "it's just a clump of cells, and my convenience trumps everything". Most of the comments on here are that it's not human life, not in the sense that matters, and that whatever the pregnant person wants to do is okey-dokey. The clump of cells has no rights and needs no rights.

If you're old enough, that's a big change in attitudes to pregnancy. And the abortion side have won, no doubt about it, they've changed the Zeitgeist so people do think "just a clump of cells, no biggie, it's not killing".

"My health is at risk because if I'm not permitted to abort I might harm myself" is a free at-will golden ticket as long as you're able to memorize and repeat a sentence of that length.

I have a simple solution - allow abortion doctors and psychiatrists and hospitals to be sued by the patients if they have buyers remorse pre-menopause. Same with the ones that transition kids before they are 18 of age. If those are the unadulterated goods that proponents say they are - there won't be issues. People will think twice before rubberstamping one. There should be a skin in the game for the medical personal if they play fast and loose with life altering decisions

Such a policy would be quite interesting.

If abortions are an unalloyed good and women would surely never lie (#BelieveWomen), then allowing "doctors and psychiatrists and hospitals to be sued by the patients if they have buyers remorse" shouldn't move the needle on MD, hospital, or insurance company profitability or risk-profile.

So all you would have to do is say "I regret my abortion" and you get a free payout? There's a rather obvious downside to this policy...

Trump to his credit does not flip flop too much on abortion. He has never been pro-life, and will not cave to this issue despite pressure from religious organizations. Trump is right to ignore this issue and focus on immigration and the economy, as is Richard Hanania that abortion hardliners turn off moderates.

The problem is Trump regularly talks about being the one who put the three judges who turned Roe on the court during speeches, since he's been told it's a big deal, and he like that he did a big thing. Not because he's a committed pro-lifer, but because he likes having accomplishments. It's why he still talks about the vaccine, even though it's unpopular among his own base.

Plus, to a certain extent, it's actually the reverse, among say, secular non-college educated Obama/Trump voters in the Midwest. You remind them a lot of the Republican Party they're now voting for are weirdos who want to stick their noses in your sisters or daughter's personal life, and go from there. Maybe you don't get them to vote for Biden, but you get them to stay home.

Isn't Hanania full open borders? Maybe i'm mixing him up with someone else but I don't think he's focused on immigration.

Hanania has flip flopped on immigration more times than one can count. His current position is that diversity essentially makes whites more capitalist and less socialist because of tribalism, or something, so immigration is a guard against socialism. He also opposes mass immigration from Africa iirc, he just thinks Hispanics aren’t substantially below the US average so won’t make much of a deleterious difference. I may be misremembering his position.

In around 2016 Trump said that women who get illegal abortions should be punished, it was a big controversy at the time.

It was one of my favorite Trump moments because you could sort of watch him reasoning out his new pro-Life position in real time on camera, and all the pro-life activists were cringing and trying to insert their epicycles of morality that explained how Abortion is Murder but that mothers should not be prosecuted.

It's why I believe that Trump isn't a blathering moron and is, at worst, a clever amateur who is intelligent enough to see the end result of policy that its own proponents have cleverly ducked around. If abortion is murder, then why not arrest the mother? We arrest infanticides and infant abandoners, don't we? That it is politically unpalatable and bad optics is one thing, but perhaps it is a natural consequence of unpopular policy.

"Not a blathering moron" is a pretty low bar for a presidential candidate.

I think Trump is right here and has framed it in a good way as well.

Americans (liberal and conservative) are pretty ignorant about how Europe actually works, conceptualizing it merely as a more-liberal version of the U.S.

Thus, they are shocked when they go to the Duomo in Milan and get told they have to wear something less slutty. Or, on a different note, that abortion rules in most European countries are actually much stricter than in U.S. blue states.

Republicans need to flip the script. Instead of being forced to defend a blanket ban on abortions, they need Democrats to defend their (frankly pretty insane) beliefs that a woman should be allowed to terminate a viable pregnancy one second before delivery.

That said, the fact that many Republicans are willing to defend a losing strategy is somewhat admirable. If you believe life begins at conception, then a blanket ban on abortions follows naturally from that. And you don't consent to the murder of millions just so you can get re-elected and lower the marginal tax rate by 2% or whatever.

So, the Europe thing is a dodge.

In a sense, some Western European countries are more strict about abortion, but not in reality. As a 'up until birth' pro-choicer, if the GOP position on abortion was unlimited abortion on demand in the first three months at any hospital paid for by the government, then basically incredibly socially liberal judges giving OK to later term abortions via giant loopholes, then yes, that'd be an election winner.

The problem, is Republican's idea of 'moderate' restrictions are all the downsides of European restrictions plus the supply side restrictions that make it difficult to keep a clinic open plus waiting periods and so forth.

If the choice was European abortion laws vs blue state abortion laws, European abortion laws would win. But, the GOP isn't putting forth European abortion laws. It's putting forth unpopular restrictions, being backed by people who have talked about completely banning abortions.

Plus, again, there is a very American-style libertarian defense of expansive abortion laws - 'we trust women and doctors with their reproductive freedom. Have an abortion or don't have an abortion, that's your choice. Meanwhile, the Republican's want to make a government small enough to get between your doctor, yourself, and your own beliefs, because they think they know better than you.'

I’d say this is a pretty uncharitable way of describing the pro-abortion position.

More importantly, there’s a symmetry. Why shouldn’t pro-lifers have to defend their beliefs? Why is it obvious that conception is the important point, and not implantation, heartbeat, brain activity, premature viability, birth, sexual maturity, or first tax return?

You could go the other direction, too, and insist that it’s the potential to create life which matters. The Catholic position that sex should be reserved for procreation is too weak. Onanism? Mass murder. Menstruation, one murder a month. God obviously intended for women to use each and every egg they can.

Some of these positions are frankly pretty insane. Others are just unreasonable. I’d say both “conception” and “birth” are in the latter category. Not coincidentally, policy tends to fall somewhere in between, because it’s not actually an obvious question.

You could go the other direction, too, and insist that it’s the potential to create life which matters. The Catholic position that sex should be reserved for procreation is too weak. Onanism? Mass murder. Menstruation, one murder a month. God obviously intended for women to use each and every egg they can.

I don't really think anyone has to go that far. What century was it when the scholastics thoroughly did the whole mereology thing? A whole being conceptually different from the sum of its parts is not, itself, that complicated. What happens to an object when you just leave it alone and don't take any human action with intentionality? A trolley rolling down the tracks may invite questions of which humans designed and built the trolley, placed it there, or either intentionally/negligently started rolling it down the track. But other questions don't really implicate that. A tree mechanically grows and dies in a forest, and one can take different positions on whether it is right to cut it down without also taking a position on what one is obligated to do with acorns that fall on the concrete in the street in front of his house.

A spermatozoon, of its own, with no intentional human action, will be produced in the male body. Some will eventually just die and be reabsorbed, for example. An intentional action of masturbating results in that spermatozoon dying outside the body. One could take different particular moral stances on this, but it could be viewed as akin to kicking an acorn out of the concrete driveway and into the concrete street, perhaps. Most people think it changes little of import; it simply dies in a different concrete location, and nothing was to come of it in either case. Add an intentional human activity of sex, and it may join with an egg. Now, it is sort of a conceptually different thing. Now, if you just don't do anything, if you just let mechanical things operate mechanically, with no human intentionality, it will grow to be a human. One might see a sapling in the forest and think that it has very conceptually different import than an acorn in a driveway. If one simply doesn't touch it, it is likely that it will grow into a full tree. Not guaranteed, of course; time and chance happen to all trees, too (I have no idea about the probabilities). But it is now a conceptual whole that is differently situated.

You can see some acknowledgement of this on the pro-choice side, too. They want to say that their human intentionality was not the important factor. That they're not "killing" it, that it's not the fault of their intentional action that it is unable to survive outside of the uterus. I think they want to say this, because they do have internalized in there some sense of the role of human intentionality.

So then, it seems eminently reasonable that someone might say that, when faced with an entity that will simply, mechanically, grow to be a human in the absence of human intentionality, then the way that humans intentionally interact with it is relevant in a way that is different than the way humans interact with things that don't mechanically grow to be a human, things like worms or acorns or spermatozoa.

It’s the same reasoning that makes the “but for” test so common in law. Lots of normal intuitions about causation and liability are covered, but you can still get to some pretty perverse results.

Something like 30-50% of eggs fail to implant. That probably compares favorably to acorns, but the fact remains: those failed implantations could not occur but for the intentional action. They interfered with the normal, mechanical progression of ovulation to menstruation, and now it’s an embryo dying instead of a lone egg. Are they immoral for taking the action?

Similar reasoning applies to congenital diseases. An intentional action has some chance of creating a being which will die horribly in utero, as an infant, or otherwise early. Those deaths may all be perfectly mechanical with no further action from the parents. How much of that responsibility still rests on the parents?

Maybe the specific chances matter. The expected outcome of sex might be a healthy child. But that’s abandoning the bright line. It also opens up questions about contraception. If the expected mechanical outcome is no longer pregnancy, can the parents justify a return to the status quo?

A similar line can be used to support rape exceptions, since the victim took no intentional action. Demanding she let the mechanical process continue looks unjust. But so does killing the child for the sins of the literal father. Hence the disaster that is “victim blaming” discourse.

Combine the two, and you end up with something like the Violinist argument, where the victim had no expectation of being used to support another human. Pulling the plug is framed as a return to the last state she expected.

those failed implantations could not occur but for the intentional action. They interfered with the normal, mechanical progression of ovulation to menstruation, and now it’s an embryo dying instead of a lone egg.

Sorry, please spell this out. What was the intentional action, and how did it result in what outcome versus what other outcome?

Similar reasoning applies to congenital diseases. An intentional action has some chance of creating a being which will die horribly in utero, as an infant, or otherwise early. Those deaths may all be perfectly mechanical with no further action from the parents. How much of that responsibility still rests on the parents?

Where in the process did they have a choice to take an intentional action that is conceptually related to the death, and how is it related?

Maybe the specific chances matter. The expected outcome of sex might be a healthy child. But that’s abandoning the bright line. It also opens up questions about contraception. If the expected mechanical outcome is no longer pregnancy, can the parents justify a return to the status quo?

Most contraceptives are not magic. They have relatively well-known rates of pregnancy occurring. The expected mechanical outcome of such sex is some probability of pregnancy, where that probability is reduced compared to sex without contraception.

A similar line can be used to support rape exceptions, since the victim took no intentional action.

Very plausibly. I could at least see the sketch of an argument along these lines, though I'd have to work at it to see if I think it goes through or not. In any event, to get to this point, people would have to come to some agreement about the general contours of the arguments, and soooo many people aren't there right now. They're at shit-tier arguments like "masturbation must be murder".

Violinist argument

I kind of can't believe it, but I cannot find my previous comments on the Violinist argument, either here or at the old site. Perhaps I should give another full comment here that I can save somewhere for future reference, but the short version is that the Violinist argument is a master class in how to do intentionality exactly the wrong way 'round. Nobody thinks for nanosecond that there is just some purely mechanical, no human intentional action, process that resulted in the person waking up, attached to a machine that is using them to provide life support for a famous violinist. Everybody immediately intuits what's really going on - a cabal of the violinist's fans kidnapped the person in the middle of the night and intentionally chose to hook them up, because they preferred the violinist's health over anything about the person providing said life support.

My preferred analogy is rock climbing. When two people go rock climbing, they intend to have a little fun. They 'hook up', using the best safety equipment possible, intending to make the probability of an issue be as low as possible. But Murphy's law happens, snake eyes come up, and your partner ends up dangling at the end of a rope attached to you. Maybe that rope is causing you a little discomfort; maybe it's threatening minor rope burn; maybe it's threatening one of your limbs; maybe it's threatening your life. Lots of possible variations to handle a variety of scenarios people want for abortion. I don't think people are nearly as likely to say that you can choose to pull out your pocket knife and intentionally cut the rope, knowing that it will surely lead to your partner's death, completely regardless of what the danger is, all the way to the case where there is literally no real danger, just that they are relying on you to not cut the rope. This gets intentionality the right way 'round and also neatly handles the question of contraceptive use to reduce the probability of the undesired outcome, as well as the question of danger to the physical body of the woman.

Hey, somebody in the other thread pointed me to search.pullpush.io! I wanted to share the existence of a working search tool.

I found my previous conversation on the violinist here. Not sure if you're any of the other participants.

Thanks for being a good sport about this discussion.

I do remember our previous discussion regarding the rope. With Reddit’s decisions to cripple search tools, I can’t find it either. I remember having some objections to the metaphor, but I’ll agree that it avoids the main pitfall of the violinist.

That said, the only reason I mentioned the violinist was to point out that a careless intentionality argument can be contorted into almost anything. Especially if one wants to account for expected outcomes. But at the same time, expected outcomes are really important.

In the case of a couple genuinely trying to conceive, they can still expect a >30% chance of failure to implant. They’re increasing the chance of a dead embryo from 0% to 30%. The only way to avoid that outcome is abstinence. But it’d be outrageous to assign blame based on that reasoning. Why?

Is it because they’re trying their best? We don’t have any way to create children without that 30% rate. A necessary evil. I am very uncomfortable with this line of reasoning, which still doesn’t provide a good way to decide which ends merit such a gamble.

I think it’s worth considering whether those embryos really are as valuable as their implanted—or born—cousins. Or that intentionality isn’t enough to settle the argument.

a careless intentionality argument can be contorted into almost anything.

Agreed. We definitely need to take care in how we do things. I joked a bit about trolley problems, but there is a lot of genuine work to try to figure out how to be careful with these concepts.

expected outcomes are really important

Also agreed, and again a point of significant professional work. Expectation, foreseeability, etc. are all concepts that can come into play, and we can't just casually choose something willy nilly, not think about it too much, and declare everything done.

You bring up good points in the rest of your comment, as well. I don't have a complete theory in mind. Some sense of constrained optimization seems reasonable, where there just is no currently known way to do anything better. I wouldn't say that it's impossible for someone to take a strong anti-natal, abstinence-only stance on these grounds, but it would definitely be a strong motivating question for future work. Akin to how "why not suicide" motivated substantial philosophical developments, "why not end the human race via abstinence" could have potential as a major work. Maybe it's been done, and I just haven't read it yet. Perhaps there is room for something here other than "the other ends are worth it", but I don't know. And of course, moral value is always lingering. I often say that I think the outcome from the rock climbing scenario is not that we can immediately conclude that abortion is impermissible, but that it shows that if we do intentionality the right way 'round, the strong argument from bodily autonomy doesn't seem nearly as strong, and that it throws the main question back to the moral value of and beginning of human life. For sure, if the thing on the other end of the rope were a worm or something for which we believed there was no moral prohibition on killing, then it would be perfectly permissible to cut the rope. I don't think intentionality single-handedly solves the problem, but it is absolutely a vital component to think about if we're going to do anything other than spin our wheels.

Catholic doctrine isn’t opposed to masturbation as murder, but as disordered. The only permissible sex is the kind that occurs between a married man and woman and that is open to life.

See CCC 2352.

Right. I was suggesting that someone with the murder-position would find the Catholic stance too weak.

Pro-lifers do have to defend our beliefs, it’s pro-choicers that usually don’t and aren’t asked to. Red state governors who’ve banned abortion get asked about this all the time. Politicians who go out of their way to defend the legality of partial birth abortion virtually never are. Yes, partial birth abortion doesn’t happen very often, but that’s not actually an argument against banning it.

100% agree. The Republicans are being forced to defend their most insane beliefs while the Democrats are not being forced to defend theirs. Neither should be exempt.

Personally I'd say the Democratic beliefs (killing a baby t-minus 5 minutes) is the most insane, but that's just me.

On the flip side, I agree that "life begins at conception" doesn't seem to be supported by common sense. We certainly don't mourn a first-trimester miscarriage as we would a child. And, of course, IVF polls positively despite its destruction of embryos. Forcing a woman to carry a child with serious birth defects to term also seems incredibly cruel.

Trump's position here is actually considerably more reasonable than the mainstream Democratic and Republican positions, and is closer to what the average person actually thinks. First time for everything I guess, amirite?

Onanism? Mass murder.

"Every sperm is sacred".

I mean, any smart pro-choice person can make the late term abortion argument - "Almost all late term abortions are tragic situations where there is no other choice, and it's sad religious extremists want to make these women jump through hoops to appease their own doctrines. Like most American's, I trust women and their doctor to make the right choice for them, as opposed to thinking they need to fulfill whatever those who have already openly said they want to ban all abortions want them to do."

Then, depending on the audience, maybe throwing in a crack that Republican's want it to be more difficult for a woman and a doctor to come to a conclusion about an abortion than for a teenager to get an assault rifle.

I think the Democrat argument is a good one, but would fall flat in the face of the actual realities of a late-term abortion. I don't know what late-term abortions look like, but I imagine it's a lot like killing a baby.

If those images were seen by people, I doubt many would actually countenance it.

But why stop at late-term abortions? In early Roman times, a man had the right to kill his wife and children. Even in later Roman times, infanticide was widely practiced. Why should the state get between man, the gods, and his right to kill his family? It's downright un-Roman.

The reality is that the state already controls all areas of our life. Personally, I think this is wrong. But I find it bewildering that you can't cut hair without a license but terminating a 8.99 months pregnancy is totally fine. If you're going to allow unlimited abortion on libertarian grounds, fine. But only if you also want to dismantle like 99% of existing laws and regulation. Otherwise it just feels like an unprincipled argument.

I mean, the pro-life side has tried the whole "show pictures of fetuses after abortions" in ads and such, and it hasn't seemed to work. Even low-info people understand that medical procedures are messy. Hell, if I was an enterprising liberal media type, I'd take a video of some perfectly benign medical procedure, chop it in a way it could be seen as possibly a late term abortion, then go to a pro-life rally, and see what reactions I could get.

Because once a baby is born, the rest of society can step in, not while it's still in the mother's womb, and we've decided it's bad to force a woman to go through a pregnancy when it might affect her mentally or physically, only for a child to barely survive or only survive for hours or days.

Well, I'm not a doctrinaire libertarian, but neither are most American's, but most Americans have an undercurrent of 'don't tell me what to do', which makes life difficult for both lefties like me and social conservatives. But, I'm happy to use the libertarian-style argument when it's to my advantage.

Ironically, though, government licensure is why people both want the government to make sure a hairdresser isn't a fly by night operator (especially for more complicated things a guy like me with short hair doesn't understand) and why they think it's OK for a doctor, who has been licensed by the government to make a decision, with a woman when it comes to reproductive choice, instead of getting the OK from a panel of conservative politicians who were formerly used car salesmen, dentists, and McDonald franchise owners.

There is a license for terminating pregnancies - the medical license.

Why is any abortion insane? Where you you personally draw the line? There is only no limit in 7 states btw.

Going by just moral revulsion, the idea of a aborting a couple of cells seems like no big deal.

On the other hand, imagine a newborn baby. A living, crying, perfectly healthy baby. Only a monster would kill that baby. But wait, rewind the clock 1 day. Now they are in the womb. Same baby, one day earlier, looks like 99.9% the same. Now, it's totally okay to kill. Go ahead and murder them for any reason, no matter how capricious. That is an insane belief system.

Where you you personally draw the line?

First trimester as in the original Roe v. Wade decision seems like a good Schelling point.

How often are 9 months minus 1 day abortions happening, though? This always seems like a questionable argumentative tactic because all the data shows that it almost never happens. Even most liberal doctors in NYC or San Francisco would refuse to abort a healthy third trimester baby as a matter of conscience.

This is sort of the problem for the pro-life argument. There are basically zero 'oops, let's not have a baby' decisions in month eight of pregnancy, and as you said, there are basically no doctors willing to do that. Almost all late term abortions are terrible tragedies and incredibly sad situations, and pro-lifers look bad when they try to make some poor woman jump through a bunch of hoops to appease their religious beliefs, instead of trusting a couple (far more women with partners have abortions than you think) and a doctor all not to be blood hungry monsters desperate to kill a baby.

Even most second trimester abortions outside of medically necessary ones are because a lack of money to afford the abortion in the first trimester or some sort of waiting period or lack of access, as opposed to somebody suddenly deciding they don't want a baby after four months.

First trimester as in the original Roe v. Wade decision seems like a good Schelling point.

From a purely technocratic perspective, this is a bit hairy. You can only do an initial screening for certain genetic anomalies starting at 10wks (which, incidentally it's itself a borders-on-magic-technology that's fairly new). The test itself takes a couple of days to process and then a confirmation test is performed before scheduling a termination.

Reliably fitting that in under 13-14wks is quite hard. A realistic schedule (one that assumes mothers will schedule everything within a week but are not min-maxing-it-to-the-day) under the technology that we have would yield most terminations for genetic anomalies by the 16-17th week of pregnancy. After all, some small fraction of mothers will be traveling, some small fractions of samples will be lost or contaminated.

And FWIW, the anomalies revealed tend to be awful. Some are either incompatible with life or incompatible with living beyond 1-2yrs.

That all said, I understand that a technocratic-type approach is not palatable across the political spectrum for obvious reasons. Just a comment about the best we can do for genetic screening.

Very good points. Let me refine my position.

Abortion for any reason should be allowed during the first trimester. After that, abortion should be banned except for specifically enumerated reasons. I know it might be difficult to arrive at a reasonable middle ground, but apparently some European countries have done it. I think we could do it too, or at least we should try.

I respect that. I don't know that liberals will trust conservative states to govern those reasons or vice versa.

Let's say a child was missed in screening and was born alive with Trisomy 18. Is it ok to kill the child then and there?

If the argument jeroboam is making is that after the first trimester the child is old enough to resemble what we value in a human, and therefore should have a basic right to life, then why would the presence of a disease change that?

No, but I would be in favor of a supportive-care type model that realizes that there is no long term potential to that life and eschews aggressive-but-futile medical intervention. I'm not holier than the Pope.

Yes, I am in favor of more palliative care options and honest counseling. But the question isn't whether you would let the child die but rather would you let the parents kill the child? Maybe the distinction is meaningless to your ethical system, but it is not to many people's ethical systems.

I thought I answered that clearly in the first word: No.

Honestly, that distinction is meaningful in most contexts but is a lot less distinct for a newborn, especially one with serious medical problems.

I would not object.

In reality, I would be constrained by legal concerns and my desire to maintain my job and good standing with the medical licensing boards of two different nations. But in that case, I would object only because I'm forced to, not because I want to.

I've seen plenty of babies born for whom the kindest option would be a pillow over the face, if an overdose of morphine wouldn't suffice. Thankfully most of them just die on their own when the "acceptable" option of extending minimal supportive care or simply withdrawing it is possible, which is thankfully accepted in the UK.

Most countries let the parents surrender the child if they don't think they can care for it themselves, though with severe conditions nobody else is really able to either.

I knew some teen girls who were basically pressed into service from a young age caring for their disabled younger sister who needed around the clock care or she would die (it sounded like the government had approved funds to hire a carer, but it was difficult and unstable to actually find one), and it didn't seem very good that they were doing that instead of having more normal childhoods themselves.

I'm not sure that I could care for a highly disabled baby very well, with two children already. It wasn't even that trivial to get them to learn to eat at first, and they were healthy. Newborn babies are unbelievably dependent on their mothers taking active steps to keep them alive. My expectation would be that babies with very severe problems mostly weren't up to breastfeeding before modern medicine, and usually couldn't get enough nutrition to survive. It's not a clear win to then hook them up to a feeding tube and oxygen or something if their parents don't even want that and the prognosis is basically hopeless.

Do we not, to use your words, "meddle with the primeval forces of nature" routinely? Fill in relevant medical practice/research. It may be prying, but are you, as well, against contraception? Or the onanist spilling of the seed, aka jacking off? These, too, depending on the scope of the term "primeval forces," may fit the category, particularly if we're talking about propagation of the species.

This is not an attempt at gotcha. It may be that you do not want to rest on the statement that you abhor abortion for religious reasons (I understand if you are hesitant) and felt the need to add caveat in order to be taken seriously. For my part you don't have to do that, and I'd also agree that in most ways Trump is a huckster. He's also not wrong in his logic regarding electability here, it's just that he, in his typical style, has the gall to say it out loud.

The electorate is not, in my experience discussing the topic, consistent in its collective view on abortion.

I wish that more society transforming policies had exceptions the way Anabaptists are excempted from Social Security.

But taking the tack that "the GOP must accept exceptions" instead of "the issue must be returned to the states" is another huge own goal from the New York liberal Trump.

Setting aside preferred abortion policies (I seem to care less than most people, so I'm happy to set it aside), I disagree that this is bad electoral politics. I think Republicans that probably do personally share your robust pro-life position have attempted to thread the needle with the latter statement and have mostly found that people just interpret that as them wanting to ban it but knowing that it's unpopular at the federal level. They don't seem like principled federalists to the median voter, they seem like religious fanatics that don't even have the courage to state their position openly. In contrast, pretty much everyone knows Trump isn't principled, but the pro-lifers are unlikely to discard him in any great number and more centrists may well grumble and go along with him if he says, "look everyone, we're going to do the best laws, we're going to have a new Roe, and it's going to be great again, everyone will have their rights, and we're also going to protect the babies".

More generally, this is just an issue where standing on principle results in taking an L. I understand that some people are sufficiently principled that they're willing to take that L and lose on a whole raft of other Republican priorities because they're against compromise. To some extent, I admire the conviction, even though I think it's foolish.

One part of this that I also think flies under the radar a bit is that Biden seems somewhat like the flip side of the coin - while he might not be the most stringently adherent Catholic (lol) I do think he has the cultural memory of an old Irish-American Catholic and has just never much liked abortion on a personal level. His private position probably basically remains the old-school "safe, legal, and rare". When he speaks about this, I get no sense that he's in favor of the most extreme pro-abortion policies. If you pit Biden against Trump on abortion, Biden's probably a slight winner on electoral politics, but if you put Biden against a more staunch conservative, I think it's a huge disadvantage for the pro-lifer.

“Return it to the states” is actually most unpopular with pro-lifers since it guarantees that New York, California and other highly populous states will never ban abortion, which is deeply unacceptable to them.

It guarantees that no state can ban abortion for any intelligent or sophisticated woman, any woman who can afford a bus ticket. You can only force births of children you'd probably prefer hadn't been born.

You can only force births of children you'd probably prefer hadn't been born.

Given the existence of the pill, condoms, IUD, implant, cycle trackers etc (which most high functioning women will avails themselves of if having sex without the intention of having children) some would say this already the case for all pro-life activism.

Not as though I've been appointed spokesman of all the pro-lifers, but maybe re-read my OP where I explicitly stated the general preference would have been for Trump to stick with 'leave it to the states' instead.

Kind of difficult to have a productive conversation when Person A says 'this is my preference and here's why' and Person B says 'no actually, that's deeply unacceptable to you'

I respect that, I’m just saying that most pro-life activists I’ve discussed this with online have said leaving abortion to the states isn’t long term acceptable to them.

I can entertain that our reading past each other is from me saying 'Pro-lifers think Trump should have left it to the states [as the next move in the long-term game]' and you saying 'return it to the states [as a long-term permanent solution] is unpopular with pro-lifers' and that both are true.

If Trump weren't Trump he might've thought to punt it down the road so the judiciary could work on it for another generation or two, rather than think he was clever enough to make 'the best deal' that everyone's gonna love. But long-term, the idea that New York, California, etc would continue having late-term abortion on demand because it had been 'left to the states' is deeply unpopular among pro-lifers, for sure

That's the problem about integrity in politics - none of the voters have any so it's almost always counterproductive for your electability if you do.

It's not that none of the voters do, it's that the electorate as a whole does not (and essentially cannot).

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